#Steam
#Steam
by Omar (@siegarettes)
If you know anything about me, you know that I have a soft spot for robots. Well, okay, more like a liquefied gooey center that spills out whenever I get the chance to talk about them. If the design of Heart & Slash is any indication, developer AHEARTFULOFGAMES does as well. There’s an art direction that evokes the Mega Man Legends series, clear nods to other famous robots, and a return to themes of artificial beings finding a sense of humanity that’s been popular since Pinocchio came around. The story itself centers on Heart, the titular protagonist, struggling in a post-human world against QuAsSys, a quality assurance system moving to create a world of perfect equality—by removing the unique individuals it sees as defects. Naturally, that puts Heart, with their Apple II inspired chassis and singular design, in opposition with QuAsSys, which of course means a lot of robot brawling.
By Omar (@siegarettes)
There’s something comforting about the construction of myth. A sense of adventure that feels at once larger than life, incredulous even, but at the same time often intimate and familiar. That’s the feeling that Moon Hunters attempts to capture. Each hour long session is designed to produce a unique story for you and your friends.
By: RJ (@rga_02)
In 2013 Compile Heart decided to branch out and create the Galapagos RPG label. Under that label they would produce a variety of games targeted towards the Japanese audience with a more serious tone than their usual Neptunia RPGs. Fairy Fencer F was the first game to be produced under that moniker. With industry veterans such as Nobuo Uematsu and Yoshitaka Amano (both known for their wonderful works on the Final Fantasy series) working on this project and with a more toned down plot than the usual Compile Heart game, this game seems like it was geared towards the gamers who have been avoiding CH due to their Neptunia notoriety. Did Compile Heart achieve that goal? Let’s find out.
By: RJ (@rga_02)
This review of Final Fantasy XIII-2 is from my experiences with the game through the PS3 and the PC port. I have played through the English & Japanese version of FFXIII-2 on the PS3 and the initial version of the Steam port.
I recently had a conversation about Final Fantasy in a cafe recently. He noticed I was playing Final Fantasy IV and struck up a small little talk about the franchise we both loved. We talked about the highs and the lows, and what we’d like to see in the future. Then he made a comment on how Final Fantasy XIII-2 is the poor man’s Chrono Trigger but with a better battle system. Now, I was inclined to agree about the battle system, but Final Fantasy XIII-2 is nowhere near the fabled SNES classic.
By: RJ (@rga_02)
Here’s a bit of a disclaimer. My love for FFXIII is well documented. I platinumed the game two times on the PS3. Hell, I even bought a copy for the Xbox 360 - a console I don’t even own. I recognize its faults, but I tend to look past those and enjoy what is presented before me. There is something beautiful beneath all the uncertainty. And with its recent release on the PC, I wonder if it can recapture that beauty for me.
By Omar (@siegarettes)
I made a decision and a man died. I didn’t have to. I knew that it might happen before I made it, I had the chance to back out but I still went ahead. I did it because I was selfish, because I wanted to get to where I needed to be faster, not because it was the only way. I hovered over the “LOAD GAME” option and realized that I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t fair. I knew what could happen, and now I needed to live with it.
This was the moment that defined my experience in Vagabond Dog’s Always Sometimes Monsters. Monsters is largely built around giving you choices void of “correct” choices. Even so, in this instance I was wrong. My moral compass told me I had betrayed the vague sense of values I’d lived by. I deserved to live with the consequences. Even then, the game never came out to punish me for it. Somehow, that made it worse.
By Omar (@siegarettes)
Does RIchard & Alice need to be a videogame? Visually rough, running on the conventions of nearly archaic adventure games, its presentation speaks of a more handicraft approach in a landscape where indie megaliths are quickly approaching the visual flair and polish of their big budget counterparts. By contrast R&A’s artwork is basic, representational. The soundtrack is part composed works and royalty free, and I suspect that a version of Adventure Game Studio is running underneath.
What’s left to hold it together then, is its writing, an element that videogames have often been anemic of good examples.