Around the Network

Evening all! It’s time for another weekly roundup and an update.

You may have noticed I haven’t yet kicked off a new Cover Game feature having finished the one on The Expression: AmrilatoThis is mostly down to the fact I’ve been a bit busy, tired and, frankly, depressed and anxious lately, and that’s put me a bit behind “schedule”, as it were. Hopefully this week, though, I’ll at least get the introduction to the next feature up, however — but I do want to finish the visual novel I’m currently enjoying first.

Anyway. Enough shop talk, let’s catch up on what you might have missed this week…

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The Zelda Diaries: Part 5 – Indoor Play – My adventures in the world of Breath of the Wild continue as I reflect on the game’s wildly different approach to “dungeons”.

Custom Order Maid 3D 2: Sex, Sommeliers and Song – Since a YouTube-based Let’s Play of this delight wouldn’t be practical (not with the fun bits intact, anyway) I thought I’d do a text based one for your enjoyment. Here’s the latest installment.

Warriors Wednesday: Mystical Ninja – Cao Pi and friends come up against Nene (who is cute) and her ninja magic (which is not).

Waifu Wednesday: Rin Takato – An in-depth exploration of The Expression: Amrilato’s protagonist, and how her character explores matters of sexuality and gender identity in an interesting and unusual way.

Whip! Whip!: Smells Like Taito – Like Taito’s old-school single-screen “kill ’em all” platformers? Then you’ll want to check this new title out. It has music from a former member of ZUNTATA and everything.

Final Fantasy Marathon: Lali-Ho! – The sixth episode of our adventures in the first Final Fantasy sees us paying the dwarves a visit and finding a convenient use for that Nitro Powder that’s been burning a hole in our pocket.

Racer Essentials: S.T.U.N. Runner – If you look down a bit, you’ll notice that I also covered this game as this week’s Atari ST A to Z title. It reminded me that it’s actually a rather interesting game that plays an important — though often unsung — role in racing game history.

Atari A to Z

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This week we have some non-copyright infringing “dice poker” (plus cat), the aforementioned S.T.U.N. Runner on Atari ST, and some oft-delayed two-player arcade soccer action!

Cool Stuff By People Who Aren’t Me

First up, Patreon goodness! Right now, I’m supporting chaotic “old men (and Octav1us Kitten, who I also support) attempt to talk about games, usually fail” collective Digitiser 2000, the ever-grumpy (and always hilarious) Cheap Show Podcast, the wonderfully supportive Normal Happenings, independent games writing collective The Well-Red Mage and fountain of retro computer gaming knowledge Rob “Hellfire64” Caporetto, all of whom you can find out a bit more about by clicking through to their profiles.

Here’s a selection of recent YouTube and podcast goodness from several of this lot:

Super Lucky’s Tale (2017) [PC] (The Well-Red Mage) – If you’re not following The Well-Red Mage and you’ve ever complained about the state of modern games journalism and specifically modern games criticism, then check it out. He’s gathered a crack team of people with a variety of backgrounds and interests to produce some well-crafted, interesting, long-form critiques of all manner of games. Here’s just one great example.

An Antidote to Violence and Vitriol (Shoot the Rookie) – pix1001 decides to take aim for the “video games cause violence” argument, but instead of blasting it down with a simple “no they don’t”, what we have here is an excellent rebuttal that points out all the good that games are capable of.

A case of gamers’ block (Later Levels) – Ever found yourself in a position where you have over a thousand games lining your living room walls, yet no desire to play any of them? N-no, me neither, but Kim offers some interesting thoughts on the much-loathed feeling of “gamers’ block”.

Waifu of the Week (#9) – Hibiki Sakura (Ecchi Hunter) – If you’re not watching How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift? yet, get your credit card out and prepare to join your local gym, because Lynn is here to tell you all about one of that anime’s most formidable assets.

Pescatore Frog (MrGilderPixels) – My good buddy Chris Caskie shares another of his painted wooden pixel art creations, this time featuring a bemused-looking frog from Sunsoft’s unreleased puzzler Pescatore.

Ikkitousen Season 1 Review (Umai Yomu Anime Blog) – Yomu takes some time to lay down why Ikkitousen is much more than just silly fanservice — particularly if you’re interested in the story of the Three Kingdoms.

There’s mystery in the air and I’m feelies fine (Kimimi the Game-Eating She-Monster) – Kimimi explores the Murder Club series on X68000 and laments the death of “feelies”: those immersive bits of tat that you got with your games way back when, that were often very helpful in their own way!

All right, a bumper crop today, so that should keep you busy for a while. Be sure to follow all the creators above and give ’em a like and/or a comment to show your appreciation if you enjoy their work. And, as always, thank you for your support of MoeGamer, be it through reading, liking, commenting, sharing or taking that massively appreciated next step and helping the site out with a Patreon pledge or one-off Ko-Fi donation.

This week, expect an in-depth look at a visual novel I frankly wasn’t expecting to be as good as it ended up being, and the first part of the all-new Cover Game feature. Please look forward to it, and thank you once again for taking the time to stop by and read!


The MoeGamer Compendium, Volume 1 is now available! Grab a copy today for a beautiful physical edition of the Cover Game features originally published in 2016.

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.

If you’d like to support the site and my work on it, please consider becoming a Patron — click here or on the button below to find out more about how to do so. From just $1 a month, you can get access to daily personal blog updates and exclusive members’ wallpapers featuring the MoeGamer mascots.

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