Before I fully launch into my review of Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly Remake, a remake of my favourite horror game ever, bar none and by a considerable margin, I do have to register annoyance about something. Koei Tecmo: It’s only “Fatal Frame” in America, and that’s a far sillier name than its proper title, Project Zero. Related reading: A…
Mario Tennis Fever is one of Nintendo’s weakest titles in years, and certainly its weakest tennis title. This is tragic because I loved Mario Tennis back on the N64, Game Boy, and Game Cube. Let’s start with the story mode. On the one hand, I do congratulate the developers for…
Just a few weeks ago I was saying how impressive it was…
Dragon Quest VII did need a reimagining. I don’t say this as…
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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George A Romero’s Dawn of the Dead is considered one of the finest horror films of all time for the clever way that it blends B-grade cinema tradition with some sharp themes – most notably, a criticism of consumerism and capitalism. Now I’m not going to sit here and argue…
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Game Freak can’t do anything without pissing off a good chunk of one of the most aggressively negative “fanbases” in video games. I still have to delete the occasional abuse-filled comment for having the audacity to write a positive review for the last Pokémon game. Something I still play regularly…
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In all the ways that really matter, Persona 3 Reload on the Nintendo Switch 2 is exactly the same as Persona 3 Reload on other platforms. By that I mean it offers the same narrative (with Reload itself not really touching the narrative of the original game). Ultimately, if you’re…
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I’ll admit that I’m not the world’s biggest fan of mecha games. I appreciate their appeal, but spending hours tinkering around with mech builds simply isn’t something I’m overly fond of – I’ve never been a min-max statistician when it comes to my beloved JRPGs either. So I missed the…
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Of all the examples of comfort food gaming that are out there, I’d have to say that Story of Seasons is my comfiest and tastiest. Right back as far as the Game Boy – when the series was still Harvest Moon (remembering that the “Harvest Moon” titles that get released…
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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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Yakuza 0 is in so many ways the finest game in a very fine series. The development team took full advantage of it as a prequel to not only tell the story of where series protagonist, Kiryu, and favourite frenemy/rival, Goro, got their start, but also capture a unique moment…
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The survival game genre has exploded in recent years, with countless options flooding the market. Most of these titles hyper-focus on crafting mechanics – a design trend that became ubiquitous after Minecraft’s success, shoehorned into games where it doesn’t always make sense. As someone who cherished the original Survival Kids…
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