Idea Factory and its otome factory, Otomate, is at its best when working with stories based in history. Hakuouki, for example. Or the first Birushana, which was set in the Heian period of Japanese history and let you hang out with Benkei and other famous boys (made pretty) while the Genpei War raged around Japan. I believe this to be…
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…
Unfortunately, a trip into the Nintendo Switch’s online store is a chore…
Tales of Berseria was the moment that Bandai Namco’s long-running Tales series…
I should love Dark Deity more than I do. The developers clearly have passion for what they’re doing, and the thing that they’re doing is copying one of my favourite games of all time. In its entirety, Dark Deity aims to clone the two Fire Emblem titles that were released…
Read More
Nintendo is a versatile company. Over the many years that it has been around, it has produced everything from experimental artsy experiences to blockbuster trend-setters, and lengthy single-player journeys to pure multiplayer joy. There’s little Nintendo can’t do, but if I was to pick out one thing within the oeuvre…
Read More
I’ve already reviewed Gal*Gun: Double Peace twice – once on import when it was originally released, and then again when PQube localised it for the rest of the world. I don’t have too much to add to either of those reviews in terms of an analysis of how they play,…
Read More
Conan Chop Chop wants to sit somewhere between Gauntlet and Hades. It wants to be an action roguelike with a moreish loot system, but also being orientated heavily towards bringing four friends together for some button-mashing chaos. Unfortunately, it’s much too inconsistent to reach the heights of either genre-defining great,…
Read More
With its title, Triangle Strategy takes being “on the nose” to a whole other level. While that is a weakness because it is difficult not to roll the eyes at it on first impressions alone, the ideas and concept behind it are sound and make more sense the further you…
Read More