A few years ago, I tried a demo of Ikaruga. I liked the concept of the game, and I had fond childhood memories of other shoot ‘em ups like Raptor: Call of the Shadows and TwinBee, so I thought for sure that Ikaruga would be a game I would like. …
Games
In a world full of retro-styled JRPG throwbacks it’s hard for a game to stand out, but Norwegian indie studio Snowcastle Games found a way with Earthlock: Festival of Magic. It’s a game that’s heavily inspired by the RPGs of the ‘90s, but instead of banking everything on nostalgia, there’s …
I don’t think there’s any video game genre quite as timeless as the platformer. They’ve been around for more than 30 years, and the basic ideas have been iterated on heavily in that time, but a simple, well-made, classically-styled platformer is still a wonderful thing. Pankapu, from Too Kind Studio, …
The first rule of making a platformer is: you need to have reliable controls. This is true of most game genres, of course, but for platformers it’s critical – when level design and puzzles are built around precise movements and strict timing, the controls need to allow the player to …
Two of the best visual novels available are coming to PlayStation 4, with NIS America’s announcement of Danganronpa 1•2 Reload. The bundle brings together Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc and Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, which have previously only been available for PS Vita and PC, and will hopefully introduce this fantastic series to a whole new audience. …
October 2016 will see the launch of not one but two Final Fantasy games that I’ve wanted for decades, since long before they were ever in development; since they were just childhood daydreams that I never thought I’d see come to life. One of these is World of Final Fantasy, the other is the Final …
Dex is a game I wanted to like, and for the first hour or two, I really did like it. It’s a cyberpunk action RPG reminiscent of Deus Ex and Shadowrun, but that plays out as a sidescroller with some gorgeous 2D artwork. The combination of action RPG staples, light …
Touhou Genso Rondo: Bullet Ballet has the unenviable position of being the first game in the Touhou Project series to see an official Western release. As a fan-made spin-off of a franchise with a rather niche following, especially outside Japan, it’s an odd candidate for localisation. It was the first …
Playing a preview build of Tanzia reminded me of days long gone, spent whiling away the hours in vanilla World of Warcraft. Indeed – and I say this as a compliment – Tanzia is like a single-player take on the humble beginnings of Blizzard’s powerhouse MMO. It’s an action RPG …
For me, the premiere of Batman: A Telltale Series last month was a shaky start. It showed potential, especially in its nifty detective sequences and its exploration of Batman’s violence, but the plotline, obsessed with taking every turn to remind players that Bruce Wayne’s parents are dead and he is …