Author Profile

Username
Philip_J_Reed
Articles
264 (214 reviews)
First Article
Tue 10th, March 2009
Avg. Review Score
5.5
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  • Review Kirby & The Amazing Mirror - Messy With Metroid Influences, Better With Buddies

    Oh, Kirby, you blowhard...

    This review, penned by Philip J Reed — our much-missed friend and Nintendo Life contributor — was originally published in January 2012. We're updating and republishing it to mark the game's arrival in the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack GBA library. We have to hand this much to

  • Mario Memories The Creative Joy of Childhood and Super Mario Maker as a Modern-Day Roll of Paper

    Mario Maker is for all the kids who will look back 20 years from now

    In this series of 30 daily articles celebrating the upcoming 30th Anniversary of Super Mario, various members of the Nintendo Life extended family will share their memories and thoughts on the iconic franchise. Next up is Nintendo Life veteran and Noiseless Chatter master Philip J...

  • Feature Video Game Characters Looking for Love - 2015

    High scores guaranteed

    It's Valentine's Day, and with the most commercially romantic day of the year come many traditions, such as exchanging flowers, sending cards, getting sick on chocolate, copying and pasting old feature intros and... combing online dating sites looking for profiles posted by our favourite video game characters! What, you don't...

  • Review Mega Man Zero 2 (Wii U eShop / GBA)

    Zero times two

    Just one year after Mega Man Zero, Inti Creates released a sequel for the Game Boy Advance spin-off. That might sound a bit quick, but Mega Man Zero 2 is no mindless cash-in. It took the sturdy foundation set by its predecessor and built upon it in impressive ways, while also smoothing out the rough edges. On top of that it wove an...

  • Review Mega Man Zero (Wii U eShop / GBA)

    A side character gets a great spotlight

    The Classic Mega Man Series was popular enough to warrant its own spin-off series, Mega Man X. That, in turn, proved strong enough for a spin-off series of its own, and in 2002 it arrived in the form of Mega Man Zero The Zero series spans four titles — all released exclusively for the Game Boy Advance —...

  • Review Azure Striker Gunvolt (3DS eShop)

    Hz so good

    The pedigree behind Azure Striker Gunvolt is the stuff of dreams for a Mega Man-inspired game. Inti Creates, after all, was the team behind the excellent Mega Man Zero series, the Mega Man ZX series, and the classic Mega Man "rebirth" titles Mega Man 9 and

  • Review Mega Man X3 (Wii U eShop / SNES)

    A less than fitting farewell

    In 1996, the Mega Man X series parted ways with Nintendo hardware. Mega Man X3 is how it ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper. The first Mega Man X game got things off to such a solid start that it was almost inevitable that a letdown would come sooner rather than later. After all, with so little room for improvement,...

  • Review Mysterious Stars: The Singer (DSiWare)

    Only connect...

    Connect the dots, dot to dot, join the dots...whatever you called it growing up, the odds are pretty good you didn't think the game would be improved by a storyline. That's unfortunate, because that's the one thing Mysterious Stars: The Singer has to differentiate itself from an inexpensive book of similar puzzles. Well, no, that's...

  • Review Shovel Knight (3DS eShop)

    This is the kind of shovelware we can dig

    Shovel Knight is the adventure of Shovel Knight, a knight with a shovel. That simple — and gloriously absurd — premise has somehow resulted in some of the strongest hype the 3DS eShop has seen yet. The good news is that the final product absolutely lives up to the lofty expectations; the even better news...

  • Review 1001 Spikes (3DS eShop)

    Exquisite torture

    We'll get this out of the way right now: 1001 Spikes is hard. So hard, in fact, that it's deliberately unfair. Those of you turned off by that knowledge can save yourself a great deal of frustration by walking on by. Anyone up to the challenge, however, is in for one of the most satisfying platforming experiences in recent years...

  • Review Mega Man Xtreme 2 (3DS eShop / GBC)

    An Xtreme Improvement

    Mega Man Xtreme left us feeling a bit underwhelmed. While its intentions were certainly good, the execution was lacking and the experience felt like a far clunkier retread of levels we've already played before, rather than much of a game in its own right. However it's worth noting that the game was originally released for the...

  • Feature Psycholodachi - What Makes Life Sim Games Addictive?

