When I heard I was going to be reviewing Ninja Gaiden 3 I thought “this is great: just the kick in the pants I need to finally play the first two games.” I was going to knock a couple games off of my backlog and be better informed when the third installment arrived. I was wrong. I was very wrong. I am not a good or patient enough gamer to complete the first two Ninja Gaiden games. I see what Team Ninja was doing, and I have a tremendous respect for it, but it just is not in the cards for me to see the credits roll on either game. This isn’t the case with Ninja Gaiden 3, and it is worse for it. Much worse. READ MORE
The Vita is on a roll with yet another downloadable-exclusive title, Sumioni: Demon Arts, brought to us by XSEED. This stylish 2D action-platformer combines traditional mechanics found in similar titles, while also utilizing the Vita’s touch screen capabilities. It’s a perfect fit for a handheld and there is a lot of promise to be found, but it never quite lives up to it. READ MORE
How do you evolve a genre that has remained consistent for as long as it has existed without alienating fans? Japanese RPGs have grown in terms of quality and scale, sure, but they all follow a very basic formula and rarely do they deviate from it. Xenoblade Chronicles changes all of that. By taking a few pages from the Western RPG playbook and giving them a JRPG spin, it manages to take a genre and push it out of its comfort zone. The results are simply spectacular. READ MORE
Fighting games have never made an entirely successful transfer to handhelds in the past. Some have been designed to suit the strengths of that platform, but rarely has a direct port been successful in capturing the experience of a fighter on the go. Thanks to leaps ahead in technology and some innovative new ideas, we can now experience fighters like Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 properly on handhelds. READ MORE
For the last 14 years, The Mario Party series has followed a pretty standard formula that hasn’t seen much variety through the previous eight iterations: gather four of your friends, roll dice, play your minigame, yell at friends, lather, rinse, repeat. Winner is determined by how many stars and coins you have.
A lot of people would probably be thinking, “Huh, another Mario Party game. Same old boring stuff as it usually is.” For once, they’d actually be wrong.
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