Atelier, Atelier Arland

Atelier Lulua: The Scion of Arland – Fourth-Generation Alchemy

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Given that there was a gap of eight years and six games between Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland and Atelier Lulua: The Scion of Arland, it will doubtless not surprise you to learn that the latter’s mechanics aren’t just a rehash of the former’s.

Instead, upon the game’s initial announcement in Japan’s Weekly Famitsu, Gust revealed that the new game would feature an alchemy system that blended elements of the classic Arland games with more recent additions to the formula — specifically, incorporating some elements that had proven popular from the primarily PS4-basedΒ MysteriousΒ series.

The result is a mechanical core to the game that is accessible to newcomers but filled with a considerable amount of hidden depth — and which feels fresh and interesting to series veterans, even if they’re coming to Atelier LuluaΒ directly from the previous threeΒ ArlandΒ games. Let’s take a closer look.

Continue reading Atelier Lulua: The Scion of Arland – Fourth-Generation Alchemy →

Evercade A to Z, Videos

Evercade A to Z: Super Robin Hood

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The Oliver Twins are, it’s fair to say, probably best known for their Dizzy series of arcade adventures on 8- and 16-bit home computers. But they made a bunch of other interesting games, too.

Super Robin HoodΒ for NES is a reimagining of the twins’ very first commercially successful game, originally released for Amstrad CPC. It’s a fun platformer that gives you a sense of freely exploring an interesting environment, despite it actually leading you on a linear path from start to finish.

Check it out in the video below, read my writeup for more information — and, of course, don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

One-Shots

Quantum Theory: Tower Toppler

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The longer I run this site, the more it becomes clear that immediate, embargoed, day-one reviews of video games haven’t been doing a lot of titles justice for a very long time now — right back to the PlayStation 2 era at the very least, and probably beyond.

The trouble is, thanks to the Metacritic-fuelled world we live in, if a game scores poorly in those initial reviews, in most cases it is doomed to languish in obscurity, even if there are interesting things to say about it. There are occasional outliers — the wonderful NierΒ is probably the best example — but for every game that manages to claw its way out of the darkness to get some degree of recognition, there are myriad others destined to be forgotten.

Which brings us toΒ Quantum Theory,Β a third-person shooter developed by the people behind theΒ Project ZeroΒ series. Almost universally panned by Western reviewers on its original release in 2010, this is not a game that anyone looks back on particularly fondly — or at all, in most cases. But I thought it sounded interesting. And you know what? It is. Let’s take a closer look.

Continue reading Quantum Theory: Tower Toppler →

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari ST A to Z: Karting Grand Prix

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Sometimes, it’s good to play a genuinely awful game just to remind yourself how good we have it most of the time. And sometimes you end up very pleasantly surprised.

Sometimes, though, a game is just irredeemably terrible and no amount of positive intention will save it. Sadly, such is the case with Karting Grand PrixΒ for Atari ST by Anco — though I will add a disclaimer at this point. This video was based off the version of the game that Automation archived among their enormous collection of floppy disk menus, and is seemingly an incomplete or earlier version of the game; the final retail release does run slightly faster, but that doesn’t do much to rescue this absolute tyre fire.

Enjoy my suffering in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for happier times!

Atari A to Z

Waifu Wednesday

Waifu Wednesday: Takanashi Kiara

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Since their debut in September of 2020, the girls of Hololive English have well and truly settled into their roles as virtual entertainers, bringing joy to hundreds of thousands of people every day.

Back when HoloEN first launched, we took a specific look at Amelia Watson and Ninomae Ina’nis, but there are still several three more delightful characters in the lineup well worth celebrating. And with the unfortunate (and apparently accidental) banning of Takanashi Kiara’s channel earlier today — a mistake which YouTube-kun has since rectified after implied murderous threats from a certain rapping reaper — I figured it was well worth giving everyone’s favourite phoenix a bit of time in the spotlight.

