Miguel Moran
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Writing For
TheSixthAxis Latest Reviews
I’m rarely one to replay a game, so with how often new entries in the Atelier series come out, I usually only manage a single playthrough before it’s time to move on to the next. I’ll happily make an exception to that trend for the Atelier Ryza trilogy, though. I’m a huge fan of Ryza as an Atelier protagonist, and getting to watch her grow and mature across a full trilogy was a beautiful shake up to the usual Atelier formula of new protagonists in each game. I also loved what this trilogy did with combat, turning it into a unique hybrid of turn-based battles and fast-paced real time action. Needless to say, I was beyond excited to hop into the new Atelier Ryza Secret Trilogy Deluxe Pack re-release.
My experience with the Dragon Quest franchise over the years has been anything but linear. Growing up, I exhaustively played Nintendo DS entries like Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime and Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies, while I’ve more recently enjoyed other spinoffs like Dragon Quest Builders and Dragon Quest Treasures, and the incredible mainline adventure of Dragon Quest XI. Yet I’ve never really felt the desire to go back to the originals. I love admiring retro games, but it’s tough to gel with a NES RPG, especially when they’re such barebones experiences. With the Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake double-pack, Square Enix has gone out of their way to elevate these originally paper-thin RPGs with a wealth of content that bring them up to bar with any other entry in the series.
In a world of gaming dominated by the ever expanding range of Souls-likes, it can be easy to forget that character action used to be king. High octane Japanese game series like Ninja Gaiden used to dominate consoles, but over the years this iconic Team Ninja franchise has steadily faded into irrelevancy. It’s easy to see why, when Ninja Gaiden 3 managed to cater to neither existing fans or newcomers. Whatever spark and soul that entry lacked, Ninja Gaiden 4 makes up for in spades, and it’s an awesome reminder of why the classic action game will never truly die.
Of all the anime properties that could get a fighting game adaptation, Hunter x Hunter never really seemed like the most logical choice to me. While the iconic manga & anime series is technically full of fights and has a pretty prominent tournament arc, the characters, their abilities and behaviours in that series rarely play out in a traditional hot-blooded action atmosphere. It’s a series focused a bit more on heart and mind-games than pure battles. Hunter x Hunter: Nen x Impact doesn’t just fail to feel like a fitting extension of the original franchise because of this, but it fails to feel like a properly satisfying fighting game all together.
With Atelier being my favourite JRPG series, I’m usually excited and optimistic whenever a new entry is announced. I’ve felt the exact opposite about Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian, though. There’s good reason for this, as this game is a successor to the free-to-play gacha spin-off Atelier Resleriana: Forgotten Alchemy and the Polar Night Liberator, which was quickly shut down in the West. This new release is mostly presented as a standalone adventure, but it’s still got a mish-mash of mechanics and lore-elements from this now Japan-only gacha game and a sprinkling of cameos from across the franchise. As a result, it ends up feeling far more like an anniversary adventure made out of obligation than a fresh new Atelier world.
When The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy launched, Kazutaka Kodaka joked that his studio Tookyo Games might go bankrupt if the game didn’t do well. Thankfully, the massive visual novel experience ended up doing so well he later clarified that the team no longer felt that bankruptcy was a possibility. Despite that, it felt like it might take a miracle for the team to be able to put out another game if they were so close to shuttering after completing this one. As it turns out, Kazutaka Kodaka treated us like the victims in his own infamous twist-filled mystery thriller games. He quickly announced the development of a new game alongside DMM Games and Spike Chunsoft where the gimmick is that it is actually five different games in one – and that smorgasbord title is called Shuten Order.
I have to admit, I’ve got mixed feelings when it comes to the Demon Slayer franchise. I’ve never really enjoyed Shonen battle series, save for the ones I grew up with, like Naruto and Bleach. I appreciate that Demon Slayer has become a similar entry-point for countless fledgling anime fans across the world, but as someone with no real passion for the series, seeing some of my favourite animation and game studios working in the mines pumping out content for it has me feeling jaded. I’m a massive fan of the CyberConnect2 developed Naruto Ninja Storm series, but it’s an interesting feeling to play a game without also having a personal attachment to the source material. I don’t feel like Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles 2 is a bad experience at all, but I also don’t know if it’s an entirely necessary or groundbreaking one.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from No Sleep For Kaname Date. As a big fan of the AI: The Somnium Files games, it’s hard to picture where in the timeline a third entry could fall that would cleanly follow up on the ending of the second game, while also giving us the characters that this one seemed to be specifically focusing on. Much like how the series tasks you with disregarding your main options and seeking out a hidden third path, that’s the exact route that the developers have ended up taking with this No Sleep For Kaname Date.
I’m slowly maneuvering through a neon-lit club that’s been the site of a casualty-heavy shooting alongside another teammate. The music is blasting and the lights are dazzling, but nobody is here save for a few terrified civilians, a handful of armed attackers, and crude piles of innocent bodies on each dancefloor. It’s grim, and I’m tense as I search every room for enemies. I slowly swing a door open…and it swings back towards me to close. I swing it open once more, and it returns back at me yet again. Before I can press the button to open it a third time, it pulls all the way back to reveal a shotgun-toting enemy who was behind it all along, and I laugh and scream as I frantically start shooting take him down. It’s fun and tense, it’s stupid and scary, and it’s Ready or Not.
I’m a massive fan of TRON, but more specifically, I’m a massive fan of TRON: Legacy. The 2010 sci-fi sequel has been cemented in my subconscious since the day it came out. The world it built has always been so captivating to me, with sleek metal obelisks and neon colorized highlights dancing around in my dreams most nights. It’s all complemented by gripping audio design, from the roar of the light cycles to the zap of a bouncing identity disc and the iconic Daft Punk curated score. Every opportunity I get to revisit that world is a thrill, so I’ve been chomping at the bit to get my hands on the latest spinoff of my favorite sci-fi property – TRON: Catalyst.