The difference between a very fine game, and an inferior, derivative pastiche can at times be very slim. Mato Anomalies is an excellent example of just how fine this line can be. Clearly inspired by Persona, and a novel attempt and bringing a kind of neon-noir approach to the genre,…
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Gosh Ryza’s gorgeous. Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key, the game, I mean. Not the character (but yeah, also her). The third and final chapter of Ryza’s story is almost upon us, and I’ve had the opportunity to sit down with the opening chapter or…
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“It’s more of the same!” You just know that this is going to be the main comment (and complaint) about Octopath Traveler II. “It’s too much like the first.” Except it’s not. Of course it’s not. Octopath Traveler was a narrative-driven game that focused on the stories of eight distinct…
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Little Witch Nobeta has been a significant (and perhaps mildly surprising) hit since first releasing on PC last year. For a game developed by a tiny team, having a “Very Positive” rating on Steam, off more than 8,300 players, is a significant achievement. Soon, courtesy of Idea Factory International, the…
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Octopath Traveler broke some impressive ground back in 2018. As the first effort with the all-new HD-2D visual engine, it presented us with a new vision of what sprite-based games could look like. It backed that up with a wonderful fusion of the kind of turn-based gameplay that had been…
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I don’t really understand why Idea Factory continues to experiment with action combat systems. Action combat systems are far more resource intensive to get right, and for a company producing JRPGs on a very small budget, it seems counterintuitive. Recent Neptunia titles, including Neptunia Virtual Stars and Cyberdimension Neptunia, have…
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I have reviewed Persona 4 Golden twice at this point. The last time I did – the PC release – I wrote 2,000 words about it. I’ve also penned several essays about the game’s themes, and enthused about it to just about everyone that will listen for the past decade.…
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Mystery. Romance. Monsters. These are common elements of JRPGs. And they are all part of Path of the Midnight Sun, a new indie entry to the genre that has just released. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to preview the game last month. Even in my brief (two…
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One Piece Odyssey is a particularly impressive game for one reason in particular: You don’t need to be a fan of One Piece to enjoy it. So often anime tie-in games consolidate the main anime plotline to an extreme degree, just so the developers can squish some form of it…
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Given how big the Fire Emblem series has become, it’s amazing to think that it has now been four years since the previous “proper” Fire Emblem (Three Houses) was released. That’s been the largest gap between releases in quite some time. I’m not complaining – I would rather the team…
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