Going where several other blogs have gone before.
Two years ago I embarked on a quest to platinum every single Sega game available on PS4 (and now PS5). Anyone who would undergo this task knows the biggest roadblock in doing that: The Yakuza franchise. The Yakuza games are known for having some of the best side content in gaming and having an absolute… Continue reading A Deep Dive Into Every Yakuza Minigame
Hello and once again welcome back to The Story Arc. If you've been paying attention to the site at all this month then you'll know that every two days I've been analyzing a different small mechanic from the Yakuza franchise and studying how it's changed from day to day.Over the past few weeks we've seen… Continue reading Evolution of Yakuza Mechanics: Feel the Heat!
I love Azami Mochizuki, anyone who knows me knows that I can talk about this character for hours on end! One of the main recurring gags for this character are her 108 Village Rules. Whenever some character conflict happens or if the writers just want to tell a joke with her they'll often have her… Continue reading All of Azami’s Ninja Rules from Sakura Wars
Hello and welcome back to the Story Arc. Last week I began an adventure where every other day in December of 2022 I examine a minor mechanic in the Yakuza franchise and look at how it has evolved game by game. In the previous three articles I looked over how super small mechanics like locker… Continue reading Evolution of Yakuza mechanics: Revelations
Hello and welcome back to the Story Arc, last week I began an adventure where every other day in December of 2022 I examine a minor mechanic in the Yakuza franchise and look at how it has evolved game by game. In the previous two articles I looked over how super small mechanics like locker… Continue reading The Evolution of Yakuza Mechanics: Chases
Hello and welcome back to the Story Arc! A few days ago I decided to begin putting out a short series of articles about the various evolving mechanics in the Yakuza franchise for December 2022. Last time I covered how locker keys have changed game by game and today I'm going to cover a mechanic… Continue reading The Evolution of Yakuza Mechanics: Taxis
About a month ago I released an article about how Yakuza Ishin turned the Completion List into an actual gameplay mechanic and how every game since has tweaked and slowly evolved it. Upon writing that I got interested in examining other small mechanics that have slowly changed as the series has progressed. Thus I have… Continue reading The evolution of Yakuza mechanics: Locker Keys
Birds are an allegory that encapsulate a number of ideas in fiction. From Alfred Hitchcock’s avian assault film to blue birds in David Bowie’s Lazarus, it seems the central focus is all the same, or at least similar; birds represent an outside, freedom and the unknown. To let go like the fleeting memory of Lenore… Continue reading The Flighting Imagery of Birds in NEO: The World Ends With You
Tips and Tricks for Ghost of Tsushima (and maybe even for life!)
SPOILER DISCLAIMER: The general review portions of this article will contain spoilers for up to the Factory segment Let me make one thing clear: Resident Evil Village is 2021’s game of the year. That is not to say that it's the best game that will come out this year, though it might be. What I… Continue reading Resident Evil 8 Review: Streamlined Journey Through Shadow
The review to end all reviews. Feel free to argue in the comments! I will try to respond.
Atelier Ryza 2 was just announced and is on track to be great given Gust's track record with Atelier. As a franchise, Atelier has gone through an odd evolution. If one were to skip one title in the series and then play the release after that, the gameplay wouldn’t seem to have changed much at… Continue reading Rorona to Ryza: An Atelier Retrospective Part 1: Atelier Rorona
The Art of Box-art by Victiny Spanning the various eras, video game boxes can be compared to the most similar media platform of the disc era, DVDs. Aside from Nintendo’s non-standard and varied disc and accompanying packaging design, the cases from Sony, Microsoft and similar companies have remained consistent. DVD discs are usually a comparable… Continue reading The PS5 Boxes Aren’t That Bad, Guys!
A Journey Through the Game of the 2010s April & May 2020 Jre Best Well, it's been a little bit. Sincerest apologies for the delays. These last two months have not been easy for anyone and I don’t help myself by putting so many damn words into these articles. Truth be told, Virtual Odyssey almost… Continue reading Virtual Odyssey: April & May 2020: Nier Automata, Until Dawn, Splatoon and Xenoblade Chronicles
In late 2019 Sega blessed us with something that I thought would be impossible, a new entry in the beloved game series Sakura Wars. It had been over a decade since the previous mainline entry in the series came out. From the moment of announcement I was overjoyed, being a gigantic fan of the series… Continue reading A New Legend Blooms: Sakura Wars (2019) Review