Richard 
If you’re a Switch owner with a passion for RPGs, you’re spoilt for choice. A handful release every month, which is a remarkably different situation to the GameCube era. When Nintendo’s purple cube had its plug pulled, it had only a dozen to its name – some of which never made it to Europe, including …
This hack ‘n slash RPG hybrid was originally released on the PSP in 2012. You might not have heard of it until now, and that’s because it was never translated and brought to the West. With the success of the Switch making portable and smaller scale RPGs viable again, developer Falcom has decided to fancy-up …
Fitness games are inherently very difficult to review. Everyone has different fitness needs and there’s a ton of fitness games currently on Switch vying for attention. Zooming out even further, there are the likes of Nike Fitness on Netflix, YouTube fitness channels, and things like Peloton and Apple Fitness. Fitness Circuit certainly has its work …
PQube’s latest visual novel has a haunting, melancholic, and unsettling tone, entailing a glitchy children’s storybook that often spills out into violence and bloodshed. It’s a tale of female friendship with a lovely melodic soundtrack smashed together with trauma, a bit of John Wick, and some discordant electronic bleeps and bloops. Do these ideas work …
Developer Compile Heart seems to have set themselves the challenge of making the most quintessentially Japanese role player of all time. Fairy Fencer F: Refrain Chord features dragons, mechs, monsters, heroes with swords, and a lot of sexual tension. If you’ve seen it before, it’s in this game. Unfortunately, Fairy Fencer doesn’t have much new …
Like a lot of men my age, I’m a huge Haruki Murakami fan. Yet, whenever someone asks me why I like his work, I struggle to come up with a reason. Nothing really happens in a lot of his stories. There’s often a well and a cat and people just wandering around not doing very …
Tetris is, to my mind, close to perfection. It’s also a game that can support an unfathomable amount of mutations. There’s the classic Game Boy Tetris, the annoying controls and T-Spin ticks of the arcade games, the frantic battles of Tetris 99, the blissfulness of the Tetris Effect, the mad energy of SEGA’s Puyo Puyo …
Do you ever find yourself stumbling into an ancient tomb and unleashing an evil genie? Me too. All the bloody time. It’s an issue that seems to be affecting our protagonist, Izzy, too. They should really do something about those tombs. They’re a health and safety nightmare. Of course, when I inevitably unleash another ancient …
Film reviewers don’t have this issue. When film critics talk about ‘challenging’ films, they’re usually talking about films that have shocking content, ones that have disconnected dreamlike narratives, or ones that touch on difficult subjects. Mulholland Drive is a challenging film. But I still managed to watch it all the way through. Donut Dodo on …
This is not a review of Aquarist. I can’t review Aquarist. Let me explain. You see, I write reviews as a hobby. It’s fun to sample new games, see what’s coming out and use my creative side to craft a review. After an hour or so with FreeMind’s Aquarist, an aquarium management game, I wasn’t …
In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war. I remember reading this in a Warhammer rulebook when I was a wee lad. I thought it was the coolest introduction to anything I’d ever read. A bleak volley to the face. A statement of intent. The thing is, and whisper this quietly, …
I’m not an angry player. I tend to either roll with the punches or step back from a game. I’m not one to throw a joypad or storm off in a huff. I prefer the Zen approach. To embrace the cycle of life and death. Take a minute and breathe. Surprising, then, that cute robot …
Some games just seem perfect for the Switch. For instance, I have been playing through the Phoenix Wright Trilogy recently and it fits the form factor perfectly. Zelda: Breath of the Wild also would not have had the success it had if not for the amazing ability to take such a grand adventure with you. …
What’s the difference between so-bad-it’s-good and just plain bad? When do bad voice acting, bad translation, and weird capitalisation choices stop becoming a mistake and start becoming an aesthetic? Hundred Fires brought those questions to mind very quickly. Set in ’60s Cuba, you play as Valero Montenegro, a Cuban mercenary who has more than a …
One of my favourite films is 1962’s The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. It’s about a young working-class boy sent to a borstal, and his relationship with the governor there, who befriends him and invites him to be on the long-distance running team. It’s a great film, but one that was made in 1962, …