Category: PC Games

Magical Eyes – Red is for Anguish Developer: Pomera Studios Publisher: Fruitbat Factory Genre: Visual Novel Release Date: 03/30/2016 I tend to be a voracious consumer of visual novels. My Steam wish list is flowing to the brim with them (and flowing to the brim period, but that’s neither here or there). I’m also a…

Mind Zero Genre: JRPG/Dungeon Crawler Developer: Acquire, ZeroDiv Publisher: Aksys Release Date: 03/08/16 The past year or so has been harsh on Japanese game publishers trying their hand at bringing games to the PC marketplace. While a few, like Sega and Idea Factory, have done so admirably (Valkyria Chronicles and the Hyperdimension Neptunia series, respectively),…

Nekopara Vol. 2 Genre: Visual Novel Developer: Neko Works Publisher: Sekai Project Release Date: 02/19/16 It’s hard to know what to make of Nekopara as a series. I played the first game, partly as livestream fodder to torment amuse my regulars, and partly because it looked kind of cute in its own way, and I…

XCOM 2 Genre: Turn Based Strategy Developer: Firaxis Games Publisher: 2K Games Release Date: 02/05/15 After Firaxis revived the long-dormant XCOM franchise by way of the stunning return to form that was XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the big question in the minds of fans eventually became “So, what’s next?” While the original X-COM: UFO Defense was…

The Deadly Tower of Monsters Publisher: Atlas Developer: ACE Team Genre: Action/Adventure Release Date: 01/19/2015 I remember being a li’l guy, lying on the floor bright and early Saturday mornings, turning on the TV, and getting lost in fantastical words of sci-fi adventure. Whether it was the classics, the newer wave or any point in…

Strawberry Vinegar Genre: Visual Novel Developer: Ebi-Hime Publisher: Sekai Project Release Date: 01/05/16 So, let’s get this out of the way up front: Strawberry Vinegar is a hard game to process, and even now I’m not entirely sure I get it. In theory, it’s a visual novel based around a fish-out-of-water outsider friendship plot, and…

Punch Club Publisher: tinyBuild Developer: Lazy Bear Games Genre: retro/RPG/strategy Release Date: 01/08/2015 Punch Club could easily be renamed “1980’s Fight Movie Underdog Simulator 2016,” as it really embraces its ideas and drowns you in a deluge of ‘80s and ‘90s references. At its heart, Punch Club wants you to be the very best fighter…

No One But You Genre: Visual Novel Developer: Unwonted Studios Publisher: Unwonted Studios, Sekai Project Release Date: 01/19/16 While publisher Sekai Project is probably most notable for the big name Japanese visual novels they’ve helped bring to the US recently, like The Fruit of Grisaia and Clannad, they’ve also been doing a great service to…

Pony Island Genre: Platformer/Puzzle/Alternate Reality Developer: Daniel Mullins Games Publisher: Daniel Mullins Games Release Date: 01/04/16 One of the most exciting things, potentially, about the expansion of indie gaming is that most indie devs are taking the sorts of risks mainstream devs used to take in the eighties and nineties, albeit in a different way,…