The Wii U has now been offline since April of last year. However, this hasn’t stopped online gamers from seeking out unofficial means of still playing their favorite Wii U games online. Although this has been an ongoing situation since last spring, Nintendo has just now taken to social media…
The Pokémon Trading Card Game is, once again, going through a bit of a collector’s boom at the moment. In the years since Pokémon card frenzy reached an all-time high in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, hype around new set releases had died down somewhat, meaning it wasn’t all…
In the long history of gaming, the exploration of different genres has been one of the key ways that franchises have evolved. One of the earliest genres to take hold was the beloved RPG format, with turn-based gameplay and a focus on story. With how long this formula has existed,…
Some of my favorite arcade memories date back to side-scrolling beat ‘em ups. Games like Final Fight, The Simpsons, Golden Axe, and more always struck a chord both for their great challenge curves and their multiplayer potential. As a genre it struggled to persist once the industry shifted to home…
Hello, and welcome back to our review of Octopath Traveler! Last time we covered the beginning of the game and the ground level of its various mechanics, including story, gameplay, and aesthetic. This time we’ll be diving in a bit more deep into the various aspects, and exploring the little…
While today it’s just a mildly fancy synonym for “story,” the term “saga” originally denoted specific histories — Nordic and Germanic yarns of the past, grand tales of journeys, feuds, and heroes that shaped the present day. And while many a fantasy series or book has utilized the term for…
With 30 years’ worth of adventures you’d think tastes would vary for Mega Man fans just as much as the robot’s adaptive abilities do. While the Classic games are always what comes to mind for me and I know plenty of fans of Legends and Battle Network, it’s Mega Man…
In my view, JRPGs post-2000s or so can go about three directions: throwback, anime, or something new. In fact, sometimes they’re a combination of those things. (Xenoblade Chronicles 2, until now undoubtedly the big name among Switch games in the genre, is all three at once, somehow.) While the derision…
Easily one of the most satisfying and fun experiences you could have on Switch and any system was Sonic Mania. The return to roots for Sega’s Blue Blur wasn’t just a celebration of everything Sonic was in his prime; it also represented a joining of experienced fans and developers to…
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker was one of Wii U’s best kept secrets when it originally released back in 2014. Now, with its port to Nintendo Switch and 3DS, the game gets a second chance — this time with a much larger user base to support it. If you didn’t catch…
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is the third AAA port to the Switch from the good folks over at Panic Button Games, and in my opinion, it’s the most ambitious venture of them all. With last year’s fantastic ports of Doom and Rocket League, Panic Button had some mighty big…
Pocket Rumble has had a long development cycle filled with numerous delays and bouts of silence from the creators, but, luckily, it’s finally available for purchase for Switch. The game had two Kickstarter campaigns, a Steam beta, a premature release date announced during a Nintendo Indies Direct, and over a…
Mega Man clones are a dime a dozen. Many have tried to fill the void left by the franchise’s eight year hiatus, with one in particular proving not every Man deserves to be Mighty. Thankfully the good folks over at Batterystaple Games seem to know what’s up, paying homage to…
With how many Mario spinoffs there are it’s easy to forget that they aren’t all made equal. For every Mario Party 2, there’s a Mario Party 9, making me second guess when I should get excited. The Mario Tennis series has been on a losing streak for a while now,…
When I was growing up in the ‘90s, I was part of a pretty Nintendo-centric family. I grew up on the SNES, N64, and the Game Boy, but my nextdoor neighbor’s family had a PlayStation. We’d gather in his basement frequently and play two games: Tekken 3 and Crash Bandicoot….
