Category Archives: MoeGamer Awards

The MoeGamer Awards: Character I’d Most Like to Talk To

The MoeGamer Awards are a series of made-up prizes that give me an excuse to celebrate games, concepts and communities I’ve particularly appreciated over the course of 2017. Find out more and suggest some categories here!

Today’s suggestion is another one from longstanding friend of the site Annie Gallagher. Check out her page Guardian Acorn for some insightful writing on games, anime, politics, music and all manner of other goodness from the perspective of a trans feminist philosopher, critic, gamer and otaku. She didn’t like Criminal Girls as much as I did, but at least she doesn’t call people who did enjoy it paedophiles and ban all discussion of it. Which is, you know, nice.

Annie had a number of great character-centric suggestions — one of which I’m still debating whether or not to actually jump in and do… we’ll have to see on that one! — and this was one of them. It was a tricky decision, for sure.

And the winner is…

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The MoeGamer Awards: Most Eclectic Soundtrack

The MoeGamer Awards are a series of made-up prizes that give me an excuse to celebrate games, concepts and communities I’ve particularly appreciated over the course of 2017. Find out more and suggest some categories here!

Music is a massively important part of the modern gaming experience. As technology has improved, particularly in the storage department, we’ve seen a notable shift away from game systems synthesising music in real time using built-in sound chips — a process that often produced a distinctive and instantly recognisable sound unique to each platform — and towards more traditionally recorded music.

While this does diminish each modern platform’s individuality in terms of the distinctive timbres of their games’ soundtracks, it does leave composers free to let their imaginations run wild and express themselves — and for us as listeners to focus on the compositions themselves rather than admire how the musicians got around technical limitations. Today’s award celebrates a delightfully eclectic and enjoyable soundtrack that blends a variety of styles together into one coherent whole; the kind of soundtrack that simply wouldn’t have been possible back in the eras of chiptunes or synthesised MIDI music.

And the winner is…

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The MoeGamer Awards: The Second Chance Award

The MoeGamer Awards are a series of made-up prizes that give me an excuse to celebrate games, concepts and communities I’ve particularly appreciated over the course of 2017. Find out more and suggest some categories here!

Today’s award is pretty simple: it reflects a game I gave a second chance to, and ended up being extremely glad that I did.

It’s often worth revisiting things that you bounced off some time ago, as you may well find that changes in your outlook and tolerance for certain things may change over time. Of course, in this digital age, there’s also the possibility that games might be patched and improved over time, too — and, as in the case of today’s game, there may also be superior ports down the road to improve the overall experience, too.

And the winner is…

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The MoeGamer Awards: Best Game I Haven’t Covered

The MoeGamer Awards are a series of made-up prizes that give me an excuse to celebrate games, concepts and communities I’ve particularly appreciated over the course of 2017. Find out more and suggest some categories here!

Today’s award, as you might expect, gives me an excuse to bring up a game that I haven’t really talked about this year, despite it being something that is eminently worth talking about. The reason I haven’t talked about it is pretty simple: I haven’t finished playing it, and as regular readers know I prefer not to write in detail about something without having a thorough understanding of it, usually by at the very least beating its main story.

The other reason I held fire is that there were a flurry of articles about it around the period of its release earlier in the year, and I didn’t want to add to that noise at the time. I do want to acknowledge it before the year is out, however, so that’s what today’s award is all about.

And the winner is…

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The MoeGamer Awards: Most Relevant Opening Song

The MoeGamer Awards are a series of made-up prizes that give me an excuse to celebrate games, concepts and communities I’ve particularly appreciated over the course of 2017. Find out more and suggest some categories here!

Today’s award comes to us from the delightfully named “Garbage Weeb” via Twitter, also known as the host of At the Ebicentre and co-creator of Oppai Bros, both on YouTube. Check out these channels for an interesting mix of livestream discussion and commentary on the former and gameplay of niche and fanservicey games on the latter. Thanks!

There were actually a whole lot of different works I enjoyed this year that this award could have gone to. It was definitely a close-run thing, but I had to make a decision in the end!

And the winner is…

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The MoeGamer Awards: Uncancel This Series

The MoeGamer Awards are a series of made-up prizes that give me an excuse to celebrate games, concepts and communities I’ve particularly appreciated over the course of 2017. Find out more and suggest some categories here!

