There’s a moment not long into Shantae: Half-Genie Hero that gave me chills. As usual, Half-Genie Hero opened with Shantae’s longtime arch-nemesis Risky Boots attacking Scuttle Town. I was running through Main Street, hair-whipping Tinkerbats left and right, enjoying the pumping soundtrack, when suddenly… vocals. This is the first Shantae …
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 …
With the indie scene’s obsession with “retro-inspired” games, we’re seeing a lot of throwbacks to the 8-bit era. Some, like Shovel Knight, commit fully to the idea; for others, it’s a vague reference to a pixelated art style. But one things remains constant: “retro” and “8-bit” seem to be almost …
Shadwen is an interesting game. It’s not necessarily a good game, but it’s certainly an interesting one, which makes it a curious game to review. It’s so unpolished in its current state that I couldn’t in any right mind recommend it to someone looking for high-quality entertainment, but it’s so …
One of the best things about the recent surge in indie game development is the chance to hear stories from so many different voices; voices that are all but locked out from the traditional, AAA route. The relative accessibility of game creation tools, running the gamut of complexity from Twine to …
One thing I love to do in games is fly. If a game has a flight mechanic, you just know I’ll spend a lot of time aimlessly, joyously soaring across the sky. I did this in Tearaway Unfolded, with its paper planes. I did this in Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward, with its …
[URIS id=495] Postcards from the beautiful world of Submerged This week sees the launch of Submerged, a wonderful little indie game from Canberra-based Uppercut Games. It’s a combat-free exploration game about the efforts of a young girl to aid her injured brother in a beautifully post-apocalyptic world that is, well, …
I really want to like Toren. It has a lot going for it – an interesting premise, a promising heroine, gorgeous art direction, and absolutely fantastic music. But it falls flat in just about every other regard, making its missed potential the thing that stands out most.
