I remain very impressed with any developer that takes a swing at a Soulslike. In fact, post-Elden Ring, I’m possibly even more impressed by the gonads it takes to try and develop one. This is a genre that is so overwhelmingly dominated by one company’s creative vision, and any other…
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Xenoblade Chronicles X was arguably the most ambitious game to land on the Nintendo Wii U (you could argue that Breath of the Wild was, but then most people see that as a Switch game and forget that there was a Wii U version as well… and all this is…
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Back in 2019, Koei Tecmo hit it big with Atelier Ryza, and the long-running series went from being one of the most beloved niche properties to being something that suddenly had upward mobility in sales and prominence. Not quite in the leagues of Final Fantasy, Tales, Dragon Quest or Persona,…
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Suikoden might not have quite the same profile as Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, but this is a beloved cult JRPG franchise, stretching back to the original PlayStation. And I really do mean beloved. Many who have played it list Suikoden 2, in particular, list it as one of the…
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The best way to learn a new language is to actually practice that language in real-world context. If you travel around Japan you will, at some point, almost certainly be accosted at least once by a group of school kids who are clutching a workbook and told to practice their…
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There’s a literary device called the Deus Ex Machina (no, the game series didn’t invent that cool-sounding word), which describes when an author uses a plot device to solve a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story. It’s possibly the most difficult literary device to use, since, if you calibrate it…
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It’s not every day that you get to interview one of your heroes, but that was certainly the case when I got to run a quick Q & A with Hironobu Sakaguchi. For those that don’t recognise the name, Sakaguchi is the one who gave us many of the early…
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If I were to create a laundry list of what I look for in a JRPG, the simple reality is that the Ys series doesn’t tend to check many of those boxes. They’re not known for in-depth narratives, iconic characters (aside from the series protagonist, Adol, who has a very…
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To get this out of the way up-front: We need to be wary about art (games, films, books, whatever else) that depict apocalyptic scenarios where some form of invader from without swarms the world and you’re in control of the last nation standing, holding back the horde. It’s an incredibly…
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Xuan-Yuan Sword: The Gate of Firmament is actually an older title, being an Xbox One and PC release from around six years ago. It’s getting a second lease on life on the PlayStation now, and I’m glad it is because it has given me the excuse to play it after…
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