For the first time the now-iconic Yakuza series is on a Nintendo platform. To an extent you could question just who this port of Yakuza Kiwami is for, as it is obviously a drop down in fidelity over what is available elsewhere. On the other hand, this has been an excuse to drop back into one of my favourite series…
Have you ever wondered what a version of 1980s America (Showa 66) would look like if overtaken by Japanese culture and influences? Okay, probably not. But it’s a great setting for a game! In Showa American Story, the Japanese economic bubble in the USA never popped; immigration surged and Japanese…
First and foremost, Dragon Age: The Veilguard isn’t a Dragon Age game.…
Xenoblade Chronicles X, first published for Wii U in 2015, is an…
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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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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Valkyrie Elysium isn’t for everyone. The game has a specific tone and structure that has ensured that it will only ever appeal to a small, niche demographic. And yet it shares structural, thematic and aesthetic similarities with, in one way or another, the likes of Chaos Legion, NieR (original, not…
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Valkyrie Elysium seems destined to be one of the rapidly forgotten Square Enix titles… and yet it doesn’t deserve to be. In playing it I was strongly reminded of games like Chaos Legion and NieR (before NieR: Automata convinced people to reassess the original); games that have a loftier aesthetic…
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I did not expect that Steelrising would be a Soulslike. I don’t know if I’d just missed that bit of news in the initial announcement (I then went out of my way to avoid learning anything about this game prior to when I started playing it), or if the developer…
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Third-person action-RPG (read: soulslike) Asterigos: Curse of the Stars is inspired by Greek and Roman mythology. Players take on the role of Hilda, a brave warrior on a quest. Her goal is to uncover the secrets of Aphes, a cursed city that is eternally haunted by former citizens turned horrifying…
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Trinity Trigger is being published by FuRyu in Japan in two weeks, but until now there’s been no confirmation that the action RPG would be coming west. XSEED Games has announced that it will be bringing Trinity Trigger west in “early” 2023.…
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ARGH! Argh, argh, argh, arghhhhhhhhhh! Dusk Diver 2 is so frustrating. So utterly, cruelly frustrating. Somehow this sequel is even more frustrating than its predecessor. I can see what the developer wanted to achieve with it, and I appreciate it on so many levels. It just doesn’t come together in…
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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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Forget the absolutely dismal Dark Alliance dungeon crawler that was released last year. There was a time where “Dungeons & Dragons” and “Dark Alliance” put together was something worth getting excited about. Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance was a series of just two games, but they remain two of the better…
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