(s) Archive
2025-11-19
As part of the Dragon Quest VII Reimagined Preview, I had the opportunity to interview the game’s producer, Takeshi Ichikawa. As always, I would like to thank him for his time in answering our questions, as well as our translator and the Square Enix team for making the event and interview possible. RPGFan: Dragon Quest… Read More »
2025-11-18
Settle into a cozy and beautiful rural sanctuary in Delphinium, a narrative focused farming game where connections are as important as crops.
2025-11-07
I’m using my list to promote stellar soundtracks from 2023 that might get overlooked when compared to the rightfully praised scores of Final Fantasy XVI and Baldur’s Gate 3. So, without further ado, let’s get to it! Adol Christin -Ys 35th Anniversary Music Works- You can’t really go wrong with Falcom game music, and Yukihiro… Read More »
What a surprise, my Music of the Year for 2023 includes coffee and Final Fantasy XIV! Coffee Talk Episode 2 ~Hibiscus & Butterfly~ Official Soundtrack It’s safe to say that if a Coffee Talk game releases in a given year, I will talk about it in this feature. Toge Productions’ coffee shop sim visual novel… Read More »
Dave the Diver Original Soundtrack MINTROCKET truly has a hit on its hands with Dave the Diver. There’s something inherently satisfying (and wholesome, I think) about Dave’s deep sea sushi adventures, whether that’s narrowly escaping a risky diving situation or admiring the undersea ambiance. The soundtrack deserves more credit for creating and maintaining the ambiance… Read More »
If you were surprised when we published our Music of the Year 2024 feature in September 2025, then buckle up! Our Music of the Year 2023 feature was partially put together on time, but numerous other site projects kept us from being able to complete it. At the time, few team members were able to… Read More »
2023 was quite an unusual year for me. Various life events took place that often caused gaming to be placed on the back-burner, and when I was playing something, it was often older stuff that had been sitting in my backlog for a while. However, this was the year I played my first MMO (FFXIV),… Read More »
That’s right, it’s more of our Overall Music of the Year 2023 list! Like albums 1–10, these are listed alphabetically with no ranking — it’s just a list of our favorites! When you’re done, don’t miss the six Editors’ Favorites lists as well, for even more musical musings. Intro by Mike Salbato NieR Re[in]carnation Original… Read More »
In 2023, I was hardly a twinkle in RPGFan’s eye, but I’ve since ridden my time machine back to share the soundtracks that jumped out at me. As always, Square Enix was killing it across their official soundtracks and arranged albums, but I won’t harp on what my fellow writers have already talked about there.… Read More »
Time seems to move so quickly these days. It really feels like I was just writing about my top picks of 2022, and yet, so many more great albums have been published in the past 12 months. Additionally, while I doubt my complaint made a difference, my non-award to Nintendo must be lifted as Xenoblade… Read More »
2025-10-30
I don’t really like haunted houses or jump scares. But you know what I do love? A good spooky RPG setting. A lot of our staff feels the same, so we decided to put together a list of our favorite “spooky” settings in RPGs! You’ll see some you’ll expect, some you might not, and everything… Read More »
2025-10-29
Rob White Star Ocean: The Second Story is, at least in my opinion, up there as one of the PlayStation-era’s best RPGs. The game just has so many brilliant qualities—the action-oriented combat, the cast of unique and compelling party members which you have to chose between, the fascinating blend of fantasy and hard sci-fi storytelling.… Read More »
2025-10-21
Anyone who’s played games like Dungeon! or DungeonQuest knows the joyful simplicity of throwing dice, finding treasure, leveling up, and wrapping up an easy-going adventure against goblins, vampires, pudding, and dragons. Lord of Loot harkens back to these old fantasy tabletop games that likely borrowed ideas from first edition Dungeons & Dragons. Since retro’s hip… Read More »
2025-10-14
If you show me a colorful alien world peppered with strange plants and even stranger rock formations my eyes will immediately grow by three sizes, so when I first discovered today’s game of choice I knew I had to tell you all about it.
2025-10-02
And we’re back with some more of our favorite “old” characters, including a number of them who are significantly younger than I am! And if you somehow ended up here first, be sure to check out part one, as well. Intro by Zach Wilkerson Col. Jade Curtiss – Tales of the Abyss Writeup by Stephanie… Read More »
I just turned 40 this year. In JRPG terms, I died at least five years ago. But alas, I live! All joking aside, as a staff we make fun of what constitutes an “old” character in RPGs, so we decided to get together and write about some of our favorites! Who did we miss? Are… Read More »
2025-09-28
Back in the glory days of Blockbuster Video, I absolutely rented some tapes that turned out to be real stinkers. Thankfully, I never watched anything that made me fear for my life, unlike the cast of this upcoming episodic visual novel.
2025-09-20
I can’t imagine the difficulty in picking 50 essential or notable indie games over the last five years, to say nothing of doing so without a designated timeframe, but that’s exactly what writer Aaron Potter did with Bitmap Books’ latest release, 50 Indie Games that Changed the World. Before I begin, like I did on… Read More »
2025-09-18
Aleks Franiczek I knew going into Drakengard that I was in for a ride. A pretty much singular ride fueled by an indulgently morbid tone, ambitious genre-crossing design, clever subversions of RPG tropes, an OST from hell, and heaps of jank. What I didn’t expect was that I’d find this ride as enjoyable as I… Read More »
2025-09-05
Wow… 2024 has come and gone. The sheer quantity of game music released continues to grow with each passing year. But I’m not just looking for quantity, I’m looking for the highest quality! Here are my top five (combined OST and arrange) I found in the last year! 5. Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad… Read More »
There were some amazing RPG and visual novel music releases in 2024. Here are six that I particularly enjoyed! The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak OST This mini-soundtrack released with the Limited Edition copy of The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak was only available through the NIS America store. Honestly, you can throw… Read More »
2024 was a colossal year for RPGs, with so much goodness crammed onto my plate, I was in danger of popping, probably accompanied by an explosion of numbers above my head. Consequently, the volume and quality of soundtracks to choose from was bountiful. Although I haven’t managed to get through every significant score, these are… Read More »
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Original Soundtrack In terms of scale, it’s difficult to top the seven-disc (eight, if you count the limited edition) behemoth that is the Final Fantasy VII Rebirth soundtrack. The top-to-bottom quality is undeniable, even if the orchestral tracks do less for me than when the album veers into groovy and poppy… Read More »
Well, it’s that time of the year again! Time to celebrate the best of RPG and adventure game music throughout all of… what do you mean it’s September 2025 now? What do you mean that we got most of this written at the beginning of the year but it took until now for the last… Read More »
For Music of the Year 2024, instead of having all music releases in a single pool, we opted to spin off arrangement and remix albums as well as vinyl releases, to let us highlight an even larger variety of music from throughout the year. See five of our favorites below and check out the rest… Read More »
