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…
Bless their hearts, the team at the developer, Siactro, try hard. The people at this developer obviously love early-era 3D platformers. Previous efforts include Toree 3D and Toree 2, and while they’re not great, the love that goes into them is real and obvious. They’re the kind of projects that…
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With Pokémon Violet and Scarlet, it feels like Game Freak has come full circle. What the company set out to achieve with the original Red and Blue, way back on the Game Boy, is effectively exactly the same as what the team has looked to do with this game. It’s…
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I find the concept of the succubus to be fascinating. As a symbol of the sheer terror with which Christianity views sexuality, the succubus is surprisingly important in terms of understanding the religion. Meanwhile, the contrast between desirability and danger inherent within the creature makes it evergreen content for both…
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It has been getting progressively more difficult to talk about the Football Manager Touch releases on the Switch. I love the series a great deal and will inevitably spend dozens of hours with each year’s iteration trying to carefully manage the weakest team that I can find in the 6th…
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There has been a deluge of Harvest Moon and Rune Factory-likes in recent years. Square Enix, bringing the resources of a large publisher to bear, has made the best of them. Harvestella is the new benchmark for the genre, combining breathtaking aesthetics, superb characterisation, and – the first time I’ve…
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Gaming history is important – if you don’t think so, you’re reading the wrong site, I fear – but all too often, collections of important gaming archives boil down largely just to dull lists of simply emulated games, robbing them of their all-important context. It’s the cultural equivalent of displaying…
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Doraemon’s second crossover outing with the Story of Seasons/Harvest Moon formula isn’t as impressive as the first. The basic game is the same, but while the first comes across as an inspired effort to bring two of the most wholesome Japanese properties together, now we already know it works, so…
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Paradigm Paradox has a smart idea behind it: This is a magical girl story where most of the girls are, in fact, boys! The boys (and love interests) in this otome story magically turn into women when they are out there saving the world, before shifting back to male form…
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The people at Bandai Namco have a good problem with their Taiko no Tatsujin series of rhythm games. They’ve created something that is mechanically perfect. Their cute drum mascot is immediately recognisable and endlessly versatile, and whilst other rhythm games require abstraction and concentration, Taiko is easily understandable and a…
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Japanese horror tradition is more about tragedy than violence. Whether it’s the yurei (ghost) stories of old, the modern horror of The Ring or Ju-On, or games like Yomawari here, the focus isn’t on giving you big monsters to slay bloodily. Nor is it torture porn, and focused on inflicting…
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