Author: Pyre Kavanagh

I love places a lot of people would call liminal spaces. I like hallways and passageways, and taking photos of pathways or places that evoke a sense that’s kind of unsettling. It’s hard to explain. I like going for walks and taking photos. I also like the movie Stalker. Phenomenal movie. These two things are not really connected in any way, but they are inspirations for one of Furyu’s latest releases, Anomalith, which has just had a limited demo drop. Obviously, I needed to check this out. And since the demo is no longer available for only a limited time,…

Furyu has released a “combat” demo for its upcoming “dark bishoujo action roguelite,” Crymelight. Crymelight is the third entry in the “Cry” series of games, titles seemingly tied together by phenomenal Sakuzyo music, cute girls, and someone who apparently likes forcing them through miserable trials. It does call itself a roguelike, but I’m a pretentious dweeb who calls anything with a “pick three” system a roguelite. Besides, I’ve got to spice up what will otherwise be a short preview piece. In Crymelight, you play as a young girl who has woken up in “Wonderland” and been designated the name “Alice.”…

Desktop Explorer is not a name that tells you too much about what you’re in for. Recurring Dream’s debut title, named in a way that suggests a file browser, is one I was immediately taken with. Any game where the ‘setting’ is a highly limited environment, such as a single room or within a computer screen, I always find very interesting. And this title is a psychological horror mystery set entirely inside a Windows 95-esque PC. A nostalgia hit and a horror mystery game? Sounds great. Story, Setting, and Core Premise In Desktop Explorer, you play as a young woman…

At the recent Xbox Games Showcase, Atlus showed off a new trailer and release date for Persona 4 Revival, the upcoming remake of Persona 4. Honestly, it looks phenomenal. The combat looks fantastic, the visuals are gorgeous, and the UI has that stylish Atlus energy that makes me want to pause the trailer just to stare at menus. Inaba looks like it’s been given new life, too. The rain, the streets, the color, and the TV aesthetic being pushed further into combat and dungeon crawling all make Persona 4 Revival look like the kind of remake that understands why people…

The rhythm game genre is one of the genres of games that need a story the least. You don’t need a rhyme or reason to hit notes to the beat of a song. You toss in some leaderboards, some difficulties, and people will genuinely spend hours trying to get as high a score and play out the song as best as possible. There is often a very high skill ceiling, and experienced players look awesome when playing well. I generally find this difficult. I’m a busy person who looks at a rhythm game and thinks about how fun and cool…

There’s something immediately appealing about Narin: The Orange Room. Maybe it’s the contrast of a child wandering through a space that feels wrong, or maybe it’s just how confidently the game leans into its atmosphere from the start. Either way, this debut from indie Thai studio Red Sensation Games pulled me in pretty quickly. It’s a short horror puzzle game with a strong visual identity, some interesting ideas, and a setup that gives it plenty to work with, even if not all of it lands as well as it should. Story and Premise Narin: The Orange Room opens by describing…

This article contains major spoilers for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and The Caligula Effect: Overdose. Consider playing these games before reading. Despite summarising the endings of both games, this piece shouldn’t detract from how interesting these titles are, should you read this first. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Explores Grief Through a Doomed World Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a story about grief and loss, and all the trauma that comes packed in with it. The population of Lumiere, a French city of sorts ripped asunder from its origin 67 years ago during ‘the fracture’, is being slowly sapped away by…

Pokémon Champions is the new upcoming Pokémon battling simulator game coming out in April. This sort of game has been highly anticipated among the competitive community, as a game that allows the barrier of entry to competitive Pokémon to be minimised, something that has been sorely missing from the games thus far. This way, everyone can enjoy the complexities of Pokémon’s classic combat system without needing to fiddle with hidden values. I’ve always had my toes in the water, but the time investment has held me back from really getting into it. So I’ve been super excited for it and…

Last year was miserable for the industry as a whole. Layoffs continued, more people than before are out of jobs, and The Game Awards continues to be a vain and pointless attempt at making games out to be prestige media. A fool’s endeavour, especially coupled with the abandonment of any smaller developers. However, lots of cool stuff did come out this year. Dream projects were put together, and wild ideas have been realised. And distressingly, I haven’t played much of it. Between all my work and classes, I’m realizing my list of new games played this year is pretty small.…

Pokémon Legends: Arceus was a new and incredibly interesting take by Game Freak on a mainline Pokémon game. Whilst ILCA remade Pokémon Diamond and Pearl as Shining Pearl and Brilliant Diamond, Game Freak took the setting of the game and turned it on its head. Whilst technically set in the same region, everything about the game was changed. From the time period, to the available creatures, to the general battle mechanics, even the overarching formula and story progression. I adored it, so when I saw the announcement for Pokémon Legends Z-A, a follow-up set in the region of Pokémon X…

Earlier this year, I did a preview for an adventure game called Type-NOISE: Shonen Shojo, a Japanese adventure game released over there as Zatsu On-Kei Boy Meets Girl. I went in curious but not exactly hyped, more in that “prove it to me” headspace than anything else. Type-Noise: Shonen Shojo – Gameplay and Story Developed by DankHearts, a studio that’s primarily assisted on discontinued mobile games, TYPE-Noise marks both their first English release and their first PC game release. That alone made me more interested than I expected. It’s pitched as an escape room adventure with a strong hook, and…

