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Beginning development in 2018, director John Johanas described Hi-Fi Rush as a dream game, an idea that he'd had in mind for a very long time. The game was partially inspired by the films of Edgar Wright, and served as a way for Tango Gameworks to branch out from the survival horror genre. As the game was wildly different from the studio's prior work, the team decided to keep quiet about development to avoid skepticism. After Bethesda was purchased by Microsoft, marketing sug

In 1999, Keita Takahashi joined Namco as an artist. As an artist, he believed his art needed to combine the practical with a bit of whimsy and humor. It was while working as an artist at Namco, specifically on a game titled Action Drive, that Takahashi came up with the characters of a King, Queen, and Prince of the cosmos. His ideas involved the Queen being kidnapped by agents on Earth, and the lazy King would send the Prince to rescue her using his hammer shaped head to stun

Originally released for the PS2, Persona 4 is the fourth installment in the Persona series, which itself is a spinoff of the Shin Megami Tensei series. While the Shin Megami Tensei series dates back to the late 80's, the Persona series began in 1996, and was heavily associated with Playstation for many years. While both series have maintained popularity in Japan, they remained a niche cult classic in the west. Despite immense critical acclaim, I never jumped into the series u

Set in the time gap between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, Outlaws puts us in the role of Kay Vess, a young scoundrel, as she attempts to form a team for a high stakes heist. At her side is her animal companion, Nix, and ND-5, a droid commando that previously served in the Clone Wars. It was developed by Ubisoft's Massive Entertainment studio, which had been wanting to move beyond the games as a service model, and is notably the first Star Wars game to be dev

Roughly five years ago, when it seemed as though the entire world had been shifted on its head by real world events, it was apparent that there were going to be big, far reaching effects. To this day, we're still seeing the ripples, and we likely will for years to come. One of the things I was most interested in was how such a large scale event would impact different forms of media, with video games being my primary curiosity. While I'm certain I can point to numerous example

Released in 2014, Child of Light is a colorful, whimsical take on the turn-based RPG genre. Looking at the game, with it's gorgeous water color aesthetic, it's poem infused dialogue, and its relatively short runtime, you'd be forgiven for the assumption that it's an indie gem made by a small, passionate team. That's why it's both a surprise and delight that it was developed and published by Ubisoft, a studio known for large, high-budget, frankly bloated open world games. Sadl

Before starting this year's challenge, I had a strong desire to replay Oblivion, as one often does. Originally released in 2006, Oblivion feels like a remnant of a bygone era, one where the lines between console and PC gaming were blurring like never before, and games truly started to feel open and free. While I had played the previous entry in the Elder Scrolls series, Morrowind, it was Oblivion that truly sank its claws into me. While I've played Bethesda games since that

In the far off, distant year of 2007, human cybernetics and flagrant abuse of DNA manipulation have completely changed the face of war. When an elite agent, Colonel Sloan, goes rogue, there's only one man who can stop him: Rex "Power" Colt. It's up to Rex to stop Sloan's mad plan to revert the world to a pre-historic state, all while contending with the perverted excuse for wildlife that inhabit the island, including the needlessly perfect killing machines known as the Blood

Developed by a single person, Thomas Brush, Pinstripe took a little over five years to create. Originally slated to be released in 2016, Brush took to Kickstarter in order to get funding to quit his full time job and focus solely on development. The Kickstarter not only met, but exceeded its goal in under two days, quickly hitting all of the set goals and stretch goals, which included a bonus level, a new game mode, and full voice acting. For the sake of full transparency in

More than any other game I've covered thus far, Lunar has given me the greatest headache in deciding which year to place in the article title. See, normally the article title is the easiest thing for me to do, as I'm writing about these games in the order I played them this year. So, the number is simple, as is the name in almost all instances. The year, which is included in parentheses, only becomes problematic in the case of remakes and remasters, though I've decided to sti

Originally released in 1999, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver is a sequel to Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, though I feel that does little service to the fascinating story behind the scenes at Crystal Dynamics. Blood Omen was developed by Silicon Knights with heavy influences from vampire mythology, Shakespeare's plays, and The Wheel of Time book series, among others. Crystal Dynamics played the role of publisher for the first game. A lot of research and time went into the lore and w

Promise Mascot Agency, the second game from developer Kaizen Game Works, is one of those games that if I describe it, you'll immediately know whether or not it's for you. You play as Michi, a yakuza lieutenant known as "The Janitor", who is disgraced when an assignment goes wrong. Instead of killing him outright, he's banished to a small town that's cursed to kill yakuza men and put in charge of a failing mascot agency turned love motel. It's up to you to recruit mascots, tur

In 2015, a group of employees from Avalanche Studios, having worked on the Just Cause franchise for a number of years, founded a new studio known as Experiment 101. The idea was to get back to the basics of video game design, wanting to create a game that was "fun in a good way," thus work began on what became Biomutant. By 2018, the studio had 18 employees with a flat organization. While the flat organizational model isn't unique among software companies, it is rather novel

I have written and rewritten the beginning of this article dozens of times in my head. Not because I have nothing to say, but because I have so much I want to convey while also not spoiling even a moment of the relatively short runtime of this, for lack of a better word, masterpiece. Going in to this self imposed challenge, I had a handful of games I knew I wanted to play, as they cast long shadows over the industry. To the Moon has been on my radar for years, as its narrativ

Video games, as a medium, can be used as vehicles for amazing, compelling stories. Creators have the chance to tell deep, meaningful tales that explore a wide range of themes, whether it be deeply personal narratives or broad, sweeping topics. By nature of being interactive, video games can allow for a more nuanced approach, forcing the player to make tough decisions and question their beliefs and morality. The best among them will leave the player with a sense of personal gr

After the commercial success of the original Suikoden, production began on a sequel which would be released three years later. While Suikoden II was a commercial success in Japan, it was met with a lackluster initial response in the west with a tepid critical reception. The most common criticism was directed toward its use of simpler 16-bit visuals at a time when the industry was shifting focus to 3D games. Because of this, it saw a limited production run in the west, and did

After releasing Max Payne in 2001 and Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne in 2003, the team at Remedy Entertainment took some time to recover from the crunch and started coming up with concepts for a new project. Among them, a deeper narrative story influenced by the works of Stephen King and David Lynch. To further distance this new project from the incredibly linear, action style games they'd made previously, the original concept was an open world sandbox game with a heavy e

So, before starting this self imposed challenge, my experience with the Far Cry series was minimal. When Far Cry 2 was released, I decided to give it a shot based on the critical acclaim it received and was interested in the realism that had been gushed over. The idea of travelling around a simulated slice of Africa where I had to ward off disease and repair my vehicle if it broke down was enticing. I stopped playing the game after dying repeatedly and discovering that vehicl

One of my favorite aspects of the RPG genre is having a variety of characters from which to choose to put in my party. It makes the journey to save the kingdom or world seem more realistic when you have more than just four or five people out there trying to do it, and it allows for replayability by virtue of giving you options and even challenges for your adventure. No franchise, outside of the monster collecting subgenre, does this better than Suikoden, which offers over 100

Early on, video games were seen as a novelty, but quickly gained the reputation for being used for marketing. It's well known now that even the most iconic video game character of all time, Mario, only exists because Nintendo wanted to make a game based on Popeye, but had to change things when they didn't have the rights to do so. While that is ultimately a success story, it's no secret that for a long time, video games based on existing properties were, more often than not,