I’ve been playing hidden object games to chill out for twenty years. They may soothe my mind, but they don’t remain there — everything blurs together over the years. A few titles in the genre have stood out recently (such as Crime O’Clock), but Hidden in my Paradise raises the…
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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…
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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,…
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On the one hand, the people behind I*CHU: Chibi Edition have done the world a big favour. The developers and publishers (PQube in the West) have taken a mobile gacha game that was effectively killed a half-decade ago and given players the opportunity to enjoy it in its full glory…
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Remaking strategy games comes across as an odd decision, because strategy games are principally defined and remembered through their mechanics, and that is something that typically improves over time. Take Civilization 2 as an example. It’s my single favourite strategy game of all time, but it would be downright strange…
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Otomate can always be trusted to find some way to repurpose the established otome formula for a visual novel that at least feels a little different, even if functionally it’s not. 9 R.I.P. lands at the perfect time for Halloween, and even though it’s Otomate playing it safe with the…
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Of all the games produced for the Simple 2000 series of budget Japanese PS2 titles, none has had quite the same resonance or longevity as D3’s Earth Defense Force series. I’m unashamedly a fan of most of the EDF games – as long as we can all agree that Insect…
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Reynatis’ single biggest flaw is that it tries too many things, and while each of its themes would in itself be worth exploring, piled into a heap together they create a narrative that often seems confused about what it is. Take for example the theme of fascism and resistance that…
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There are very few things that trigger my sense of nostalgia quite as powerfully as Worms: Armageddon. When this was released on the Nintendo 64 back in 1999, it instantly became one of THE rotation of multiplayer hits that dominated Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights at home with family and…
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The Western release of The Hokkaido Serial Murder Case: The Okhotsk Disappearance will probably be ignored by the majority of the occidental gaming world, and with no marketing at all aside from word-of-mouth advertising from video game diehards, I feel that’s a real shame. So I’ve come out of my…
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