On this episode of Random Encounter, we’re “cranking” up our game to chat about a farming-centric piece of DLC for a pixel-art action RPG and a rogue-like on a tiny, black-and-white screen. First, Nick is here to share his thoughts about the farming DLC for 2021’s Eastward, Eastward: Octop… Read More »
RPGFan recently had the opportunity to speak to Tiny Trinket Games about their upcoming turn-based RPG, Zoria: Age of Shattering, and it looks like they’ve created an entry chocked to the rafters with systems and ideas after seven years of development. The fact that the game is launching into a gami… Read More »
On this edition of RPGs Coming This Week: The biggest MOBA on the planet goes cozy mode, and an up-and-coming action RPG finally hits the big version 1.0. Let’s get into it! Bandle Tale: A League of Legends Story – February 21st (Switch, Windows) Am I telling you that there’s a chance to play League… Read More »
Many consider artificial intelligence to be our future, but what happens once we’re all gone and AI is all that’s left? Crymachina seeks to answer this question in a follow-up to 2019’s Crystar. Crymachina shares many gameplay elements and philosophical themes from its predecessor while exploring a… Read More »
Since the release of Odin Sphere on the PS2, I always look forward to the next Vanillaware game. Their unique art style and great gameplay that mixes the old with the new always results in an enjoyable experience. Moving forward to 2019, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim was quickly one of my favorite games o… Read More »
Rock the Dragon. Kazuma Kiryu starred in at least a dozen video games in the last eighteen years and experienced a remarkable fictional life. In today’s podcast, two of RPGFan’s most enthusiastic Like a Dragon advocates examine the life and times of the Dragon of Dojima, as part of Retro Encounter’s… Read More »
Let’s cut to the chase: you don’t need me to tell you that Final Fantasy IV is a great game. Its residency in the pantheon of gaming history is unquestionable, particularly for those who grew up with it since 1991. This reverence makes a lot of sense: the jump from the original Final… Read More »
Rabbit & Bear Studios has announced the passing of Yoshitaka Murayama, creator of the Suikoden series and director of the upcoming Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. The developer said he died on February 6th “due to complications with an ongoing illness.” Here is an excerpt from the full statem… Read More »
Ys X: Nordics is finally hitting Western shores this fall, and I swear this feels better than receiving chocolates on Valentine’s Day. Publisher NIS America shared that the tenth entry in Falcom’s illustrious Ys series will come to PlayStation 5 and 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam, GOG, and the… Read More »
It’s an inevitability: someone points out that a game you’re interested in has a distinctive look that reveals the engine the game was built in. If you’re lucky, the person is surprised this game was built in a specific engine because it doesn’t look like THOSE types of games. What may have started… Read More »
Life to the living, death to the dead. So goes the banishers’ credo. Red mac Raith and Antea Duarte have been called upon to deal with a ghost situation in New Eden, a fledgling New England town, in 1695. The spirits of the dead are running amok. It’s snowing in June, and the veil between the worlds… Read More »
And we’re back! RPGs Coming This Week took time off last week since, well, hardly anything came out. In case you were wondering, Potion Permit got ported to iOS and Android, and Pixel Noir came out of Early Access (finally, after a last-minute delay from January 18th). This week’s release schedule i… Read More »
I’m not super familiar with Sam Barlow’s games. I’ve never played Her Story, I’ve only recently heard of Telling Lies, and only really had Immortality on my radar recently. That means that I’m looking at Immortality with fresh eyes as it releases for PS5 and Switch, and let me tell you, the experien… Read More »
It’s hard to think of a game developer more influential to the modern indie game development scene than FromSoftware. Clicking on the “Souls-like” tag on the Steam store will greet you with thousands of games influenced by FromSoft’s action RPG series that feature weighty melee combat, copious amoun… Read More »
It’s always been an intriguing thought exercise of mine to imagine a near-future, “JRPG”-inspired roleplaying game setting working alongside the sort of crunchy, tactical combat more associated with genre heavyweights such as FF Tactics, XCOM, or Disgaea. South Korean developer Dandylion published T… Read More »
Opinions are like cats. The internet is full of them. We mostly fall into conventional wisdom here on Retro Encounter when it comes to what games deserve celebration and which games do not (there will not be an episode on Beyond the Beyond anytime soon), but we don’t always go with the grain.… Read More »
I admit, I wasn’t sure how to feel about Final Fantasy VII Remake before it came out. Splitting the original game into multiple parts with completely new action-based combat could have been disastrous. Thankfully, my many concerns were misplaced. It was a joy to explore Midgar more thoroughly, and t… Read More »
The time has come: the second and final chapter of Pokémon Scarlet & Violet’s Hidden Treasure of Area Zero DLC is here in the form of The Indigo Disk. What does it offer players? My colleague Niki argued that the game didn’t need “more” so much as it needed “better” in her review of The Teal Mas… Read More »
Mechs. Mechs never change. What is there that hasn’t already been done with mechs in video games? Brace Yourself Games imagined up something new in tactical RPG Phantom Brigade with an ambitious battle system. Ambition is great, but it doesn’t always translate to something enjoyable. In Phantom Brig… Read More »
On this episode of Random Encounter, we’re looking at a remake of an 18-year-old game and the release of a game that felt like it took 18 years to come out. Since its announcement in 2016, Granblue Fantasy: Relink has been on many RPG fans’ most anticipated lists (it was on ours in 2020, 2022, 2023,… Read More »
After ten years of playing Final Fantasy XIV, I’ve seen enough patch cycles to learn what to expect from the final major update to an expansion. There’s a dramatic event and a final fight, a cooldown period, and then someone new or unexpected shows up to invite or sometimes force the Warrior of Ligh… Read More »
Oh baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby: Persona 3 is back and better than ever. The original Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 is one of the most important and influential RPGs of all time. In 2006, at a time when dating sims were still largely shunned or misunderstood by Western gaming audiences, Person… Read More »
And we’re back today with our individual Editors’ Awards for Games of the Year 2023! This year we have as many editors contributing as I can remember: 16! That’s a lot of cool lists to read. You will notice that we give our writers a lot of freedom with how to approach these, but that’s part of the… Read More »
It’s finally time to celebrate the music of the (last) year! As you know by now, a great deal of incredible games released in 2023, and with them, many notable soundtracks. Our panel today brought some of their favorite songs of 2023, featuring music from some Square Enix heavy hitters to some lovel… Read More »
Should we double check the envelope? We’re in the middle of entertainment awards show season, and it’s high time Retro Encounter decides a worthy ballot for the RPGs with the best characters, music, visuals, gameplay, and story. But to make things interesting, we’re drafting four games for each cate… Read More »
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