Philosophers and media personalities love to debate whether videogames are "art" or just ways to pass the time (why not both? Why does music get to be both but not videogames?) I would like to think that anyone who finds their way to this blog is of the firm belief that videogames are not only... Continue Reading →
Pokémon: Let’s Go: a journey back to the Kanto region and the days of Indigo League
Every Pokémon Generation usually contains one original game, and one remake of a previous game. For example, in Generation 4 Pokémon Diamond and Pearl were original games and Pokémon SoulSilver and HeartGold were remakes of Pokémon Silver and Gold from Generation 2. When Generation 7 rolled around with Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, and... Continue Reading →
What The First Tree can teach us about grief, regret and the complicated relationship between parent and child.
It's quite common these days for videogames to try and deliver some kind of message to their players through their visuals and themes. Usually, this message will be some grand, sweeping ideal about how war is bad, or to watch out for corrupt governments, or that love conquers all. The truth is however that most... Continue Reading →
Overgrowth – bunnies, puppies, slaughter and genocide.
Oh, yeah, this is totally for kids Did you ever watch the film Watership Down as a child? You know, that film from the 80s about fluffy bunnies getting brutally slaughtered by dogs, birds and bigger psycho bunnies, that subtly traumatised an entire generation of kids? Yeah, you know the one. For most British kids,... Continue Reading →
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon on DS/3DS – Gotta Recruit ‘Em All
When it comes to videogame franchises, there is little doubt that Pokémon is the very best, like no-one ever was. Having grossed $92 billion since 1996 it is not only the highest grossing videogame franchise of all time, but also the highest grossing media franchise of all time. Most people are introduced to the world... Continue Reading →
Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance – A challenging tactical RPG, but with added anime.
For many centuries, the world's greatest philosophers and thinkers have pondered over why all the most ridiculous and over-the-top creations always seem come out of Japan. Whilst we are no closer to answering this most confounding of conundrums, in the meantime, Japanese videogame developers continue to anoint the world with some of the weirdest and... Continue Reading →
Blasphemous – The Greatest Metroidvania since Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Kickstarter has delivered us some legendary games over the years: Pillars of Eternity, Shovel Knight, the Banner Saga and now Blasphemous, a metroidvania action-adventure game developed by The Game Kitchen, can be added to the portfolio. Needless to say, Blasphemous isn't the first successful metroidvania title Kickstarter has produced - Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night... Continue Reading →
How Nuzlocking Can Make You Fall in Love with Pokemon Again
Despite being over 20 years old, the Pokemon franchise is still as popular as ever - there's more Pokemon-related internet content out there to enjoy than ever before! From YouTube's dedicated Poketubers and Twitch streamers, to the 3.2 million-strong r/pokemon subreddit, to the truly committed Poke-fans who expand the Pokémon universe with their own high-quality... Continue Reading →
Octopath Traveller: artistically stunning, narratively lacklustre.
Square Enix have been absolutely knocking it out of the park these last couple of years, churning out top quality titles - Dragon Quest XI, the Final Fantasy remakes, Nier:Automata, etc - like it's going out of style. So when Octopath Traveller hit the scene in 2018, Square Enix's new JRPG with a swanky multi-narrative... Continue Reading →
The Falconeer: another win for solo-developers.
The videogame industry has absolutely exploded in the last fifteen years. There are so many games being developed these days that it would be totally inconceivable to even keep track of them all, never mind to actually play all the newest games on release. In a market this saturated, it has become more difficult than... Continue Reading →