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 been making to the likes of NieR: Automata and Bayonetta…
Every time it seems like the extended Yakuza franchise might be pushing its luck just a little too far, the development team at Ryu ga Gotoku find some way of reminding us all why it’s such a fine series. Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth shouldn’t have worked. Pulling Kazuma Kiryu…
Read MoreIt was deeply funny to me to load up Tekken 8 and see that the big philosophical theme around this game is “aggression.” A fighting game promising a new “aggressive combat system,” is surely redundant, I thought to myself, since what is any fighting game if it is not “aggressive?”…
Read MoreI’m going to be very lazy with this review of The Last Of Us Part 2 Remastered, and copy/paste most of my original review of The Last Of Us 2. I’m doing this for three reasons: It was the easy decision for Sony to “remaster” a game that is already…
Read MoreTo this day, one of my favourite RTS titles is The Lord of the Rings: War of the Ring. With that game (and its sequel) EA (yes, EA!) achieved something truly special: a streamlined, authentic RTS that perfectly captured the aesthetics and drama of the source material, and allowed you…
Read MoreSurfing is a messy sport, and not just because you’ll get sand in places where the sun doesn’t shine. Where most sports are defined by the nice, neat rules that humans set down and agree to compete together under, the defining characteristic of surfing is that it’s a battle with…
Read MorePersona 5 Tactica takes far too long to get to the point. However, once it gets there it shows itself to be a far more brilliant addition to the overall Persona 5 collection than many will give it credit for. At first, it seems like it’ll be irreverent fan service,…
Read MoreThe last Train Sim World I played was the original, and I thought it was a magnificent experience. Train Sim World 4 doesn’t feel much different from my memory of that game (admittedly four years ago now), but it didn’t need to play or look differently in the first place.…
Read MoreIt was inevitable that Yakuza 6 would not be the end of Kazuma Kiryu. It should have been, since it finished the series in spectacular fashion. However, this is the video game industry, and when you’ve got a bankable star, you keep returning to that well until enough people get…
Read MoreThere’s a certain end of the video game industry that mistakes emotional manipulation for quality narrative. The goal is to find the right voice actors, get the players invested enough in the world that they spend a lot of time in it, and then make sure those key scenes are…
Read MoreArchetype Arcadia has an awful lot of content. The PR material claims 50 hours, and while I have a gut feeling that that’s assuming a fairly slow reading speed, I read quickly and I wouldn’t be surprised if I did actually spend that long getting to the end. It’s generally…
Read More