Rhythm Festival is classic, timeless Taiko no Tatsujin rhythm action, but with a new track list, new minigames, and an expansive Music Pass. Ah, Taiko. A taiko drumming arcade rhythm game with an eclectic mix of music and the utterly adorable artwork of Yukiko Yoko is the gift that keeps …
“A farm life sim but you’re a witch” is an extremely enticing proposition. Games about settling down in a quaint little town and running a farm while getting to know the locals—the old Harvest Moon model that’s grown so popular in the wake of Stardew Valley—are delightful. Being a cute …
A good metroidvania always hits the spot. It doesn’t need to be groundbreaking, or to reinvent the wheel; just the right balance of mobility, intertwining level design, and upgrades that change how you move around and interact with the game space. Get those fundamentals just right—easier said than done, admittedly—and …
Saints Row isn’t entirely devoid of merit. The vehicular gameplay is awesome. The visuals are splendid. The narrative is infinitely more grounded compared to its immediate predecessors. But for all of its strengths, the experience is brought down exponentially by tiresome side content and a mediocre cast who fail to …
It’s hard to overstate the impact of Fire Emblem: Three Houses. It took an excellent but comparatively niche franchise and threw it into the mainstream, and did so without diluting any part of what made the series special to begin with. (Heartthrob characters and tea dates are the perfect gateway …
There’s a fundamental mismatch at the heart of Super Bullet Break. On one hand, it’s a roguelike, a genre defined by impermanence; on the other, it’s a (microtransaction-less) gacha game, a genre defined by permanence. In a roguelike, the transient nature of everything you pick up, and the situations that …
The tension of a roguelike and quiet charm of a cozy life sim might seem at odds, but Cult of the Lamb finds magic in that juxtaposition. There’s nothing quite like a quiet, cozy life sim. The old Animal Crossing vibe; hanging out with a quaint little woodland community of …
You could be forgiven for looking at screenshots from Train Valley and expecting a railway management sim a la Railroad Tycoon; it certainly looks the part in screenshots. And while it does have some light simulation elements, in truth, it’s more of a puzzle game—and a rather unique one at …
Bright Memory: Infinite is a conceptually fascinating, technologically impressive game: an intense sci-fi FPS with a hefty dose of Chinese mythology, playing out across some truly gorgeous sets based on real-world locations. But for all that promise, it also feels incomplete, like a prototype for something much more grandiose—a very …
Wonder Boy has a bit of an odd history. It sits alongside Alex Kidd as one of Sega’s more iconic second-string platformers (behind Sonic the Hedgehog, of course), yet inconsistencies with naming conventions, numbering, localisations gave the series a bit of a disjointed canon. Spotty appearances in other Sega compilations …
