One of the first RPGs to land on the Playstation in 1997 was an unassuming, Old West-inspired game by the name of Wild Arms. Though it never managed to compete with more mainstream series, it has a greatness all its own; with a solid difficulty balance, a variety of puzzles, and a plot that …
Author Archive
A Farewell to (Wild) Arms
Thursday, August 20th, 2009 by chrisReview – Black Sigil
Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 by chrisBlack Sigil screamed promise. After being impressed and occasionally a bit burned with indie games, a DS game by a small but dedicated team of RPG fans sounded really good. Graphically inspired by Chrono Trigger, its visuals are both nostalgic and fresh on a system that needs more sprite-based games. Even after …
Review – Rune Factory Frontier
Thursday, July 16th, 2009 by chrisFarmer’s Diary, Day 1
I have no knowledge of my past. I found myself in a town I had never heard of with only a half-dozen denizens. They told me I could have the farm. How kind of them to take me in for a while.
Now I just need to get some seeds, …
Review – Dark Souls
Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 by chrisIndie games aren’t always incredible. I’ve had great experiences with Mount & Blade, The Spirit Engine 2, and World of Goo. After these outstanding games, my expectations were high coming into Warfare Studios’ Dark Souls, which is a classic-style RPG with a darker-than-usual plot… perhaps a bit too high.
The first thing that should …
Review – Baroque
Monday, May 4th, 2009 by chrisBaroque has been wronged. There is no other way to put it.
I held off on getting this game until fairly recently, when I saw it for sale at $20. I wasn’t willing to buy it at $50 because I had heard all about how terrible the game was; crippling difficulty, a complete lack …
Review – Uncharted Waters: New Horizons
Monday, April 27th, 2009 by chrisAhh, the Virtual Console. A wonderful vault of games long forgotten, chock full of titles from a simpler time. We didn’t have to manage inventory, talk to the right townspeople to progress, perform stupid fetch quests or deal with purposefully vague objectives. Back in those days, men were real men, women were …
Review – Suikoden Tierkreis
Thursday, April 16th, 2009 by chrisI have enjoyed the Suikoden franchise for a good chunk of my life now, and have come to appreciate the series standards: 108 varied and colorful (if often throwaway) characters, no small amount of intrigue and diplomacy, a focus on large-scale battles and political or ideological change, and so on. Although the series has …
Review – Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria
Monday, April 6th, 2009 by chrisThe original Valkyrie Profile was, for a time, the poster child for good, rare, and probably overpriced PSX RPGs. In a surprising move a few years ago, Square Enix announced (to the joy of JRPG fans) not only a sequel, but a remake of the original. At the time I was interested, but …
Playing catch up – Phantasy Star IV
Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 by chrisI was a Nintendo kid growing up (until that stopped being cool, when I defected to Sony). I got a Genesis very late in the game, so I’m still playing catch-up on the Phantasy Star games. A couple months ago, the final game worth mentioning in the series was released on Virtual Console. …
Review – Persona 4
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 by chrisAfter blue comes yellow. So it would seem with the release of Persona 4, which has the same engine and battle system as its predecessor. Despite all this, it comes off as a much better game – Atlus clearly took the time to figure out what went wrong in Persona 3 and fix …