    The emotional connection to your Mii you never knew you had

    The Western release of Tomodachi Life has been met with a surprisingly large amount of publicity. Granted, at least some of that was due to unexpected controversy, but as that discussion died down, popular interest remained. The rise of the life simulation genre is one of gaming's most...

  • News The Lost Worlds of Power: Volume 0 is Available

    Bad writing for a good cause

    If you'll remember, way back in October we covered the news that Worlds of Power, the legendarily awful series of video game novelisations, was being given new life. By...uh...me. The idea was to assemble a motley collection of writers and have them each produce their own terrible, unfaithful, barely recognisable...

  • Review Mega Man V (3DS eShop / GB)

    There's a Stardroid waiting in the sky

    The handheld Mega Man games, up until now, have been remixed mashups of two NES titles each. Some of them hewed more or less closely to the source material, while others were emboldened to evolve the original ideas is exciting new directions. Mega Man V, however, throws the very concept of "source material"...

  • Review Mega Man IV (3DS eShop / GB)

    Great things in small packages

    With one exception, which is also making its way to the 3DS Virtual Console, all of the Game Boy Mega Man games take two of the NES titles and rework them a bit. Some old faces in new places, so to speak. A sprinkling of unique bosses and weapons help to carve out identities for these portable experiences but, by and...

  • Review Mega Man III (3DS eShop / GB)

    Third time's the charm

    After the fun but flawed Dr. Wily's Revenge and the almost thoroughly disappointing Mega Man II on Game Boy, Capcom made a serious and substantial course correction. The result is Mega Man III, and we couldn't be happier about that. Retaining the template from Dr. Wily's Revenge (two sets of Robot Masters, a new Mega Man...

  • Review Mega Man II (3DS eShop / GB)

    Get equipped with tarnished legacy

    Ask any fan of the Blue Bomber to name their favourite game in the series and the odds are good that they will say either Mega Man 2 or Mega Man 3. That's to be expected, though; both of those games are among the best on the NES, a system that had no shortage of great platformers and action games. What's less...

  • Review Mega Man Xtreme (3DS eShop / GBC)

    Xtreme Mediocrity

    Mega Man X is often touted as one of the best games the SNES had to offer, which is certainly saying something. Its first sequel is further from consensus, but it's still safe to say that it's a great followup to its predecessor. If you've played either of these games — and, if you haven't, stop reading right now and do that —...

  • Review Bit Boy!! ARCADE (3DS eShop)

    Kubi, you blockhead...

    It's been almost five years since Bit Boy!! graced the WiiWare service, providing a generation-spanning adventure through the history of video games. Unfortunately the execution of that game was middling at best, leaving a great concept — the guiding of a single hero on a nostalgia-tinged journey through the past — sorely...

  • Review Mystery Case Files: Dire Grove (3DS eShop)

    Dire, dire docs

    You know the drill. Mysterious, seemingly-abandoned location. Haunting atmosphere. Looming tragedy that unfolds through documents you find scattered around. It's a formula that works well for video games in general. As an interactive medium, the scares can be taken to a whole other level in the right hands. The mere fact that you...

  • Book Review Boss Fight Books - Chrono Trigger

    There's more than one way to revisit the past

    It's difficult to write about video games. Believe us, we know. The medium is, strictly speaking, a compound one. Whereas writing about works of art in most media entails a relatively straightforward discussion of how well or poorly the work in question used the tools available to that medium, writing...

  • Review Galaga (3DS eShop / NES)

    Space: The Original Frontier

    There are a few reasons so many early video games took place in space. While the most obvious one is budgetary — a flat black background being quite literally the easiest possible background to render, thereby making "space" a pretty natural choice of setting — there's a psychological reason as well: space is a...

  • Feature Video Game Characters Looking for Love - 2014

    Dating Game Over

    It's Valentine's Day, and with the most commercially romantic day of the year come many traditions, such as exchanging flowers, sending cards, getting sick on chocolate, and combing online dating sites looking for profiles posted by our favourite video game characters! What, you don't do that last thing? That's okay, because we...

  • Review Retro City Rampage: DX (3DS eShop)

    A Blast From the Recent Past

    About one year ago, Vblank Entertainment released Retro City Rampage on WiiWare. While it had also been released in other forms, it served as a notable last breath for Nintendo's first serious digital marketplace. It was a solid game that we enjoyed with some reservations, but the developers made no secret about the...