Sanrock Reviews

looking at things from a literary viewpoint

Video Games

Raging Loop Review

One weird little habit that people who are both readers and video game players have is playing visual novels. While a niche market in the states, it’s huge in Japan. One of the most recent examples is horror/mystery Raging Loop. After a terrible breakup, college graduate Haruaki Fusaishi finds himself in a small town after getting lost just riding around the Japanese countryside on his motorcycle. What Fusaishi didn’t expect […]

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Resident Evil 7 (PS4) Review

One of the longest-running and most famous survival horror video game franchises is Resident Evil. It had a formula that many people loved (and some people hated) and spawned movies, comics, novels and other merchandise. And then Capcom decided to reboot the gameplay with Resident Evil 4 and then go into a completely new direction that’s nothing like the original gameplay with today’s review Resident Evil 7. One day Ethan […]

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Super Castlevania (SNES) Review

Ever since Castlevania was released on the NES back in 1987 it has seen massive success. There have been sequels, spinoffs, comics, novels, Simon Belmont was a main character on Captain N and a Netflix animated series. One of the best in the series and according to some the best Castlevania game is Super Castlevania (AKA, Castlevania 4) for the SNES. A remake of Castlevania 1, Dracula has returned and […]

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Kuon (PS2) Review

Japanese horror is a colorful genre. While it shares the same themes as western horror, it has its own flavor with its storytelling, monsters and ghosts. Now, put everything j-horror, set it during the 17th Century, make it into a video game and you get Kuon for the PS2 by From Software. Yes, the same From Software that’s famous for Dark Souls but I wouldn’t get my hopes up if […]

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Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Review

One of Konami’s most treasured video game franchises is Castlevania. Gamers have fond memories of these games from way back in the NES era. Then Konami decided that the best thing to do with the franchise is to make a bunch of pachinko machines and mobile games nobody wants (the Netflix series was good, though.) Koji Igarashi, a former Konami programmer and producer, decided to make a Kickstarter for a […]

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Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem (GameCube) Review

Have you ever had the feeling that there are beings that you can’t comprehend out there who are fighting each other for supremacy? Well then, you have just experienced a phenomenon we in the industry call Cthulhu syndrome. Ever since HP Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu in 1928 was published in the February 1928 issue of Weird Tales the Cthulhu Mythos has been used in a ton of movies, novels, […]

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Home Sweet Home (PS4) Review

Have you noticed how a lot of horror games coming out today are first-person stealth games? Well, here’s another one for you by Thai developer Yggdrasil Group called Home Sweet Home. Tim awakens in a weird, dilapidated apartment building and needs to find a way out and find his wife Jane. What awaits him is a ghost girl armed with a box cutter and other monsters straight from Thai mythology. […]

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Walking Simulators: Should You bother Playing Them?

One of the newest video gaming genres is the walking simulator. It is exactly as it sounds: You just walk all over the game’s world clicking on things or going to a certain place and a cutscene starts. It’s basically a movie that you have to work to get the story. Yes, the gameplay is basically non-existent, which means the majority of gamers will just avoid them like plagues. So, […]

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Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc Review

Danganronpa is one of these newer visual novel games that have exploded in popularity. I have seen pictures of Monokuma (the series’ main villain) all over and Loot Anime even gave out a the same tie one fo the characters wear in the game. Of course, being a cat with high curiosity, I decided to test fate and get the first game, Trigger Happy Havoc, from Gamefly and give it […]

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