Spike Chunsoft Game Reviews
Zero hour
Close to two decades after its release, beloved PS2 arena fighter Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 has been handed a sequel in all but name. Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero is a throwback of epic proportions — the kind of all-out, franchise-encompassing brawler that's been sorely missed beyond the Naruto Ninja Storm series. Zero's biggest...
Mystery mayhem
Spike Chunshoft is known for its incredible work on the Danganronpa series, a collection of visual novels that saw critical acclaim for its interesting characters and dark yet comedic writing. Following on from such success is a difficult feat, yet in June last year, the release of Master Detective Archives: Rain Code on Nintendo...
Mini Review Anonymous;Code (PS4) - Exciting Visual Novel, But Lacks Character Depth
Hacker's paradise
Anonymous;Code is the latest visual novel in the Science Adventure series. It takes place in 2037 Tokyo and focuses on Pollon Takaoka, a young hacker who's part of a group called Nakano Symphonies. Pollon doesn’t particularly enjoy being a hacker and isn’t even that skilled at it, but he does it along with his friend Cross to...
An AI for an Eye
AI: The Somnium Files - nirvanA Initiative [Good grief - Ed] is the sequel to the 2019 detective-themed adventure game and things are just as crazy and weird as ever. This time around you play as a detective called Ryuki as he tries to solve a series of gruesome murders known as the Half Body Serial Killings. Ryuki is a rookie but...
Review One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows - You Too Can Defeat Any Enemy with the Press of a Button
One hit wonder
Starting life as a viral webcomic back in 2009, One Punch Man is a celebration and a send-up of superhero fiction. It’s creator, aptly named One, envisaged the story of a hero who was already the best. Tired of being able to defeat every enemy he faces with one punch, protagonist Saitama worries more about missing the supermarket...
Your inventory is full
Katana Kami: A Way of the Samurai Story is an isometric dungeon crawling action RPG that, as its title suggests, branches off from the janky but fun Way of the Samurai series. Playing as a wandering swordsman who helps a blacksmith settle his debt, you're tasked with exploring a ghostly realm that appears in the night, looting...
Review AI: The Somnium Files - Top Notch Visual Novel Tainted By Flawed Puzzle Solving
Dream machine
What a weird and wild ride AI: The Somnium Files is. At its heart this is a detective thriller styled as a visual novel, but that basic description sells this consistently bonkers title very, very short. The characters, their interactions with one another, and the world around them are all over the top and comical to some degree, yet...
Review Zanki Zero: Last Beginning - A Survival RPG from the Makers of Danganronpa
Eat, sleep, die, repeat
Zanki Zero: Last Beginning comes from the creators of the Danganronpa series, and if this game isn’t further proof that Spike Chunsoft loves to torture and torment its poor characters then we don’t know what is. While Zanki Zero doesn’t force a group of school students to kill each other, it still has an equally grim...
Review Steins;Gate Elite - The Greatest Visual Novel Just Got Even Better
El Psy Kongroo
What would you do if you had the ability to send text messages back in time? Maybe you’d send yourself the answers to a test at school, or maybe even the winning lottery numbers. If you knew what the future held then there are loads of little things you could do to improve your life. It all seems fairly harmless as well, right? But...
Review Jump Force - What the Hell Did They Do to Goku?
Go ahead and jump
We've played some ugly anime games in our time, but there's a special place in art style hell for Jump Force. What should be a grand celebration of all things Jump, this crossover fighter is loathsome in its portrayal of the awesome manga and anime heroes that make up its character roster. Jump Force opts for a "realistic" visual...
Review 428: Shibuya Scramble (PS4)
Tokyo timehop
The visual novel genre is a strange beast, a niche corner of gaming that’s littered with some classic narrative experiences and bizarre oddities. Developer Spike Chunsoft is responsible for the lion’s share of popular visual novels on the market, with Steins;Gate and the fan favourite Dangonranpa series. Now it's re-releasing 428:...