I’m a massive fan of many of the titles Furyu publishes. Besides The Caligula Effect games and Monark being some of my favourites, I highly enjoyed titles like Crystar, Crymachina, and Reynatis. With the recently released Varlet being touted as a successor to Monark, I was very excited to see it. I was aware that Fuyuki Hayashi, the writer and director of Crystar, Crymachina, and most importantly Monark, wasn’t part of Varlet’s team. However, surely missing one key creative wouldn’t mean that Varlet couldn’t be something I didn’t like. So obviously, I found Varlet to be a miserable and thoroughly…

It was only earlier this very year, in April, that TooKyo Games released their genre-busting, definition-of-insanity strategy RPG visual novel, “The Hundred Line: Last Defence Academy.” And yet, come September, they’re releasing another cacophony of absurdity in the form of Shuten Order. Developed in collaboration with DMM Games and then published in the West by Spike Chunsoft, Shuten Order is promised to be a genre-busting, definition-of-insanity adventure game, with this one brought to you by the minds from Danganronpa (Kazutaka Kodaka), Master Detective Archives: Rain Code (Takekuni Kitayama), and Root Double -Before Crime * After Days- (Takumi Nakazawa). This was…

The AI: The Somnium Files games are some of my favorite mystery titles, and now there’s a third one. However, what struck me as most peculiar was that the two names I was used to seeing with a large creative influence on these titles weren’t involved in the same way. Akira Okada, planner of the first game and director of the second, is absent, and Kotaro Uchikoshi, series director and lead writer of the previous two, appears only in a supervisory role. Their fingerprints are still on the franchise’s DNA, but the day-to-day steering has shifted. Instead, Kazuya Yamada, whose…

FuRyu have shown off the new opening to their recently announced upcoming JRPG ‘Varlet’. Led by RiRi Yamashita, the opening highlights the cast and setting, whilst set to the song ‘Shiori’. This song is sung by Minori Suzuki, in role as the major character Aruka Arisaka. ‘Shiori’ is composed by the vocaloid music producer Wotaku. You can find the opening below. VARLET was announced last week and will be released for PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store on August 28, 2025. Team Noir, the team behind the turn-based RPG Monark, is also helming…

When TooKyo Games first formed, they hosted a livestream in 2018 showcasing four upcoming projects that I was extremely excited for. Three of those would be revealed and released as World’s End Club (developed by Grounding), Akudama Drive (an anime produced by Studio Pierrot), and Master Detective Archives: Rain Code (developed with Spike Chunsoft). But one remained untouched: codenamed Extreme X Despair, this title was supposed to be a thematic crossover between Kazutaka Kodaka’s Danganronpa series and Kotaro Uchikoshi’s Zero Escape series. After many development changes, we now have The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy. A Make-or-Break Gamble for TooKyo…

It amuses me that there was an era when MAGES dabbled in fighting games and beat‑’em‑ups. First came Phantom Breaker, an anime fighting game that launched on Xbox 360 in 2011, hit arcades in 2013, and then received a slight update for its PS3 release that same year. During that same period, they spun it off with the retro‑style Phantom Breaker: Battlegrounds. They ditched the guys and made it a chibi, pixel‑art beat‑’em‑up. The first game never came West, but Battlegrounds did. If the company name rings a bell, it’s probably because MAGES is best known for its visual novels,…

Kotaro Uchikoshi is a name synonymous with some of the most mind-bending narratives in visual novel history. Known for his work on the Infinity series, Zero Escape, and more recently, AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES, Uchikoshi has long been at the forefront of interactive storytelling, weaving intricate plots filled with philosophical musings, scientific intrigue, and emotional depth. As the Infinity series continues to be discovered by new generations of players, Uchikoshi reflects on his work, creative inspirations, and the impact of his storytelling over the years. We had the opportunity to speak with Uchikoshi about his thoughts on the Infinity series,…

Type-NOISE: Shonen Shojo—not to be confused with the Nisioisin manga series Shonen Shojo that was localized as Ill Boy Ill Girl—is an upcoming puzzle-adventure visual novel developed and published by Danksoft. It also marks their first English release. As a fan of this genre, I was intrigued by the trailers and thought it’d be worth checking out. Gameplay Mechanics & Puzzle Design Shonen Shojo opens with our leads, Zena Yugamizori and Soto Ochibana, waking up in a strange sewer with hazy memories. The more pressing concern, however, is that this sewer appears to be entirely enclosed, and water is slowly…

If you’ve followed my stuff, you’ll know I’ve been deep into TooKyo games. The creatives involved in the group have developed some of my favorite titles or have been heavily influential to me when I was younger. And the new titles they’ve had a hand in producing haven’t been any slouch either, with World’s End Club, Akudama Drive, AI: The Somnium Files – Nirvana Initiative, and then there’s the exciting upcoming Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy. But this title, Tribe Nine, is a live service game developed by Akatsuki Games, which I’m not usually prone to enjoying. I enjoyed the…