It’s hard for us in the West to fully appreciate just how core idol companies and groups are in Japan. It’s not just about the music and performance, though that is certainly a big part of it. Idol groups act as talent feeder pools for just about every other part…
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Esports has become a ridiculously big business, sucking up so many dollars that could have gone into interesting, artful games instead. They’re holding an Olympic Esports Games now… and stupidly the IOC chose the authoritarian, puritanical hellnation, Saudi Arabia, for it. Hey, IOC, put Dead or Alive on the competition…
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One of the things that I find continually surprising about video games is the idea that, on the one hand, we consider them to be inherently an art form, but on the other, we just never talk about games in the same frameworks that we talk about every other art…
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I don’t want to spend too long mulling over its flaws, but Princess Maker 2 Regeneration is a good example of a remake handled poorly. I’m not commenting on the quality of the game itself, which is genuinely good and entertaining, and I’ll get to that as soon as I…
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There are conventional visual novels, and then there are the kinds of visual novels that Type-Moon produces. Tsukihime is a game that has a fearsome reputation, being one of the very first works of the company (it came before Fate/Stay Night, which has become the Type-Moon behemoth), and was essentially…
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The Japanese are a growing force in global tabletop game design. While the association with Japan and video games is long and deep, traditionally we haven’t embraced too many of their tabletop games (classic or modern). This is partly because many of the best were never localised, and partly because…
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The Legend of Heroes series turns 35 this year, and with 21 titles in it, it is inarguably the most ambitious and largest-scope JRPG property in existence. Unlike Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, The Legend of Heroes is constant, with every game taking place in the same universe, sharing a…
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I have been intensely craving a cute, cozy, stress-free management sim for months now. I’ve played games with some of those elements, sure, but nothing has really captured my attention or had every element. I’ve had my eye on Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge for a while now; it checks all…
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The Battle Cats have been doing the rounds for some years now. Originally released way back in 2012, the property is still going strong, with people even boasting at how many thousands of dollars they’ve spent on the “free to play” mobile original as recently as this year. There was…
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I’m consistently surprised that these “fandisc sequels” to popular otome games get localised. Just recently we saw one for Cupid Parasite, and now there’s one for the excellent Radiant Tale. I would think that given how niche otome titles are, sequels to those otome titles would have an even more…
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