DualShockers

Have you ever followed a questline in Elden Ring? Did you ever pay attention to all the details when the NPC spoke, or read the descriptions of the items they gave you?

The PS3 era was not the time for the JRPG to thrive. The magic that the PS1 and PS2 had was just gone, the uniqueness of the art style was gone, and in place was this consistent yet kind of ugly and static 3D blah with terrible environments, characters that had been reduced to a bad-looking 3D anime attempt that never quite hit.

Getting achievements on Steam and Trophies on console is a deeply satisfying process, and the hardest ones to get give you bragging rights. Starsand Island is no different, with 75 achievements to unlock as you progress through its Professions, relationships, and encyclopedia entries.

As indie games have become more established, we've seen increasingly robust works in all aspects of interactive creations, including storytelling.

The majority of the time you spend playing Subnautica 2, you’re going to be searching through abandoned wrecks, collecting hundreds of ores and building magnificent bases. It’s a pretty amazing gameplay loop, and it’s easy to lose hundreds of hours without actually realizing it.

I never get tired of talking about the Nintendo DS, and a big reason for that is just how surprising and varied the library is. Even now, sometimes I dig through game lists and find games I have never heard of. Most interestingly, there are also a lot of games for this handheld that slipped by with little to no fanfare despite being made by developers with real pedigree.

As someone who admittedly was console-only in the gaming space for decades, I'm still occasionally learning some new names in the PC hardware space as I continue to make my final, complete transition into a PC gamer. China-based MelGeek wasn't on my radar a few weeks ago, but after getting approached to check out their flagship keyboard, the Centauri80, you can be sure they have now gotten my attention.

It is undeniable that, looking at the history of the gaming industry, the PS1 was a milestone for JRPGs. Not only did many developers start releasing their own titles in the genre or doubling down on them, but it was also the birthplace of Final Fantasy VII, which was a watershed moment that expanded JRPGs worldwide and put them on the map.

RPGs are all about letting players undergo the hero's journey (or descent into villainy), and part of that journey is facing off against a major adversary. The main villain in most RPGs can come in several different forms. In one case, they can serve as a mirror to the main protagonist, showing us what may have happened if our character followed a different path. Another main villain could be a major lore component, one that explains why the world your character inhabits is the way it is.

I listen to game music pretty often, long after I finished delving into their worlds. While I'm working, and also while I'm doing anything that doesn't require my full attention.

Even though the original game wasn't nearly successful enough to expect a sequel, PlatinumGames gifted us NieR: Automata, leaving everyone who played it in awe.

The summer months used to be a slow time on the video game calendar. As the weather warmed up, people were content to enjoy the great outdoors rather than spending their summers inside.

Catching legendaries in the Pokémon series is part of the fun, a crescendo each game builds to before the endgame. Some entries let you use the legendaries to battle the Elite Four and become the Ultimate Pokémon Master, while other games send you to battle some world-ending threat because you've already reached that status.

Nothing exists in a vacuum, and the gaming industry has been happy to remind us that, no matter how much escapism it may offer, the trials and tribulations of global affairs affect it too.

Pokémon is a series that we've all grown up with, and for that reason, it's possible to believe it's a relatively surface-level game with little complexity. I mean, if a five-year old could beat the main story, how hard could it be? But if you thought that, you couldn't be more wrong! In fact, Pokémon may just very well be one of the most complex competitive turn-based games out there, thanks to its wide range of abilities and moves, which can all have unique interactions the game doesn't spell

It's an unofficial rite of passage for any new Civilization game to be hated by fans at launch, and the same is true for Civilization 7.

The PS1 was the golden era for the JRPG for many, and with that came so many fantastic stories, main characters, iconic party members, and, best of all, the villains.

For a long time, console-based RPGs were the domain of Nintendo and PlayStation, but that all changed in 2001 when Microsoft launched the Xbox and strove to bring PC-quality RPGs to home markets for the very first time.

It's hard to think of a more iconic decade for the first-person shooter than the 1990s. It was the age of Doom and Quake, whose highly advanced tech would pave the way for an entire generation of shooters for this decade and many more to come.

While I highly value the responsibility my colleagues around the world have when reviewing video games, I also understand there's no universal truth that can override subjectivity.