One of the best things about eFootball Kick-Off is that it has a global championship mode, structured just like a FIFA World Cup, with all the players and nations you could hope for, without it being a World Cup. You can buy this and enjoy all the thrills of The Beautiful Game of football without contributing to the second most…
The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales is what happens when the Octopath Traveler team decides they’re going to tackle Zelda next. It’s an incredibly brave project. Zelda doesn’t really need a “spiritual sequel,” with Nintendo very much committed to its continuation. And it’s Nintendo’s single biggest property. To actively…
Idea Factory and its otome factory, Otomate, is at its best when…
I don’t have too much to say about Final Fantasy VII Rebirth…
Every now and then, a game pops up that I practically salivate over the mere idea of. That was Murderous Muses to me. Ever since its announcement, I’ve been hooked on the idea of an art gallery plus murder mystery plus FMV goodness. That’s a lot for a game to…
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To all the big AAA publishers out there: if you are going to insist on monitoring our play sessions for every second that we play your thing, make sure your servers are rock-solid. Having to re-log into a golf game every two or three holes because a server disconnection throws…
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Norn9: Var Commons is not a new visual novel by any means. It was originally a PSP title, and then localised into English for the first time for the PlayStation Vita version. Now it has landed on Switch to give players that missed it previously to catch up. They should…
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It cannot be easy to conceptualise a strategy game based on World War 1 (“The Great War”). The reason we have so many more games based on World War 2 isn’t just because the optics behind that war are easier. Yes, World War 2 had a much clearer line between…
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Curse of the Sea Rats is a cute concept that needs to compete in a badly over-saturated genre. I’m now at the point where seeing “Metrodvania” in press materials will make me groan. Not only because the term itself has, like with the roguelike, lost almost all meaning from its…
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As a baseball simulator, MLB The Show 23 is barely different to last year’s iteration. Even by the standards of annual sporting franchises, this one comes across as having the lightest of touches to improve the experience. The commentary cut in with the same comments at the same moments that…
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Omen of Sorrow is something that 18-year-old me would have found so totally cool. Drenched in gothic grim darkness, it’s an effort to bring together vampires, werewolves, dark angels, succubi, mummies and… well, Elizabeth Bathory, into a game that looks and feels like an emo kid’s “black-as-their-soul” poetry. While I’d…
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Transport Fever 2 is a celebration of the value that transport networks bring populations. It is a “builder” simulator, but similar to the likes of the classic Transport Tycoon and A-Train, you don’t build the building directly. You build the road, train, ship and air transport networks that the cities…
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I haven’t played an Anno game since Anno: Create A New World on the Wii and DS, but I absolutely loved those games, and I likewise love Anno 1800, the first game in the main series to also get a console release (the Wii and DS titles were spinoffs). If…
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I worry that the wonderful folk at the developer, Gust, have lost their creative thrust with Atelier. That’s not to say Atelier Ryza 3 here is by any means a poor game, because it is lovely and comforting, but the last five Atelier titles have been a nostalgic return to…
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