Happy Third Year Anniversary to toatali reviews! It's been a weird year for the site, but I'm currently happy with the way things are going (although I can't say I wouldn't like the viewing numbers to be a bit higher...) Thanks to everyone for reading and a special thanks to anyone who's stuck with me …
Octopath Traveler
This post contains a few major spoilers for the game. I recommend playing before reading. When I write reviews, I usually like to use them as a thinking process for working out what I felt about the work I’m reviewing. Of course, I know before I start writing what I thought about a game, or …
Weapon Shop de Omasse
Weapon Shop de Omasse is an interesting addition to the GUILD series because of who made it. While I’ve lauded the series as a way to give game creators space to make a small game with full creative control, Weapon Shop de Omasse gives that control to a Japanese comedian named Yoshiyuki Hirai. Hirai, who …
Attack of the Friday Monsters
In the 1950s, the prospering Japanese film industry reinvented the “monster movie.” The giant monsters of the era were “kaiju” that often symbolized the effects of pollution, such as radiation and hydrogen bomb experiments. In the 1960s and 70s, the “hero show” was born. Brave heroes challenged the kaiju on prime time television, and the …
Top 5 Video Games of 2017
Because of their nature as more time consuming and expensive than films and tv shows, I didn't get the chance to play too many games in 2017 (something further complicated by me moving somewhere without a TV in September). But the games I did manage to play were almost all at a higher standard than …
The Best Games on the 3DS
I wasn’t expecting this to be the post for this month, but Persona 5 has ended up taking much longer than I expected to play through and gather my notes on, so this will have to serve to tide me over until then. Despite the success of Nintendo’s most recent portable console, the Switch, I …
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Medium story spoilers follow. I'd advise playing the game before reading this review, but I try to avoid spoiling anything major. I feel like I’ve come to Breath of the Wild a bit too late to add anything meaningful to the discussion, but this does at least mean that the inevitable backlash has already started. That …
The Pokemon Sun and Moon Conundrum
It usually takes me around a few weeks before I’ve moved on to my second playthrough of a Pokemon game. It took me until the start of January before I’d even finished Pokemon Sun and Moon, and this has nothing to do with the length of the game. Instead, it was constant stopping and starting: …
Pokemon 20th Reviews: The State of the Franchise
No, I hadn’t forgotten about this series, although someone with little faith in me (like myself) might reasonably think that I might have forgotten about it until recently… Anyway, with Sun and Moon launching this month I think at least a cursory glance should be given to the trends of the Pokémon series in its …
Continue reading "Pokemon 20th Reviews: The State of the Franchise"
Pokemon 20th Reviews: Pokemon Platinum
I was really excited to replay Platinum - I haven't played it in ages, but I have some fond memories of the Gen 4 games, specifically of the Sinnoh region. Luckily, my playthrough did not disappoint; aside from a few areas I found lacking, Pokemon Platinum is exactly the game I remembered it being, and that …