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First released in 1997, the Harry Potter series quickly became an international phenomenon, and easily sits among the top ten highest grossing franchises in history, currently nestled comfortably between the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Hello Kitty. While certainly not without controversy of its own, unsurprising considering its focus on wizards and magic, it inspired a generation of children and adults to discover a love of reading, and has inspired an untold number of work

Over the course of the past year, having pushed myself to pay games an write about them, I find myself having learned a few things that I can't really find a place to write about. Some of these are small things, others lessons I should have learned well before now, but all of them I wanted to cover here. Consider this a sort of proof that I've grown, or at least changed, since starting this site. Game Length Despite what you may have been told, length very much matters, thou

Art by crazlei "Give the word and I shall kill the clown. We would be praised as heroes!" After a lengthy early access period, lasting from 2020 to mid 2023, Baldur's Gate III took full advantage of the playtesting and community feedback to tweak and fine tune the experience of the final product. Among the numerous changes, certain characters were given more focus, with few among them benefiting more than Minthara. Initially intended as a companion character if you chose "ev

Releasing in 1996, the Pokémon franchise, originally developed from director Satoshi Tajiri's childhood love of collecting bugs, has grown to become the highest grossing media franchise of all time. What began as a passion project that was cobbled together with barely functional code exploded into a juggernaut that easily rakes in over $10 billion dollars a year. With this massive success comes a ton of pressure to constantly release new items, whether it be trading cards, pl

Artwork by general_din "You are looking for forgiveness, but I'm not the one who can give it to you." Introduced in Dragon Age II, Fenris goes against many standard conventions of the fantasy genre. He's an Elf, but instead of being elegant and frail he's a sturdy warrior who wields a two-handed greatsword. Instead of being prim and elegant, he's brash, rude, and at times vulgar. Instead of having a natural affinity for magic, he harbors a deep rooted hatred of the arcane. D

Hello, and welcome back to the first annual Dpademy Awards. This is part two 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 thi

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