Author: Pyre Kavanagh

To The Moon is the kind of title that shows up on People’s top lists, such as “Games That Made People Cry” or “Games That Made Me Feel.” It’s the journey into a person’s mind, where you experience their memories in reverse. How could someone design a sequel to this kind of story? The premise of this narrative involves the creation of an entire person’s life to pass through and then change. As much as I like writing, I would find this an extremely challenging task. So I was excited to get my hands on the updated switch re-release of…

One of the many reasons Video Games can be so interesting as a medium is how the gameplay can benefit a narrative, leading to an experience that sticks with you for a while. Some games are desperate for you to think their narratives are meaningful, like The Last Of Us or BioShock Infinite. It takes something special to blend the two; French development company, Monkey Moon’s Flat Eye, is one of them.  Flat Eye is a management simulator that wants to talk about the future. You play as a new work-from-home manager for the titular company, managing one of…

Back at the beginning of this year, Square Enix and Artdink released Triangle Strategy, a strategy RPG that drew heavy inspiration from the 1995 Super Famicon game Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together. Some people on the Square Enix team responsible for greenlighting things thought it was thus only fitting to rerelease an updated version of that original game with Tactics Ogre Reborn. While Tactics Ogre: Let us Cling Together has seen several rereleases on the Sega Saturn, PlayStation 1, and PlayStation Portable, Tactics Ogre Reborn, a vastly inferior name, let’s be honest, will see the game come to PC…

Strategy RPGs have been in a state that feels a bit dire. Besides Fire Emblem and Disgaea, new big titles had been practically non-existent, with other titles being super low-budget. Triangle Strategy from early this year was an outlier. Still, Square Enix isn’t done because they’ve teamed up with Lancarse for another entirely new IP by way of The DioField Chronicle. A surprising team-up, and with Isamu Kamikokuryo of FF12 fame running character art? This game looks good. https://youtu.be/OfjTe6ITC7Y The DioField Chronicle is a rather point-blank title. This is a strategy RPG about the events that occur on the continent…

Alone on a Friday night? Can’t decide between idols, magical girls, or animal features? If this highly specific situation applies to you, then Whirlpool’s latest visual novel release to be published by Sekai Project, Animal Trail * Girlish Square, might just be the one for you. It throws all three into a blender and spits out a chaotic, cacophonic mess for your viewing pleasure. https://youtu.be/w7SHDtSVd_0 Nakamori Taiga is an idol otaku and our protagonist, a young man who followed the Idol group I/DOLLY55 religiously, specifically for their lead singer Shiratori Rena, until she mysteriously vanished. Despaired and distraught, Taiga eventually…

It’s been a while since a classic Fire Emblem game was released. 2015 in fact, with Fire Emblem Fates (And before you ask, Echoes doesn’t count due to the unorthodox nature of Gaiden). In 2018, SPRG Studio was released, a game maker in which one can craft their own low-budget strategy RPGs in the same vein as classic Fire Emblem. The original creator of Fire Emblem, in fact, Shozou Kaga, decided that he would also have some fun with this game maker, and led a small team to make Vesteria Saga I, which was released in 2019. When you name…

Koei Tecmo is well known for their Warriors games, Musou titles that form the backbone of the hack and slash subgenre of 3D action games. This isn’t the first time they’ve collaborated with Intelligent Systems, as they did with the spin-off title Fire Emblem Warriors and main series entry Fire Emblem Three Houses. Three Houses had large maps and battalions behind every unit, just like the Musou games Koei Tecmo makes. So to see them doing a Three Houses follow-up, but as a Warriors game, is both expected and exciting. How will they build upon the casts and narrative of…

Mystery games make up some of my favorite titles, but for them to stand out, they need more than a raw mystery to work. You can have a great action movie with just great action, fantasy stories become cult classics when they show up with buckets of lore, and historical films just inject dramatization into things to win Oscars. But in a mystery story, you need characters to start it, emotional investment to stay into it, and a potent climax, so the narrative hits its stride when the cards begin to be revealed for maximum impact. AI: The Somnium Files…

Too Kyo games have a very distinct niche on their games, they’ve released Death Come True and World’s End Club, niche adventure mystery games with a distinct unhinged tone, what with superpowered kids on a post-apocalyptic road trip, and an amnesiac dying repeatedly in a hotel that won’t let him leave. But this ain’t about Too Kyo. This is about the other team that worked with them, Izanagi Games, who have decided to take that unhinged tone to their own new solo title, Yurukill: The Calumniation games. And this title, which morphs into escape room puzzles, death games, murder mysteries…

Koei Tecmo is well known for its Warriors games, Musou titles that form the backbone of the hack-and-slash subgenre of 3D action games. So it was somewhat surprising to see them teamed up with Intelligent systems on Fire Emblem Three Houses. Of course, we’re no stranger to seeing them collaborate, as they did with Fire Emblem Warriors, but it seems with Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, Koei Tecmo is making the game they originally wanted to make. A quick look at the systems of Three Hopes, a focus on larger-scale combat with a smattering of named characters and battalions behind…

