The first otome visual novel that I played – in fact, the first visual novel at all – was Hakuouki, back on the PlayStation 3, when visual novels on console were a rare treat indeed. These days, we’re inundated with the genre, but Idea Factory, the publisher behind Hakuouki, have now released Homura: The Crimson Warriors, and it remains a…
Unfortunately, a trip into the Nintendo Switch’s online store is a chore to wade through endless piles of trash to try and find the occasional good game. The store is so flooded with utter crap at $10 or less that most of us would surely be at the point where…
Tales of Berseria was the moment that Bandai Namco’s long-running Tales series…
Nintendo’s decision to revive the Famicom Detective Club series seems to have…
I have a particularly strong attachment to the original Cupid Parasite… indeed I think that it is that game, above and beyond any of the others that I’ve played, that convinced me that “hey, I have to make my own one of these visual novel things.” The result may not…
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Sometimes, games don’t need to be remade. When the creative vision was already fully realised the first time around, simply making the thing available again is all that’s needed. That’s what Nintendo has done with Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, and it’s as good now as it was ever. Related…
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One of the things I’ve learned in making my own visual novel is that scope can very easily blow out. Every new scene, character, idea, and story beat that you add in means more backgrounds, CGs, character costumes and music. Then it all becomes very expensive. And so, in most…
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One of the finest examples that I can think of that highlight the differences between Western and Eastern game development, and some of the weaknesses that we as a collective industry have in critiquing video games, is to look at Dante’s Inferno and El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron side-by-side.…
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Of all the ways to use the mighty Demon Slayer license I honestly did not expect a Mario Party clone to be one of the first. And yet, that’s what has happened. Following hot on the heels of the perfectly reasonable slash-em-up from from a few years ago comes Sweep…
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Endless Ocean Luminous is a rare treat. We live in a world where the games industry is steadfastly committed to speed. Often it’s done through violence and combat, but not always. Even puzzle game developers are on the hunt for ways to make their ideas flow as snappily as possible.…
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Epyx is one of those old publishers that commands a fearsome reputation today among a very cultish group of retro fans. You may well have heard of some of the company’s classics, but in comparison to the likes of Super Mario, Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Myst, Zork or Wizardry, the chances…
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The dungeon crawl has been one of the most enduring genres of all. The original Wizardry – the game that essentially launched and popularised the genre, turns 45 next year. It’ll be well and truly ready for a mid-life crisis. In the years since we have seen so many classics…
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In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have played ArcRunner. While it looks the part of a cyberpunk dystopia, the game itself was clearly only ever going to be a roguelike shooter drenched in neon. While it’s easy to say that you shouldn’t criticise a game for not being something it never…
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Once upon a time Kemco was a developer and publisher of a very wide range of games. These days it sticks to generic RPG Maker-like JRPGs designed primarily for mobile, but the company has been operating all the way back to 1984 and the NES era. Back in those days…
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