Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

It’s taken a surprising amount of time to get a game that exemplifies what most people would have expected from a Harry Potter title. The pitch practically writes itself in fact; take the setting of Hogwarts school for Witchcraft and Wizardry and allow players to create their own avatar and enjoy a mixture of school sim and original adventure. Set it within a period where enough recognisable faces from the popular novel series are around but not while Harry, Ron or Hermione are in attendance to avoid breaking canon.

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Land of Livia

Lands of Livia is a title from solo developer Aaron Vernon that attempts to take all of the travel, questing and loot gathering of a large-scale WRPG and create a casual experience that is both relaxing and engaging. Starting out as a free to play model, the game more recently saw a sizable first ‘chapter’ drop that significantly increased content for a small one-off payment.

Adventures of Mana

SquareEnix is fast approaching the point where they will have release more re-release retro content than new games this side of the millennium, but when a company has such a vast and genre-defining back catalog it’s hard to argue against seeing some of their titles getting a lavish remake. Adventures of Mana is in fact the second remake of the originally titled ‘Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden’ (also known as ‘Mystic Quest’ and ‘Final Fantasy Adventure’ outside Japan) after the less than successful ‘Sword of Mana’ version on the Game Boy Advance, and this version easily trumps it’s last-gen equivalent on all fronts by staying closer to the source material.

Suikogaiden Volume 1: Swordsman of Harmonia

It’s a well-known fact that there can never be too much Suikoden. Shortly after the release of ‘Suikoden II’, Konami seemed to realise that consumers felt this way too and promptly released a pair of visual novels that were set around the events of that larger game and built on plot elements that would pay dividends when ‘Suikoden III’ rolled around.

Demon’s Rise 2

If there was ever a poster-child for the table top wargaming experience on mobile devices it would be the original Demon’s Rise, a game that saw a slew of post-release content that quickly fleshed it out into one of the more satisfying and varied tactical experiences of its generation. Now, Wave Light Games Inc. are seeking to better it with a sequel.

Lowlander

Lowlander is the first game to come out of Flat Black Games, a promising one-man indie developer with a love for old-school CRPGs. What do we mean by old-school? Well whereas most developers tend to use Ultima IV as a yard-stick for the start of their roleplaying experiences, Lowlander pays tribute to the significantly earlier Ultima II, the central part of the original Ultima Trilogy.

Erin: The last Aos Si

Erin is a game very much from the mind of one man, Daniel Franka (who kindly provides a video on the making of the title) who has guided much of the game’s content and it’s a master-class in RPG simplicity and old-school computer game beauty.