I was tempted to resist writing anything about the announcement of Ghost of Yōtei. It’s increasingly difficult to have a mature conversation about anything to do with video games without one pile-on or another happening, and I had more than enough of a pile-on from my review of Ghost of Tsushima to last me a lifetime. But I’ve been very…
“What games have you regretted buying the most?” It’s one of those silly questions that a Twitter account throws out there to maximise engagement (and it worked, with 100,000 views at the time of writing). But it did get me thinking, in the sense of “how can people that claim…
“Dune: Awakening, the survival MMO from Conan: Exiles developer Funcom, will “sidestep”…
I know DDNet’s been relatively quiet this week. I’ve had a Dee…
Valve’s inconsistencies around what is and isn’t too offensive for its platform are at the point where it is so blatant that there are ulterior motives at play that it is incredibly offensive. Here’s a story of two different sets of games to illustrate. The first involves Hitler. Steam is…
Read More
As anyone in PR or communications will tell you, the best time to make a catastrophic announcement is when everyone is busy looking elsewhere. You don’t want to hide it, but you want to push it through the news cycle at a time when you’ll only generate half as many…
Read More
As a child, Murao Junpei is captivated when a male ballet soloist takes to the stage at his sister’s ballet recital. A passion awakened in him, Junpei asks his parents if he can start doing ballet. His father – a stunt coordinator for films – suggests he tries something “manlier”…
Read More
Sports anime and manga are not uncommon in Japan. Football, basketball, volleyball, baseball, figure skating and even badminton have popular stories that aim to make the sport, as well as the characters and their narrative arcs, interesting to both fans of the sport and complete newcomers. Related reading: If you…
Read More
Nagasaki in Japan has a unique characteristic among Japanese cities. It has always been the most open location to foreign culture and influence. Even when Japan closed itself off to the rest of the world, Nagasaki continued to be its connection to the outside. This meant that the city took…
Read More
Slow Loop, an adaptation by Connect of the manga by Uchino Maiko, aired as part of the Winter 2022 anime season. Ostensibly, Slow Loop is the archetypal cute show about cute girls doing cute things – in this case fishing. Soft character designs, rounded linework, gentle but vibrant colours, the…
Read More
When you read the title for this feature, which song do you think about? What memories are evoked by that song? How would you feel if you were asked to listen to it again? And, to hazard a guess, was that song from the late 90s or the early 00s?…
Read More
Did you know that you can’t produce your own alcohol in Japan? It’s illegal to brew your own beers and wines in Japan without a licence, even for personal consumption, so those little hobby breweries and home beer kits that are so popular in many parts of the world are…
Read More
The things that the old computer saw… It’s easy to assume that lewd games are a relatively recent addition to the gaming landscape. A lot of people attribute the rise in their popularity to Japan’s adoption of fanservice-heavy anime-style games in the PlayStation 3 and subsequent Vita eras — but…
Read More
Bad endings are an interesting example of convergent evolution in the history of the game narrative. It appears across various genres as an early example of player choice. In games such as Double Dragon or Dragon Quest for the NES, the player is provided with the end-game choice to join…
Read More