The moment you step outside of Midgar and into the wider world is the original Final Fantasy VII at its most grand. That’s saying something in a game with some of the most memorable set pieces in RPG history, but I doubt anyone denies the rush they felt when they saw the lush, bright, 3D overworld aโฆ Read More »
I love it when villagers rhyme / it makes me as glad as a slime Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age was hailed as an instant classic when it launched worldwide in 2018, and with more than five years of perspective our panel agrees. They discuss Dragon Quest XI’s charming characters, rock-solidโฆ Read More »
One of the biggest stories to feature in today’s Nintendo Direct was the announcement of Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance. Rumors swirled earlier this week that a complete edition had received a rating, but while our own Gio Castillo suspected it would appear in today’s Direct, even he had an admitteโฆ Read More »
In non-Nintendo Direct news, Bandai Namco just announced that Shadow of the Erdtree, the expansion DLC for the 2022 megahit Elden Ring, will be released on June 21st for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC via Steam. The publisher also put out a gameplay reveal trailer, aโฆ Read More »
One aspect ofย Final Fantasy VII Remakeย that was near-unanimously despised was its excessive use of crawl spaces to mask loading screens. You know the ones: crevices, plank bridges, and the like that you navigate by holding the analog stick in a single direction as Cloud and friends inch along. Peoplโฆ Read More »
Work and love collide in the office romance visual novelย Sympathy Kiss, but is this a work evaluation that’s satisfactory or poor? As for my assessment, I find Otomate and Idea Factory’sย Sympathy Kissย a delightful visual novel experience. I’m pleasantly surprised by how endearingly heartfelt this otโฆ Read More »
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: Octopโฆ 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 theyโve 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 gamiโฆ 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 โ February 21st (Switch, Windows) Am I telling you that there’s a chance to play Leagueโฆ 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 aโฆ 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 oโฆ 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 todayโs podcast, two of RPGFanโs most enthusiastic Like a Dragon advocates examine the life and times of the Dragon of Dojima, as part of Retro Encounterโsโฆ Read More »
Letโs cut to the chase: you donโt 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 Finalโฆ 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 statemโฆ 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 theโฆ Read More »
Itโs an inevitability: someone points out that a game youโre interested in has a distinctive look that reveals the engine the game was built in. If youโre lucky, the person is surprised this game was built in a specific engine because it doesnโt look like THOSE types of games. What may have startedโฆ Read More »
Life to the living, death to the dead. So goes the banishersโ 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. Itโs snowing in June, and the veil between the worldsโฆ 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 iโฆ Read More »
Iโm not super familiar with Sam Barlowโs games. Iโve never played Her Story, Iโve only recently heard of Telling Lies, and only really had Immortality on my radar recently. That means that Iโm looking at Immortality with fresh eyes as it releases for PS5 and Switch, and let me tell you, the experienโฆ Read More »
Itโs hard to think of a game developer more influential to the modern indie game development scene than FromSoftware. Clicking on the โSouls-likeโ tag on the Steam store will greet you with thousands of games influenced by FromSoftโs action RPG series that feature weighty melee combat, copious amounโฆ Read More »
Itโs 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 Tโฆ 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 onย Beyond the Beyondย anytime soon), but we donโt always go with the grain.โฆ Read More »
I admit, I wasnโt 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 tโฆ Read More »
The time has come: the second and final chapter of Pokรฉmon 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 Masโฆ Read More »
Mechs. Mechs never change. What is there that hasnโt 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 doesnโt always translate to something enjoyable. In Phantom Brigโฆ Read More »
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