Matt S. is the Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of DDNet. He's been writing about games for over 20 years, including a book, but is perhaps best-known for being the high priest of the Church of Hatsune Miku.
Ys isn’t the oldest JRPG property out there, but it’s one of them, and it’s also one of the most prolific. If you ignore all the re-releases and just concentrate on the main series, there is just one period where there was a substantial hiatus (1996-2002). Otherwise, the longest fans have had to wait for a new game to play…
At some point, someone sat down and decided to make an RPG which would be narrative-heavy, but it would be almost entirely emergent narrative. Where every plot direction and key moment was a consequence of the player’s actions. Where characters and their personalities would be entirely defined by player decisions,…
On the one hand, the people behind I*CHU: Chibi Edition have done…
Dance is a difficult subject to tackle, for many reasons. These challenges…
I’m a big fan of itch.io for the freedom and open platform that it allows for developers to be creative, experimental, and directly canvas the audience for feedback for games that are not yet ready for primetime on Steam and its ilk. In addition, itch.io allows you to be transgressive,…
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Cricket 22 has finally released on Switch after launching on the other consoles late last year. As someone who rather prefers to game on the go, I’ve been looking forward to seeing how this turns out. So come join me as we check the action out!…
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This week, an absolutely fascinating story landed on my feet. Someone had spent 1,600 hours plugging away at RPG Maker MV on the Nintendo Switch to produce a JRPG, which they released this week. To emphasise: I’m not talking about the PC RPG Maker MV – we get plenty of…
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Samurai Bringer is Samurai Warriors: The Roguelike. If that doesn’t have you rushing to the eShop to buy it right now, then you’re probably not a regular reader of DigitallyDownloaded.net. This game is an excellent, clever, interesting and entertaining take on the roguelike, and while I’m getting increasingly burned out…
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River City Saga is one of the more enduring “Double Dragon”-like brawler properties, and while that genre has had its peaks and troughs, it is enjoying a renaissance right now. River City Saga is back for some more with a Three Kingdoms edition that looks amazing. Yes, we are talking…
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The next version of the long-running RPG Maker property, RPG Maker Unite, is exciting for many (many) reasons. One of the big ones is that while it will maintain the series’ vision of allowing people to make JRPGs without coding, it will be built on Unity, meaning that aspiring game…
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Wii Sports was one incredible little experience. It was the perfect way to launch the Wii console, and it was one of those rare games that got everyone playing. Unfortunately, while Nintendo Switch Sports is very good, it fails to capture the same zeitgeist, and I don’t think we’ll ever…
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I am becoming thoroughly sick and tired of developers taking a popular IP of some kind, and reaming it into a hole where it just doesn’t fit. Vampire: The Masquerade is a storytelling-orientated horror-fantasy RPG. It always has been. I haven’t kept up with more recent editions of the game,…
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Nintendo Switch Sports would have been an excellent launch title pack-in game, much like Wii Sports was back on that console 16 years ago. It’s a well-made minigame compilation that highlights the strength of the motion controllers and system dynamics. However, the Switch already has a lot of those kinds…
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Hooray for good news! Utawarerumono is back, with Aquaplus announcing that Monochome Mobius: Rights and Wrongs Forgotten will be getting a global release. This game was developed to celebrate 20 years of Utawarerumono, which has become almost the defining definition of “cult hit” among JRPGs. Related reading: Our review of…
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