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I love this game. I really, truly love it. It's the realisation of a genuine fantasy, and, as I said at the start of the review, this is the kind of completely immersive experience that is exclusive to VR that makes for the most compelling argument for the technology.
Red Lantern have proved themselves to be masters of both narrative and game design, and nothing would make me happier than for the whole world to come and appreciate the unique Taiwanese flavour that Detention brings to the indie game scene.
I love any excuse to step back into an Atelier game, and the Dusk trilogy is an especially heartfelt and wonderful series. I’m glad Koei Tecmo got around to localising the Vita version of this game. It’s more a concession to the fans who bought the first two on the Vita than anything else, I suspect, and I’d be surprised if Koei expected this to make any kind of money, but it is a good gesture by the company to allow us to finish our collection for Atelier games on the go.
Even as a dedicated single player game, Dynasty Warriors: Godseekers is one of the best games available on the platform. It’s just so perfectly balanced, invigorating, intelligent, and rich.
With Voez, the choreography of the icons leaves you feeling like you're playing an instrument and are involved in the performance of the music itself, and that is incredibly immersive and engaging. As I said at the start; this is the Nintendo's secret weapon, because this is one very special game, and exclusive to the console (at least, in its microtransactions-free state), and it's absolutely essential.
Most importantly, given that this is the first time that he's helmed the creative side of an Atelier title, Shinichi Yoshiike has proven himself to be a confident and safe pair of hands to shape the series into the future. As such, I expect that this series will continue to remain my favourite among the more traditional JRPG franchises out there.
What is important to any great visual novel is that it has great writing, and the Danganronpa games are by turns hilarious, reflective, intense and jovial, the characters are all unique and interesting, and the twists and turns are often startling. Visual novels just don't get better than these.
The best way to describe Everything is that it's a game that lets you play as everything. I don't mean that in the sense that you can play as anything, though you can do that (at least, any of roughly 1000 different things coded into the game). Rather, I mean that it's a game that lets you play as a conceptual Everything – that one grand, all-encompassing thing that we are all part of, that binds us together, and that exists within all of us.
It's intended to be the final piece of the BoxBoy! puzzle, and it's going out on the highest note possible.
It's a deep, complex, stylish game that blows every other fighter out of the water, but made surprisingly accessible through things like the Stylish control scheme and a Combo/Mission modes that serve to teach useful, practical combos and strategies.
It's an interactive metaphor for grief, and all those strange, complex emotions that all seem get balled into one when you're grieving. RiME is a beautiful game in so many ways, but this is what makes truly special.
A Rose in the Twilight is, in its entirety, a metaphor for the rose itself; it's a truly beautiful masterpiece, but it's also a gothic kind of beauty, in that it's more than happy to stab you sharply, even as you appreciate everything about it. It's a ravishing, masterful work, that will be played by just a handful, but hopefully remembered for a long time to come.
Final Fantasy XII's willingness to be different and innovative has left it feeling every bit as modern and poignant now as any new JRPG on the market, and it remains my favourite game within a series that I hold very precious to me.
This is one of the best tactics JRPGs you can play. It'll last you a long time, become more rewarding the more time that you put into it, and runs just perfectly on the Switch's hardware. You could not ask for a better portable game than this.
I've played a lot of visual novels in my time, and a lot of them are favourite games, but I've got to say, as a student of Japanese history, and a lover of good storytelling, Hakuoki is right up there with my favourite games ever made. Any game that, after finishing, I can put down and say to myself "if that story was presented to me as a novel I would have loved it just as much," is a good game, as far as I'm concerned.
Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds is a romp through time that both feels great and plays great, and at the end of the day, how many people can say that they've romanced someone who played a decisive part in Japanese history?
It's the eye for historical detail that has always made Romance of the Three Kingdoms games so compelling. Like it shows with the Dynasty Warriors series, Koei really knows - and respects - ancient Chinese history, and while the Fame & Strategy expansion pack makes the base game even more strategically complex, the stories that the game tells, even when you'll be spending most of the game looking at a beautiful, but dry, map, makes this also one of the most accessible 4X strategy games ever created.
Suffice to say that 3C3C1D119440927 is a lot, lot more than just an arena mode with some costumes attached. It's an insightful look at the very nature of arena modes and games' general obsession with violence, and the perfect epilogue to the greatest game ever made.
Normally, I wouldn't find much charm in the somewhat simple, blocky graphics. The retro look has been done past the point of a trend, to say the least. But having the elements resemble being made from teeny tiny building blocks is so apt for Block'hood: our world is built with piece by piece, block by block, just as the 'Hood is.
Get Even may not be the best looking game on the market but with a story as well written as it has and with an atmospheric sound design it is hard to remember that you're playing an indie game.