After taking a bit of time off, the Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games series is back in time for Tokyo, and for a Japanese game, representing itself well for the host country is clearly important. It’s not a good time to phone it in, so it makes sense that this release could draw your eye. How does it manage, given increased expectations? Let’s get into it.
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By any given measure, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD is a reclamation project of sorts. Banana Blitz wasn’t a particularly well-received entry at the time, and the intervening years have not seen a late fandom grow around it. So why is it, of all the Super Monkey Ball games, getting a remaster? One potential reason is that decision-makers at Sega thought it had an undiscovered appeal buried under its early motion controls and lack of development focus.
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In most instances, a retro re-release project is about capitalizing on nostalgia. It’s about letting players revisit old favorites on new platforms, and the comfort of the known being preserved for future play. And Sega’s no stranger to that, both with this Sega Ages series and its compilation efforts in general. At least for those of us in the West, though, Sega Ages Ichidant-R is different. It’s an unknown artifact delivered to an audience to let them learn more, and it’s exactly the sort of effort that fans of Japanese games should applaud.
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Nihon Falcom’s The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III is both a continuation and a new chapter. It’s not a fresh start for Rean Schwarzer and company, but it’s a clear inflection point, with a shifting status quo and a new cast of characters. At its core, though, it’s still very much the games that came before it. And for longtime fans of the franchise, a new coat of paint over the same structures is probably just fine.
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Like your Mario games with a bit more story and progression? You’re not alone! Here’s our guide to the many permutations of Mario RPGs, from the SNES days to now.
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If you’re alive and on this planet, it’s likely that you’ve played at least one Mario Kart game. So a beginner’s guide may seem a bit strange! Still, there’s room for everyone to explore further into the excellent series, and we’re here to help.
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The GameCube is a lovable little system, and with good reason: it’s loaded with fun games that hold up well after years of more technically advanced releases! Its import scene is equally endearing, with silly entries that focus on simple fun. Let’s check out the best of the bunch!
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For a less-successful-than-hoped system now reaching two decades of existence, the Dreamcast holds an impressive library of games that just haven’t seen proper follow-ups, and that holds true with the unlocalized segment of its library. The end of the road for Sega’s hardware development was full of both special novelties and Japan-only genre specialties, and the system’s arcade-like approach means a lot of it’s totally playable for Western audiences. Here’s what you shouldn’t miss!
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So you want to get into a venerable, classic puzzle series, but don’t know where should you start? We’re here to help! Here’s a new player’s guide to the Puyo Puyo franchise as a whole.
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