Coridden Review

Written by Joshua Wyld

Category: Reviews

Published: 30 January 2025

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What’s better than sitting on a couch with friends, playing through a cooperative experience together, joyously enjoying each other’s company and a shared love of gaming? Well, riding them like a mounted cavalry into battle as you both combine powerful magical attacks sounds better, doesn’t it? That’s what Coridden promises will separate itself from the pack of action RPGs out there. In Coridden, you and up to 3 friends explore the world of Heera cooperatively, completing quests and fighting mobs of creatures and bandits to try and find your way into the legendary and locked away city of Aasha. To accomplish this, you’ll have to level up and choose to go down a plethora of possible specialization paths to equip yourself with new attack spells, defensive buffs, and, even more excitingly, beastly abilities. For a small dev team, Aftnareld has given gaming friend groups a nicely packaged adventure that is 100% worth playing.

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Eternal Strands Review

Written by Joshua Wyld

Category: Reviews

Published: 27 January 2025

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Every now and then, a game will be released that reminds you why you love playing big, well-produced games in the first place. Ones that go beyond simple concepts or entertainment, and really deliver on the satisfaction of feeling like you’re playing something that could only be polished and produced at the time of gaming that we’re living in. Eternal Strands is one of those experiences. You play as Brynn, a Weaver of magic that leads an eclectic group of determined fellow Weavers on a mission of discovery and salvation. Throughout your time in the “Enclave” and beyond, you’ll face element-enhanced minions, towering & thunderous constructs, and scaly & feathered beasts in abundance, as you piece together what happened while the denizens outside of your home city were locked beyond “The Veil” that none can cross because of the “tangles” that are fatal to try and pass through. At your disposal will be a bevy of magical abilities and attacks, including ones based on fire, ice, and kinetic energies, along with weapons. All of these, along with the ability to pick up and throw just about anything (including enemies), are combined for some of the coolest and most hectic combat situations I’ve played in a while. Eternal Strands combines an engaging storyline with an impeccably chosen cast of characters and voice actors and an inventive magic casting combat system to pull you into a world you won’t want to escape from.

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge Review

Written by Sean Phillips

Category: Reviews

Published: 27 January 2025

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As a 90’s kid, you’d think I’d be one of the many who grew up with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. Yet, I don’t remember ever watching the show as a kid at all, outside of renting the second TMNT movie from Blockbusters one day just out of sheer curiosity. To be honest, I was more into shows like Beetleborgs (which I’m still waiting for a game of that series) and Van-Pires (if you remember that show, you are my friend for life), so something like TMNT probably didn’t interest me at the time, though I could be wrong. But that doesn’t mean I know nothing of them. On the contrary, I do have some knowledge of the Turtles, thanks to the advent of the internet and the 2003 show which I do recall watching some episodes of when it aired, but not enough to say I’m a huge fan. With that being said, you’d think a game like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge wouldn’t really interest me. Surprisingly, it’s actually one of those games I took a chance on and found myself really enjoying, even though it does have some shortcomings that prevent it from being anything really amazing.

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Toby Fox Joins The OFF Soundtrack!

Written by Joshua Wyld

Category: Furry Gaming

Published: 24 January 2025

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Last month, Belgian developer Mortis Ghost and publisher Fangamer announced the unexpected return of the influential RPG OFF in 2025. Now, they've announced that legendary indiegame creator and composer Toby Fox (UNDERTALE, DELTARUNE) will be a featured music composer for the new soundtrack that was developed for the game's newest release. Toby Fox first discovered OFF's English fan translation on the Starmen.net forums, an EarthBound fan website whose staff eventually created Fangamer.

Toby cited OFF multiple times in his UNDERTALE Art Book as an inspiration for his designs, especially the character designs. ​ Papyrus’s appearance initially inspired by the first boss, Dedan. Next, Sans was inspired by Zacharie and the judge: A reliable, friendly, humorous character who shows up throughout the adventure, and you never quite know what his deal is.

Toby Fox ended up handling a lot of boss tracks and was also assigned the normal battle theme. Pepper Steak, the most famous song from the original OST, is well-loved by fans with millions of listens across various platforms.

"I'm gonna be honest, just feels like I got assigned to take a bullet in the back for everybody else. I looked up almost every jazz song from the 1920s, I commissioned Carlos to make an entire fake jazz song for me so I could cut it up into samples, I tried making like 6 entirely different songs, but nothing I could come up with on my own felt quite right.
​​
​In the end, I summoned Camellia to help me out by re-remixing my ​
​first track into multiple versions, and ultimately I think it will ​
​feel pretty cool as you go through the game." ​
​- Toby Fox

White Meat, the new battle theme for OFF by Toby Fox & Camellia:

Ōkami HD Retro Review - The Rising of the Sun

Written by Brandon Billingsley

Category: Reviews

Published: 20 January 2025

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The Majestic Wolf Runs

Flowers Bloom Along the Path

And Once Again Spring Beckons

Ōkami is one of the most unique games I’ve played and also one of the most interesting success stories. Odds are, if you’re like me, you’ll have seen Amaterasu the White Wolf around. She’s become a gaming icon of sorts and still shows up at times in games like Marvel vs Capcom. . And yet, she seems like an enigma as unlike Ryu or Chris Redfield, her story isn’t as widely known.

Ōkami was developed by Clover Studio, and released in 2006 for the PS2. Formed by Capcom R&D veterans, Clover Studios' other notable work was adapting Viewtiful Joe for PlayStation 2 and developing its sequel for both PS2 and GameCube. They created only two original works: Ōkami and their last game God Hand. While both were interesting concepts, neither were considered financial successes as they didn’t sell as well as Capcoms more well known franchises. To be fair, Resident Evil 4, which released just a year earlier, set the bar at an unprecedented high which a new IP was probably not gonna come even close to. Despite all that, Ōkami received critical acclaim, nearly around a 9/10 universally at every notable publication. A lot of people noted how Okami’s unique gameplay seemed especially suited to Nintendo’s Wii and DS systems, both of which were very new at the time. The clamor was enough that Ōkami did get a well received port to Wii and while it wasn’t ported to the DS, that system got Ōkamiden, a spiritual successor. The game was later ported to modern consoles in an HD release that has gone on to perform pretty well. The love for Ōkami was still strong and with the 2024 Game Awards shocking announcement of Ōkami 2, now seems like a good time to take a look at this beloved classic.

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