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While Nippon Ichi has enjoyed sustained success with the Disgaea franchise, the Gifu-based publisher/developer has often struggled to cultivate another hit. Sure, Spike Chunsoft’s Danganronpa games has earned critical and commercial acclaim and NIS America gradually nurtured stateside appreciation ...

Rogue-likes typically task us with delving into dangerous dungeons filled with enraged foes and just enough assistive loot to sustain the whole expedition. Undoubtedly, 2011’s The Binding of Isaac challenged the blueprint. Although the action-based ...

Remasters are marketed as definitive editions that harness the power of newer hardware. But all too often, they’re disappointingly slapdash ports intended to do little more than pad a publisher’s coffers. From the Jak and ...

2011’s Hyperdimension Neptunia offered an allegorical battle between four anthropomorphized consoles, who fought to become the reigning goddess of a realm called Gamindustri. The franchise mushroomed in popularity, spurring a secession of sequels, remakes, and ...

WayForward Technologies has often been the redeemer of the licensed game, offering impressive interpretations of film and television tie-ins, as demonstrated by Thor: God of Thunder, Aliens Infestation, and Batman: The Brave and the Bold ...

It’s widely known that 2D sprite-based gaming underwent a sharp decline with the rise polygon-pushing machines. Such changes happened nearly overnight with the release of 32-bit consoles such as Sony’s Playstation as well as the ...

In Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell popularized the 10,000 Hour Rule, which suggests that expertise emerges from “determined practice”- a system that continually pushes a skill set as much as possible. Gladwell’s attributes the success of ...

Mirroring the moniker of their parent company, Idea Factory, developer Compile Heart has been consistently proficient when it comes to conceptualization. Record of Agarest War introduced an intriguing “Soul Breed” system into the SRPG genre, ...

Intellectual properties are vigilantly defended in the United States. Try to make your own Star Wars fighting game and you’ll likely receive a cease and desist letter as soon as Disney discovers your aspirations. But ...

Few countries feature as rich a gaming heritage as Japan. Known for crafting unique experiences, several genres as we know them today was either created or inspired by titles hailing from the rising sun. Yet, ...