Is it shaping up to be the year of the Bandai Namco-published manga adaptation? Sand Land is set to launch tomorrow and that makes today a good time to announce another manga adaptation, no? That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, often referred to as TenSura, began its public life on a user-generated novel publishing website (2013-2016). Since then,…
There has been a deluge of Harvest Moon and Rune Factory-likes in recent years. Square Enix, bringing the resources of a large publisher to bear, has made the best of them. Harvestella is the new benchmark for the genre, combining breathtaking aesthetics, superb characterisation, and – the first time I’ve…
Read MoreThere is a moment, about 20-30 hours into Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, where you’re about to get into your first truly big battle as a commander (yes, it’s a slow build-up to that point). You’ll still remember what it was like at the start, as you led a rag-tag…
Read MoreI think it’s time for superheroes to put their feet up and, if not retire completely, take a long hiatus. Whether it’s through cinema or gaming, we’ve simply had too many of these things now and they’ve long outlived their ability to surprise and delight. Were Gotham Knights the very…
Read MoreValkyrie Elysium isn’t for everyone. The game has a specific tone and structure that has ensured that it will only ever appeal to a small, niche demographic. And yet it shares structural, thematic and aesthetic similarities with, in one way or another, the likes of Chaos Legion, NieR (original, not…
Read MoreValkyrie Elysium seems destined to be one of the rapidly forgotten Square Enix titles… and yet it doesn’t deserve to be. In playing it I was strongly reminded of games like Chaos Legion and NieR (before NieR: Automata convinced people to reassess the original); games that have a loftier aesthetic…
Read MoreI did not expect that Steelrising would be a Soulslike. I don’t know if I’d just missed that bit of news in the initial announcement (I then went out of my way to avoid learning anything about this game prior to when I started playing it), or if the developer…
Read MoreThird-person action-RPG (read: soulslike) Asterigos: Curse of the Stars is inspired by Greek and Roman mythology. Players take on the role of Hilda, a brave warrior on a quest. Her goal is to uncover the secrets of Aphes, a cursed city that is eternally haunted by former citizens turned horrifying…
Read MoreTrinity Trigger is being published by FuRyu in Japan in two weeks, but until now there’s been no confirmation that the action RPG would be coming west. XSEED Games has announced that it will be bringing Trinity Trigger west in “early” 2023.…
Read MoreARGH! Argh, argh, argh, arghhhhhhhhhh! Dusk Diver 2 is so frustrating. So utterly, cruelly frustrating. Somehow this sequel is even more frustrating than its predecessor. I can see what the developer wanted to achieve with it, and I appreciate it on so many levels. It just doesn’t come together in…
Read MoreReleasing a “Soulslike” in the same year as Elden Ring is, I would argue, unwise. You’re never going to come off well in that comparison and it’s only going to result in your game being judged more harshly than it deserves to be. In that context, Thymesia really should have…
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