Originally a spin off from the Dragon Slayer series by Nihon Falcom, The Legend of Heroes series has now been in active development for over twenty-five years. The latest entry in this long-standing franchise is The Legend of Heroes Trails of Cold Steel. Unlike some of the previous instalments, it…

Immersion is arguably becoming one of the hotter topics in the game industry, especially with several VR platforms launching next year. The first two Sword Art Online games took this to the next level, as the protagonists of the story could not leave the Virtual Reality MMO they were playing…

The 20th anniversary of the Tales series is here in the form of Tales of Zestiria, a simultaneous greatest hits collection of all the successful Tales tropes while also being the series’ first leap into the current generation and on PC. With enough throwbacks and gameplay revisions to keep the…

The Disgaea series has never focused on changing its formula but rather improving upon what it has been doing for years, adding a few new parts to the mix to keep things fresh. Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance does not take any risks but it does offer some fresh new…

The theme of roaming dungeons and defeating monsters have been a role playing game staple for many years, but the idea of capturing the monsters that you find inside for use at a later date is limited to a select few. Sting Entertainment’s latest release, Dungeon Travelers 2: The Royal…

Roleplaying games often visit the theme of post-apocalyptic events, either focusing on the destruction caused by the main antagonists or the characters that are caught in the crossfire. Lost Dimension is a combination of both, and has been developed by Etrian Odyssey co-developers Lancarse. On initial impressions, I was expecting…

Secret societies that protect the human race from monsters are a common plot device in video games, more often than not requiring you to harness superhuman abilities to keep the world safe. Operation Abyss New Tokyo Legacy has taken this concept, and placed it within a fictional modern day Japan.…

Cultural differences are one of the many reasons that certain games never cross the border from one country to another. With Criminal Girls Invite Only, a remake of the original Criminal Girls on the PSP, it is easy to understand why this is the case. While on the surface it…

Disgaea 4: A Promise Revisited is a port of the PS3 version of the game Disgaea 4: A Promise Forgotten and has been remade to work with the PlayStation Vita hardware. For those that don’t know, the series is a 2D anime strategy turn-based game and boy is it all…

There are many things in life that you wouldn't expect to work well together, such as fish fingers and custard, or opposing sub genres of the same kind of video game. However, ATLUS's latest release, Persona Q, has taken the two worlds of Etrian Odyssey and Shin Megami Tensei: Persona,…

The concept of a sequel is often welcomed by RPG fans, with players longing to see their favourite characters in new situations, and enjoy new styles of gameplay. Tears to Tiara II: Heir of the Overlord does follow this trend, but as the original did not receive an international release,…

We finally got our hands on the full version of Tales of Hearts R and we are ready to see if the full game creates a greater impression than the preview did. Is it going to be a tale to remember or is it a heartbreaker? As mentioned in our…

With Freedom Wars, SCE Japan Studio has tried to combine a story about living in a hyper Orwellian society which sentences you to hard labour for 1,000,000 years for the crime of being born, with the resource collecting, big creature killing of games like Monster Hunter or God Eater. Does…

The mythology of vampires has been interpreted in many different ways in the past few years, with the adult focused Vampire the Masquerade and light hearted representations in The Sims 3 providing opposite ends of the spectrum. The latest title from NIS America, Akiba’s Trip Undead and Undressed, is another…

It sure has been a long time coming, but Level-5 and 1-Up’s adorable RPG, Fantasy Life, has finally made it to Western shores. Released in Japan back in 2012, the game has made moderate waves over the course of its already lengthy life, but will Fantasy Life’s new audience enjoy…

Compile Heart are no strangers to the JRPG market, with their Hyperdimension Neptunia series proving very popular due to its unique take on the console war in the previous generation. Fairy Fencer F is the latest European release from the company, originally released in Japan almost twelve months ago. It…

If you found yourself standing in front of a mysterious coffin with strange symbols on the front, would you decide to walk into it? Well that’s exactly what Lady Chou Chou, the ultimate god and conqueror of the seven worlds, decides to do. Needless to say, it doesn't end well,…

Spike Chunsoft may be a relatively new company in the grand scheme of the video games industry, but they have definitely made their mark with games such as Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates of Infinity and Danganronpa. Now they decided to hand back the portable monsters and masochistic teddy bears, and…

ATLUS have produced many different kinds of games over the years, from surgery-based visual novels, to ethical simulators involving sheep. They are also famous for retreading their footsteps, by releasing expanded versions of their older software. This is exactly the case with Etrian Odyssey Untold, as it invites you to…

Many Japanese role-playing games have become household names in the western world, combining fast paced battle systems with a story of usually epic proportions. One of the most well-known of these franchises is the Tales series, which was originally produced by Namco in the early 90’s and is still going…

Back in 2002, Final Fantasy X came out to showcase the power of the PS2's emotion engine. While considered primitive now, it was ground-breaking stuff at the time, and because of that it not holds a special place in the collective JRPG memory. Twelve years later, both Square-Enix and fans…