Deck-Building games are my bread and butter, and I love it all the more when a developer pushes to experiment with the gameplay format in new ways. The roguelike deck-builder has become the norm for adapting this style of gameplay, but games like Baten Kaitos and SteamWorld Quest have used its foundations to present more linear, story-driven role-playing experiences. While SOULVARS, the newly-released Switch title from publisher SUEISHA GAMES, might have originally been released as a mobile-only title, it is by no means a quick and dirty port, or a low-effort affair. There’s some strong tactical foundations and expansive customization to be found here, if you can hand wave some of the game’s weaker elements.

For a long period of time, I believed that Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door was as close to perfect as a Mario RPG could get. Its turn-based, action-command combat, light and varied atmosphere, and translation of many fundamental mechanics found in the Super Mario platformers into Role-playing concepts were just delightful, and the game served as a perfect entry point for a fledgling Role-playing fan. That being said, I understand how some contemporary gamers might look back on this title and scoff. With more recent Paper Mario titles being focused on aesthetically gorgeous titles that unfortunately lack in substance, the modern Nintendo fan might not understand why a Role-playing game with customization, multiple levels of depth, and a heartfelt story might be so appealing. Some might even find Paper Mario's turn-based combat a relic, favoring Super Paper Mario's action-platforming approach instead. It seems Nintendo may feel the same, because the reveal that Mario would...

Shin Megami Tensei V is currently in development for the Nintendo Switch, which may come as a surprise to longtime fans of the series. The gap between SMTIII and SMTIV was a substantial nine years, jumping from the PlayStation 2 to the Nintendo 3DS. The advancements between these two titles were few, with the latter actually taking a step back in representing its monsters as 2D portraits, but SMTIV was still very much a gargantuan Role-playing game, featuring 70-90 hours of gameplay, a fully-voice-acted story, and many monsters to obtain and unlock.

With an HD port in Code of Princess EX and characters appearing in the soon-to-be-released Blade Strangers, it seems that this delightful little action-based Role-playing game is getting some love. Whether or not this is warranted, however, is another story. Code of Princess is, in many ways, a conundrum. Featuring absurd character designs, a wacky localization, incredibly extensive online functionality, and a slew of customization options, this game also suffers from terrible performance issues on the Nintendo 3DS, punishing difficulty, and a bland soundtrack. It is far from a perfect experience, which is perhaps why the prospect of co-operative play and altered enemy A.I. are large pushes- and welcome changes- in the EX package.

I took a look at the Octopath Traveler demo version recently, and it left quite an impression on me. I'm still not quite sure whether it was positive or negative, however, mostly because the game's intentions are still somewhat elusive. While there are some aspects of the demo that appealed to me a great deal, others feel a bit nebulous, and the game as a whole seems to lack some direction. While the developers have apparently taken some of the concerns of those who evaluated the game to heart, there is still much that has not been said about Octopath Traveler, and while its aesthetic is striking and its homages evident, I hope to address some concerns regarding this new Square Enix RPG.

Dandara is not an easy game. One could attribute this to the speed of its primary attack function, labyrinthine design, limited health and energy regeneration systems, or perhaps most obviously the punishing currency mechanic, but I would argue otherwise. The most unfamiliar aspect of Dandara, and what largely sets it apart from other games, is its movement system. This aspect dictates the momentum and difficulty of almost every moment of game, and without it, Dandara would likely be a lovely conceptual experiment in Afro-Brazilian artwork and storytelling, but would fail to make an impact otherwise. The addition of this system pushes Dandara into a whole new level of interactivity, even when most of its content is deliberately and intentionally scripted. While linearity in an interconnected-world action platformer (I ain't callin' this a Metroidvania) is not usually considered much of a positive aspect, I would argue that Dandara is actually much better because of this choic...

Death in video games is tricky- it usually serves as a punishment for not playing the game "correctly," although it is more often used as a save-state reload. Essentially, if the player is doing something wrong, death is a way of resetting incorrect or sloppy play and allowing them the chance to approach from another angle. How does this factor into Skipmore, a Japanese independent developer whose three action-RPG titles have appeared on both the 3DS and Switch eShops? Though the small size and simple graphics of Fairune, Fairune II, and Kamiko may look low-budget and lacking depth, there is something lurking beneath the surface of these three titles that allows for continuous revisits and a greater level of complexity. Although Kamiko is much more transparent in the way that it encourages speed-running, these games treat death as a means of complicating their gameplay and encouraging precision and strategy.

Breath of the Wild is a hugely important game, not just for the Zelda series in which it exists, but also for Nintendo. As one of the largest projects they have ever worked on, and the first Zelda title to truly use open-world design, there was a great deal riding on the shoulders of this title. Upon its release, it received an overwhelming amount of positive feedback, which is something of a double-edged sword. On one hand, this likely means that the open-world, or rather, open-air philosophy for this particular entry to will carry on into future 3D Zelda games, with a focus on interconnected systems and organic experience. On the other, there are some aspects of Breath of the Wild that I believe have not received their fair share of critique, and I worry that they too will transfer over into future entries. This is a game so massive, it requires an equally massive, sloppy look at it from every angle I can possibly think of. Within this analysis, you will find what I consider to b...

January 11 th was the night of the first in-depth press conference for the Nintendo Switch, and I remember jokingly telling my friends at the time that I would likely hold off on buying the new system until Monolith Soft announced their first title. Imagine my surprise when I saw the first, bare-bones teaser trailer for Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (XC2) that very same evening, with a tentative release date of 2017 attached. I reined in my expectations in the months to come, knowing full-well how XCX had taken such a long time to develop, and how little of this new title we had seen. News that the original soundtrack had just finished recording before E3 did not give me much hope, but the game would be featured there and given a release date in the same holiday time-frame as XCX. Shocked and now enthralled, I began to listen more intently to how the game's mechanics would work and play. While the Treehouse demo was informative, it had only a few instances of exceptional pl...