Peter Tieryas

What Games On Your Backlog Do You Want To Finish This New Year?

Every December, I wonder where the year went. Every week before January 1st, I wonder what games from my backlog I will finally get to in the New Year. There’s so many games I need to tackle, going all the way back to the PS2. Suikoden V, Rogue Galaxy, and Valkyrie Profile call out to…

Lost Odyssey Is A Moving Story About Immortality, Memories, And Loss

There’s a game I keep coming back to every few years. It’s Lost Odyssey for the Xbox 360. Developed by Hironobu Sakaguchi’s Mistwalker Studios, it’s basically Final Fantasy mixed with the old show about immortals, Highlander. The first two times I played it, I got to the White Boa, then stopped. Life just got in…

One Punch Man Is About The Plight Of Being Too Powerful

What’s it like to be the strongest person on the planet? If you answered that it’d be a boring depressing state of existential dread, then you’d empathize with the hero of One Punch Man One Punch Man is a superhero anime based on the Manga of the same name that combines action, comedy, and satire…

The Story Behind Solomon’s Key, One Of The Most Challenging NES Games

Constellations, block puzzles, magic, and a Taoist monk collide in this odd but extremely difficult puzzle game called Solomon’s Key. Published by Tecmo as an arcade game in 1986, it was ported to the NES in 1987. Michitaka Tsuruta was the main designer and he explained over email how he drew the original inspiration for…

The Weird But Memorable Sidequests Of Yakuza 0

I loved Yakuza movies growing up, and the Yakuza series reminds me of the best of them. I actually enjoyed films like Sympathy for the Underdog, Battles Without Honor and Humanity, and Sonatine more than their mafia-themed cousins we have here in the west. So when Luke wrote his great review of Yakuza 0, I…

Thunder Force IV Was One Of The Best Shooters Of The 16-Bit Era

Thunder Force IV is the ultimate adrenaline rush and hands down one of the best shooters on the Sega Genesis. It also had one of the most depressing endings on a 16-bit era game. Developed by Technosoft in 1992, it was renamed Lightening Force: Quest for the Darkstar in the US. I got it as…

‘Shop Contest: Black Friday

This past Friday was Black Friday and had a splurge of gaming and electronics deals. I saw lots of people looking for new TVs. I still remember when flat screens were thousands of dollars and can’t believe so many high quality TVs are on sale now for only a few hundred. Of course, with new…

Hi Kotaku! I’m signing off for the weekend and wanted to give a big thank you to all the readers for taking the time to read my retrospectives/essays and leaving some very interesting comments over the Thanksgiving break. I try to read as many as I can as I always learn really fascinating things and…

I Wish All RPGs Had A New Game Plus

When I was younger, dropping hundreds of hours on a RPG was no problem. It was actually something I was proud of. I spent so much time on RPG series like Might and Magic, Ultima, Dragon Quest, and Final Fantasy, it felt like a rite of passage. Part of what makes the RPG experience so…

What’s Your Favorite Video Game Soundtrack?

Whenever I got a new Sega Genesis game, I used to plug in the earphones to the console’s headphone jack to play it. I felt an invisible bubble form around me as the game started and I listened to the music in stereo sound. It was like I’d jacked into my own private universe. There’s…

Ghost Trick Has One Of The Catchiest OSTs On The DS

Ghost Trick was one of my favorite games on the DS. A big part of what made it so good was the amazing music. The whole concept behind Ghost Trick is making ghostly possessions a game mechanic. That meant every object in an area was either a potential tool to be manipulated or a method…

Monster Asks Tough Questions About Morality, Fate, And Justice

An anime series based on a manga of the same name by Naoki Urasawa, Monster is a work that constantly forces you to question your sense of morality and ethics. Good and evil become a bloody mess through the series and rarely gives your wounds the time to coagulate, instead, seeping blood until all the…

Final Fantasy XV Has One Of The Best Endings In The Series

Every Final Fantasy game has had special meaning to me, even the more controversial ones like X-2 and XIII. While they have their flaws, their incredible production values and Square Enix’s desire to innovate on the series makes every iteration feel like a brand new experience. As much as I wanted to, I didn’t get…

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Was Arcade Co-Op Action At Its Finest

I miss arcades. I have so many fond memories of visiting them in my childhood, from playing Bubble Bobble and launching hundreds of bubbles to a World Wrestling Federation game whose title I can’t recall even though I can see it clearly in my head like it was yesterday. I went to a whole lot…

The Castlevania Anniversary Collection is on sale this weekend so I picked it up as it includes the Japanese editions of some of the classic games. I knew there was an array of differences between the US and Japanese versions, but it’s been neat seeing them directly. One of the most interesting is that in…

‘Shop Contest: The Poké Ball Guy Winners!

Last week, Zack asked everyone to “spread the horror of Poke Ball guy.” He’ll be back next week, but he graciously asked me to stand in as judge for this weekend’s shop contest. I got to say, it was hard as there’s so many great entries. Most of them made me burst into involuntary laughter.…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

This weekend is for catching up on a million things, writing, cleaning up, and taking out the garbage. Oh, and squeezing in some Devil May Cry 5. Ever since I read the articles by Heather and Tim about DMC5, I’ve wanted to dive in. Devil May Cry 5 is just as amazing as I’d hoped…

Resident Evil 6 Isn’t That Bad

I’d read so many reviews bashing Resident Evil 6, I skipped it when it first came out. But when I saw it on sale in the PlayStation store, the curious part of me couldn’t resist. Was it really that bad? To my complete surprise, I really liked it. RE6 is more like an action game…

Chrono Cross Was A Bad Sequel, But A Brilliant Game

In many ways, the reason Chrono Cross is one of the most underrated JRPGs in gaming is because of the comparisons to its predecessor, Chrono Trigger. Chrono Cross is a somber and meditational work, exploring destiny, fate, and decisions in a way that is more philosophical in nature than Trigger. Cross lacks the quirky humor…

Final Fantasy VIII’s Surprise Twist Nearly Ruined It For Me

Final Fantasy VIII is easily one of the most action-packed and compelling games in the series. It was amazing when it first came out, and as I play through the recently-released remastered version, I’m enjoying it just as much. But even 20 years later, some of the choices made by FF8‘s story are still confusing.…