Curated playlist
PlayStation Portable games
- Dissidia Final FantasyDissidia Final Fantasy arrived on the PlayStation Portable in Japan on the 18th of December 2008, and it brought with it a premise that had never been tried before in the franchise: every hero and every villain from the first ten mainline…
- Dissidia 012 Final FantasyDissidia 012 Final Fantasy arrived on the PlayStation Portable in March 2011 carrying an unusual promise: it was simultaneously a prequel and a remake of the game that came before it. That structural gambit placed the twelfth war between…
- Silent Hill: OriginsSilent Hill: Origins opens on a lonely road, where trucker Travis Grady swerves to avoid hitting a girl who is not really there. She turns out to be a spirit tied to a real child named Alessa, and following her leads Travis to a house…
- Gensō Suikoden: Tsumugareshi Hyakunen no TokiGensō Suikoden: Tsumugareshi Hyakunen no Toki dropped into Japanese game shops on the 9th of February 2012, and by the end of that first week it had sold more than 61,000 units. That made it the highest-selling title in the country during…
- Street Fighter Alpha 3Street Fighter Alpha 3 arrived in Japanese arcades during the summer of 1998. It ran on Capcom's CP System II hardware, a board that had powered previous entries in the series. The machine processed sprites and sound to create fast-paced…
- Capcom Classics CollectionCapcom Classics Collection landed on PlayStation 2 and Xbox in 2005, offering players a vault of arcade history in a single package. Behind the disc was not one studio but three: Backbone Entertainment, Sensory Sweep, and Klein Computer…
- Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VIICrisis Core: Final Fantasy VII arrived in 2007 with an unusual burden: explaining one of gaming's most beloved tragedies before it happened. Zack Fair, a young member of the elite military force SOLDIER, would carry the entire weight of…
- Silent Hill: Shattered MemoriesSilent Hill: Shattered Memories asks you a question before it lets you play. Dr. Michael Kaufmann sits across from you in a therapist's office and wants to know how you see yourself. What you tell him will change what happens next. That is…
- Tokimeki Memorial (video game)Tokimeki Memorial arrived on the PC Engine on the 27th of May 1994, carrying a premise that made seasoned game journalists stop cold. Konami, the company behind Gradius and its reputation for punishing arcade-style challenges, had built a…
- Durarara!!Durarara!! begins with a headless rider on a black motorcycle that sometimes neighs like a horse, weaving through the neon-lit streets of Ikebukuro. That image alone tells you this is not an ordinary story. The rider is Celty Sturluson, a…
- Puella Magi Madoka MagicaPuella Magi Madoka Magica arrived on Japanese television on the 7th of January 2011, and within weeks it had upended everything audiences thought they knew about magical girls. On the surface, the series looked harmless: rounded, cheerful…
- Final Fantasy IIFinal Fantasy II launched on the 17th of December 1988, almost exactly one year after the original game, and Square's small team of around ten people had already decided it would be nothing like its predecessor. The first game had saved…
- Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law (video game)Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law arrived on store shelves on the 8th of January 2008, priced at around thirty dollars. That budget price point was deliberate. One reviewer pointed out that it meant there was no need to shout "I object!"…
- Star Wars: The Force UnleashedStar Wars: The Force Unleashed opens with a small child wrenching Darth Vader's lightsaber from his grip. Vader kills the boy's father and takes him as a secret apprentice. Released in North America on the 16th of September 2008, the game…
- K-On!K-On! began not with a grand origin story but with a small crisis: a high school light music club on the verge of being shut down, saved by four girls who could barely play their instruments. The series, a four-panel manga by the artist…
- Final Fantasy (video game)Final Fantasy arrived in Japan in 1987 as a last-ditch effort by a company that nearly did not survive to publish it. Square was threatened with bankruptcy. Hironobu Sakaguchi, the game's creator, had privately decided he would quit the…
- Space InvadersSpace Invaders arrived in Japanese arcades in July 1978, and within months the country was running out of places to put the machines. Pachinko parlors and bowling alleys were the first to adopt it when amusement arcade owners passed. Then…