Tales of Berseria was the moment that Bandai Namco’s long-running Tales series finally started to grow on me. It was the narrative. Berseria’s dark story of tragedy and revenge was a real page turner. Related reading: An interview we did with the developer of Tales of Berseria at the time that the game was released. Tales of Berseria Remastered is…
Nintendo’s decision to revive the Famicom Detective Club series seems to have kick-started a mild rush of new games that are, effectively, mystery visual novels, but have point-and-click elements and light puzzles to keep players interested and intrigued. That’s a good thing. This genre is excellent. And Aksys’ decision to…
I am a firm believer that as many video games, be they…
Nintendo’s timing with its no-pressure comfort food games has been fortuitous. Animal…
There was a brief period of time where the tower defence genre was a big deal and just about everyone was trying to get on board with it, right through to the biggest publishers. It’s easy to understand why – the games are relatively easy to develop, and it’s relatively…
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Xenoblade Chronicles X was arguably the most ambitious game to land on the Nintendo Wii U (you could argue that Breath of the Wild was, but then most people see that as a Switch game and forget that there was a Wii U version as well… and all this is…
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Horror is such a difficult genre for artists to work with. People think it’s easy because they have memories of more-comedy-than-scary slashers and B-grade films, bad acting and all. There’s also the perception that it’s not a particularly subtle genre, and therefore must be quite easy to work with. But…
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Back in 2019, Koei Tecmo hit it big with Atelier Ryza, and the long-running series went from being one of the most beloved niche properties to being something that suddenly had upward mobility in sales and prominence. Not quite in the leagues of Final Fantasy, Tales, Dragon Quest or Persona,…
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I can only speak for myself, but burnout is absolutely horrible. I’m the type of person who can cause it to happen to me because of the pressure I put on myself. I have always felt the need to be perfect. It has nothing to do with the outside world…
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Suikoden might not have quite the same profile as Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, but this is a beloved cult JRPG franchise, stretching back to the original PlayStation. And I really do mean beloved. Many who have played it list Suikoden 2, in particular, list it as one of the…
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I guess, given the success of Azur Lane, Girls und Panzer, KanColle and whatever else, it would be inevitable that at some point someone saw warplanes and thought “yeah, you sexy thing, what if you were an anime girl?” And so we have Kamikaze Lassplanes, a visual novel/SHMUP combination by…
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The games we play when we’re young absolutely do shape our appreciation of gaming when we’re older. If you had asked me when I was about 14 what the best game in the world was, the answer would have been easy. Bubble Bobble, and obviously that’s still scientifically true, but…
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Him, The Smile & Bloom is a surprisingly “innovative” otome, at least as far as the narrative goes. I use the inverted commas because that word is bandied around far too much (and is far too associated with techbros – and yes I realise the contradiction between my disdain for…
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There was a time when the 3D platformer was one of the most creative genres out there. Driven by the delight that people had for Mario 64, Banjo Kazooie, and others, developers fell over themselves to try to carve out their own niche with quirky, different ideas. Most of those…
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