Ivan the blacksmith didn’t believe in bad luck. He was happy with his simple life as the village craftsman. He was content. But that all changed when a sudden encounter with Likho, a monstrous embodiment of pure misfortune, chopped off Ivan’s arm and cursed him to a life of ill …
Like a lot of people, I didn’t really know what to expect from Bowser’s Fury going in. The snippets of game footage I’ve seen so far gave the impression of Super Mario 3D World with new Bowser-themed challenges layered over the top of old ones—which would have been great in …
I don’t think anyone could have truly predicted the success of Atelier Ryza. It found just the right balance between classic Atelier‘s slice-of-life touch and a more streamlined approach to game design that did away with some of the series’ more arcane ideas—as I said when I reviewed it, it’s …
Games that use shadows as a key aspect of the game design aren’t exactly a rarity, from the shadow-based platforming of Contrast to the shadow puppet puzzles of Shadowmatic, but it’s still a concept with so much untapped potential. Case in point: NEXT Studios’ Iris.Fall, a game that brings its …
Ocean’s Heart is a game that overtly and deliberately puts its Legend of Zelda front and centre. It’s explicitly made for an audience who loves A Link to the Past and wants more of what made that game special. It’s a loving tribute to one of the most revered games …
Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest combines visual novel, RPG, and comic book influences for a fascinating exploration of environmentalism and Polish werewolf folklore. In 2016, the Polish government announced plans to triple the logging limit for Bialowieza Forest, one of the largest remaining primeval forests in Europe …
For all the deserved anger and frustration directed at 2020, it was, at least, a year full of great videogames—delivering both some welcome distractions from the real world, and some thoughtful reflections on it. From Final Fantasy VII Remake turning a masterpiece out of a concept that seemed doomed to …
With The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV, a true epic finally comes (mostly) to a close. Spanning four games, each one clocking in at some 80 hours, simply playing through all Trails of Cold Steel is a mammoth undertaking (before you even factor in other Legend of …
It’s always a risky move, as a developer, to directly cite an inspiration for your game. By doing so, you inevitably invite comparison, and the bigger and more influential the inspiration you cite, the harder it becomes for that comparison to turn out favourably. So when the blurb for Sunlight …
Before The Walking Dead, before The Wolf Among Us, there was Sam & Max. Based on a comic by Steve Purcell and one of LucasArts’ point-and-click classics (Sam & Max Hit the Road), Telltale’s episodic games about an anthropomorphic dog detective and an “hyperkinetic rabbity thing” helped to lay the …
