April2024
Mini Review Marenian Tavern Story: Patty And The Hungry God (Switch) - Solid If Familiar Fare
Meet Patty
This game was originally covered as part of our Nindie Round Up series that sought to give coverage to a wider breadth of Switch eShop games beyond our standard reviews. In an effort to make our impressions easier to find, we're presenting the original text below in our mini-review format. Marenian Tavern Story: Patty and the Hungry God...
March2021
Review Citizens Unite!: Earth x Space (Switch) - Two Mid-Tier RPGs For The Price Of One
Ambassador, with these RPGs you are really spoiling us
Comedy in video games is an extremely difficult prospect. As everyone well knows, the truest comedy in the medium comes from the stupid jokes and antics of you playing with your friends; scripted yuks are generally hamstrung by the inherent repetition and player-controlled pacing of any given...
November2019
Review Raging Loop - A Gorgeous Visual Novel Cursed With Pacing Problems
Kill or be killed
If you’ve ever had a friend excitedly praise whatever TV series they’re currently watching only to have them, almost apologetically, say “it starts off really slow but gets really good about 12 episodes/chapters in” then you’ll have a really good idea of what it’s like to play Raging Loop. Initially, Raging Loop’s...
September2018
Review Fernz Gate - A Retro-Style RPG With Some Interesting Ideas
When worlds collide
You’ve really got to feel sorry for developer releasing a traditional RPG on Nintendo Switch in the wake of Octopath Traveler. Square Enix’s throwback summer release may have had a few niggling issues, but it took all the things we loved from the glory days of Final Fantasy and made them feel fresh and new once more. Fernz...
May2018
Review Asdivine Hearts (Switch eShop)
Shock to the heart
Kemco’s prolific JRPG output was a staple of the 3DS and Wii U eShops, and continues apace on the Switch, with the initial release of last year’s Revenant Saga followed by Dragon Sinker and now Asdivine Hearts. A port of a 2014 mobile release by Exe Create, Asdivine Hearts is an old-school JRPG that’s entirely competent but...
February2018
Review Dragon Sinker (Switch eShop)
Legendary Sinker or Legendary Stinker?
If you were around playing games in the late '80’s and early '90’s you might have caught a fever, a JRPG fever. More often than not you would spend hours reading and gazing at the images on video gaming magazines at Japan-exclusive titles that were deemed unmarketable in the West. Among many of those games...
January2018
Ghosts in the machine
While some videogame genres remain quite open-ended in interpretation - puzzles or platformers, for instance - others have become decidedly codified. Perhaps no template exemplifies this phenomenon as much as the ‘roguelike’, a game type born from its 1980 PC namesake and with a modern presence on nearly every console under...
December2017
Review Mom Hid My Game! (Switch eShop)
Mum's the word
This summer's Nindies showcase thrust a number of smaller, lesser known and previously unannounced titles into the Nintendo Switch buying publics consciousness, including Mom Hid My Game!. It's fair to say that it was met with a wide spectrum of reactions. Mostly somewhere between bewilderment and ridicule, the game didn't...
November2017
Review Revenant Saga (Switch eShop)
Irreverent
Few systems have been blessed with the sheer number of RPGs of Nintendo’s plucky little 3DS, and perhaps no publisher has been as persistent in its contribution to that collection as KEMCO. It's brought more than a dozen titles — most of them mobile ports — to the 3DS’ eShop, alongside a smaller number to the Wii U, and now that...
February2017
Review Legna Tactica (3DS eShop)
Tactica Generica
Kemco has been steadily supplying gamers with a glut of RPGs through the 3DS eShop over the past few years, all ported from mobile and mostly middling in the truest sense of the word — decent but forgettable games that riff off of classics. As the company's latest release, Legna Tactica is a dependable continuation of that policy,...
December2016
Review Unlucky Mage (3DS eShop)
Ill-fated Illusionist
From Dragon Quests and Shin Megami Tenseis to Pokémon and Fire Emblems, the 3DS is an RPG powerhouse. It's a testament to the eShop's offerings, however, that those famous names are flanked by a flurry of mid-tier RPGs of every persuasion, some of which are certainly worthy of your time. Kemco has been a prolific publisher in...
