Gaming off the Beaten Path

One year, two retro inspired JRPGs. Comparisons between Chained Echoes (which I guess actually came out in 2022, but very late) and Sea of Stars were inevitable and I am going to jump on the bandwagon, but I want to do something a little different. Welcome to what I hope is going to be the first of many Gaming Off the Beaten Path 10 Round Fights. I'm going to take two games and pit them against each other  for 10 rounds with boxing/MMA style scoring. Basically, the winner of each round gets 10 points, the loser gets nine or less. I know I already scored both of these games, but those numbers are always fluid, so there is always the chance one could surpass the other on a second look. Each round will be based on a different category, some will be the same regardless of genre,  but others will be specific. You are going to be looking at graphics and sound no matter what, but obviously you are going to be looking at story and characters more in an RPG while something like hit det...

  Last week, we took our first look at indie RPG Sea of Stars and its  story, plot and characters. This week, it's time to move on to the more technical aspects of the game. SOS had some positives and some negatives when it came to story, but overall it was far more good than bad. But how did it feel technically? First, I want to call out the graphics, because I feel like I don't do that enough when I talk about RPGs. I'm not usually a graphics-centric kind of reviewer, but SOS offers some truly spectacular pixel art. It's about as clean as you can possibly get and a clear example of using new technology to get the most out of a classic look. The world is spectacularly colorful and the color palette  is about as unique as I have ever seen. That may be a weird thing to call out, but some of the colors and combinations of colors here are truly striking and help elevate the game. Your characters are expressive and full of life and the enemy attack animations are top notch....

  It's been a big year for indie RPGs. Not going to lie, I was thinking I might skip this one. But with all the hype around Sea of Stars, coupled with the fact that I really liked Chain of Echoes earlier in the year, I decided I had to give it a shot. Not to be confused with Star Ocean, the other game with a maritime metaphor for space in its title, Sea of Stars is the latest heavily hyped, 2D RPG designed as a callback to the classic golden age RPGs that many of us grew up with. It was developed by and published by Sabotage Studios, a Quebec-based indie developer best known for their 2018 action platformer The Messenger. For the record, the two games allegedly take place in the same universe but have nothing else really to do with each other. Sea of Stars began its life in 2020 as a kickstarter campaign, with the studio wanting to produce a title that had more depth than its previous offering. It was heavily influenced by games like Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, Final Fantasy V...

Welcome Claire! Consider the area you're in a...special playground I have prepared just for you. Please try and keep me amused, and do not disappoint me by dying too soon! Halloween is here, so that means it's time to get spooky once again. It's been a while, but we're finally getting back to Resident Evil. I am not a huge fan of horror in general, but Resident Evil is one of my all-time favorite gaming franchises. It has the third most games in my personal top 100, behind only Mega Man and Final Fantasy, and is tied with FF for the most games on my 10s list (three apiece, for the record). Last year, I reviewed the absolutely incredible Gamecube remake on Halloween. Maybe next year I'll review Resident Evil 4, another 10/10 that just recently received a big budget remake. Both of those are all time classics, they are not only personal favorites but also important touchstones in the gaming industry as a whole. But, as great as they are, as revolutionary as they were,...