Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles is a breath of fresh air. In a world where every other game is an open-world busywork-a-thon for no reason other than because it’s the flavour of the decade, Yonder comes along to show what makes the genre actually work. It’s a game that gives …
Like a lot of people, I have fond childhood memories of playing Micro Machines. I used to play with the Micro Machines toys as a kid, building make-believe cities out of whatever I had at hand and then driving these little tiny cars around. Then Micro Machines came along, and …
Games often struggle with the apparent rift between “casual” and “hardcore” audiences, and there are few genres where this challenge is as apparent as in city management sims. At one extreme, you’ve got the intense micromanagement of competing priorities and complex systems that are interconnected but also fundamentally at odds …
Final Fantasy XII polarised fans when it came out a decade ago, but it’s undoubtedly one of the series’ best. The Zodiac Age gives it a new lease on life. When Final Fantasy XII first came out in 2006, I was one of the many people who really didn’t like …
In a world that’s still obsessed with the tired, harmful, and inaccurate trope of “crazed lunatics” in its horror stories, The Town of Light is a welcome breath of fresh air. This is ostensibly a horror game, and one set in a mental asylum no less, but there are no …
Ghost Blade HD goes back to the roots of the bullet hell genre, and what it lacks in originality it makes up for in polish. There’s an impressive amount of innovation in the bullet hell shoot ‘em up space. It’s such a niche genre that developers are always looking for …
After somehow never playing the series before, WipEout Omega Collection welcomed me to the rush that is WipEout, and I can see why it’s got such a following. I have to admit, I never played much of the previous WipEout games, aside from the occasional dabbling with the PS1 games …
Compile Heart is best known for its comedic, fanservice-heavy games like Hyperdimension Neptunia and Omega Quintet, but it’s known to wander down a slighter more serious paths from time to time. Dark Rose Valkyrie the latest attempt to do so, and it might be the studio’s darkest tale yet – …
There’s something weirdly anachronistic about The Silver Case. It’s a game that first came out in 1999, and it shows its age despite some graphical improvements for PS4 release, yet it also feels ahead of its time, even today. The first game from renowned game developer Goichi Suda, The Silver …
If you want to make your indie pixel art platformer stand out, you might give it some ridiculous premise: a cat-owned company’s teleporters keep breaking down, so it’s up to a the firm’s master of Custodial Sciences (who is a frog) to investigate. You might do something even more radical, …
