Having not played the original Code Vein, I have no idea whether Code Vein II is effective in building on it, or whether the two games are related at all. What I do know is that Code Vein II is an excellent soulslike. One that starts quite slowly, but has an odd way of getting its hooks deep into you.…
It’s incredible that Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergarde plays so well on the Nintendo Switch 2. Much like how having The Witcher 3 playable in a handheld format with the Switch felt like some kind of wizardry, this has the same effect, with the one difference being that it felt…
I’d never heard of Rammy’s Great Adventure until its remake landed on…
Octopath Traveler 0 isn’t really Octopath Traveler. It’s good. It’s even excellent,…
For the first time the now-iconic Yakuza series is on a Nintendo platform. To an extent you could question just who this port of Yakuza Kiwami is for, as it is obviously a drop down in fidelity over what is available elsewhere. On the other hand, this has been an…
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Starting a game in the middle of a story arc often means remembering details from predecessors. Some people remember every single major or minor plot point, while those like me may only remember a handful of the major plot points and almost no minor ones. NIS America is solving the…
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Ys isn’t the oldest JRPG property out there, but it’s one of them, and it’s also one of the most prolific. If you ignore all the re-releases and just concentrate on the main series, there is just one period where there was a substantial hiatus (1996-2002). Otherwise, the longest fans…
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There has already been a remake of Romancing SaGa 2. We have a review of it on DigitallyDownloaded.net and everything. But that was a relatively simple effort, in that the developers modernised the sprites and art so the SNES original was then in “HD,” and otherwise left it at that.…
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When The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak launched in the West earlier this year, DDNet’s Editor-in-Chief Matt described the JRPG as “a new starting point for a new, epic arc.” That arc has already continued in Japan with The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak II when the people…
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Reynatis’ single biggest flaw is that it tries too many things, and while each of its themes would in itself be worth exploring, piled into a heap together they create a narrative that often seems confused about what it is. Take for example the theme of fascism and resistance that…
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From the creator of Final Fantasy, Fantasian launched via Apple Arcade in two parts during 2021. Even then, I hoped the RPG would be released for PC and consoles. Apple Arcade has a limited pool of potential subscribers and Fantasian was too impressive to stay exclusive to that small percentage…
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Visions of Mana is, almost immediately after you start playing, like a warm blanket to wrap yourself up in. I can already see some elements complaining that it lacks “innovation” or the intricate action combat systems that we’ve become accustomed to in JRPGs. But not every game needs to be…
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At first, when I heard that the revival of The Denpa Men was going to be a free-to-play title, I was disappointed. The three Denpa Men titles that were released in English on the 3DS were favourites. They were nothing spectacular, but as grindy, retro-themed JRPGs with an enormously quirky…
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The basic concept of Tokyo Xanadu is “Nihon Falcom make an action version of Persona. Oh, and it looks like the Trials of Cold Steel games.” None of this is a bad idea by any means, and Tokyo Xanadu has been around for quite some time now. We published our…
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