I've always considered myself fortunate to have been in college during the Guitar Hero / Rockband craze. I loved playing Guitar Hero II competitively against friends and Rockband cooperatively with them. It seemed like every party had a Guitar Hero room where drunk college kids wailed away on plastic instruments.…

So I know this is supposed to be part two of my review of Tokyo Mirage Sessions. And in a way it is, I'll be discussing parts of that game here, but I'll also be discussing other games while focusing on the topic of grinding. The reason for that is…

What a strange game. I've never really played anything quite like this but it's got a strange familiarity to it as well. Maybe it's like the first time you eat cotton candy ice cream, a dessert that's composed of all familiar tastes and textures but still jumps out to startle…

Back in April, Kotaku UK editor Laura Kate Dale thought she heard a slur against the disabled in a Persona 5 song in Smash Bros. Ultimate. She wrote an article about it, but ended up having to write a retraction the next day (you can read the retraction here, it…

In the hills of Faerûn, a group of intrepid adventures makes their way north from Waterdeep to the Spine of the World to investigate why the giants have suddenly started attacking settlements all across the northern Sword Coast. Each leg of the journey, the dungeon master rolls two D10 to…

Last week I wrote about genre, but it occurred to me there's one niche that didn't really get covered: educational games. And it's a particularly heinous omission considering the impact these kinds of games have had on my life. It's-a me, your art teacher I'm not sure how many people…

Earlier this week I saw a few twitter threads about how Smash Bros. isn't a fighting game, but rather a party game. Other people disagreed and many online discussions were had but very few minds were changed. Now I'm not out here to be some keyboard warrior for my viewpoints.…

Happy Easter everyone! I won't drone on too long, we've all got eggs to hunt and pastel clothes to wear. And depending on the games you play, you may have noticed that it's Easter — or some vaguely seasonal pastel-flavored, egg and bunny themed holiday — in your favorite video…

If you read last week's blog post about Pokemon (which, is here if you missed it) you'll know that I'm big on games that present interesting decisions to players. It's what, at the core, defines a good game to me. But when I talk about this concept with friends, there's…

When my mom took me to Walmart to purchase a copy of Pokémon Blue on release day in September of 1998 (I was 11) with money that I had saved up my allowance for months to purchase, there's no way she could have known that this little $40 game you…