Bubble Bobble is one of the greatest games ever made, and it’s also my go-to game when I’ve been asked about my favourite game of all time. Taito’s certainly done some interesting things with the Bubble Bobble IP over the years, and while a lot of the spinoff games have been excellent – I’m thinking titles like Rainbow Islands, Parasol…
I first heard of Demonschool about three and a half years ago, during the PC Gaming Show in June 2022. At that time, it was meant to launch in 2023. I’ve followed news about the school-life tactics RPG ever since, through multiple delays (2023 to 2024 to September 2025 to…
Disclaimer: I’m making this quick disclaimer so it’s clear and up-front. I…
Kirby Air Riders is fun. It’s not any more than that, and…
I’ve been looking forward to my chance to play The Outbound Ghost, an RPG by an indie developer about helping ghosts pass on – and maybe even solving a mystery! The Paper Mario inspiration is strong and obvious (and reminds me that I must play the latest in the series,…
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I have reached the point where I cannot stomach the Marvel cross-media franchise’s approach to storytelling, at all. Sadly, Midnight Suns is full of it. The relentlessly juvenile and quip-based humour that Americans seem to think passes for dry, droll and/or sarcastic humour pervades every single one of these things…
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One of the things that made the truly memorable pixel-era JRPGs like Final Fantasy IV-VI, Chrono Trigger, Secret Of Mana and Dragon Quest IV-VI so special was that they backed the classic turn-based JRPG action that people loved with narratives that were genuinely intelligent and had serious things to say.…
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I’m obsessed with the paranormal. The older I get, the more interested I am in it. It started as a mortality thing, but has expanded past that into sheer curiousity. I’ll read what I can, watch what I can, listen to what I can. I’m very open to what others…
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Knights of Honor II: Sovereign fills a really useful niche that has been largely overlooked over the years. On the one hand, you’ve got the highly accessible 4X strategy titles, like Civilization or Romance of the Three Kingdoms. These titles streamline a lot of the strategy in order to be…
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Siralim Ultimate is the biggest and most expansive Siralim game yet. The three predecessors to this indie Pokémon-like offered a relatively modest 300, 600 and 700 monsters to collect and battle. Siralim Ultimate ups the count to 1,200. And that’s just one of many areas where the game aims to…
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Wow did Lover Pretend have the potential to go places. Thankfully it doesn’t, ultimately, but there were more than a few moments on this game’s journey where I felt particularly uncomfortable about some of the flags that it was throwing up despite it being a narrative that is, by developer…
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Dragon Quest Treasures is a very chill, very laid-back game. It doesn’t ask too much of the player, but gives them a wonderful, vibrant world to explore, filled with sparkly treasure to loot. It would never work as a numbered Dragon Quest – it’s too limited for that – but…
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Crisis Core is one of the better efforts to take a beloved classic video game (in this case, Final Fantasy VII) and build on it. In this case, it’s a prequel. It’s a depiction of the leadup to the legendary events that feature Cloud and his team, and is so…
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Horror, at its best, is the most intense storytelling tool that is available to us. A good horror experience – whether that be literature, film, music, or video games – is inherently challenging. It makes us uncomfortable, disempowers us, taps into the primal fight-or-flight response, and, ultimately, delivers some kind…
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