Around the Network

Sunday evening, and the living is eas– wait, that’s not how that goes.

I’m sleepy! I haven’t had a particularly busy weekend but I did have a fairly packed working week, and thus it’s been nice to just have a fairly laid-back weekend where I didn’t need to worry about anything in particular. So I didn’t. We had a nice Chinese takeaway, I played some Atelier and Final Fantasy, and life is good.

So with a comfy air of satisfied tiredness about me, let’s look back over what you might have missed in the last week.

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MoeGamer

Q&A: January 2021 – I really enjoy making these videos and they seem to do oddly well on YouTube! Here’s the latest, anyway.

Formula 1: Bizarre Creations’ True Beginning – The Fatal Rewind: A Bizarre Creations Retrospective MegaFeature continues with a look at the team’s first racing game.

Dig Dug: Diggin’ Dirty – A look at the Famicom version of Namco’s classic Dig Dug, as seen on the Evercade.

short;Play: Heretic – Doom clone or something more? Bit of both, but heavier on the latter.

Waifu Wednesday: Bubbles – I covered Food Girls over at Rice Digital this week (link below!) but thought I’d celebrate the girl I paid most attention to in my playthrough over here.

Tasomachi: Behind the Twilight – The Joy of Exploration – A very promising-looking game from the Steam Game Festival is Tasomachi, a lovely 3D platformer with a strong emphasis on exploring some lovingly crafted environments.

Evercade A to Z: Pac-Attack – In a video that made rabid Pac-Attack fan Chris very uncomfortable due to my ineptitude, I explore Namco’s peculiar puzzler for SNES… via the Evercade.

The Music of Atelier, Vol. 10: Atelier Ayesha – The Alchemist of Dusk – We wrap up our time with Atelier Ayesha: The Alchemist of Dusk with a celebration of its spectacular soundtrack.

Rice Digital

5 fantastic Asia-English import games for PS4 – Looking to add to your PS4 collection? Here’s some prime picks from Lilia that you can’t get over here.

VShojo VTuber Hime Hajime debuts, banned for “bomb ass tits” – I believe the title says almost everything you need to know.

Triple trouble: 3 of the most amazing anime villains – Conor breaks down his all-time favourite anime villains.

Switch sales are strong because the platform gives the people what they want – Nintendo reported strong hardware and software figures for the Switch this week. I ponder exactly how and why that happened.

The surprisingly emotional core of Witchblade’s ecchi anime adaptation – Lilia breaks down the Witchblade anime and highlights how it’s much more than an excuse for some fanservice.

5 awesome Atelier games to try if you loved Ryza – Well, with all this new-found knowledge, I might as well use it, no?

Why we love relationship building mechanics in video games – Lilia considers exactly what it is that keeps us coming back for more virtual relationships.

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Food Girls and its precious cinnamon rolls – A Taiwanese visual novel/management sim hybrid about the ailing fortunes of a street market sounds like a good time, right? Of course it does. And it is!

Waifu Wednesday: Ryza (Atelier Ryza) – With a new Atelier Ryza game now in everyone’s hands, what better time to celebrate the series’ most popular waifu to date? Conor reports.

Hump Day Husbandos: The 5 greatest Harvest Moon bachelors – Lilia breaks down the best Harvest Moon hunks of all time.

7 amazing Inti Creates games to play while you wait for Gal*Gun Returns – Self-explanatory, hopefully.

Balan Wonderworld is Balan’s Nightmare: Demo thoughts – Lilia came away distinctly unimpressed from the Balan Wonderworld demo, and opinion across the Internet has been mixed at best. What did you reckon?

The ultimate Quintessential Quintuplets girl guide – The clue’s in the name. If you’ve been looking to get into this popular series, let Trent get you up to speed!

5 of the most impressive picks from the Steam Game Festival – There’s some great stuff in the Steam Game Festival this year, so be sure to spend some time browsing. Here are my highlights.

The History of Lewd: Casual Romance Club – I look back on an interesting moment in eroge history: the time a company released a game specifically for both the Japanese and western markets at the same time.

The 5 hottest visual novels to grab in MangaGamer’s Valentine sale – MangaGamer is running a Valentine’s Day sale right now, so it’s a great time to stock up on reading material. Here’s five picks from me.

Otome archetypes: those dependable oji-san love interests – Lilia ponders the enduring appeal of the older gentleman.

The Returner: In defence of Final Fantasy XIV’s 2.0 content – I love A Realm Reborn, however much the player community whines about it. And here’s why.

Remembering Gal*Gun Double Peace’s 6 sexiest bits – With Gal*Gun Returns just around the corner, I thought it would probably be sensible to spend some quality time thinking about Shinobu stuck in the window, among other things.

Everything we know about Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker so far – The new Final Fantasy XIV expansion has been announced, and Isaac’s got a solid guide to everything that’s been talked about so far.

Atari A to Z

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This week we have a technically proficient reinterpretation of a 2600 classic, a baffling and brutal adventure game, and yet more RealSports action.

Patreon

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Don’t forget that over on Patreon I post a daily behind-the scenes personal blog that is, effectively, a resurrection of my old #oneaday blog I used to host over at angryjedi.wordpress.com. If you’d like to get to know me a bit better, be sure to sign up; just £1 a month (about $1.50) can get you in the club, and it also provides you with access to the MoeGamer Discord as well as helping to fund and support the things I do here on the site. S-Rank (£5+ a month) Patrons also get to play a part in the monthly Q&A video!

Find out more and sign up to Patreon here!

Cool Stuff By People Who Aren’t Me

First up, Patreon goodness! Right now, I’m supporting Paul “Mr Biffo” Rose’s creative endeavours on the Digitiser YouTube channel, the ever-grumpy (and always hilarious) Cheap Show Podcast, gaming and gaming culture commentator Liana Kerzner, fountain of retro computer gaming knowledge Rob “Hellfire64” Caporetto, blogger/YouTuber meggsngrits and TangoPunk, the newest zine on the block, all of whom you can find out a bit more about by clicking through to their profiles.

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

I must confess, I have made very little time for myself to trawl the WordPress community, but in the interests of consistency I will pick out some posts from the last week that jump out at me right now! Be right back.

Shoot from the Hip – Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water (Shoot the Rookie) – Always happy to see someone enjoying Project Zeroso here’s pix1001 taking a quick look at the underappreciated, oft-overlooked Wii U installment.

Would you rather an anime with bad characters but an amazing plot, or an anime with a bad plot but amazing characters? (Umai Yomu Anime Blog) – Yomu’s back with more writing prompts, this time concerning whether narrative or characterisation is more important — if indeed either of them are!

Deep reads #5.3: Getting personal with Persona (Everything is bad for you) – This post has been a real labour of love for AK, so you should read it, love it, enjoy it!

Key in Transition – Kanon (2006) Review & Discussion (Jon Spencer Reviews) – Jon’s got an interesting piece here on the peculiarities and idiosyncracies of Kanon’s anime adaptations.

#LoveYourBacklog Month 2021 (Later Levels) – If you’re drowning in games you’ve bought but not played… read this and don’t panic!

There. All done! I’m off to bed. Have a lovely rest-of-weekend and I’ll see you all in the week — here, on YouTube, and over at Rice Digital!


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