Highlight Archives | Page 4 of 14

Sympathy Kiss

Posted by Audra Bowling on February 20, 2024

Work and love collide in the office romance visual novel Sympathy Kiss, but is this a work evaluation that’s satisfactory or poor? As for my assessment, I find Otomate and Idea Factory’s Sympathy Kiss a delightful visual novel experience. I’m pleasantly surprised by how endearingly heartfelt this ot… Read More »

Random Encounter 289 – Go East, Young Man, and Farm!

Posted by Jonathan Logan on February 19, 2024

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 »

Zoria: Age of Shattering Impressions

Posted by Mark Roddison on February 18, 2024

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 »

RPGs Coming This Week, 2/18/24

Posted by Gio Castillo on February 18, 2024

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 »

Tournament Arc

Posted by Patrick Gann on February 17, 2024

We’re early in 2024, and I’m already looking at a strong contender for arrange album of the year. The jazz/funk/rock ensemble Tournament Arc came out of left field with a debut album that launched alongside a live performance at Super MAGFest 2024. After multiple listens to this senses-shocking albu… Read More »

Ys X -Nordics- Original Soundtrack

Posted by Patrick Gann on February 16, 2024

The time has arrived! Adol is on his tenth adventure in Ys X: Nordics (stylized Ys X -Nordics- in Japan). And as the name and artwork suggest, Adol will be encountering his fictional world’s Viking equivalents this time ’round. Does Falcom’s “Sound Team jdk” have what it takes to write an appropriat… Read More »

Crymachina

Posted by Des Miller on February 16, 2024

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 »

Unicorn Overlord Hands-On Preview

Posted by Scott Clay on February 15, 2024

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 »

Retro Encounter 404 – The Dragon of Dojima

Posted by Michael Sollosi on February 15, 2024

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 »

Final Fantasy IV (Pixel Remaster)

Posted by Tim Rattray on February 14, 2024

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 »

Suikoden Creator Yoshitaka Murayama Has Passed Away

Posted by Gio Castillo on February 14, 2024

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 Cruises West This Fall

Posted by Gio Castillo on February 14, 2024

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 »

An Engine By Any Other Name: Interview with RPG Maker Developer zDS

Posted by Nick Mangiaracina on February 13, 2024

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 »

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden

Posted by Abraham Kobylanski on February 12, 2024

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 »

RPGs Coming This Week, 2/11/24

Posted by Gio Castillo on February 11, 2024

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 »

Immortality

Posted by Wes Iliff on February 9, 2024

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 »

Lunacid

Posted by Ben Love on February 9, 2024

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 »

TROUBLESHOOTER: Abandoned Children

Posted by Mark Roddison on February 8, 2024

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 »

Retro Encounter 403 – Unpopular RPG Opinions

Posted by Michael Sollosi on February 8, 2024

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 »

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Pre-Launch Hands-On Impressions

Posted by Abraham Kobylanski on February 6, 2024

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 »

Pokémon Scarlet & Violet: The Indigo Disk

Posted by Patrick Gann on February 6, 2024

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 »

Phantom Brigade

Posted by Abraham Kobylanski on February 5, 2024

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 »

Random Encounter 288 – Relinked and Reloaded

Posted by Jonathan Logan on February 5, 2024

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 »

Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker Patch 6.5 – Growing Light

Posted by Caitlin Argyros on February 3, 2024

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 »

Persona 3 Reload

Posted by Aleks Franiczek on February 2, 2024

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 »

Highlight(s) Archive