Happy weekend, folks, hope you’re all well. I’m having a bit of a trying time at present to be perfectly honest, but I won’t bore you with that here; remember you can sign up for my daily #oneaday blog on Patreon if you’d like a bit more of “the personal touch”!

Anyway, it’s been a busy week. My own personal issues aside, I’m more than happy with how things are going around these parts. I’ve got some fun videos going out nearly every day of the week now, we’ve got another great episode of The MoeGamer Podcast for you to enjoy, I’m really enjoying the current Cover Game feature and I’m feeling quite inspired for what I might be able to provide some deep-dives into over the course of the next few months.

For now, though, hit the jump to see what you might have missed this week.

MoeGamer

Sunday Driving: Splashdown – The second episode of Split/Second brings us the Air Strike event type, in which you have to avoid missiles while attempting to drive in circles. Nightmare.

The MoeGamer Podcast: Episode 16 – Welcome to 2019! – Chris and I get together for the first official podcast of the New Year, and we talk about what we’ve been playing over the Christmas break as well as what we’re looking forward to in the coming year.

Magical Diary: Wolf Hall – A Wolf in Wizard’s Clothing – The long-awaited follow-up to Magical Diary is on the way, so I took a look at the early demo intended to attract people to the Kickstarter page. It’s looking good so far!

Warriors Wednesday: Yes, We Have Nō Bananas – I make no apologies for the title of this episode as we take Lady Nō out for a spin. She’s pretty fun.

Waifu Wednesday: Esty – Unfortunate localisation “accident” aside, Atelier’s Esty is one of the most well-loved characters in the Arland trilogy. Let’s take a close look at this lovely absolutely totally positively still young, free and single but only single because she’s absolutely fine with it, honest woman.

New Game Plus: Nightmare Finale – We finally polish off Project Zero’s Nightmare mode in our playthrough! After all the trouble we’ve had for the rest of the game, the last chapter is rather underwhelming in terms of challenge factor. Not that I’m complaining…

Atelier Totori: Arland’s Middle Child – The current Cover Game continues with a close look at the second game in the Atelier Arland trilogy: Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of Arland. This is a game that finds itself in an odd position after all the Plus and DX releases of the other installments… but it’s still a cracking good (and adorable) time.

Atari A to Z

Three very interesting games this week! We have Vanguard on the Atari 8-bit, boasting multidirectional scrolling and shooting; Quartz on the Atari ST, featuring some big ol’ balls; and Avalanche from the arcades, showing us definitive proof that no, Activision did not think of the concept for Kaboom!

Cool Stuff By People Who Aren’t Me

I’m a Patron of Paul “Mr Biffo” Rose, the Cheap Show podcast and The Game Chasers. All of them have some great new stuff for you to enjoy this week, so without further ado, here:

I also wanted to give a particular shout-out to Puppy Gaming on YouTube, who is kind enough not only to watch most of the stuff I put out, but also to leave thoughtful and intelligent comments. Also his stuff is highly entertaining; I hope you like deadpan delivery and “your mum” jokes. Here’s his playthrough of BBC classic Granny’s Garden:

And now, as always, it’s time to highlight a few posts I’ve particularly enjoyed from around the WordPress community this week. Please stop by the blogs of these good people, follow them, like their posts and leave them a comment!

nc#5 – coming of age anime you need to watch right now (second half) (#moe404) – Nesha’s anime blog provides some in-depth, thoughtful analysis of a wide variety of anime, and this post is no exception. Check it out if you’re looking for a good “coming of age” anime to make you think long and hard about your own life choices.

Shuyaku Sentai Irem Fighter (Kimimi the Game-Eating She-Monster) – Kimimi does what she does best: digging up obscure Japanese handheld games no-one has ever heard of, then puts them through their paces. Sadly even the presence of the underappreciated Mr. Heli isn’t quite enough to save the interesting-in-concept Shuyaku Sentai Irem Fighter from mediocrity.

Rhythm games available on Vita (kresnik258gaming) – If you’re collecting for Vita — and with the system winding down, it’s a good time to start before things get too expensive! — Kresnik’s blog is a great resource the check out. This post highlights a variety of cool rhythm games that are playable on Vita, including some older PS1 and PSP games.

Triple-A: down or up? (Later Levels) – Kim at Later Levels posts a good piece on trends within triple-A, and ponders whether or not the top end of the industry may be headed for bad times.

The Direction of Yuri Anime (The Lily Garden) – Remy’s blog is a great resource for those particularly interested in yuri anime, and in this post he mulls over the direction the “genre” (for want of a better word) appears to have been taking over the course of the last couple of years.

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Aight. That’s that for another week. The next episode of Split/Second is coming later today as soon as it’s done rendering, then I anticipate most of the rest of my day will likely be spent playing either Atelier Meruru or Ace Combat 7!

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Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this article. I’ve been writing about games in one form or another since the days of the old Atari computers, with work published in Page 6/New Atari User, PC Zone, the UK Official Nintendo Magazine, GamePro, IGN, USgamer, Glixel and more over the years, and I love what I do.

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