Review by Matt S. What I appreciate about Disco Elysium is that it actually backs itself. This is a deeply political game that refuses to let you sit on the fence and, while you can end up adopting one of four political ideologies (communism, fascism, moralism and ultraliberalism) based on…
Read MorePreview by Matt S. Dark Souls was one of those rare things; not only was it an excellent game, but it also entered the lexicon. “The Dark Souls of XXXX” became a favoured turn of phrases for anyone who was stretching to describe a particularly challenging example of a genre…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. I just want to start this review to just clarify something for future PR people, writing the descriptions of the games that they’re working on: “misery” and “mature” are two very different things. Disciples: Liberation claims that it’s a “dark, mature RPG”, but, no. It’s certainly…
Read MoreVideo by Matt S. Xuan-Yuan Sword VII is a brilliant little RPG out of Taiwan. In playing it through I was reminded of one of the discrepancies between video games as an art form and other art forms: In other art forms we tend to encourage and promote “foreign art”…
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Xuan-Yuan Sword VII is exactly why I am glad that Taiwanese game development is becoming as robust as it is, and the involvement of EastAsiaSoft in this global release is an incredibly positive development. I first played Xuan-Yuan Sword VII when it was released in English in Hong Kong –…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Moonshades is… fine. It was originally a dungeon crawler released onto mobile, where it earned a not small number of fans for being a particularly earnest effort at recapturing the most old school of old school dungeon crawlers. Now it has been ported to the Nintendo…
Read MoreRetro by Matt S. Every time I start a new campaign in Baldur’s Gate, I tell myself that I’m going to play it differently this time. I’m going to recruit different party members from the nearly 30 that are available. I’m going to play an evil party this time. Every…
Read MoreNews by Matt S. Publisher, Dangen Entertainment, has partnered with Steogosoft Games (Ara Fell) to publish Rise of the Third Power, a “love letter to the glory day of the console-style RPG,” and… yeah. This one’s a brave project. Just see if you can spot the historical allegory in this…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. On its surface, you would never suspect that Rune Factory world work. Taking the tranquility of Harvest Moon and mashing it together with the inherent violence of RPGs seems counter-intuitive, and yet the developers of Rune Factory and various associated homages and pastiches have somehow refined…
Read MoreVideo by Matt S. Kitaria Fables is such a delightful little game. Utterly charming and inoffensive, this Rune Factory-like RPG has plenty of sword-swinging questing… but you also get plenty of time to kick back and just enjoy the gardening, as you slowly farm up a huge arrangement of delightful…
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