You can’t keep a good phoenix down, after all — althoughΒ Final FantasyΒ might have you believe otherwise — so get your bargain bucket ready and let’s give that bird some love. That came out with potentially filthy implications, but they honestly weren’t intentional. Please disregard.

Continue reading Waifu Wednesday: Takanashi Kiara →

short;Play, Videos

short;Play: TimeSplitters 2

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You asked for it, and I… was going to do it anyway, but here it is! TimeSplitters 2, one of the finest console first-person shooters ever created — and indeed one of my favourite games of all time.

TimeSplitters 2Β took everything that was good about the first game and provided more.Β Much, much more. We have a story mode that is much closer to what its spiritual predecessorsΒ GoldenEyeΒ andΒ Perfect DarkΒ provided on the Nintendo 64. We have a more structured single-player experience for the “arcade” mode. We have a wide variety of weird and wonderful challenges. And we have many, many,Β manyΒ characters to collect.

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

Evercade, SNES, Technōs Collection 1

Super Double Dragon: An Unfinished Symphony

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Despite being the franchise that pretty much defined a whole genre, the Double Dragon series has had its share of troubles over the years.

One particularly troubled installment was 1992’s fourth game in the series, known as Super Double DragonΒ in the West, andΒ Return of Double DragonΒ in its slightly enhanced Japanese release. This Super NES-exclusive title suffered from an all-too-common problem in the games industry that we still see to this day: the developers being forced to rush the game out before it was completely finished.

Even the enhanced Japanese release was missing some of the material that was originally supposed to be in the game, but for now it remains the definitive version of the game. Lucky that we now have easy access to this version thanks to theΒ Technos Collection 1Β cartridge for the Evercade retro gaming system, then, isn’t it?

Continue reading Super Double Dragon: An Unfinished Symphony →

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z: Questron

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When I was a kid, I was kind of scared of trying out RPGs because they looked too complicated. Returning to them today, however, makes me feel like I would probably have been fine!

Here’sΒ QuestronΒ from Strategic Simulations Inc, who at the time were better known for their wargaming software. This was their first RPG release and proved to be a big success for them. The company would later go on to be extremely well-known for their excellent array of licensedΒ Dungeons & DragonsΒ computer RPGs, so this was the just the beginning of something wonderful for them!

Enjoy the game in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more.

Atari A to Z

Podcast

The MoeGamer Podcast: Episode 45 – One Hell of a Year

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Welcome to the obligatory podcast-format end-of-the-year roundup! I’m joined for this exploration of a year we’ll all remember for quite some time by, as always, Chris Caskie of CCaskieArt.

The MoeGamer Podcast is available in several places. You canΒ subscribe to my channel on YouTubeΒ to stay up to date with both the video versions of the podcast and my weekly videos (including the Atari A to Z retro gaming series); you canΒ follow on SoundcloudΒ for the audio-only version of the podcast; you canΒ subscribe via RSSΒ to get the audio-only version of the podcast in your favourite podcast app; or you canΒ subscribe via iTunesΒ andΒ listen on Spotify. Please do at least one of these if you can; it really helps us out!

Enjoy the podcast in video and audio formats below:

And hit the jump for show notes!

Continue reading The MoeGamer Podcast: Episode 45 – One Hell of a Year →

Announcements, Community

Around the Network

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Good evening! I’ve spent most of the day editing a new episode of The MoeGamer Podcast, so you can expect that tomorrow.

I’m not doing a full series of The MoeGamer Awards for the whole month this year — I might do some “[x] of the year” towards the end of December though — so the upcoming episode is very much a “best of 2020” sort of deal. And in our usual manner, most of the stuff we’ve picked is stuff you won’t hear the mainstream talking a great deal about!

Please, as they say, look forward to it. In the meantime, here’s a roundup of what you might have missed in the last week.

Continue reading Around the Network →

The best of overlooked and underappreciated computer and video games, from yesterday and today