Since its announcement last year, Final Fantasy XIV fans have been eagerly awaiting more details on what the new Shadowbringers expansion will bring. We know that there’ll be a level cap increase, a new playable race, some new jobs, new areas to explore, and so on, but there’s been little …
Going into Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, I never expected a story with any sort of substance. Granted, I’ve never played an Ace Combat game before, but what I’ve come to expect of military-themed action games is vapid nonsense at best and aggressive imperialist propaganda—almost always in celebration of the …
At a little over six years since its original Wii U release, New Super Mario Bros. U isn’t that old. But to play it fresh in 2019, it feels like a relic from a time long gone—both for better and worse. On some level, this is to be expected. While …
The quick elevator pitch for London Detective Mysteria would be to say that it’s a combination of detective fiction and romance, with analogues for a handful of famed literary detectives as your potential love interests. As intriguing as “cute detective boys” sounds in its own right, the magic here runs …
You know you’ve got a problem when the VR aspect of a VR game actively works against everything it’s trying to achieve. You know you’ve really got a problem when that’s the least of a game’s troubles. Cue the disaster that is Gungrave VR. I got a hint of what …
I’m a latecomer to the Atelier series. I played dabbled briefly with Atelier Iris 3 back in the day, but it wasn’t until a couple of years ago with Atelier Firis that I really got into Gust’s heartwarming JRPGs. From that perspective, going back to Atelier Rorona—which first came out …
Originally released for PC in 2014, Astebreed is an attempt a more cinematic take on the scrolling shoot ’em up. That doesn’t necessarily mean more narrative-focused, but in lieu of the genre’s usual static side-on or top-down camera, Astebreed dances between different perspectives and employs camera cuts in a way …
There’s something oddly soothing about the menial work that makes up the bulk of a game like Farming Simulator 19. Even as someone with next to no knowledge of (or interest in) farming, I found an almost meditative quality to the mundane process of ploughing your fields, growing crops, harvesting …
At a glance, Pokemon: Let’s Go looks like a very different take on Pokemon. The removal of random encounters and a new catching system based on Pokemon GO have been a source of skepticism for many, to the point of widespread review bombing at online retailers. (That hasn’t dented the …
“Smart” isn’t a word I’d often use to describe a triple-A game, but in the case of Hitman 2, it absolutely fits. Almost 20 years since the series’ debut, the concept of a stealth game built around hiding in plain sight is as genius as ever. But it’s the game’s …
