I guess, given the success of Azur Lane, Girls und Panzer, KanColle and whatever else, it would be inevitable that at some point someone saw warplanes and thought “yeah, you sexy thing, what if you were an anime girl?” And so we have Kamikaze Lassplanes, a visual novel/SHMUP combination by people who have a far too vivid imagination when looking…
We’re being spoiled for Musou right now! A month after Koei Tecmo released the exceptional Dynasty Warriors Origins, the company went and stealth-dropped Warriors: Abyss as part of a Sony State of Play show. This is an action roguelike heavily inspired by Vampire Survivors and similar “horde” games, and while…
The Maker series of games should need no introduction. RPG Maker has…
I never thought I’d be playing a Neptunia take on Mario Kart’s…
Without trying to be too controversially political about a game that is really little more than a philosophical manifesto with some gameplay bits and comic book graphics squished in between the lecture, there’s an ugly superficiality about what passes for mainstream left-wing politics in America. Dustborn is a textbook case…
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Every time Starship Troopers pops up as a topic, we get to “enjoy” the most surreal arguments on the Internet as a bunch of people argue that the film is not a satire of fascism, and that the book is not an argument for fascism. These are some of the…
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Shinto is one of those things that most people who know anything about Japan have some vague concept of, but don’t really know anything about. From experience, they’re also rarely interested and that’s depressing. Tourists in Japan do cheerfully visit Shinto shrines, before mistaking them for Buddhist temples (and vice…
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Welcome to Digitally Downloaded’s weekly catch-up news feature, the catch-up coffee. With each issue I will bring you the best news that you may have missed. Grab the biggest mug you’ve got, fill it with your favourite brew, and catch up with us (and our favourite news anchor, Dee Dee)!…
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I missed the original launch of Slave Zero X, but now that there’s a physical edition for consoles, I’ve had the opportunity and excuse to give it a go. In theory, I should like this, since it’s an anime brawler of big action that allows you to mow down hordes…
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Yeo, the one-man-band indie developer from Russia, is going to be remembered as a far better artist than the relatively muted popularity of his games deserves. Fading Afternoon is his new one, and while it’s a retread of a lot of what makes his first, The Friends Of Ringo Ishikawa,…
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One of the finest examples that I can think of that highlight the differences between Western and Eastern game development, and some of the weaknesses that we as a collective industry have in critiquing video games, is to look at Dante’s Inferno and El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron side-by-side.…
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Stellar Blade very much wants to be a merger of NieR: Automata and the Soulslike formula. It’s a flashy science fiction romp through a decrepit, decaying world, and the ambience is certainly going to be familiar to NieR fans. It’s also undeniably well-made. However, for all the comparisons people have…
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Type-Moon’s Fate series was right up there with the franchises I wanted to see Koei Tecmo apply its Musou formula to. In fact, I raised it with the developer several times when I’ve had interview opportunities, so I’m claiming the existence of Fate/Samurai Remnand as my victory (which also bodes…
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I wasn’t expecting Armored Core VI to be a Soulslike, but I was expecting some kind of transformative experience. Perhaps that’s a bit much to ask of FromSoftware, but for more than a decade now, since Dark Souls itself in 2011, FromSoftware has grown to become renowned for a certain…
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