Derek Heemsbergen's Reviews
Steins;Gate 0 is one of the best stories the visual novel genre has to offer, and stands as a worthy sequel to its critically-acclaimed predecessor.
It's a shame that Root Letter has such abysmal writing, because there truly are some fascinating plot threads to unravel throughout this brief journey.
This nostalgia-fueled collectathon is a pleasant, if juvenile, tour of Final Fantasy's greatest hits.
Gotta Protectors is a frenetic and charming celebration of retro Japanese games that rises above its low-fidelity presentation to deliver one seriously addictive experience.
Exist Archive is an intriguing follow-up to Valkyrie Profile, but its deficiencies in some major areas make it a hard sell in a season already packed with stellar RPGs.
Oceanhorn is a passable-at-best adventure that just made me want to go back and play the games it took everything from, because they did it better.
Trails of Cold Steel II continues in the series' tradition of lengthy, narratively expansive JRPGs that will have fans up late theorizing about their favorite characters.
Exhaustingly trite and mechanically shallow, A.W. Phoenix Festa is a waste of memory card space better occupied by something like Steins;Gate.
A brief, somber, and quietly beautiful journey that occasionally stumbles to resonate emotionally.
7th Dragon III Code: VFD rewards those who are dedicated to its unique brand of role-playing and feeds the rest to the dragons.
Idol enthusiasts will ascend to J-pop nirvana, while the rest of us will find TMS to be a perfect appetizer to tide us over until Persona 5
Not the jump forward I was expecting for this series, but a light and entertaining RPG nonetheless.
Recommended to those seeking an RPG that is light in all senses of the word.
If you like traditional JRPGs but Trails in the Sky was a little too dated for you, Cold Steel is exactly what you've been looking for.
A content-rich sci-fi adventure that diverges from its predecessor in unexpected but delightful ways.
If you've played Trails FC, you need to play Trails SC, period.
A polished cyberpunk graphic adventure with themes other developers rarely handle with this much finesse.
A visually appealing but ultimately trite series of references to much better games.
This thrilling game of high-stakes detective falls short narratively but remains strangely compelling throughout.
You could do better within the Ys series, but it's still near the top of the pack as far as retro-styled action RPGs go.