William Goldman wrote the novel The Princess Bride inspired by stories that he told to his two daughters, who at ages 7 and 4 requested a story about “princesses” and “brides” respectively. That’s the origin of that title. Yes, an excellent novel which was adapted into an amazing film came from just slamming two concepts
One of the recurring problems that has plagued the Soulslike genre basically since the beginning is that there isn’t a very good pipeline for getting into the games. Even if you’re someone who absolutely adores these titles, you had to get into it by just finding a game that really clicked for you and then
More often than not, the games I review here are not games I specifically knew about beforehand. That is not the case for Potionomics, though. I forget how far back I first learned about it, but I had flagged it as something that looked lovely and like it could be a lot of fun quite
The last few years have seen an explosion of a certain kind of game, a genre we have yet to really have a solid name for – or if we do, it’s one I haven’t seen floating around. Even if you don’t know the name, though, you know the type. It’s a whole lot of
How do you feel about classic action games from the 16-bit era? Because that’s going to inform a lot about how you feel when it comes to Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider. The 16-bit era of console gaming had a slightly disjointed start, with the Sega Genesis having launched a solid two years before the Super Nintendo
Look, it’s been six years. We don’t need to beat around the bush or hedge any longer. Stardew Valley was a phenomenal game that had an enormous cultural impact on gaming and the indie scene in general. You might be about to point out that this is not the game I am reviewing today, and
Despite what seems to have become de rigeur for the gaming industry, making a game a roguelike is not actually cruise control for making it a game with endless content. In fact, I can think of a lot of games lately that have tried to keep themselves engaging by making themselves into roguelikes when neither
For better or for worse – probably worse – the late 80s into the early 90s were a real time that actually happened. Some of us lived through them. And there was a time, perhaps not so long ago in memory, when there was a real sense of a sun-drenched lush paradise ruled over by
I do not, to this day, remember how I first learned about Recettear. But it remains, years later, one of my favorite games and an absolute delight to play through front-to-back. Sure, most of the characters were broad archetypes rather than being well-developed individuals with rich inner lives, and it was clearly a small title
Despite what it may seem like, I am actually not an enormous Fire Emblem fan. I am, however, an absolutely unreserved massive fan of Fire Emblem: Three Houses. This isn’t to say that I traditionally have disliked Nintendo’s long-running second-party series of strategy RPGs, just that they have rarely risen above “well, that was fun
First and foremost, I think it’s important to look at Power Chord as it presents itself compared to what Power Chord actually is. Because I believe that it’s easy to get swept up in the game’s presentation in such a way that you lose sight of the fact that the game itself is actually simpler
If you’ve been reading my reviews for a while, you have probably noticed by this point that I periodically make a point of picking a game up that I am in no way qualified to review. This would be one of those times, because quite frankly? If there’s one genre I tend to actively dislike,
Oh, hello there! Welcome, welcome, everyone, it’s so good to see you here! We’re happy to welcome you to this unprecedented moment of gaming journalism excellence, because it’s high time – high past time, some might say – to welcome you to Gamer Escape’s Review of The Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe! At long last, you,
It takes very little effort – bordering on no effort – to get me interested in the prospect of a cat cafe. My two cats are two of the most important living things on the planet to me, and I love cats in general. They’re stupid furry pillows full of knives who vibrate and make
Let me tell you, one of the best feelings of being a reviewer is when you get your first impressions of a title from screenshots, video, and early release info… and you’re wrong. See, the thing is (and this is a deep secret of being a game reviewer) that when you’ve played a lot of
On January 28th, 1998, Square-Enix released Final Fantasy Tactics to a North American audience. People who played that game have spent twenty-four years looking for more. I open with that because I feel it’s very important to note my biases at the very least. When I first heard about Triangle Strategy my immediate dream was
So, confession time. I am terrible at real-time strategy games. I know this intellectually, but I also know that every time it comes up I’m drawn to them like a moth to a flame. I can’t help it. Ever since I played Warcraft II I have a deep-seated need for these games to be shot
You know what series is deceptively difficult to make work? Mega Man. The thing about the Mega Man franchise and its derivations is that all of them are based upon a rather simple template. You go around and fight a few bosses, acquiring weapons from each of them, then you go through a fortress stage
I swear to whatever deities you care to name, there was a time when “action RPG” did not mean that you were making a game specifically to take on Dark Souls. And I’m going to be honest here when I say that the flood of these particular titles is starting to wear on me. Now,
Here’s the thing about any kind of gaming chair – it’s simultaneously one of the least important and most important decisions that you’re going to make when it comes to your personal setup. On the one hand, well, it’s a chair. It’s a place to sit. It’s not a game, it doesn’t make your PC
