I do think that Indiana Jones shouldn’t have persisted as the property that it has. The two films that have come since The Last Crusade have been so drenched in a desperate kind of nostalgia, all but begging people to love them because they brought back a beloved ’80s classic.…
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I remain very impressed with any developer that takes a swing at a Soulslike. In fact, post-Elden Ring, I’m possibly even more impressed by the gonads it takes to try and develop one. This is a genre that is so overwhelmingly dominated by one company’s creative vision, and any other…
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My personal experience with prolific (VERY prolific) Japanese developer, Tamsoft, is mostly with its work with the action-based Hyperdimension brawlers, Senran Kagura, and the highly fanservicey stuff like Onechanbara and School Girl/Zombie Hunter. For the most part, these have been like pared-down Dynasty Warriors/Musou games. I wish Bleach Rebirth of…
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The best way to learn a new language is to actually practice that language in real-world context. If you travel around Japan you will, at some point, almost certainly be accosted at least once by a group of school kids who are clutching a workbook and told to practice their…
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Two rugby games have been released within a span of a week of one another. For such a niche sport (in the world of video games), I’m not sure that was in anyone’s greatest interest, but nonetheless rugby fans get a choice: Jonah Lomu Rugby Challenge 4 is a sequel…
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We’re being spoiled for Musou right now! A month after Koei Tecmo released the exceptional Dynasty Warriors Origins, the company went and stealth-dropped Warriors: Abyss as part of a Sony State of Play show. This is an action roguelike heavily inspired by Vampire Survivors and similar “horde” games, and while…
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When a series is known for being as surrealistic as the Yakuza series is, keeping it fresh over the long term is all the more challenging. After all, the oddball stops being oddball when it becomes mundane. Thankfully, to date the developers at Ryu Ga Gotoku have been able to…
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We see a lot of efforts to take history and build a video game out of it. This year alone we’ve already seen the newest chapter in the Dynasty Warriors series. Civilization VII is just around the corner. Ubisoft seems to be in all kinds of development hell with its…
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Xuan-Yuan Sword: The Gate of Firmament is actually an older title, being an Xbox One and PC release from around six years ago. It’s getting a second lease on life on the PlayStation now, and I’m glad it is because it has given me the excuse to play it after…
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I hate that I love so much about Infinity Nikki. There’s such a warming wholesomeness in abundance that the experience feels almost transformative and subversive. It’s like the developers saw all the combat loops that dominate all the other big-budget open world games and were determined to show that there…
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