If you were to ask me what genres I think developers should take a very long break from, most days I would respond “Metroidvania” or “Roguelike.” It’s not that I have an inherent distaste for either, but did you know that overexposure to something can result in you acquiring an allergy to it? Right. Ariana and the Elder Codex is……
Resident Evil has always been a tale of placing corporate profit over human rights. From Resident Evil 1’s human experimentation, to Resident Evil 2’s company town, all the way to Resident Evil Village’s superpowered feudal lords, Resident Evil has always worn its ideology on its sleeve. Greedy, corrupt politicians wielding…
Goichi Suda and his team at Grasshopper Manufacture have carved out a…
Having not played the original Code Vein, I have no idea whether…
Polish off those game of the year trophies, because God of War: Ragnarök is almost certainly going to win a bunch of them. Whether it deserves them, though, is another matter entirely. People are going to love it because this is a massive, visually stunning, and viscerally entertaining game. However,…
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Star Ocean acts as something akin to the “b-tier” for Square Enix. Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest are, of course, the big guns, but this series is not insignificant. It’s been around for 25 years now, and The Divine Force is the sixth of the main series entries. I’ll tell…
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What was Bilbo Baggins’ great quote from Lord of the Rings (the good one, not the TV series)? “Like butter scraped over too much bread”? Something like that. It’s a great quote and also the best way to describe Temtem. As a Pokémon clone it would almost be serviceable, if…
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I 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 MoreAlmost a decade ago, Sony published The Last Of Us on PlayStation 3. The sheer hyperbole that the game got was, in retrospect, silly. Empire even went as far as to say that the very cinematic game was comparable to Citizen Kane. Of course, since then, Sony alone has published…
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 MoreI had no idea that the original Pac-Man World was so well regarded. I had never played it, nor any of its sequels (despite being a general fan of the yellow pizza-man), but in researching the original for this review I did see that it was sold and reviewed very…
Read MoreSoul Hackers 2 is a throwback to the glory days of Shin Megami Tensei. There was a point where Atlus’ premier property focused on ideas rather than sheer style, and some real classics came out of that approach. SMT 3: Nocturne and the Digital Devil Saga duo were my favourites…
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…
Read MoreFor the entire prelaunch hype cycle behing Stray, if you mentioned “the cat game”, people knew exactly what game you were talking about. It seemed like the perfect mix of cute & cuddly, since it was about a furrball, and a contrasting cyberpunk dystopian aesthetic, complete with funky (and also…
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