ICYMI Archives

So you want to get into The Trails Series…

Posted by Scott Clay on August 21, 2025

August 21st, 2025 Update: Hey everyone, future Scott here with some updates to our Trails series primer. I originally wrote this article nearly six years ago to help all those looking to get into Trails and drum up some hype for the series. At the time, the only games we had access to in the W… Read More »

So you want to get into The Legend of Zelda Series…

Posted by Noah Leiter on July 23, 2025

So you want to get into The Legend of Zelda series? In some ways, that’s like asking, “So you want to get into videogames?” The Zelda series is everywhere in the gaming world: on store shelves, in online discourse, and steeped in the design of many modern videogames. If… Read More »

Final Fantasy x Magic: The Gathering Universes Beyond Set Visual Overview: An Impressive Tribute to the Storied Series

Posted by Hilary Andreff on May 31, 2025

The energy in the Boston Exposition and Convention Center ballroom was palpable even before the Final Fantasy x Magic: The Gathering panel at PAX East 2025 began. Since the previous card reveals in February, and since the set is due to come out next month, there has been a significant amount of inte… Read More »

Path of Exile 2 Hands-On Preview: Off to a Thrilling & Promising Start

Posted by Zek Lu on November 21, 2024

Path of Exile 2 is shaping up to be a remarkably ambitious follow-up to its predecessor, and the exclusive presentation led by game director Jonathan Rogers gave us a firsthand look at the game’s innovative direction. Unlike past previews that focused on the early stages of the story, this prev… Read More »

Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero Preview and Dev Q&A

Posted by Paul Skevington on November 21, 2024

Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero is a tactical JRPG and the long-awaited sequel to the fan-favorite Phantom Brave, arriving more than 20 years after the original game’s release. RPGFan recently attended a live demonstration of the new title by NIS America, which primarily focused on gameplay and mechani… Read More »

Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake

Posted by Zach Wilkerson on November 13, 2024

“Grandma, I can’t beat these monsters. Can you help?” I stare up, wide-eyed, as I clumsily hand her the controller. As she pushes the controller back into my hand, she whispers, “Oh, you don’t have anyone else in your party, kiddo. Did you go pick up more party members? Be sure to get a healer.” I l… Read More »

A Cut Above the Rest: 10 of the Best JRPG Hairstyles

Posted by Rob White on October 25, 2024

Character design is something I’ve been particularly interested in since I started gaming. I’m always fascinated to see concept art from various stages of development to get an idea of how a particular character’s appearance evolves over time. If a game I love has an art book, you might as well take… Read More »

The End of Service: A NieR Re[in]carnation Postmortem Retrospective

Posted by Patrick Gann on September 18, 2024

[Note: This feature is intentionally spoiler-heavy, and assumes cursory knowledge of the DrakenNieR universe. This article aims to give players who missed their chance to play NieR Re[in]carnation a synopsis of the game’s three story arcs.] In 2021, live service mobile game NieR Re[in]carnation laun… Read More »

Visions of Mana

Posted by Izzy Parsons on August 27, 2024

There was a time in the bygone eras of the Game Boy and Super Nintendo when Mana was a prestigious series. The original Mana game, Final Fantasy Adventure in North America (and Mystic Quest in Europe), was a marvel on the Game Boy. Secret of Mana was a star of the action RPG genre, and the Japan-onl… Read More »

Final Fantasy Composer Masashi Hamauzu Charts a New World for Himself at Anime NYC

Posted by Tim Rattray on August 26, 2024

Some heroes go unsung. Masashi Hamauzu stands as a stark example of this. He’s composed part or all of many Final Fantasy soundtracks you love (most notably X, XIII, and the Final Fantasy VII remake project). Sadly, these contributions become overshadowed by the star power of Uematsu, Soken, and Shi… Read More »

Origins Game Fair 2024

Posted by Jerry Williams on August 10, 2024

Origins Game Fair, as suggested in our feature last year, seems to be undergoing some changes. If you’re an Essen or GenCon attendee, you might not know what I’m referencing, as these conventions seem to have bounced back to normal since the pandemic, per my conversations with others this year. The… Read More »

The Droids You’re Looking For: The Top 10 RPG Robots

Posted by Jimmy Turner on August 7, 2024

One of my favorite archetypes in sci-fi is the artificial or constructed sentient being. They go by many names, including robots, droids, automatons, and synths. I am fascinated by exploring the complexities and moral dilemmas of interacting with an artificial being. There is no shortage of memorabl… Read More »

Metaphor: ReFantazio Hands-On at Summer Game Fest

Posted by Zach Wilkerson on June 10, 2024

Even after a thorough, excellent trailer showing off a variety of things Metaphor: ReFantazio will offer us when it releases in October, I wasn’t convinced that it would do enough to justify its existence as, ostensibly, a Persona spin-off set in a (mostly) medieval world. After getting about 45 min… Read More »

Demonschool Orientation Week: Demo Preview

Posted by Aleks Franiczek on June 6, 2024

What’s cooler than being cool?Demonschool! Now, I’m going to break this thing down in just a few seconds. Demonschool has you play as Gen Z-fashioned university students with demon-sensing abilities and anti-authority attitudes. With one foot planted in Persona’s hangout vibe and the other in Devil… Read More »

Join Us All Summer for Summer Megami Tensei – Now Through October!