Review Fire Pro Wrestling World (PS4)
Fired up
From it’s name, you probably already know if you want to buy Fire Pro Wrestling World or not. The niche 2D wrestling series, which started way back in 1989, is back for another instalment, and for the most part it’s unchanged, as a game in touch with its roots should be. It probably won’t attract many new fans, but you get the feeling...
Review PixelJunk Monsters 2 (PS4)
Man in the wooden mask
It's been a whole decade since the excellent PixelJunk Monsters paraded onto the PlayStation 3, and in that time, it's been ported to several different platforms. It's one of the best examples of the tower defence genre, with its addictive strategising, charming visuals, and fiendish level of challenge. Q-Games has finally...
Review Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony (PS4)
Bear with me, I’ll think of a pun soon
The Danganronpa series is known for being delightfully dark and twisted while at the same time wrapped in a layer of light-hearted eccentric silliness. The main crux of the series centres around Monokuma and his ‘killing game’, where a group of students are forced to live together and the only way to...
Review Zero Escape: The Nonary Games (PS4)
A wild twosome
In the past ten or so years, the visual novel genre has found success in the West thanks to attempts to localise games you'd usually only find in the Japanese market. But one series that has never really had its time to truly shine is the set of Zero Escape games, which have been spread across multiple consoles. Fortunately, efforts...
Review Danganronpa 1&2 Reload (PS4)
The kids aren't alright
The Danganronpa series is built around a deliciously gruesome premise: a bunch of high schoolers are held captive - in a school in the first game, a tropical island in the second - and they're told that the only way they'll ever be allowed to go back to their normal life is if they kill one of the other members of the group...
Review Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky (PS4)
Existential crisis
Dying has been a part of playing video games since the early days of the arcade, but few games in that time have killed you off right at the beginning of the story. By the time the opening credits for Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky finish rolling, our avatar – a teenage boy named Kanata – has been caught in a...
Review One Piece: Burning Blood (PS4)
Let's burn rubber
As is the case with many manga and anime properties, Eiichiro Oda's One Piece – a hugely successful tale of super powered pirates – is a brilliant basis for a fighting game. Thanks to a massive cast of wacky characters, all of whom boast their own crazy combat abilities, a brawler such as One Piece: Burning Blood seems like a...
Review Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls (PS Vita)
Hell is whenever
As sinister as it is completely crazy, Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls is very much birthed from the same minds as the other games in the series – except that this time around, courtroom class trials and detective work are replaced by linear third-person action. It's a gameplay shift that paints Ultra Despair...
Review J-Stars Victory VS+ (PS Vita)
Star-crossed
J-Stars Victory VS+ is actually quite a snug fit on the PlayStation Vita. The bite-sized battles feel like they're just the right size for a quick spot of portable play, and the graphics arguably look crisper than they do on the big screen. This is the same game that you can get on the PlayStation 4, which we've already covered in more...
Review J-Stars Victory VS+ (PS4)
The Manga Carta
A brawler that takes some of manga and anime's biggest names and pits them against each other in what can only be described as explosive battles, J-Stars Victory VS+ is a welcome addition to the PlayStation 4's library for fans of Japan's numerous colourful creations. With a reasonably big character roster, plenty of fan service, and...
Review Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair (PlayStation Vita)
Hello addiction
Anyone who played and enjoyed Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc is likely to mention one of its greatest strengths when praising the game: its ability to make you think about and consider the title's events, even when you're not playing. Its narrative structure and cast of interesting personalities meant that you'd end up pondering...
Review Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars (PlayStation Vita)
Born to try
Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars is one of the strangest games that you’ll ever play. Its premise – which, in essence, revolves around mating – provides an odd starting point, but get past this and you’ll find a surprisingly enjoyable excursion that’s only really let down by repetition and some unnecessarily sexual...
Review Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (PlayStation Vita)
Addicted to despair
Hope's Peak Academy: a social melting pot for Japan's best students, and home to a horrific killing game that provides teenagers with the motives for murder. This is Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, a title that's part visual novel, part point-and-click adventure, and part courtroom craziness. But is this sinister scenario worth...
