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Games habitually incorporate structure. Loot-driven games like Diablo and Borderlands goad us into the incessant search for new gear. Deadlines in the Atelier and Persona games ensure we don’t dawdle. And almost any role-playing game ...

For some, the appeal of the Japanese role-playing game is rooted in the cultural. JRPGs are often masterworks of storytelling, crafting rich contexts inhibited by colorful casts of characters who experience satisfying character arcs and ...

If there’s a certainty across game narrative, it’s that the end of the world is imminent. The sole divergence is how the apocalypse will occur, whether it’s Left 4 Dead’s and The Last of Us’ ...

Once a fundamental genre of the industry, the arcade racer’s popularity has dramatically decreased in recent years. Not long ago, franchises such as Outrun, Ridge Racer, Need for Speed, and Burnout dominated by delivering high-speed ...

Quite a few films, live-action or animated, take a while to reach their eponymous highlight. That’s not the case with the recent stateside release of director Hiroyasu Ishida’s Penguin Highway. Working from Tomihiko Morimi’s (Eccentric ...

Across its three-decade long history, the three-dimensional dungeon crawler has been surprisingly resistant to change. Take a look back at 1989’s Dungeon Master or 1991’s Eye of the Beholder, and you’ll find a framework that ...

Cultivated over half a century, the term omake is rather prevalent in Japan. Translated to ‘extra’ or ‘bonus’, the term refers to everything from small trinkets given with the purchase of food or drink to ...

Pedigree is often accompanied with elevated expectations. That’s likely the case with the PlayStation 4 and PC release of Zanki Zero: Last Beginning. Uniting several members of Danganronpa’s development team with Lancarse, the team who ...

The Switch’s popularity has propelled publishers to reach into their back catalogs, with the hope that a re-issue can pad the company coffers. Occasionally, that means players receive a second-serving of a lackluster title or ...

Unsurprisingly, VIZ Media’s inaugural interactive publishing extends a chatty narrative conveyed through manga-like character portraits. What is unexpected is the ingenuity behind The World Next Door’s real-time mechanics, which offer an innovative twist on match-three ...