Author: Joel

Miitopia is a simple game from the outside. The entire cast of characters in the game is composed of Mii avatars. The player can use a customized set of avatars for their party members, or the game randomly picks them out of a random preset. The basic idea is simple, by using these personalized avatars, the game sets out the player, in this case, your avatar and others around you, on a quest to save the world from the tyranny of the Dark Lord. The game begins with the player picking out a character that can either be created from…

Famicom Detective Club Games were one of the surprise announcements of this year and revealed in a Nintendo Direct. These games were originally released for the Nintendo Entertainment System and remained exclusive to Japan. They are primarily a visual novel but with minor gameplay usually revolving around investigating the environment. The first two Famicom Detective Club Games have received a remake on the Nintendo Switch and were first announced back in 2019, but they were never localized by Nintendo until this year. The first thing that immediately drew my attention to these games is the art style. It looks neat…

Resident Evil Village continues the ‘soft reboot’ that Capcom pulled with Resident Evil 7. It stars the same protagonist, Ethan Winters while bringing a familiar face back to the series with Chris Redfield. While Chris was also a key part of its predecessor, he has a slightly larger role to play for the sequel. There is a lot of similarity between Resident Evil Village and Resident Evil 4, so it is not a surprise for me that I found it one of the best games in the series released by Capcom since Resident Evil 4 launched back on the Nintendo…

New Pokémon Snap was a surprise announcement for the Nintendo Switch. After laying dormant for so many years, the original Pokémon Snap finally has a worthy successor. While it is not perfect by any means and does carry some flaws, there are several aspects of the game that improved over its predecessor and we are not just talking about the visuals. New Pokémon Snap is a completely different spin-off from a standard Pokémon game. While we are collecting Pokémon and having them fight each other in most of the other spin-offs, this one takes a radically different approach. Instead of…

It is strange to see Nier as a popular franchise now because it was a fairly obscure one when the original Nier debuted on the PS3 and Xbox 360. The main criticism against the game was for its lackluster gameplay and combat but praised for its character development and story. Overall, it was critically panned and failed to become a commercial success thus leading to the franchise being put on ice. It was not until Nier Automata released in 2019 that the franchise just exploded in popularity. Nier Automata was a successor to the original Nier that offered a completely…

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio has mostly worked on the popular Yakuza series but when they try to experiment outside it, they have delivered some fantastic games like Binary Domain and Judgment. Judgment is not a new game per se, since it was originally released for the PS4 back in 2019. This newly remastered version brings in a host of improvements from the visual to the performance. Any of the additional post-launch content has also been bundled with this release making it the definitive way to experience the game. Judgment offers a familiar but fresh perspective. It combines the crazy high-stakes…

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 brings back the most beloved entries in the Tony Hawk’s series, and with the capabilities of modern hardware, both entries have received a series of overhauls. In order to make this happen, Activision enlisted the help of developer Vicarious Visions, the studio that gave Crash Bandicoot a similar makeover with the N. Sane Trilogy back in 2017. The studio isn’t new to the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series, however, as it has been involved in the development of a number of Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS titles. Vicarious Visions has done full justice to…

Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time looks and plays like a Naughty Dog developed modern entry in the series would have if the studio still been at the helm of the IP. It’s the first true sequel in over a decade, and, as such, developer Toys for Bob has put in a commendable effort in not only capturing the essence of the original trilogy but also taking things one step further in terms of the overall design. The story continues right where Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped left off. Doctor Neo Cortex, N. Trophy, and Uka Uka find themselves captive in…

Bravely Default II, just like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, attempts to retain its charm of being a classic JRPG while trying to innovate it for the modern era. It bears the same tropes that we have come to love from the genre. Although, due to the oversaturation of the genre due to so many games released across the past few generations, these tropes tend to feel overplayed now. Bravely Default II attempts to avoid this fate by diversifying its combat with a job system and striving to offer a simple but engaging story. Bravely Default II is a good…

Dragon Quest XI doesn’t need an introduction. It was first released for the PS4 and Nintendo 3DS in 2017 but in Japan. It took a whole year for the localization to happen but the platforms changed from a Nintendo 3DS to PC in addition to PS4. For fans of the Nintendo ecosystem, they had to wait a whole year for the launch of the Dragon Quest XI S, which added tons of new content and several quality-of-life changes to the game. There was just one minor issue, and that was the visual downgrade that occurred in the transition to the…