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Art by Chewygummo "I can't believe they were still talking about what to do! What were they waiting for?" Released in 2004, Dragon Quest VIII saw a number of firsts for the series, including 3D graphics, limited voice acting, and the use of "Dragon Quest" as opposed to "Dragon Warrior" in western regions. It quickly became the best selling game in the series up until that point, particularly in the west, and has received near universal praise from critics, it is frequently b

Released in 2016, Maize is an absurdist comedy take on the point and click adventure genre that draws heavy inspiration from Monty Python and X-Files. We start the game waking up in a corn field where we're gently guided toward an abandoned farmhouse. After a bit of exploration and light puzzle solving, we then come face to ear with sentient stalks of corn who, using some baffling logic, allow us to enter a secret facility beneath the small farm. We spend the majority of the

As with any journey, especially those of self discovery, the true value lies not in the destination, but in the friends we make along the way. In the spirit of that, I want to dedicate today's post to the myriad of characters that I feel stood out for me. Whether they be characters that prove to be more than the sum of their parts, exceedingly well written, or simply characters that left me feeling like a blushing schoolboy, the following is a non-comprehensive list of my fav

Art by Metal Art "It's so much easier to see the world in black and white. Gray? I don't know what to do with gray." Introduced in 2007's Mass Effect, Garrus first appears as a member of Citadel Security (C-Sec), frustrated by the limitations of his position and, indeed, the law in general. This comes to a head when Garrus is all but told to drop his investigation into fellow Turian, Saren. Saren's position as a Spectre effectively puts him above the law, which greatly frus

Seen as a spiritual successor to Deck13 Interactive's 2014 release, Lords of the the Fallen, and taking inspiration from the 1994 title, Rise of the Robots, The Surge is a refreshing sci-fi take on the Soulslike genre. Taking place in a dystopian future in which mankind has exhausted the world's resources, we take on the role of Warren, a wheelchair bound new employee of CREO, one of the largest tech conglomerates renowned for its revolutionary breakthroughs, such as advanced

Art by Viavaly Art "I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying you're not right either. But I do want to know what it's like to be on the side of right." Introduced in 2019's The Outer Worlds, Parvati is likely the first companion most players will encounter in the game. With some rather obvious inspiration from the character Kaylee Frye for the short lived series Firefly, she quickly became the favorite character among Obsidian staff due in large part to her likability an

Hello, and welcome to the first annual Dpademy Awards. This is part one of a four part series that will be released every Sunday of the month of December. Over the course of the year, I've played over 52 games, and while I've written separate articles for each game, this is where I get to take a closer look at things, big and small, that either I didn't cover or that I wanted to gush more about. The categories are a bit unconventional, but that's part of the fun. For this, I'

Art by Indy K "The world before the fall, Lovely is the light of dawn, Noble is the heart of man..." While it might be considered cheating just a bit to include any of the cast of Final Fantasy VI, I feel as though Cyan is often overlooked as he's generally overshadowed by the more technically "good" characters in combat, and by characters whose growth is more directly seen over the course of the game. In the original version of the game, Cyan's special ability, Bushido, is

Made over the course of seven years by German developer Matthias Linda, Chained Echoes is a passion project that serves as a love letter to classic JRPGs. Influenced by games such as Suikoden 2, Xenogears, Final Fantasy VI, and Secret of Mana, among others, Linda was mindful to not just copy the games that inspired him. Instead, he sought to capture the experience of playing them, to make it feel like how one remembers they play, even if they exist better in your head than in

So, small confession, over the years, due to living in apartments and trying to be courteous to others, I developed a pretty bad habit of playing games with either low volume or with no sound while I listened to podcasts or Youtube playlists. I know, general heresy, but this was yet another bad habit I was determined to break this year. Making full use of the aux port included on the Xbox controller, this year I played games while wearing headphones, taking in the full array

Spoiler warning for Live A Live, the Dragon Age franchise, and Final Fantasy VIII Releasing in Japan in 1994 as a Super Famicom exclusive, Live A Live puts a unique twist on the RPG genre. You begin with a choice of seven different characters, each in a different time period ranging from prehistory, the wild west, present day, and the far future. Each of these time periods sees us take control of different, unrelated characters, each with their own stories, allies, and goals

Beginning development in 2005, Tales of Vesperia is the 10th installment in the Tales franchise, and was initially planned for the PS2. Feeling limited by system hardware, and at the urging of Bandai Namco's executives, the decision was made to push it to the next generation of consoles. As the PS3 had yet to be revealed and with the Xbox 360 doing very well in western markets, it was made with the 360 in mind, with the team working with Microsoft on how to best utilize the p

Debuting in 1999, Super Smash Bros. began life as Dragon King: The Fighting Game, and used generic polygonal character models as placeholders as director Masahiro Sakurai struggled with how to make the game stand out. His first idea was to have the game feature famous Nintendo characters, but he knew that he'd never get the greenlight to do so. At the urging of Satoru Iwata, who would later go on to be the President and CEO of Nintendo, Sakurai went ahead and developed a prot

Based on a comic book series of the same name, The Darkness puts us in the role of Jackie Estacado, an orphaned hitman for the Franchetti mob family as he is targeted for assassination by his "Uncle" Paulie Franchetti who believes that Jackie is planning to take his place by force. We open with Jackie on his 21st birthday as an ancient demonic force makes it known that Jackie will now serve as its host, imbuing him with supernatural powers. At the time of release, The Darknes

Though it debuted in 1997, South Park's origin dates back to 1992 when Trey Parker and Matt Stone created a roughly four minute short about a group of boys in a small town who accidentally trigger a fight between Frosty the Snowman and Jesus Christ. The original short, filled with crude humor, was made using construction paper and an old 8mm film camera, and was made while the two men were attending the University of Colorado. Three years later, in 1995, the pair were commiss

After the release of their debut title, The Unfinished Swan, the team at Giant Sparrow wanted to create something sublime. As creative director Ian Dallas described, the goal was to create "an interactive experience that evokes what it feels like to have a moment of finding something beautiful, yet overwhelming." Initially drawing on his experience scuba diving in Washington, seeing the ocean fall off into darkness in the distance, the team struggled with several aspects of t

First announced in March of 2019, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum seeks to answer questions that, to the best of my knowledge, nobody asked. Taking place between the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings proper, players take on the role of Gollum as we get a glimpse of what exactly the little freak was up to. Originally slated to release in 2021, the game was pushed back and finally released in 2023, and was panned across the board as an absolute failure of a game. Is

After spending the better part of a decade creating The Stanley Parable and The Beginner's Guide, writer and director Davey Wreden began to experience what most creators do when they put their heart and soul into their work: burnout. Seeing as how his previous works blurred the line between commercial narrative and personal experiences, challenging the kinds of stories that can only be told in the medium of video games, it should come as no surprise that he and his team funne

Released in 2015, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is, obviously, a continuation of The Witcher video game series, which is based upon the fantasy novel series of the same name. It's heavily inspired by Slavic mythology, and while based upon an existing work, author Andrzej Sapkowski had no involvement in the writing, giving the development team license to create their own completely new story. Still, the video games often reference and allude to events in the books while also expand

Starting as a webcomic in 2009, One-Punch Man is the story of Saitama, a regular guy who trains himself to the point of being able to defeat any enemy with, you guessed it, one punch. As such, he becomes bored and spends his time searching for stronger opponents. He's not a hero with deep convictions, instead he fights against the forces of evil for fun, as a way to feel something. In 2012, the story received a digital manga remake with an anime adaptation in 2015, and has si