It's the first day of Golden Week in Japan, and while that may not mean much to those in English-speaking territories, it's one of the nation's biggest holidays. As Valve never miss an excuse for a sale, that means that there's some great deals on games from Japanese developers and publishers. If visual novels, fighting games or JRPGs are your thing, there's some good stuff at slashed prices today. Here's the official sale highlights page, you can see all the current week-long deals here, and a handful of personal picks below.
]]>The past year has brought Yakuza, Bayonetta, Ni no Kuni II and many other Japanese series to PC for the first time. In light of that, it's tempting to demand that every classic and everything new and exciting from Japan gets ported over from its original console home.
There's nothing wrong with that, but anyone can ask for Personas 3-5. I'm here to advocate for the swathes of great, older Japanese games that would feel at home on PC, but which haven't yet been canonised. Games which break the mould, and which aren't filled with the usual JRPG tropes. I’ve picked out eight that feel like less obvious choices, all of which deserve to find a new audience on PC.
]]>Welcome back to Spawn Point, where we take an element from the world of gaming and explain what it is, why it's worth your time and how you can dip your toes in and get involved. Last time, Brendan gave you a 101 course in Final Fantasy XII, a JRPG that recently got spruced up for PC twelve years after its original launch on PlayStation 2. This time, however, I'm going to be looking at JRPGs as a whole, discussing what they are and which ones you should try your hand at first if you've never played one before.
]]>Another year over, a new one just begun, which means, impossibly, even more games. But what about last year? Which were the games that most people were buying and, more importantly, playing? As is now something of a tradition, Valve have let slip a big ol' breakdown of the most successful titles released on Steam over the past twelve months.
Below is the full, hundred-strong roster, complete with links to our coverage if you want to find out more about any of the games, or simply to marvel at how much seemed to happen in the space of 52 short weeks.
]]>I’m sitting with some friendly seaside townsfolk debating the merits of placing chocolate jelly in every toilet in the Holy Midgand Empire. The Great Choconito Gambit, one of them calls it to much amusement, insisting he was going to get rich from the scheme. We all laughed.
Cut forward half an hour and I’m deep in an ancient temple watching a starving daemon child, half-boy, half-tree, eat his mother alive as my party looks on, helpless. And so it goes in Tales of Berseria [official site]: one minute you’re enjoying the idle chatter of your rag-tag RPG party, the next you’re thrown back into a twisted tale of death, revenge, and dragon gods. This is Tales’ attempt to shed its label as a solid but predictable series – and for the most part, it succeeds.
]]>Great Odin's beard, it's only the weekly Steam charts! That is to say, the ten games which sold best on Steam last week.
This week: new entries, old favourites, and a very dirty house indeed.
]]>Catching up on the week's leftovers, hey, look: Tales of Berseria [official site] is out! The latest in Bandai Namco's long-running RPG series launched on Thursday night, a bit before the European console release even. Good boy, Ian Bandai. He says Tales of Berseria is a young woman's "journey of self-discovery", though from what I saw in the demo she mostly discovers what's inside monsters after they're kicked to pieces. That's a journey of other-discovery. Perhaps this here launch trailer can explain better:
]]>A demo for Tales of Berseria [official site] is now out on Steam, offering a sample of Bandai Namco's JRPG ahead of its full launch on January 27th. Tales may be an old series but it's relatively new to PC, so do have a bash if you're curious. If you're less interested in games than options menus and framerates, hey, I can tell you about that.
]]>As Old Father Time grabs his sickle and prepares to take ailing 2016 around the back of the barn for a big sleep, we're looking to the future. The mewling pup that goes by the name 2017 will come into the world soon and we must prepare ourselves for its arrival. Here at RPS, our preparations come in the form of this enormous preview feature, which contains details on more than a hundred of the exciting games that are coming our way over the next twelve months. 2016 was a good one - in the world of games at least - but, ever the optimists, we're hoping next year will be even better.
]]>Bandai Namco's long-running Tales series of RPGs has avoided PCs for most of its life but they've recently started bringing both old and new Tales games our way. The PC version of Tales of Berseria [official site] will launch on the same day of its console counterpart, January 27th, and we'll even be treated to a demo before then. Look for that on January 10th, Bamco have announced. While they are getting better at this 'PC gaming' malarkey, their ports can be still wonky so good, that's good to hear. Here, come have a gander at Berseria in a new trailer.
]]>Like a little J in your RPG? Smile: Bandai Namco today announced that Tales of Berseria [official site], the next game in their long-running 'Tales of' series, will indeed be coming westward. And yep, it will be on PC too. Bandai Namco have been pretty good with bringing the series our way. They released the recent Tales of Zestiria on the same day as its PlayStation 4 version, and are going back to bring older games like Tales of Symphonia over too. Trailer below!
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