Today’s suggestion comes to us from Matt S, also known as @NightGuard_X on Twitter. Matt keeps a fairly low profile on social media but has been good enough to support the site for a long time; he’s also polite, articulate and always has interesting comments to make, even if he does have designs on the Purple Sister wallscroll in my study. You can’t have her!

Matt’s suggestions for his own personal Uncancel This Series award were Uncharted Waters and Monster Rancher, both of which are games I’m unfamiliar with, unfortunately, but I know they both have plenty of fans out there who would love to see them make a grand return. I have a feeling my choice may be quite a popular one, however…

And the winner is…

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The MoeGamer Awards: Best Retro Systems to Collect For in 2017

The MoeGamer Awards are a series of made-up prizes that give me an excuse to celebrate games, concepts and communities I’ve particularly appreciated over the course of 2017. Find out more and suggest some categories here!

Today’s category comes from… well, me, because I wanted to write about it. I’ve really taken to collecting games over the last few years, particularly quirky, interesting or rare Japanese titles that don’t typically get a lot of attention — fodder to write about, in other words — and have spotted a few trends this year that may be of interest to those seeking to expand their own collection.

Specifically, if you’re not particularly attached to the idea of always being totally “current” with your game collection, or if you’re keen to see how far things have come (or not!) over the course of the last 20 years or so, these are the systems you might want to focus your collecting efforts on.

And the winner is… err, winners are…

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The MoeGamer Awards: Best Integration of Mechanics with Thematic Elements

The MoeGamer Awards are a series of made-up prizes that give me an excuse to celebrate games, concepts and communities I’ve particularly appreciated over the course of 2017. Find out more and suggest some categories here!

Today’s suggestion comes to us from “riobravo79”, who doesn’t appear to have a website or Twitter or anything — not that I could find, anyway — but left a comment on the initial awards post. Thanks; hope you see this!

Balancing narrative themes and mechanical interest is always a concern for those making a game with any more complexity than a “walking simulator”, visual novel or similarly story-centric experience. And it’s with this in mind that one of the most common terms bandied about by people who like to pretend they know what they’re talking about is “ludonarrative dissonance”, intended to describe the disconnect between the narrative themes of the story and what you actually spend your time doing in the game.

Some games handle this better than others. Some games don’t even attempt to handle it, combining abstract mechanics with a more realistic narrative. But some games do a wonderful job with fusing their narrative and thematic elements with how the game as a whole works.

And the winner is…

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The MoeGamer Awards: Saving the World with Only Girls

The MoeGamer Awards are a series of made-up prizes that give me an excuse to celebrate games, concepts and communities I’ve particularly appreciated over the course of 2017. Find out more and suggest some categories here!

Today’s category comes to us from SoriasSire, who left some great ideas in the comments of this post just like you (yes, you!) should go and do right now. SoriasSire is also a longtime supporter of the site and Japanese gaming in general, so a hearty thank-you for your ongoing support!

It’s a popular misconception among people who don’t know any better (or do any research) that we have a shortage of badass female lead characters in video games, but nothing could be further from the truth — particularly in Japanese gaming. This award aims to celebrate an awesome example of an all-female ensemble cast that we’ve explored over the course of 2017.

And the winner is…

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The MoeGamer Awards: Best Waifu

The MoeGamer Awards are a series of made-up prizes that give me an excuse to celebrate games, concepts and communities I’ve particularly appreciated over the course of 2017. Find out more and suggest some categories here!

Today’s suggestion comes to us from Annie Gallagher, longtime friend of the site and self-described trans feminist philosopher, critic, gamer and otaku. Check out her site Guardian Acorn for some insightful writing on games, anime, politics, music and all manner of other goodness. Also, she likes Time and Eternity, which I really need to write about in more detail on here sometime because it’s vastly underappreciated.

I digress. I was sort of dreading someone suggesting “best waifu” as a category because it’s such a difficult decision to make what with all the incredible female characters there are in Japanese games and visual novels. Even if I narrow it down to just, say, this year’s Cover Games, which is what I’m going to have to do, it’s still a very difficult task! But, well, I’ve started down this road now, so I will not falter. Much. And… and… no, it’s not you, Midori, that wouldn’t be right and proper, would it?

And the winner is…

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