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…
Chrono Cross is one of the all-time great JRPGs. It was recently re-released as the Radical Dreamers Edition on PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch, and it remains an incredible game, as we discuss in our review. We recently had the opportunity to fire off some quick questions to the game’s…
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It’s a lightgun game where the lightgun aim doesn’t work properly. It’s an arcade game that offers no challenge no penalty for running out of lives. It’s a remake that has lost all the atmosphere and appeal of the base game. Congratulations, developer MegaPixel Studio, I genuinely have no idea…
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… And no, it’s not Fate/Stay Night. In fact, I think at this point it is safe to say that Type-Moon is having a laugh at our expense. The first game launched a massive, money-spinning industry in its own right, and we still do not have an official localisation of…
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Taito Milestones is undeniably cynical. The publishers have the gall to claim that it is a compilation of some of Taito’s most important historical work, and yet there are some absolutely massive, glaring omissions in the library. More than that, though, it’s disappointing that one of the best retro arcade…
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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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Before I sat down to play The Cruel King And The Great Hero, I thought it was going to be in the same vein as The Liar Princess And The Blind Prince, a previously-published NISA title with a very similar aesthetic. That would have been enough for me. The Liar…
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PQube is a publisher with a knack for finding quirky and interesting projects. Its latest, Super Bullet Break, might just be one of its most interesting. This “deck-building roguelike,” features a lot of super-cute anime girls, and draws inspiration from everything from rhythm games and dating games right through to…
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Sony is on to such a good thing with MLB The Show that it would rather have its San Diego development studio work on a cross-platform release than risk losing the baseball license (I would bet significant dollars that the MLB told Sony that the previously PlayStation-exclusive series was going…
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2019’s AI: The Somnium Files is one of the most memorable games of the last generation. It did land on us out of nowhere, but word of mouth and time has been kind to it, and it has become something of a cult hit in the years since. The sequel,…
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Blaze Entertainment, the publisher of the Evercade series of retro consoles, has announced a new initiative for people who own the Evercade VS TV console: Game of the Month. That’s one free game a month throughout the rest of 2022. The games will be available via the Evercade VS’ wireless…
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