There is a moment, about 20-30 hours into Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, where you’re about to get into your first truly big battle as a commander (yes, it’s a slow build-up to that point). You’ll still remember what it was like at the start, as you led a rag-tag…
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Star Ocean acts as something akin to the “b-tier” for Square Enix. Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest are, of course, the big guns, but this series is not insignificant. It’s been around for 25 years now, and The Divine Force is the sixth of the main series entries. I’ll tell…
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I think it’s time for superheroes to put their feet up and, if not retire completely, take a long hiatus. Whether it’s through cinema or gaming, we’ve simply had too many of these things now and they’ve long outlived their ability to surprise and delight. Were Gotham Knights the very…
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Here’s a free tip for developers and publishers: “Souls” means something in video gaming now. We may or may not like it, but people see that combination of letters and think something very specific. Soulstice is not actually one of these games (blessedly, given that this year has already been…
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What was Bilbo Baggins’ great quote from Lord of the Rings (the good one, not the TV series)? “Like butter scraped over too much bread”? Something like that. It’s a great quote and also the best way to describe Temtem. As a Pokémon clone it would almost be serviceable, if…
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Soul Hackers 2 is a throwback to the glory days of Shin Megami Tensei. There was a point where Atlus’ premier property focused on ideas rather than sheer style, and some real classics came out of that approach. SMT 3: Nocturne and the Digital Devil Saga duo were my favourites…
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Releasing a “Soulslike” in the same year as Elden Ring is, I would argue, unwise. You’re never going to come off well in that comparison and it’s only going to result in your game being judged more harshly than it deserves to be. In that context, Thymesia really should have…
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For the entire prelaunch hype cycle behing Stray, if you mentioned “the cat game”, people knew exactly what game you were talking about. It seemed like the perfect mix of cute & cuddly, since it was about a furrball, and a contrasting cyberpunk dystopian aesthetic, complete with funky (and also…
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Leonard Menchiari (RIOT: Civil Unrest, The Eternal Castle), is quickly becoming one of my favourite independent game auteurs. His work – regardless of who he is working with – has a kind of intensity and focus that is almost overwhelming and that makes it hard to tear your attention away…
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Many years ago now (back in 2013), when DigitallyDownloaded.net was still just a startup website and really little more than a blog, I was fortunate to land an interview with the good people of Paradox Interactive. To this day I remember that interview, and a big part of the reason…
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