It’s a rare treat to play a game like Octopath Traveler. Games that mimic the style of the 16-bit JRPG glory days are dime a dozen, but it’s not often a game achieves that classic feel while also being decidedly fresh and modern. That’s a tightrope that Octopath Traveler walks …
JRPG
Disclosure: I did some freelance work for publisher eastasiasoft on the PS4 port of Rainbow Moon. I’ve had no involvement with the development of Rainbow Skies. Rainbow Moon was a strange beast. It was a game of epic proportions in a genre known for its storytelling, but the grandiosity of …
I’ve tried a few times to get into Little Witch Academia, but to no avail. It seems very much like my kind of thing—there’s a school of magic, the usual delightful anime tropes, and a main character whom I find thoroughly relatable in her clumsy, lazy swagger—and yet every time …
By Matt Codd You could be forgiven for assuming that virtual reality would be a big part of Megadimension Neptunia VIIR. It’s right there in the name, after all, and it featured heavily in the game’s marketing and promotional material. This would be the first VR game from Compile …
Capitalism is cruel and unforgiving. It follows, then, that a game that, oddly enough, exists as both a parody and a celebration of capitalism should also be cruel and unforgiving. For better or worse, that’s exactly what Penny-Punching Princess is. At first glance, this looks like a fairly typical 2D …
The original Ni no Kuni was always going to be a beautiful game, both visually and tonally—it was, after all, made in collaboration with Studio Ghibli. That partnership ended before Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom came along, though, and I know a lot of people, myself included, were concerned …
Dragon Quest Builders was one of my favourite games of 2016. What could have been a cynical attempt to cash in on the block-building craze brought about by Minecraft instead delivered the best version of that formula. What could have been a tired spin-off instead paid homage to one …
If there was ever a game that didn’t need to be remade, it’s Secret of Mana. The original is just as beautiful today as it was in 1993; pixel art doesn’t age like 3D models so, especially pixel art of Secret of Mana‘s quality. The original game still plays very …
The Longest Five Minutes looks like your typical JRPG, only it starts at the final boss. Our party has travelled the world, fought a great many monsters, made friends, helped people, and now they’re finally ready to take on the Demon King. And then, just as the battle starts, …
Tokyo RPG Factory’s 2016 debut, I Am Setsuna, was a masterpiece. More than simply a throwback to the JRPGs of the ’90s, it was a deep exploration of the very concept of nostalgia, and the weird cocktail of emotions that comes with it. That didn’t stop it from being …