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…
One of the things about J. R. R. Tolkien’s vision of Middle-Earth that people often overlook is that he was seeking to create an entire history, right down to forgotten lore and evolving cultures, languages, storytelling traditions, and legends. We often forget that to instead fixate on the fantasy adventure…
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It’s intimidating to think how much work went into UFO 50. Most “collection” games are one of two things: A retro compilation, or a selection of minigames that are typically over in a few minutes. UFO 50 is different. It’s a collection of 50 genuinely new games, from just about…
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There are two versions of Rugby: Rugby Union, and Rugby League. Rugby Union has grown to become a truly world sport, with a World Cup that is drawing growing interest for how competitive it is – including by nations outside the top couple of traditional “Rugby nations”. Rugby League, meanwhile,…
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“If a little is good, more must be better.” That’s how the saying goes, right? That certainly seems to be the approach that the developers have taken with Hatsune Miku Logic Paint S+, in that they’ve taken the previous quality take on the Picross formula (itself an already big game),…
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Golden Tee Arcade Classics is a fascinating package. As far as I can tell, it is the first time that Golden Tee has been released on console. I’m sure someone’s going to correct me on that, but I’m a fair golf fan, extending right back to the Microsoft Windows Golf…
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Super Mario Party Jamboree was an impressive return to form for the Nintendo digital board game/minigame multiplayer mania series. After years of pointless experiments and some uninspired maps and minigame collections, the creative energy that went into Jamboree, combined with some fun side-distractions, help get it back to the top…
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In The Wandering Village, you build a small community for survivors of an apocalypse to live on. The world has been ravaged and left effectively uninhabitable, but there is a giant dinosaur-like beast that has enough room and resources on its back to sustain some people. Your goal is to…
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The third in the now-trilogy that started with AI: The Somnium Files is the first that Kotaro Uchikoshi took a back seat to. He still had a supervisory role, but it’s one of Uchikoshi’s mentees, Kazuya Yamada, who gets the creative credit for this one. The good news is that…
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Before I played Bustafellows, if you had told me that you could take the narrative qualities of noir fiction and pair it with the otome genre, I wouldn’t have believed you. As a genre, otome isn’t quite the “doe-eyed romance and frivolity for girls” genre that those who haven’t played…
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One of the quieter events that piggybacked off the Nintendo Switch 2 launch was the release of the first in Hamster’s Arcade Archives 2 series. Ridge Racer launched with the console, and now there’s already a second title, with the arcade dogfighting sim, Air Combat 22 (don’t be surprised that…
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