The Year In Kotaku East

It’s the end of another year. Can you believe it? And what a year. Let’s take a breather and look back at some of the best Kotaku East stories of 2017. Here we go: Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond.…

Universal Studios Japan Is Getting A Final Fantasy Ride

Starting January 19, Final Fantasy is getting a roller coaster at Universal Studios Japan called Final Fantasy XR Ride. The limited-time ride is part of Universal Studios Japan’s yearly Cool Japan event. The Final Fantasy XR Ride is a VR-enabled roller coaster—in short, it is Space Fantasy The Ride repurposed with VR headsets. Final Fantasy…

The Biggest Anime Controversy Of 2017 Comes To An End

Just as anime director Tatsuki accepted an anime of the year award for Kemono Friends, the show’s producer took to Twitter to announce its creators would not be back, bringing to an end this year’s biggest anime controversy. Tatsuki was pulled from the second season of Kemono Friends, the unexpected hit that he wrote and…

A Pre-Sunrise Hike. Roys Peak, New Zealand. By Will Norton. JPGs is a photo peek into wherever gamers might find interesting. If you’re a photographer and have images you want to share, drop us a line!   

I Just Got A Bunch Of Overwatch Gift Cards, And I’m Terrified To Use Them

Before we went out for Christmas dinner, my mom handed me a small bag stuffed with wrapping paper. I dug into it, expecting to find candy, money, or some mix of the two. I did find those things, but also Overwatch loot box gift cards. I was ecstatic. A day later, however, I’ve realized that…

Danganronpa Captures The Feeling Of Real-Life Arguments

It can be difficult to make video game dialog seem natural. Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony’s trial scenes use various mini-games to turn dialog into an stressful battle of wits that captures the feeling of real life debate. In Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, like in previous Danganronpa games, 16 students are tasked with playing a “killing…

There’s A New Mod Designed To Make Smash Bros. 4 Play Just Like Melee

A new mod promising to make Super Smash Bros. 4 play more like Super Smash Bros. Melee now has a playable beta, as well as a new trailer. Smash 4 Melee HD (at least until they come up with something better) is a Wii U mod that includes wavedashing, crouch cancelling, and other techniques unique…

GoldenEye 007 Player Beats His Own World Record Twice In One Day

It was a Christmas miracle of sorts. On December 25 Ryan Gibbs beat his previous world record speedrun for the Runway level in GoldenEye 007 with a time of 30 seconds. Hours later he did it again, this time in 29 seconds. Gibbs’ feat is one of the most stunning achievements for an N64 game…

How To Stop Ads From Appearing On Your PS4 Homepage

If you’re a PS4 owner, you may turn on your console today and find a surprise home-page advertisement for Destiny 2, a video game in which players travel through space, battling against adversaries like the Fallen, the Cabal, and the Eververse. Here’s an easy way to stop that from happening: 1) On your home screen,…

2017, As Told By Steam Reviews

One Steam review is a person shouting into the void. Two is an argument. A whole mess of them, though? That’s a deep, dark look into the collective psyche of Steam users. In 2017, we rounded up the best reviews of the year’s top Steam games and maybe, just maybe, learned a little something about…

Five Family-Friendly Board Games That Aren’t Monopoly

It’s days into your family vacation and you’ve run out of things to talk about. Your brother has hashed out all the hometown gossip, and you and your father have dutifully avoided talking politics—all that’s left to do is watch the Food Network and eat leftovers. It’s this situation that board games were made for.…

The Best Anime To Binge-Watch Over Winter Vacation

Winter vacation is for binge-watching anime. It’s what you’re probably going to do anyway between family meals and sleeping, so let’s just be honest with ourselves. [This article was originally published 12/27/2016.] Binge-watching isn’t for the faint of heart. Tearing through 12 episodes of Madoka Magica does not constitute a binge. Rapid-firing 700 episodes of…

The U.S. Is Way Behind On The Trails Series

In a world where Japanese publishers have finally started to embrace global simultaneous releases, and there’s no longer much stress over whether we’ll see niche role-playing games come to the West, one series remains woefully behind: Trails, also known as Kiseki, also known as the best JRPG series out there. Falcom, the prolific studio behind…

ROM Hacker Adds Color To Super Mario Land 2

Super Mario Land 2 is one of the more underrated games in Nintendo’s library, with a suite of interesting ideas and some truly weird levels. It was even the first Mario game to let you go to the moon. And now it’s in color. Thanks to ROM hacker toruzz, you can now play a sleek,…

The Year In Video Game Paintings, 2017

Another year, another crop of video game paintings doing their best to class up the place. I invited my artist friend Curtis back to lend their expertise to my folder full of screenshots of this year’s video game paintings. We saw a lot of references to existing artists, as well as a lot of strange…

Devil May Cry Mobile Game Announced For China

According to reports out of China (via MMO Culture), a mobile Devil May Cry is in the works. Tilted Devil May Cry: Pinnacle of Combat, it’s an action RPG for smart devices. Below are its first images circulating online. The game, MMO Culture reports, will have online, team battles and real-time player versus player. Devil…

Nintendo Still Explaining Nintendo Account And Nintendo Network ID Differences

Who would’ve thought that Nintendo having different account systems would be so confusing for people? It’s December 2017, and in Japan, Nintendo says it’s getting lots of questions about the differences. “Currently, we are getting a great number of inquiries about the Nintendo Account,” the company wrote in a tweet. The attached image easily shows…

How Tokyo’s Geek District Has Changed In Ten Years

As Kotaku previously reported, Tokyo has changed in surprising ways over the past decade. But let’s see how Akihabara in particular has evolved. Of course, Akihabara is the city’s gaming and geek area. PhotoAkiba shows how the changes can be subtle, but noticeable. The top image is from 2007, while the bottom one dates from…