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First announced as a remaster of the original Medievil from 1998, the team at Other Ocean Emeryville would later classify the game as complete remake in 2018. The team felt that it was important to keep as many elements of the original game intact unless they had a good reason to change them. This included retaining several glitches the team felt were important to the experience, and the team went so far as to research music the original development team likely listened to wh

Developed as the first title of the newly formed Riot division of Telenet Japan, Tenshi No Uta: The Angel Verse was released for the PC Engine, better known as the TurboGrafx-16 in the US, in 1991. In 1993. due to declining sales, Telenet Japan underwent extensive restructuring that unfortunately saw a number of their studios close. While some of the staff at Riot would be absorbed into other teams within the company, several key developers opted to leave, founding Media.Visi

Since I started this website over a year ago, I have maintained a consistent update schedule, posting new entries every Tuesday and Friday with the only variation being when I would post more often. Originally, I posted my thoughts on a different game with each update, which I maintained up until fairly recently. However, as anyone who keeps up with the site or looks at the date stamps on the articles will know, for the past two weeks Tuesdays have been silent. I wanted to ad

Beginning development in 2018, the team at Cococucumber wanted to capture the nostalgic feel of childhood in a small town with the active turn-based gameplay of the early Paper Mario games. Using the same voxel-based visuals the team had previously used on the game Riverbound, the game has a unique blend of retro style graphics that still allows for the freedom provided by a fully three dimensional world. This helps the game feel fresh and new while helping to establish the e

Set in what passes for early 20th century England, we play as Lord Winklebottom, a gentlemen giraffe who also happens to be a world class detective. Together, with our stalwart hippopotamus life mate, Dr. Frumple, we're invited to a party hosted by a reclusive friend ours where he intends to announce something big. After a brief point and click tutorial in which we ruin tea and help an old sea dog sober up, we're off to our reclusive friend's island, where things aren't alway

During the development of Serious Sam 4, the developers at Croteam began to experiment with the use of interactive objects as part of the game design. This led to the creation of some complicated puzzles that, while they didn't quite fit the action based design of Serious Sam, the team felt inspired by to build upon as a separate title. After about a year of development, with around 80% of the puzzles that would be used having been completed, the team brought in Tom Jubert a

Last time, we covered the third and fourth members of our ragtag group. At this point in the story, tensions would still be running high as the group is willing to work together for the same overarching goal, but it's hard to say that they're a proper team. Now is the perfect time for them to show what it is they can do as they face off against their first boss. I mentioned previously that Rogue would begrudgingly join the team after Link, Rinoa, and Katt were separated, ally

With development beginning in late 2002, near the tail end of the production cycle for the original .hack series, .hack//G.U. sought to fix some of the issues players had noted with the original series while having a story that was connected yet separate enough as to not alienate new players. Where the original series was comprised of four entries, .hack//G.U. was developed to tell its story over the course of only three. Though the release was initially delayed, this was in

Previously, I introduced the concept and the origin of The R Team, a group of RPG characters who set out to save the fractured multiverse in tandem with the main team. The R Team was selected thanks to Reddit's r/createaroster community, and features more than a few inspired choices. Last time, I introduced the founding members of the team, and today we'll expand on the group, getting to our active party size of four. Katt (Breath of Fire II) "Are you crazy or something?! Wha

As the third and final game in the Vandal Hearts series, Flames of Judgement actually serves as a prequel to the original game. Released as part of Xbox Live Arcade, which focused on smaller, cheaper games, the scope is significantly smaller than previous entries in the series. This was right around the time that Konami started to shift focus away from traditional video game development in order to focus on much more profitable mobile and casino style gaming. While the shift

Recently, I took to Reddit to share the concept of Shattered Destinies and to see what characters and ideas others would suggest for a crossover RPG. I went in with the expectation that I'd learn about a few characters I hadn't known very well and that there would be significant crossover with the characters or games I'd already chosen. Instead, what I got was a group of heroes with no crossover whatsoever in terms of characters for our heroic party, and indeed no crossover w

Oh, to be a child again, in the long, halcyon days of summer. The sun shining brightly, the world rife with the orchestra of life as each day sprawls before you filled with wonder and adventure. While it's easy to take these moments of tranquility for granted, as an adult I often find myself yearning to return to simpler times where my only concern was what to do with all of the excess free time afforded to me. It's these feelings that Kabuto Park aims to evoke, and it's safe

The Challenge: Complete the game using only Poison type Pokémon. As I had attempted to play through this game on numerous occasions, I decided the best way to compel myself to see it through to the end was to have some sort of challenge. The idea of doing a Nuzlocke was almost entirely out of the question as the mechanics in the game took away pretty much all incentive to do so. There are no truly random encounters, thus it would be easy to pick and choose what I got. Not be

Following the release of Pokémon Go in 2016, work on Pokémon: Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee began to capitalize on the resurgence in popularity of the franchise. Aimed primarily at a younger and more casual audience, director Junichi Masuda decided to make the game a remake of Pokémon Yellow, as the incorporation of elements from the anime made it resonate more with the target audience. The decision to have Eevee be the mascot of the paired version came down its fairly wide popu

Any good RPG is going to need enemies to face in order to level up and acquire resources as well as bosses to battle to test the player. For Shattered Destines, I imagine low-level fodder enemies from different RPGs will be present and, in keeping with the crossover theme, would appear in worlds that aren't their own. Dragon Quest Slimes across Thedas, Persona Shadows appearing in Midgar, Darkspawn attacking Mass Effect's Citadel, things like that. Taking familiar enemies and

Created as recently as 1987, nonograms are picture logic puzzles in which cells in a grid are either colored or left blank according to numbers along the the edges in order to form a picture. Due to the easily scaled difficulty of the puzzles, along with the binary nature and blocky nature of the puzzles, they've been a fairly popular form of puzzles in the video game landscape since the mid 90's. So, what do we get when Ed Fear, writer for the game The Sword of Ditto, teams

The first of three DLC packs available for Far Cry 5, Hours of Darkness is, for my money at least, the hands down best of the bunch. Far Cry 5 definitely went above and beyond in terms of how out there they were willing to go for the DLC, including a zombie storyline and a mission to Mars, but Hours of Darkness stands out for how grounded it is not only in real life history, but also in terms of how it provides context for a minor NPC and the sidequest he sends us on. I don't

After the release of Far Cry: Primal in 2016, Ubisoft announced that the next installment in the franchise would need more time in development, and thus would not release in 2017 as had been previously planned. Instead, the game released in 2018, and though it released to mostly positive reviews, the game was steeped in controversy due to the setting and plot. Far Cry had long been known for its more exotic locales and antagonistic groups that were easy to identify as being

While I've posted a lot about the party members that would be available in Shattered Destinies, it's important to note that plenty of other characters from the wider world of RPGs could still make very important contributions to the ongoing efforts to mend the multiverse. For anyone familiar with the Suikoden series, you already know that the list of recruitable characters goes well beyond those suited for combat, and I see no reason that we can't do the same here. As we esta

After the release of Sunset Overdrive for the Xbox One, Sony Interactive Entertainment's VP of Product Development, Connie Booth, met with Insomniac Games' CEO, Ted Price, for an informal, off the record meeting. From this meeting, Marvel's Spider-Man would begin to form, seeing a marked difference both in how Marvel would handle its video game releases, as well as marking the first time Insomniac would work on a licensed property as opposed to an original IP. Since 2000, Act