Tag Archives: Fan Service

You’d be hard-pressed to find a Japanese role-playing franchise as prolific as the Neptunia series. Beyond a quartet of core entries, a trio of remakes, developers Idea Factory and Compile Heart have also sanctioned a ...

If you’re an ardent role-playing aficionado, you’ve probably liberated dozens of lands and exterminated dozens of humanity-threatening enemies. Tales of epic heroism are ubiquitous in interactive entertainment. Developer Nippon Ichi Software understands this, and with ...

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 ...

Although games often flirt with wish fulfillment, few games devote their entire premise around pure fantasy. But the PC release of Gun*Gal: Double Peace is hardly an ordinary game, with a premise that’s preposterously comical ...

With remakes, remasters, and ports comprise a significant portion of the game industry’s output, it’s natural to be a bit skeptical of the whole practice. Although a number of these reiterations are born from genuine ...

Not long ago, message boards were proclaiming that the death of the Japanese role-playing game was imminent. Stagnancy seemed to be the genre’s unassailable final boss, and developers had run out of creativity-restoring potions. But ...

Often it’s the attractive full-screen images known as CGs (for Computer Graphics) which attracts an audience toward a visual novel. But arguably, it’s the narrative that faces a tougher job- with exposition and dialog tasked ...

Just a few years ago, enjoyment of Japanese role-playing and action games meant a compulsory console or portable purchase. But gradually, publishers like SEGA, Nippon Ichi Software, Koei-Tecmo, and Bandai-Namco began porting their titles to ...

With over a thousand characters spread across 120 chapters, Luo Guanzhong’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms is one of East Asia’s essential epics. Beyond inspiring cinematic works like Red Cliff or The Assassins, as well ...

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, ...