Review by Matt S. Warmth infuses every moment of Bravely Default II. This is a confident, charming and intelligent play on every single thing that people who grew up with JRPGs love about the genre. To call it a “love letter” would be misunderstanding its appeal, though. Tokyo RPG Factory…
Read MoreVideo by Matt S. Bravely Default 2 is such a good game that it deserves a second video. This time around we’re taking a look at a specific narrative element that adds so much to the game. It’s not a new narrative technique and we’ve seen it in many…
Read MoreNews by Matt S. Dragon Star Varnir! Thanks to the good folk at Famitsu, we now know that Idea Factory will be porting its Grimm-like fairy tale game about cute witches to the Switch in the Japanese spring. There’s no news about a western release of this, but given that…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. The defining quality of any of the titles in the Persona series is the characters. The turn-based combat is engaging enough, as is the dungeon crawling, but it’s the cast, their relationships, and the dramas – both hilarious and tragic – that really draws the player…
Read MoreVideo by Matt S. I never thought we’d get a new Bravely Default game. I had just assumed that Square Enix was done with the mini-series after the 3DS titles, when those games were very much built as 3DS titles. And yet, here we are, playing a new Bravely Default…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. One of the defining themes of the PlayStation 4 era was the remaster, with developers taking a PlayStation 3 (or even 2) title, massively overhauling the visual engine, and giving players a reason to play a favourite all over again. If the Nioh Collection is anything…
Read MoreGame Theory by Matt S. With Persona 5 Strikers just around the corner (and review embargo lifting in a few days), I figured I’d publish this piece that explains some of the underlying thinking that has gone into the Persona 5 mini-series. Let me know your thoughts! Persona 5 is…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free,” so Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote once, and Ys IX reminded me of that quote a little. It’s not such a direct interpretation (we leave that to Persona 5), but imprisonment is the…
Read MoreVideo by Matt S. Ys IX: Monstrum Nox is the latest in a long-running series of action JRPGs that I have had a complex relationship with over the years… but this one? Wow, do I love this one. Nihon Falcom has knocked it out of the park and then some.…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. “Curiouser and curiouser!” Cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English). So goes the famous line from Lewis Carroll’s classic, Alice in Wonderland. Having played Märchen Forest: Mylne and the Forest Gift, I understand Alice’s…
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