Dex is a game I wanted to like, and for the first hour or two, I really did like it. It’s a cyberpunk action RPG reminiscent of Deus Ex and Shadowrun, but that plays out as a sidescroller with some gorgeous 2D artwork. The combination of action RPG staples, light …
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 …
When The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing first came out a few years ago, it was a bit of a surprise. A robust, if technically flawed, action RPG with an interesting plot and some thoroughly entertaining writing, it went a long way to clearing some of the stink from a …
I imported I Am Setsuna earlier this year when it first came out in Japan, though I never got around to playing more than the first couple of hours. Having now played the English version, I’m glad I didn’t play much of the import, because with my cursory understanding of …
Playing Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was playing a completely different game to other reviewers. Maybe the lukewarm reception tempered my own expectations somewhat, but what I played was a good game—a great game, even. There are a lot of minor annoyances that …
I Am Setsuna is the latest in a long line of Japanese games that have been butchered in the name of “localisation” to appease the delicate sensibilities of the Western audience. Nintendo had the gall to inject Western-centric humour into Fire Emblem Fates, a game that otherwise has absolutely no …
The Kickstarter demo for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night couldn’t have come at a better time. The crowdfunding model has been brought into doubt this week with the critical panning of Mighty No. 9, another Kickstarter darling that promised a spiritual successor to Mega Man but, by almost all accounts, fell far short – not to mention the …
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 …
I’m genuinely surprised there hasn’t been an announcement of a remastered Nier yet. With Nier Automata on the way, I can’t be the only person with renewed interest in finally playing the original, and Square Enix hasn’t exactly shied away from remasters to date. Nier was, by almost any metric, a dismal failure. It was …
Earlier this month, Square Enix Japan released a new mobile game, Samurai Rising. While the title certainly make any allusion to Final Fantasy, there’s enough throwback to Square’s flagship to make it a Final Fantasy game in all but name. Familiar character jobs, like the Black Mage, White Mage, Dragoon, and so on. Recognisable monsters like …
