Originally launching onto the XBox 360 all the way back in 2007, Mass Effect has come to be known as the final word on science fiction role playing. Ported to Windows and later to Playstation Network for the PS3 before the release of the Legendary Edition in 2021, it kick-started a series that’s decidedly more than the single trilogy of games many fans focus on.
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Just when we start to crave a new instalment in the hugely enjoyable Voice of Cards series, Square Enix drop another surprise announcement and provide us with another helping of card-crawling JRPG goodness. MBU couldn’t be more pleased!
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It’s possible that no console experience has ever summed up the feeling of playing a pen and paper RPG quite as succinctly as Voice of Cards. Rather than a summary of every mechanic, it focuses in on the storyteller experience, with the Dungeon Master presenting every aspect of the games world to you through a personal narrative between his/herself and the group. It is this element that Voice of Cards absolutely nails.
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After two sequels on the PSP and a spinoff action title, the Valkyria Chronicles series finally finds its way back to console after interest peeked in the IP after a successful remaster of the original game for PS4 and on Steam.
The setup for a sequel to Square Enix and Disney’s break-out hit ‘Kingdom Hearts’ was baked into the finale of the original title, both in the final scenes of the main campaign and in the unlockable video that players got for fully completing the game. But few would have imagined that the Game Boy Advance exclusive title ‘Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories’ would have been so impactful on Kingdom Hearts 2.
Kingdom Hearts is perhaps one of the RPG scene’s best known franchises, in part because it features the mix of Squaresoft at its best with the star power of Disney, and in part because of its compelling and rich story.
The arrival of an English translation for each Legend of Heroes game is something of a wait vs reward game. On the one hand we got this title after the East had already gotten their hands on its sequel, Cold Steel IV, but the game and indeed the series as a whole is of such quality that any Legend of Heroes title getting a Western release is a thing to appreciate.
If any game has been a long time coming it’s Kingdom Hearts III, which has seen its life as a series extended through a variety of handheld entries that have been as vitally important to its plot as the main series’ numbered entries. Kingdom Hearts III is the cumulation of not a trilogy, but over 10 games in the current plot thread that all need to be paid off in this instalment. But does Kingdom Hearts stick the landing?
There are two schools of thought to Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness; there are those who think it’s a triumphant example of a traditional JRPG from Square Enix and those who derive the lack of significant process for the series and shallow story. Neither viewpoint is wrong, and that’s what seems to have led to this title being something of a black sheep of the 2017 games line-up.
Produced by Level-5 as their new IP following on from the wonderful ‘Dark Chronicle’ (known as ‘Dark Cloud 2’ in America), and their last game for the aging PlayStation 2 hardware before making the switch to the next console generation, Rogue Galaxy is a strange beast that showcases the very best and at times the worst of Level-5’s unique style. Continue reading
My Boxed Universe 