Do you remember games like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6? Did you love the hell out of them? Have you been wondering for the last 15 years why RPGs went hardcore next-gen and have been unable to really capture the simple magic of sprite-based storytelling and turn-based combat? Then Radiant Historia is going to smack you in the face with nostalgia. It’s a game that came out this year, it could have come out in 1995, and it manages to look great in either era.

Atlus has really sealed itself in as the king of JRPGs, after Square-Enix abdicated the throne a year or two ago. Radiant Historia on the DS is a great RPG filled with classic aesthetics and mechanics, that manage to stand the nostalgia test that all “retro” games must take and that few pass.

Same game sequels take the series three steps forward. Some sequels take the series one step forward and two steps back. Pokemon is the only series that manages to take the series an inch forward and five steps sideways. Pokemon Black and White are out now, and you can probably predict how good it is. Still, read our review anyway, for some insight into the next evolution of Pokemon.

I’d love to have received an advance copy of Dragon Age 2 and finished it by now so I could discuss it in full today, but since I put my pants on one leg at a time and pick up games at midnight on launch day like everyone else, I’ll have to limit my scope to the opening hours of the game. Keep an eye out for a full review as I get through it!

It’s official: after so much time in the Wasteland, Bethesda Softworks is taking us back to Tamriel. The latest chapter of The Elder Scrolls has been announced. The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim will take place in Tamriel’s northernmost province, land of the Nords and lots of snow.

According to the trailer that premiered at the Spike Video Game Awards and is now on the Elder Scrolls web site, Tamriel is now without an emperor after the events of Oblivion, the people of Skyrim are clashing, and the dragons are returning. That last bit is something of a Big Deal. It looks like you’re going to be the Novatim, or Dragonborn. Sounds awesome.

The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim is scheduled to hit November 11, 2011.

Coming soon, they say? Not soon enough, I say. Kingdom Hearts RE: Coded is a enhanced remake/port of the Japan exclusive mobile game Kingdom Hearts: Coded. The game is set after Kingdom Hearts II, and the plot involves King Mickey’s investigation into an unknown phrase appearing in Jiminy’s Journal. As the trailer shows. RE: Coded will have a variety of gameplay styles, including action platformer, turn based RPG, what looks to be a Space Harrier clone, as well as typical the Kingdom Hearts gameplay. The combat engine looks to be lifted directly from Birth by Sleep, a good thing as BBS is the best combat the franchise has had thus far. Kingdom Hearts RE: Coded comes out in America January 11, 2011. (via KH13.com)

A Fallout: New Vegas review is on the way, but until it’s ready let me tease you with these two revelations: the game is broken, and the game is awesome. This isn’t necessarily a deficiency on Obsidian’s part; indeed, one could argue that the company simply followed Bethesda Softworks’ long-standing example of producing half-made masterpieces. Like Fallout 3 before it, and Oblivion before that, and Morrowind before that, Fallout: New Vegas manages to find a measure of greatness despite otherwise crippling technical problems. It also proves that few games can be so buggy that we can’t still embrace their redeeming qualities.

Despite conventional widsom, gamers can be very forgiving. They just need to be given an incentive to forgive. Eye candy, ear candy, blood, boobs, these are all great bullet points for catching the attention of gamers, but they’re not enough to overcome a technically flawed title. For a game to win despite itself, to succeed in the face of bugs that would have it kicked back to beta testing in any sane development house, it needs to show real ambition of scope. It needs to put a lot of real, gameplay-affecting choices into the hands of the player for it to be a successful case of Bethsoft-itis.

Well, alright! Thank you, cell phone camera person, for sneaking out the videos for Final Fantasy Versus XIII and Final Fantasy Agito XIII. Now I won’t have to wait till this January to see them.

I know I shouldn’t complain, but why couldn’t you sneak one of the FF13A/V vids out instead, GameSpot? Ah, well. The 3rd Birthday is coming out very soon in Japan and is the third game in the Parasite Eve franchise. It’s not called Parasite Eve 3 is because Square lost the rights to that name; the first game was actually an adaptation of a Japanese horror novel. Still, any new cult mitochondrial horror is reason to celebrate.

[Note: It's a "Quick Review" not for the length of the review, but for the amount of time played. Quick Reviews are reviews of games that the reviewer has not yet finished, but has played enough to get a solid impression of the game. At the time of this writing, I had played Cladun: This is an RPG for 28 hours.]

Cladun, in spite of its title, is not much of an RPG. It could be described as an Action-RPG, but I consider it more to be MegaMan with RPG stats. It’s also easily the hardest game I’ve played this year, brutally punishing and merciless in its need to grind. Cladun: This Is A RPG is a game I was very excited to play. Now, I’m not too sure about it.

[UPDATE] Eurogamer reports that Bioware has fixed the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC for Xbox 360 and PC. While I appreciate the quick turnaround, the fact remains that they shouldn’t have put out broken product. Original review below.

Mass Effect 2 has gained what could easily be the last DLC for the game and it’s the largest addition yet. Lair of the Shadow Broker finally bring you face to face with the person who been running things behind the scenes in the Mass Effect universe. But does this hold up to the rest of the series?