It’s nearly springtime in the Northern Hemisphere, and in a month nature will be well on its way from brown and muddy to green and blooming. What a great time to launch a game about flowers! Hanako’s Flower Shop is a shop management visual novel about running a flower shop, where you craft bouquets based on the flowers’ language. As…
Horror is such a difficult genre for artists to work with. People think it’s easy because they have memories of more-comedy-than-scary slashers and B-grade films, bad acting and all. There’s also the perception that it’s not a particularly subtle genre, and therefore must be quite easy to work with. But…
If you’re being bullied, can the ability to read thoughts solve all…
I guess, given the success of Azur Lane, Girls und Panzer, KanColle…
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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Digimon Survive was a bit of a surprise as it wasn’t quite the “tactics RPG” that we were told we would be getting. Instead, this game leans very heavily into visual novel territory, and for some reason this has put people right off it. (Check out our review here) But,…
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Admittedly I wasn’t following Digimon Survive too closely in the leadup to release, however, I did know it was going to be a tactics JRPG featuring collectible monsters. That in itself was exciting given that I have fond memories of Pokémon Conquest back on the DS. What I was not…
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It’s been almost 30 years since the founding of Nexton, the Japanese software publisher from Osaka, and as a celebration, the company has called upon novamicus (one of its subsidiaries) to develop and produce ONE. It’s set to launch in 2023 in Japan, with no mentions of a western release…
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What’s the result of combining cryptids, retro graphics, and pulp fiction? Why, Mothmen 1966 of course! It is the first title in what is already being called the Pixel Pulp series, by LCB Game Studio. I feel a bit bad for those I’m close with, as I’ve been rambling about…
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Formerly set to release on August 25, Idea Factory’s Jyuzaengi: Engetsu Sangokuden 1 & 2 for the Switch has instead been pushed back to a new release date of September 22, with a somewhat vague “various circumstances” being the explanation. The history of Jyuzaengi has its roots enveloped in the…
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Australians should make more visual novels. I don’t just say that because I make them and need to kick myself into actually finalising my latest one (it’s getting there, day by day!). It’s just that whenever an Australian produces a VN, it’s typically gold. Max’s Big Bust is a hilarious…
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Perfect Gold: The Alchemy Of Happiness highlights just how mundane love and romance can be. I don’t mean that in a negative sense, though. Far too often in the arts romance, as a subject, either deviates toward smutty eroticism or overly sentimental tear-jerking. There’s nothing inherently wrong with either of…
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There was a time when video games were primitive enough that a book could be a more vivid gameplay experience. For example, the original Wizardry came out in 1980, and though it’s rightfully remembered as a classic, it’s also not much more than the seemingly endless sequences of corridors and…
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We get a lot of games, films, books, and other such media that take place during the Sengoku era. Samurai Warriors and Nioh, for example. There are endless films that depict various battles from the era. Netflix even produced a documentary, which was terrible, but highlights that the Sengoku era…
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