Review by Matt S. The Caligula Effect was the smartest game that almost no one played. Sadly, while I would very much like to see the sequel get the attention that it deserves, I do think it’s going to be a case of history repeating here. The problem that both…
Read MoreNews by Matt S. We’re inclined to pay close attention to any JRPG that FuRyu backs. That publisher, which backed The Alliance Alive, The Caligula Effect, Lost Dimension, and Crystar (among many others) knows creative, different JRPGs, and Monark is very much looking like one of those from first impressions.…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. As a publisher, FuRyu has never been adverse to taking on projects that tackle some astoundingly complex, nuanced topics. The Caligula Effect was a deconstruction on supernormal stimulants and the potential for virtual existence. Lost Dimension took the prisoner’s dilemma questions of Danganronpa and ramped it…
Read MoreVideo by Matt S. Heroland is Furyu’s latest title, and comes to us in the west thanks to a truly amazing localisation by XSeed. It is a truly impressive little social satire, as well as being outright funny and charming. In this video I take a look at some of…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. The frequency with which we need to talk about nostalgia in the context of JRPGs is startling. Over and over again we are now seeing developers who grew up with the NES and SNES finally hit the age where they’re able to helm game projects of…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. It’s important that we draw a distinction between “melancholia” and “sadness”, “misery”, and other such synonyms. The dictionary definition has the terms at roughly parallel, but in literature and other art forms, they’re really very different things. My favourite quote in defining melancholia comes from an…
Read MoreVideo by Matt S. (Mild content warning with regards to a depiction of a suicide) Crystar, out soon, comes to us from FuRyu in Japan, and Spike Chunsoft in the west. It’s an action JRPG with a particular trick – it’s all about crying as a gameplay mechanic. If that…
Read MoreNews by Matt S. Created by everyone’s favourite up-and-coming developer/publisher, FuRyu, and localised in the west by XSEED, Heroland is the western title for what is known as WORK X WORK in Japan. Courtesy of E3, we now have a release window for the game – it launches in fall…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. The original The Caligula Effect is the NieR (not Automata) of this generation. By that I mean that the game’s smart – genius smart – and has thematic and philosophical depth that few other games even come close to. But the packaging was a bit rough,…
Read MoreNews by Matt S. It’s strange that the Nintendo Switch has been around for so long now, and there’s still no Yu-Gi-Oh on it. Konami publishes that license on every console, and the console doesn’t quite feel rounded until there’s a Japanese TCG on it. The good news is that…
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