Content warning: The Missing—and, by extension, this review—deals extensively with themes of self-harm, suicide, bullying, and discrimination against queer people. “This game was made with the belief that nobody is wrong for being what they are.” This message is one of the first things you see when you load up …
Nintendo Switch
After five main games and a handful of spin-offs, it’s easy to get complacent with Disgaea‘s quirks and forget how much of an impact the original game had when it first came out in 2003. With the ability to throw characters around the map insane upper limits for every stat …
Originally released for arcades in 1988, Chuka Taisen was quite unlike most other shoot ’em ups of its day. There were no fighter jets to pilot it aliens to shoot down; instead, it casts you as a young Monkey King (of Journey to the West fame) on a quest to …
Mini Metro is a stroke of genius. Building on the visual design of modern transit maps, it’s a puzzle game that sees players trying to expand a rail network to accommodate the rapidly growing number of passengers. Inevitably, the system becomes overloaded and you lose the game—and then it’s on …
As the credits rolled on The Gardens Between, I could feel the tears welling up. They weren’t tears of joy or tears of sadness, but that weird sort of bittersweet no-man’s land that comes with nostalgia—when you remember the good old days, knowing they’re just out of reach. It wasn’t …
When it was announced, SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy quickly became one of my most anticipated games of the year. A crossover fighting game starring women from all across SNK’s roster, it looked like a spiritual successor to the excellent SNK Gals Fighters for Neo Geo Pocket Color. I took it …
It’s a very good time to be a fan of dungeon crawlers. The last few years alone have given us Mary Skelter: Nightmares, Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, Hyakki Castle, among many others, each of which delivered a classic dungeon romp while also tinkering around the edges of the …
Blade Strangers is a suitable name: bringing together characters from Code of Princess, Umihara Kawase, Shovel Knight, Cave Story, Azure Striker Gunvolt, and The Binding of Isaac, it’s one of the strangest crossover fighting games we’ve seen in a while. Don’t think that’s just some gimmick, though—Blade Strangers is also …
You of assume that by now, everyone with an interest in Ōkami would have played it—after all, it’s been ported to just about every console under the sun since its PS2 debut in 2006. Still, I didn’t play it myself until the PS4 release last year, even though it’s extremely …
God Wars: Future Past was one of the best (and most criminally underrated) games of last year. A straightforward tactical RPG on the surface, it eschewed the genre’s current fascination with needless complexity in favour of something simple yet deep. The ebb and flow of combat, coupled with the oddly …