News by Matt S. One of the nicer (if smaller-scale) announcements that came out of E3 this year was that Square Enix was going to do new re-releases of the first six Final Fantasy games. This “Final Fantasy Pixel” remaster series was going to be closer in tone and aesthetic…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. As I was playing Legend of Mana, I found myself constantly wondering at just how innovative and beautiful this game must have seemed back on the PlayStation, where it originally released in 1999 (2000 in North America). On its art and aesthetics alone, this is one…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Disgaea faces a big problem, which Disgaea 6 exposes; when you’ve got a series that has parodied JRPGs through raw exaggeration, how do you keep that series’ energy going? How do you take something that is already hyperbolic to an almost grotesque degree, and build further…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. It has been great to see Taiwan become a growing force in video games, in no small part because culturally and aesthetically there are synergies between it and Japan that has meant that many of the games that come out of Taiwan do great things with…
Read MoreNews by Matt S. Dragon Star Varnir has been one of Idea Factory’s successful experiments on PlayStation 4. The dark fairy tale-infused JRPG offers excellent, original combat, a rich narrative and, of course, Idea Factory’s usual fan service infusion. Now it’s coming to Nintendo Switch, and will launch in North…
Read MoreVideo by Matt S. Bandai Namco’s Scarlet Nexus is a blistering-good game with a compelling theme. In this video I discuss the broader implications of the narrative and those themes; why it’s relevant and allegorical to today’s world, and why more and more artists, across all media forms, are making…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. The nature of reality is becoming an ever-bigger question mark that artists are grappling with, and that’s because we’re getting greater levels of control over the very foundations of the reality that we exist within. We’re taking the digital, constructed would and painting it over the…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. I don’t know if any of you have seen the Chick Tract Dark Dungeons comic book. It’s pretty old now (published in 1984), but as I was growing up it did the rounds every so often at school because it is unhinged. Like genuinely, bona fide,…
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. Of all the many JRPGs that were released on the PlayStation 3, it seems intensely strange to me, even as a big-time fan of the series, that Hyperdimension Neptunia would be the one to get remade… and then remade again. The original was anything but well-regarded,…
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