True story: It was just the other day that I saw the entire Where’s Wally (I know it’s called “Where’s Waldo” elsewhere, but it’s Wally here) collection on sale. They must have done a reprint. I bought the lot of them. I have fond memories of spending hour upon hour scouring through those books. Not just to play the “can…
Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave is nothing if not ambitious, with multiple stories that converge and diverge in support of an almost breathtakingly epic-in-scope narrative. Meanwhile, the game works hard to connect you to a huge range of characters while throwing system after system at you. You’ve got Atelier-like map exploration…
When you think about the most influential games of all time, your…
You know how the saying goes: When it rains, it pours. Somehow,…
Tetris Effect (by the same developer as Lumines Arise) was a breakthrough puzzle game in the way it utterly transformed how we look at action puzzle games as audiovisual experiences. It was, essentially, an interactive music video with some of the coolest, most rhythmically vibrant music. The way it inspired…
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Football Manager is in a fortunate position of having no meaningful competition. Most other sports properties have at least one contender tilting at the windmills, but for Football Manager, the biggest risk has always been that people simply get bored with it. And given that this is a series that…
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Jeff Vogel is a legend. It’s not because he’s produced a game that has sold a billion copies. The likes of EA, Microsoft and others haven’t come sniffing for his company, Spiderweb Software, like they did for Bioware, Obsidian and others. He’s a legend for another reason: For decades now,…
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Sacred 2 Remaster is such a hot mess of a hot mess of a game. To be very clear: I love it so, so much. Sacred 2: Fallen Angel was released back in 2008. Remember those days? We all had PlayStation 3s and Xbox 360s. Physical retail for games was…
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Koei Tecmo has brought its Musou “Warriors” formula to Nintendo properties five times now – twice with Fire Emblem and now, with Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, three times with The Legend of Zelda. This one might just be the most cohesive and coherent of them yet, and shows just…
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Let’s face it, most of the early Mortal Kombat games are not the kinds of things that you’d like to pick up and play today. In comparison to something like Street Fighter 2, the digitalised character approach that the developer took means clunky movement systems and the combo systems tend…
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I know I’m late with writing this review. Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles, otherwise known as “the remaster of Final Fantasy Tactics” was released while I was away in Japan, and it’s been enormously difficult to catch up, given that I’ve needed to prioritise the new games, also releasing…
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The best way to think of Tormented Souls 2 is as an atmospheric experience above all else. That was the case for the first, too, but the developers have doubled down on it for the sequel, and that’s playing it smart. The atmosphere is definitely Tormented Souls 2’s strength. It…
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The HD-2D remake of Dragon Quest III went down really well with players and critics, so it was perhaps inevitable that Square Enix would give the same treatment to the first two titles in the trilogy. Wisely packing them together (much as the port of Dragon Quest 1 and 2…
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I’m not the world’s biggest fan of first-person shooters, but People Can Fly’s Painkiller is one of the exceptions to that rule, thanks to its grim, gothic theme, great monster design, and furious pacing. It was like the developers blended Hexen (another of my small list of beloved shooters) and…
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