Posted by Mike Salbato on May 24, 2024

Summer is upon us, and if you’re a regular viewer (or lurker, we welcome all!) on the RPGFan Twitch channel, you know that means a new marathon is imminent. Scott and our audience had a blast with last year’s Summer of Cold Steel II, so this year we’re upping the ante. With Atlus releasing two major… Read More »

Fallout Season One Review

Posted by Jonathan Logan on April 10, 2024

Nowadays, a lot of people are saying that video game adaptations are the new comic book movies. After decades of unfaithful garbage like Wing Commander, Hitman, and Super Mario Bros., we’re finally getting hyper-faithful shows and movies like The Last of Us, Sonic the Hedgehog, and… Read More »

Dragon’s Dogma 2

Posted by Izzy Parsons on March 30, 2024

It has been 12 long years since the original Dragon’s Dogma. A lot has changed in gaming, particularly in the open world space where games like Breath of the Wild (and its sequel), Red Dead Redemption 2, and Elden Ring have raised expectations considerably. Yet, Hideaki Itsuno and his team at Capcom… Read More »

What Omori’s Emotional Battles Teach Us About Mental Illness

Posted by Tim Rattray on January 2, 2024

If you’ve played Omori, you know how its oft-abstracted ruminations on coping with trauma cut emotionally deep. If you haven’t played it, you’ve likely heard people rave about exactly that. Or, a cursory glance may lead you to pin it as an Undertale-ian jaunt packed with subversive genre f… Read More »

Lunar: Silver Star Harmony

Posted by Noah Leiter on December 29, 2023

Many many years ago, over one dozen years ago even, the Four Heroes of Lunar struck down the world’s greatest evil sorcerer and saved the Goddess Althena, bringing everlasting peace to the land. This is how Lunar: the Silver Star’s PlayStation Portable remake, Lunar: Silver Star Harmony, begins — it… Read More »

Lunar Legend

Posted by Ben Love on December 27, 2023

When I look back at my gaming history, the system that cemented my love of games in general and RPGs in particular is the Gameboy Advance. The clamshell silver brick that was my Game Boy Advance SP kept me occupied in the backseat as my mom ran errands while I played Golden Sun: The Lost Age. It kep… Read More »

Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete

Posted by Scott Clay on December 25, 2023

On a tiny PlayStation demo disc back in the ’90s, a very different type of demo captivated me and never let go. The demo had no gameplay for the game, just an animated segment that lives inside my head to this very day. It was Luna’s Boat Song—a.k.a Wind’s Nocturne—that had grabbed my attention. At… Read More »

RPGFan’s 30 Most Anticipated Games of 2024

Posted by Zach Wilkerson on December 23, 2023

2023 sure has been a year in video games, hasn’t it? We’ve had a brand new mainline Final Fantasy game, an iteration on arguably the most popular Zelda game, and a game that quickly ascended to conversations about the best games ever. Let’s not forget the mound of other excellent games that came out… Read More »

Dave the Diver

Posted by Niki Fakhoori on December 19, 2023

I didn’t expect running a sushi restaurant would be easy. I just wasn’t expecting raising chickens, appealing to acclaimed movie directors and rap stars, and uncovering and assisting a hidden village of sea people to be part of the process. Just as the glassy surface of the ocean betrays the thrivin… Read More »

Final Fantasy XVI: Echoes of the Fallen

Posted by Zach Wilkerson on December 12, 2023

Final Fantasy XVI continued the (now) long history of controversial releases in the series. While some, like me, think it’s close to the pinnacle of Final Fantasy, others have been more critical. But no one can say Yoshi-P and the rest of his team aren’t listening. They’ve done work to improve the f… Read More »

Super Mario RPG

Posted by Caitlin Argyros on December 9, 2023

The original Super Mario RPG, released in 1996 for the SNES, holds a special place in my heart. It was my first RPG, and I had no idea what an RPG even was at the time. It wasn’t until later that I learned what the acronym meant, and I realized that Mario and company helped usher in my love of the g… Read More »

ICYMI(s) Archive