Atelier Firis gives the Atelier series a new focus on a connected world and a transitory story, perfect for a delightful coming-of-age story like this. I haven’t played an Atelier game since a brief stint with Atelier Iris on PlayStation 2. It’s not that I don’t like the series; I …
Torment: Tides of Numenera carefully balances brilliant storytelling with meaningful player choice, creating a role-playing experience unlike any other. I was a good 10 hours into Torment: Tides of Numenera before I had my first violent encounter, and I love it for that. Even with the resurgence of adventure games …
Nier: Automata is one of the best games you’ll ever play, combining PlatinumGames action expertise with the mad genius of Yoko Taro. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is one of the best, most important books ever written. Not just because it gave birth to the science fiction and horror genres, but …
Alwa’s Awakening isn’t just a “retro-inspired” game, but one that combines a modern design sense with the technical limitations (and creativity) of the NES. In a sea of increasingly wearisome “retro-inspired” indie platformers, it’s refreshing to play a game like Alwa’s Awakening. At a glance, it looks much like any …
Dragon Ball Fusions takes Dragon Ball back to its roots, in terms of both a rich history of RPGs and the early manga’s quirky satire. Most Dragon Ball games are fighting games, especially in the last 20 years or so. That makes sense, what with it being a martial arts …
Horizon Zero Dawn is a remarkable achievement in world-building, but it undermines that with a weak story and too much open-world bloat. If you want to get the most out of Horizon Zero Dawn, my advice is to avoid all main story content as long as possible. Just take every …
Rise and Shine is beautiful, funny, and surprisingly thought-provoking, but a dated approach to difficulty makes it more frustrating than it should be. A lot of people seem to look back on NES games and their infamous difficulty with rose-tinted glasses. They remember hours and hours spent sorting in front …
Like every other Kingdom Hearts fan, I’ve been desperately waiting for Kingdom Hearts III. Like every other Kingdom Hearts fan, my heart sank when Square Enix used Tokyo Game Show 2015 not to reveal more information about Kingdom Hearts III, but to announce another stopgap: the awkwardly-named Kingdom Hearts HD …
Sniper Elite is my guilty pleasure. I know, conventional wisdom says there’s no such thing as a guilty pleasure – “like what you like, without guilt”. There’s an element of truth in that, but it’s a more complicated issue and one that’s worth unpacking. Sniper Elite 3 was a game …
If you enjoy picross (or nonograms, or whatever other name you may know these pixel-art logic puzzles), Pictopix is a game you need to buy. Until now, Jupiter Corporation – creators of Mario’s Picross and Picross e, among others – is the only developer that’s really done this puzzle form justice. …
