The Touhou Project began with a collection of meticulously-coded bullet-hell shooters, or danmaku. Coded by a former Taito programmer who operated under the moniker of Team Shanghai Alice, the games earned distinction not just for the ...
Read More »Steins;Gate 0 (Switch) review
All too often, sequalization is motivated by money rather than any earnest attempt at artistic expression. Perhaps that seems like an excessively cynical perspective, but I’ve seen far too many follow-ups that either offer only ...
Read More »Pinball FX3 – Williams Pinball: Volume 5 review
The Disappearance of Pinball In 2007, Budapest-based Zen Studios released their first virtual pinball title. At the time, physical machines were growing increasingly difficult to find. Arcades were on the wane, and most remaining amusement ...
Read More »Jamestown+ (Switch) review
History Class on Mild Hallucinogens Chances are, you might have heard of Sir Walter Raleigh’s attempts to colonize America. After getting caught secretly marrying one of Queen Elizabeth’s ladies-in-waiting, Raleigh hoped to make amends with ...
Read More »Riverbond review
Not Just a Chip Off the Old Block With vibrant visuals built with voxel technology, Riverbond could be mistaken for yet another Minecraft clone. But developer Cococucumber isn’t interested in subjecting players to another derivative ...
Read More »Deathtrap Dungeon Trilogy review
Across the eighties, Games Workshop co-founder Ian Livingstone wrote eleven single-player adventure gamebooks. Each built upon the basic framework of Bantam Books’ popular Choose Your Own Adventure series that delivering branching storylines, where different decisions ...
Read More »Heroland review
Anticipations might have been lofty for co-developers FuRyu and Netchubiyori’s Heroland. With direction from Takahiro Yamane (Fantasy Life), scenarios from MOTHER 3 and Legend of Mana writer Nobuyuki Inoue, visuals from Nobuhiro Imagawa (MOTHER 3, ...
Read More »Bloo Kid 2 review
Bloo Kid 2’s serviceable visuals aren’t much of an enticement. Neither is the derivative play, which feels like a lackluster mash-up of several, more famous sixteen-bit platformers. Let’s face it, you’re probably interested in Bloo ...
Read More »Black Future ’88 review
Time limits are quite common in games. But when Black Future ’88 provides you with a scant eighteen minutes to scale up its procedurally generated tower and exterminate its architect, you’ll undoubtedly feel an upwelling ...
Read More »WRC 8 FIA World Rally Championship (Switch) review
Pity the officially licensed WRC game. Despite continued advancement from a trio of developers across an eighteen-year span, the property has habitually remained in Colin McRae/DIRT’s shadow. The series has rarely been substandard, demonstrating fleeting moments of achievement ...
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