When judged purely on its merits as an RPG 2009's Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light is... it's fine. It's faux-retro in many of the ways I don't really want a game to be, with multi-level dungeons filled with staircases leading to dead ends (or a solitary chest containing an item that's never quite … Continue reading Four good-lookin’ Heroes of Light
I love Sega Bass Fishing. That little Dreamcast game is everything other virtual fishing experiences are not. It's exciting for starters; its arcade roots allowing users to get straight to the best part of the whole soggy affair - teasing a hungry fish with your specially selected lure before hooking and then frantically reeling them … Continue reading The Mother of all fishing games
In its original form Dragon Quest X remains online only and exclusive to Japan (the upcoming offline version is an entirely separate and heavily reworked entity), although it's a little easier to get into these days thanks to a Final Fantasy XIV-style relaxation on its entry requirements: Anyone living in Japan (or pretending to be) … Continue reading My Dragon Quest X Diary: Part 01
One of the joys of buying strange little Japanese PlayStation games in particular is that you never quite know what you're going to get: Maybe you'll end up owning an(other) adventure game or train driving sim, or maybe you'll end up riding hot air balloons over impossible landscapes or blasting away in zodiac themed tunnel … Continue reading A bug’s life
What do you get when you mix Columns with Sakura Taisen? You get something close to my idea of heaven - now on Dreamcast! As you may have guessed from the large yellow "2" plastered on the box (and the title screen) Hanagumi Taisen Columns 2 is a direct sequel to the Saturn/ST-V puzzle hit of very similar name and … Continue reading A match [three] made in heaven
I bet most people love a good game starring GIANT MECHS. I bet even more people love good games starring GIANT MECHS wielding LASER SWORDS, their enormous and effortlessly impressive metal frames contrasting beautifully against the frequent tiny human figures dashing around their feet and other mundane miscellanea such as cars and lamp posts added mostly to give … Continue reading Stylish X68k action
There's no point pretending otherwise - this box of delights is damned expensive. Even if you can read every last word in the two included books as well as you do your native tongue, and the DVD's contents are everything you ever dreamed of, and you're desperate for an accurately modelled 1/6th scale range of … Continue reading Review: SEGA hard historia
Woah, wait! Hear me out! OK let's make one thing very clear before I carry on: No, I didn't bang my head before I sat down and wrote the bizarre title you see at the top of this page. Hang on... that makes it worse, doesn't it? Anyway, please just let me explain what may … Continue reading PAL retro games deserve to be preserved, respected, and re-released
If the screenshots of Gravity's Korean-born PC RPG shown below look familiar it's probably because you've spent some happy time with their best-known work, the phenomenally successful MMO Ragnarok Online. The same standard of spriting excellence found in their long-running online game is found in equal measure in this single player title, Arcturus' art remaining as much … Continue reading Never judge a game by its cover
Games are supposed to give us a playable hero to identify with - a central figure who is just that little bit stronger, smarter, sassier, and generally better than everyone else created to support them. They're designed to be the first person you notice on the cover and when playing they'll get all the best … Continue reading More important than the leading man
