Tag Archives: Bandai Namco

short;Play: Demon’s Souls

I’ve held off on exploring the Souls series for quite some time, because I know you need to invest a bit of time and effort to “git gud”, as the kids say.

Well, just recently I started to make that effort. And wouldn’t you know it — I’m having a good time! So much so that, having been enjoying Demon’s Souls on PS3, I went and picked up the whole Dark Souls trilogy for PS4 in a nice box set ready for some indeterminate point in the near future.

In the meantime, enjoy my experiences as a relative newcomer to the Souls series in the video below — and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

The MoeGamer 2019 Awards: The Best Dicking Around Award

The MoeGamer Awards are a series of “alternative” awards I’ve devised in collaboration with the community to celebrate the sorts of things that never get celebrated in end-of-year roundups! Find out more here — and feel free to leave a suggestion on that post if you have any good ideas!

Structured fun is all very well and good. Everyone likes completing stages, scoring points, levelling up, that sort of thing. But sometimes all you want to do is do your own thing, making use of the tools a game provides without any real “goal” in mind.

This sort of activity is typically associated with “open world” games — and indeed that kind of game is very good for just dicking around, seeing how the different systems interact with one another and working out exactly how much chaos you are able to cause within the constraints of the game’s ostensible “rules”.

But it’s not just open world games that are good at this. Today’s award, suggested by riobravo79, celebrates a game in which it’s fun — and relaxing — to just dick around and see what happens. And not a bandit encampment in sight.

And the winner is…

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Delving Into Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown – #4

All right. We’ve established that Ace Combat 7 absolutely has its own sense of style, that the VR mode is something rather special and that it strikes a great balance between arcade action and more realistic simulation. What about the actual missions, and the overall “game” experience?

Well, for those who have been hoping for a true next-gen Ace Combat experience, I am delighted to confirm that you will absolutely find this in Ace Combat 7 — both in terms of its narrative style, and in terms of how it plays.

Actual combat is where the game is at its most unrealistic — but also its most fun. Let’s take a closer look.

Continue reading Delving Into Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown – #4

Delving into Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown – #2

I’m flying over a small island. Glancing out of the side of the cockpit, I can see the small amount of “civilisation” on this otherwise untamed little piece of land; the rest is dominated by a large hill, covered with trees.

As I pass over the summit of the hill, my craft comes out from beneath the cloud cover. Sunlight suddenly streams in from behind me, bathing my instruments and multifunction displays in bright light, punctuated by the dark, intense shadows my cockpit struts cast.

As I pull the nose back, wondering how high I can make this bird fly, I think to myself, “this is beautiful; this is what I’ve always wanted to do.”

Continue reading Delving into Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown – #2

Delving Into Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown – #1

I’ve been playing a lot of Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown since it released the other day. And I wanted to talk about it a bit!

I’ve elected to use the “Delving Into” format, because that also provides a suitable framework for me to explore (and revisit) the rest of the series along the way, too. For the unfamiliar, my “Delving Into” pieces are more immediate, personal reactions to games or series I want to explore over the long term, but which don’t really fit into the Cover Game structure.

Each article will focus on a particular aspect of the overall experience, or something that I’ve found otherwise noteworthy. Let’s kick off today with my impressions of the game’s overall sense of style, based on my playthrough of the single-player campaign up to mission 17 so far.

Continue reading Delving Into Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown – #1

Taiko no Tatsujin Drum ‘n’ Fun: Plastic Drums and Music Most Definitely Mix

A little while ago, I offered my first impressions on the demo version of Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum ‘n’ Fun! for Nintendo Switch.

I came away from the experience less than enamoured with the game’s motion controls, but starting to understand the appeal of the game when I switched to playing with buttons.

Despite my slightly tepid response to the demo, I came to the conclusion that this was still a game I wanted to support a Western release of… so I splurged on the £90 game-and-drum bundle which comes with a standard copy of the Switch game, and the HORI-made USB drum accessory. Let’s take a closer look!

Continue reading Taiko no Tatsujin Drum ‘n’ Fun: Plastic Drums and Music Most Definitely Mix

Taiko no Tatsujin Drum ‘n’ Fun (Demo): Motion and Music Don’t Mix

As regular listeners of The MoeGamer Podcast will know, I greatly enjoy music games, but I’ve never had a chance to play the Taiko no Tatsujin series to date.

Well, I figured, it’s probably time I rectified that situation, isn’t it? Various installments in the series are often held up as all-time classics in the genre, after all. Plus it’s hard to resist that super-cute artwork — which, if you didn’t know, is the inimitable work of Yukiko Yoko, wife of the man who brought the world the Nier series. How’s that for a weird-ass twist?

So it was with some excitement that I downloaded the newly released demo of Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum ‘n’ Fun, one of two parallel games which mark the first time the series has ever officially come to Europe. And… well, read on.

Continue reading Taiko no Tatsujin Drum ‘n’ Fun (Demo): Motion and Music Don’t Mix

Waifu Wednesday: Milla Maxwell

I have a confession to make: at the time of writing, the Tales series is, for the most part, a bit of a black spot in my JRPG knowledge.

I’m not completely clueless on the appeal of the series, however, since back when I was on USgamer I covered the first Tales of Xillia game… and quite early in MoeGamer’s life I explored its sequel in what we now know as a Cover Game feature, albeit before I’d decided to make that a regular thing.

The characters of Xillia in general were a consistently appealing aspect… but one stood out in particular. Milla Maxwell.

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The MoeGamer Awards: Best Ridge Racer

The MoeGamer Awards are a series of made-up prizes that give me an excuse to celebrate games, concepts and communities I’ve particularly appreciated over the course of 2017. Find out more and suggest some categories here!

The Ridge Racer series was a prime candidate for the Uncancel This Series award, but I’m still holding out hope that we’ll get a new one someday, and that it will be the most amazing arcade racer in existence.

Until that time comes, there are plenty of games in the series that I can continue to enjoy. But that, of course, begs an important question: which one of them is best?

And the winner is…

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Ridge Racer Unbounded: The Black Sheep

cropped-ridge-header-8975512This article is one chapter of a multi-part Cover Game feature!
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Over the last decade, we’ve seen a lot of series attempt to “reboot” themselves for one reason or another.

In many cases, this is an excuse to go back to older games and remake them with a more modern aesthetic or gameplay conventions, but in others, it is in an attempt to completely reinvent the series for one reason or another — usually as an attempt to respond to the ever-present phantom that is “market forces”.

The Ridge Racer series underwent such a reboot in 2012 with Unbounded. Not only was this an attempt to turn the ageing franchise on its head, it marked a shift in development strategy, too; Unbounded was developed not by Namco itself, but by Bugbear Entertainment, a Finnish outfit who had previously been responsible for the FlatOut series and Sega Rally Revo on the PSP.

Continue reading Ridge Racer Unbounded: The Black Sheep