July2016
Review Infinite Dunamis (3DS eShop)
Infinitely Decent
Kemco has found a comfortable niche on the eShop; over the past few years, the publisher has been steadily putting out budget JRPGs ported from mobile, from Grinsia to Justice Chronicles. They vary in quality, but their mission remains the same: to provide low-priced, nostalgia-tinged JRPG goodness. As the latest in the lineup,...
June2016
Review Justice Chronicles (3DS eShop)
For middling justice!
Kemco has been nothing if not busy lately, keeping 3DS owners occupied with a steady stream of eShop JRPGs, and Justice Chronicles is the latest in this line. Though it suffers from a number of common ails of its ilk — like awkward translation, a generic cast, and uneven presentation — Justice Chronicles does have some neat...
April2016
Review Asdivine Hearts (Wii U eShop)
Meowzers, it’s a Sassy Cat God!
Kemco has certainly released a lot of RPG mobile games over the past few years, so much so that it's hard to filter out which ones are actually worth playing. Asdivine Hearts was initially released for mobile and was a combined effort from both Kemco and EXE Create. Was it worth it? Yes. It's not going to win any...
March2016
Generica
From old-school platformers like Shovel Knight to the pixel-art renaissance, what's old is new again these days, and retro revivals have made for some wonderfully received games in recent years. The best of these projects leverage clever design, modern sensibilities and plenty of polish to craft experiences that feel like games as we...
October2015
Review Chronus Arc (3DS eShop)
Could have used more time
Chronus Arc hearkens back to the JRPGs of the Super Nintendo era, or at least it tries to. Kemco's 3DS port of its 2013 RPG has some interesting ideas but, sadly, they don't fit the overall experience particularly well. The story of Chronus Arc starts off interestingly enough: as the Time Rewinding approaches, a ritual...
December2014
Review Alphadia Genesis (Wii U eShop)
Alphadia Generic
Like every other game genre, there's no one set of generally agreed-upon rules for what makes a Japanese RPG good. Some people simply can't stand turn-based gameplay, feeling it's an obsolete relic of an era gone past; others get misty-eyed with nostalgia and/or prefer its more deliberate pacing. Then there are gamers who debate...
May2014
The trouble with nostalgia
In 2008, Matrix Software and Red Entertainment teamed up to develop a turn-based Role-playing game for the Nintendo DS appropriately titled Nostalgia. Incorporating classic JRPG gameplay and mechanics with modern visuals, this game was designed to tug at the heart strings of ageing gamers while still managing to provide an...
July2012
Review The Sword of Hope II (3DS eShop / GB)
The great black and white hope
Poor Prince Theo. Not only is his first game still unavailable in the eShop, but his second adventure begins with all of his previous hard work being undone, an evil spirit being set free by would-be grave robbers, the Sword of Hope being stolen, and a young orphan accusing him of murdering his father. He really can't...
October2010
You got Franken in my Castlevania
There is some common confusion surrounding the tale of Frankenstein, namely the fact that Frankenstein is not really a monster, but rather the mad scientist who creates the bolted-neck creature. Developer MotiveTime avoids this common misstep in their game by simply combining the scientist and monster into the same...
September2009
Review Kid Klown in Crazy Chase (Super Nintendo)
You don't have to be crazy to play this game, but it helps!
Super Mario World, Yoshi’s Island, Super Metroid, ActRaiser, Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, Mario All-Stars, the Donkey Kong Country trilogy…these games all have three things in common: they’re all platform games, they’re all on Super Nintendo, and they’re all genuine classics that stand out...
July2009
Review Virtual League Baseball (Virtual Boy)
Does stepping onto the virtual diamond impress?
You take control of a team then bat, pitch and field as you compete against others, either in one off games or a league, offering you the chance to become Virtual League World Champion. Each game lasts for 9 innings though games will end early if a team is winning by over 10 points. For both batting...
