Grizzly Man is the fourth title in LCB Game Studio’s Pixel Pulps series, beginning a second trilogy titled “Pixel Pulps DTV Collection.” (DTV is short for direct-to-video.) It is a psychedelic slasher game about a former MIB agent who was severely injured in a mysterious attack, waking up with full amnesia. Ten years later, he is working as a field…
Idea Factory International is bringing otome visual novel Battlefield Waltz to the West over a decade after its original Japanese launch. First announced during IFI’s Summer Festival 2024, the game will be available in physical and digital editions.) It follows a young woman named Lan on her journey as the…
Delays in the game industry are a dime a dozen, and the…
The Infinity Series are well-known visual novels by Kotaro Uchikoshi that sit…
I’m not sure how the initial launch of 7 Days to End with You slipped past me, but it did. The puzzle/visual novel game is all about language, and what does a games journalist love more than games and words? Very little. In a place where you don’t know the…
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The visual novel genre scene of gaming can, at times, be difficult to get into. Poorly made releases, carbon copies, and plainly obvious cash grabs are around every corner, but the good news is that this particular release we’re talking about here is anything but one of those. This is…
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Paradigm Paradox has a smart idea behind it: This is a magical girl story where most of the girls are, in fact, boys! The boys (and love interests) in this otome story magically turn into women when they are out there saving the world, before shifting back to male form…
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Fragment’s Note+ has some decent art, and a surprisingly good localisation for a project of relatively modest scale. I’m used to having to deal with translations that are barely better than a Google machine translation and this game is not that. Unfortunately, I’ve run out of good things to say…
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One of the joys of streaming things that you’re playing for the first time is that the audience can see, in real time, you come to the realisation that what you are playing is just terrible. Fragment’s Note Plus is just terrible. In the hour or so of this stream…
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As a leading art form, video games can be – and should be – used to convey more than entertainment. Just as film and television have documentaries and writing has non-fiction, video games offer an opportunity to share real and important stories. Indeed, the interactive nature of games, and the…
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If you enjoyed the very famous Steins;Gate, or the much loved Robotics;Notes, then chances are you’ll like Chaos;Head Noah. It’s certainly a more extreme experience than those two, but this was the very first entry in the “Science Adventure” series, and it offers excellent, intense storytelling similar to its later…
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It’s difficult to review fandiscs, because they’re a step beyond a sequel in terms of their reliance on the base material. Generally it’s fine to review sequels. You can go in-depth with like the Trails of Cold Steel series, or the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy, because players can still play…
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I’m a big fan of itch.io for the freedom and open platform that it allows for developers to be creative, experimental, and directly canvas the audience for feedback for games that are not yet ready for primetime on Steam and its ilk. In addition, itch.io allows you to be transgressive,…
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Amnesia: Memories was first released over a decade ago, and it’s fair to say that the visual novel genre – and particularly the otome sub-genre – has moved at a rapid pace from that time. That’s not a criticism of Amnesia, by any means, but the experience of reading through…
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