Back in the days of the wild west, everything was much more rudimentary and raw. Drinking water had bits in it, shoes had holes in them, and computers only had 8-bits of processing power. With limited...

One year ago I made the first commit to Typhoon Dragoon. A year and some 280 commits later, the capsule has a name, a greatsword-lance, and a world that wants him gone.

Coffee Talk built its reputation on a simple promise: a warm drink, a quiet night, and people who need someone to listen. Toge Productions has stretched that promise across two games and six years, and now Coffee Talk Tokyo packs the late-night counter into a suitcase and flies it east. The trip was fine, but I came away with more reservations than I expected to.

There is beauty in simplicity. Many have fond memories of booting up a school computer's web browser and playing Flash games as a child. These games may not have contained cutting-edge visuals or the deepest mechanics, but they provided easily accessible short bursts of joy. FoxHaunt is a game that brings me back to those times. Visually, it presents little more than the bare minimum required to understand what's happening on-screen.

Tales of Arise arrived in 2021 as one of the most ambitious games in the franchise, and in my opinion, it earned every bit of the hype it had. JRPGs have been getting their due more than ever in recent years, both through the community's own outreach and through better localization in the West, and Tales, a historically respected series, chose this entry to swing for the fences.

You're a lighthouse keeper on a dark shore. Sweep your beam to guide lost souls home, and burn back the dark creeping in from the sea.