It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to call Metal Max Xeno a JRPG twist on Mad Max. It shares a lot of superficial similarities—the post-apocalyptic desert setting, the focus on vehicular combat, and the Metal Max title—but it connects with the iconic film series on a deeper level, …
Gaming
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 …
Valkyria Chronicles 4 is the sequel that a lot of fans have been waiting since the first game came out a decade ago. The second and third games both mixed things up somewhat, and the latter still hasn’t been released outside Japan. Last year’s Valkyria Revolution was a spinoff that …
The folks behind the excellent action platformer series Momodora series have announced their next game: a spiritual sequel to Momodora called Minoria, due for release in 2019. Minoria shares a similar gothic aesthetic, solemn storytelling, and fast-paced combat as Momodora, but it moves away from pixel art to high-definition hand-painted backgrounds and cel-shaded character …
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 …
Given Nintendo’s success with NES Classic and SNES Classic, it was only a matter of time before Sony jumped on the classic mini-console bandwagon. Now they have: PlayStation Classic will be released on December 3, with 20 games pre-loaded, including Final Fantasy VII, Wild ARMs, Tekken 3, Ridge Racer Type 4, and Jumping …
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 …
There’s something oddly captivating about driving a simulated train. Like many, I used to scoff at the idea of playing a train simulator (or a farm simulator, or a truck simulator, or any other such thing), but the hours I’ve poured into Train Sim World in the couple of months …