News and recent trailer of the upcoming Final Fantasy XVI have been exciting for many FF fans for a variety of different reasons. First, the game is seen as some sort of rebirth for the series after nearly two decades of unpopular mainline Final Fantasy games. Second, the game’s producer, Naoki Yoshida, has a good…
Samuel Rivera
Bernie Stolar: The Legend, The No RPG Policy, And His Dreamcast Love
Bernie Stolar passed away this week (at age 75). He is best remembered within the world of video games for his exploits as Sony Computer Entertainment of America’s Vice President during the PlayStation’s early days and as Sega’s President of the American branch during the late Saturn early Dreamcast era. He successfully laid the groundwork…
Games That Will Cost You a Kidney: Dragon Force
When we think about old classic turn-based Japanese Role-Playing games, Final Fantasy Tactics and the Shining Force series come to mind. A game that is not often mentioned, and it should be (mentioned) among those great titles, is Dragon Force. Dragon Force is a tactical Sega RPG. It was published by Sega in Japan, but…
The Best Games of 2009 According to GameRankings
As we approach the end of the 2000s decade, we begin to see some of the most refined games from the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 era. As always, we took off the list games with less than 20 reviews to their name, and games that had multiple versions on the list. We have removed versions…
Final Fantasy XVI: Distances Itself From Turn Based Battles to Focus on Action
Some Final Fantasy old school fans have been clamoring for a return to the series turn-based combat roots. Despite this, modern gaming has, for the most part, moved away from what was the preferred method of role-playing game combat in the early decades of the genre. Action-combat role-playing games have sold better than turn based…
Final Fantasy XVI Will Not Feature an Open World
Despite the fact that Final Fantasy XV ventured into “open world” territory (with restrictions), which was a first for the series, Final Fantasy XVI’s producer, Naoki Yoshida, has confirmed that his game won’t feature an open world, even though the game takes inspiration from modern AAA open world RPGs. It is Difficult To Translate A…
Games That Will Cost You a Kidney: Revelations: Persona
The original PlayStation was the home to many great Japanese Role-Playing games. Some of these games (Wild Arms, Suikoden) were modestly successful on their PS debuts and spawned franchises before dying off in the mid 2000s. Today’s subject in the weekly “Games that will cost you a kidney” series is a game that didn’t have…
Best Games of 2008 According to GameRankings
2008 was a great year for gaming. Big titles from major franchises such as Metal Gear Solid and Grand Theft Auto arrived on “new” console hardware. For the first time in years, a JRPG managed to break into the top ten best games of the year. The game of the year was GTA IV,…
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth: Fully Embracing its Sequel Role to the Original Game?
As part of the celebration for Final Fantasy VII’s 25th anniversary, Square Enix finally unveiled details of Final Fantasy VII Remake “Part 2” which will be called “Rebirth”. The game’s title and trailer seem to “officially” confirm what was obvious to those of us who had played the original game before the “Remake”, which…
Games that Will Cost You a Kidney: Shining Force III
The Sega Saturn is, at least to me, the most legendary of the 32/64-bit era machines. The reason? I didn’t own one, and I only know a single person who did. Furthermore, this person lost the console two decades ago. As a JRPG fan, it was painful that the Sega Saturn was also the home…