Derek Heemsbergen
- Earthbound
- Xenoblade Chronicles
- Anything by Falcom!
Derek Heemsbergen's Reviews
Mass Effect: Andromeda presents plenty of great ideas, but these tend to be either aped too closely from its predecessors or buried under issues that are surmountable yet frustrating all the same.
7th Dragon III Code: VFD rewards those who are dedicated to its unique brand of role-playing and feeds the rest to the dragons.
Bad Apple Wars' lean tale of passionate teenage love in purgatory is, in a word, fine. But "fine" doesn't leave a lasting impression.
A surreal, weird, and original RPG quite unlike anything else in the (Soul) space, YIIK's heart beats stronger than its technical shortcomings.
Recommended to those seeking an RPG that is light in all senses of the word.
This nostalgia-fueled collectathon is a pleasant, if juvenile, tour of Final Fantasy's greatest hits.
Dream Daddy is a sharp and humorous visual novel that unfortunately erases the notion of queerness from male-male relationships.
At $10, Kero Blaster is pushing it in terms of justifying its price point, but there's no denying that it's a silly, well-crafted little game that feels good and oozes charisma.
Kingdom Hearts fans - particularly those who can justify the game's astronomical price point of $60 for about five hours of new content - will definitely enjoy their brief time with Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue.
Episode Gladiolus is worth checking out for its rugged action and blood-pumping music, though its plot points really should've been part of Final Fantasy XV in the first place.
Chaos;Child is a grim, gory murder mystery that could have been brilliant with some judicious edits to its content and pacing.
Smoothing out the wrinkles, Perfect Chronology evens out to an experience of roughly the same calibre as the well-worn original.
Calling The Longest Five Minutes a deconstruction of 8- and 16-bit RPG tropes is only half-true, as it turns around and reconstructs those same tropes by journey's end. Still, it's a brisk and amusing adventure that knows how to play to its strengths.
The Alliance Alive's one-of-a-kind atmosphere and decadent soundtrack are high notes in an experience otherwise subject to the whims of random number generation.
The Royal Pack is a well-realized bundle of miscellany that refines the core Final Fantasy XV experience while reminding us that it's still an incomplete game sixteen months after launch.
By ditching previous entries' clumsy attempts at innovation, Super Mario Party reminds us how fun it can be to crowd around a TV and roll dice with the Mushroom Kingdom crew.
While unlikely to ever eclipse the popularity of games starring his do-gooder counterpart—lo, art imitates life—Wario's series of wacky microgames nevertheless exudes such raw charisma and fun factor that it's hard not to root for him.
In reinventing Fire Emblem for a new console generation, Three Houses doubles down on its philosophy of player choice, but neglects to make all choices equally valid.
In going so far retro, Pier Solar HD shows that it hasn't learned from modern advancements in game design.
Lulua is an exceptionally safe Atelier title that feels less like a return to form and more like an achromatic stroll down the rugged cobblestone of memory lane.