There’s been a resurgence of pixel art Metroidvania-likes in the indie scene, and I think it’s about time I jumped on board with them. However, with the stream of titles released, it’s hard to keep up, but that changes now with the release of Souldiers. https://youtu.be/b6IjG43Qz3Q Developed by RetroForge studios, Souldiers stars a nameless soldier and member of the Zargian Army who, at the behest of the court magician, have ventured through a cave to launch a counterattack against the kingdom of Dadelm, whom they are currently at war with. However, after an earthquake traps them inside, a valkyrie shows…

Alice in Dissonance is a rather off-the-cuff indie group who developed the visual novel series fault, which are self-professed “cinematic visual novels that tell gripping tales of human drama in a world where science fiction has melded with fantasy”. First off, that instantly sells me on playing these titles and leaves me annoyed that I hadn’t noticed them earlier. Their newest title, fault – Silence the Pedant – LIGHTKRAVTE, which I will refer to as Lightkravte from here on due to space and time reasons, is supposed to serve as a point that anyone can jump into the series from.…

In the leadup to the original AI: The Somnium Files, there was an ARG that took the form of the in-universe character, net idol A-Set (Iris Sagan), who would post weekly videos. They were a lot of fun, really fleshed out Iris’ personality and had their own sequence of lore surrounding them, leading to some great community moments where people would try to figure out what was going on. Ever since the announcement of the sequel, AI: The Somnium Files – Nirvana Initiative, fans were hanging out for another one to pass the time. The original announcement had a puzzle, but that…

The isekai plot is probably one of the most memetically oversaturated story concepts within the light novel sphere and their anime adaptations, and a classic game concept if you want to make a blank slate protagonist. https://youtu.be/DHa134atLSc However, the isekai plot is far less common within the visual novel medium. So for Frontwing’s 2015 visual novel Hatsumira: From the Future Undying, just released in English, I was actually curious to see if anything interesting would be done with the concept. It makes total sense that this title would take seven years to see a western release, it’s a real meaty…

Whilst everyone freaks out over the Kingdom Hearts IV announcement, it was also announced that Dark Road would be delayed until August 2022, for the 4th time. The allegedly full story about Xehanort’s past will be revealed in several months time. You can watch the trailer for the new content at the beginning of this trailer. https://youtu.be/j2DSEkYFRh8 Check out the piece on Kingdom Hearts IV’s announcement, instead.

During the currently ongoing Kingdom Hearts 20-year anniversary event, participants have managed to spot a celebratory message from series director, Testuya Nomura. You can view the message below, followed by our translation of the piece. https://twitter.com/sakuram00chi/status/1513022495531491329?s=20&t=y9dWsq39GtJa2eWwPpnmBA “When I look back on the past, I think back to the time I first started this project called Kingdom Hearts. I put everything I had into it, even to the point of becoming an empty shell whenever I finish working. I want everyone to be happy, after all, that’s what I’ve always been trying to do. What is this story of the heart being…

Phantom Breaker is an anime fighting game developed by MAGES, originally for Xbox 360 in 2011, then arcades in 2013, and then updated slightly and released on the PS3 the same year. If the company name rings a bell to you, it’s probably due to MAGES focusing on visual novels, such as the Science Adventure games like Chaos;Head, Steins;Gate and Robotics;Notes. None of which are fighting games. However, I am a big fan of those visual novels and have wanted to play this game for ages because of the inclusion of two characters from those games. It seemed destined not…

Triangle Strategy is the latest game in the series of Square Enix published games that harken back to classic titles. Like how Bravely Default channeled Final Fantasy V and Octopath Traveller channeled Live A Live, this Artdink developed title channels the classic Ogre Battle games from the mid-’90s to early 2000s, such as Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together. Triangle Strategy had me pumped as a huge fan of strategy RPGs that challenge your skills while providing a gripping narrative. Despite the terrible choice of name, I was very excited to see what the team could pull off. https://youtu.be/97iGZ5yJ4Ac Triangle…

Spin-off games are fun. Sometimes you just get ludicrous sequels to serious games. As such, the only proper way to follow up a 100-hour JRPG about solving a series of murders in a small town is with a canonical fighting game sequel that has an extremely convenient plot to justify the cast going at it.  Persona 4 Arena was originally released on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in 2012 as a sequel to Persona 4. It was a fighting game so solid that it got a whole sequel in 2014. Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, also on the Xbox…

Atlus Japan has been hosting information streams about their upcoming Soul Hackers game, and have revealed on the latest stream that the new project is in fact, Soul Hackers 2. This announcement was made with Live Action theatre-esque performance, followed by the first proper trailer. You can watch the Live Action performance below in the stream below. https://youtu.be/FGHAnih_iqo This was followed shortly by the first official trailer for the new JRPG Soul Hackers 2, which contained an ensemble of characters led by a main heroine named Ringo, who says she’s a superintelligent being born from the sea of information. The video mentions various…