Category Archives: Articles

All the non-Cover Game articles and features in one place.

Castlevania, Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, Delving Into...

Delving Into Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse – #1

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I have, as they say, been looking forward to this.

Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse is not a game I have any experience with whatsoever, aside from one critical aspect: its music. Specifically, back when the PS1 was current, I had an original copy of Symphony of the Night (which, believe me, I severely regret getting rid of now!) that came with a soundtrack CD. On that CD was a single track from Castlevania III — or more accurately, its Famicom incarnation, Akumajō Densetsu. It left quite an impression on me.

Now, thanks to the release of the Castlevania Anniversary Collection, I finally get to experience Castlevania III as truly intended. And I’m very excited about it.

Continue reading Delving Into Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse – #1 →

The Zelda Diaries

The Zelda Diaries: Part 1 – A New Beginning

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I’ve had The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild sitting on my backlog for a long time now, and I’ve been trying to work out the best way to cover it, because I knew that I definitely wanted to cover it in one form or another.

Was a Cover Game feature right for it? Perhaps, but with one or two exceptions, I tend to prefer to reserve the Cover Game slot for games that don’t get much attention from the mainstream press. And Breath of the Wild has certainly had plenty of mainstream attention.

The other consideration was that Breath of the Wild is a massive game, so doing something a bit more… “long term” was perhaps in order. With that in mind, then, I welcome you to the first installment of The Zelda Diaries, chronicling my journey through this ruined Hyrule, and the thoughts that occurred to me along the way.

Continue reading The Zelda Diaries: Part 1 – A New Beginning →

Announcements, Community

Around the Network

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Happy weekend! And happy holidays to me!

Yes, for the next week I’m officially on holiday from the day job, and the wife and I are taking a nice trip to Center Parcs to rest, relax and possibly look at some owls. In the meantime, though, I have some videos queued up to post over on YouTube over the course of the next week, and I’m going to get at least some articles written while I’m away.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, aren’t we? Let’s see what you might have missed in the last week or so!

Continue reading Around the Network →

Essentials

Namco Essentials: Libble Rabble

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At the time of writing, people are getting seriously excited for PlatinumGames’ next release, Astral Chain — and with good reason!

As the release approaches, we’re starting to learn more and more about the game: what we can expect from it, what sort of experience it will be and what its main inspirations are.

In the latter case, an interview by Polygon reveals that a particularly strong influence on director Takahisa Taura was an obscure 1983 release from Namco, developed by the creator of Pac-Man. I give you Libble Rabble.

Continue reading Namco Essentials: Libble Rabble →

Castlevania, Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, Delving Into...

Delving Into Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest – #3

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I finished Simon’s Quest! Yes, indeed, even after my podcasting buddy and good friend Chris Caskie suggested that I wouldn’t be able to stick it out to the end… I did!

It wasn’t even entirely down to stubbornness or a desire to prove him wrong. I actually enjoyed the whole experience. Well, all right, most of the experience. I didn’t love the bits where progression was dependent on doing something arbitrary in an equally arbitrary location, and the three bosses in the game were all complete garbage, being both ridiculously easy and mechanically uninteresting… but aside from that, I had a great time.

Let’s review what I’ve learned from my experiences, then.

Continue reading Delving Into Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest – #3 →

Waifu Wednesday

Waifu Wednesday: Yukino Tsubaki

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Despite PQube’s excellent Kotodama: The 7 Mysteries of Fujisawa not being a romance-centric visual novel, it has no shortage of characters — both male and female — designed to be very appealing.

My personal favourite from the ensemble cast after completing the whole thing — that is, after finding out all of their respective dirty little secrets, anxieties and woes — was, without a doubt, Yukino Tsubaki.

Allow me to explain further! Continue reading Waifu Wednesday: Yukino Tsubaki →

Warriors Orochi, Warriors Wednesday

Warriors Wednesday: I’m On Fire Today – Warriors Orochi #43

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We’re closing in on the end of the Shu campaign of Warriors Orochi now, with only two more side missions and one more story mission to go.

Today, Zhurong and friends decide to turn their attention to the peasants who are suffering under the yoke of Orochi’s oppression. She helps them escape in her own inimitable fashion — and is very keen to make sure we’re aware of her accomplishments at the conclusion of the battle.

I’m going to be sorry to leave this particular gang of misfits behind — they’ve been a lot of fun to play as!

One-Shots

Kotodama – The 7 Mysteries of Fujisawa: Stripping Away Deceit

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Over the last few years, UK-based outfit PQube Games has become a force to be reckoned with in the localisation and publishing space.

Since its inception in 2009, PQube has brought Western fans a variety of games that might otherwise have never made it out of Japan, including Inti Creates’ Gal*Gun Double Peace and Gal*Gun 2, Kadokawa Games’ Root Letter and Red Entertainment’s Our World is Ended; they also played a key role in popularising and expanding the audiences of titles such as Nitroplus’ classic visual novel Steins;Gate and Arc System Works’ anime fighting series BlazBlue.

It’s a company serious about what it does, in other words — and so when I heard it was developing its own game for the first time, I couldn’t help but take notice. That game, Kotodama: The 7 Mysteries of Fujisawa, is finally here, so let’s take a closer look.

Continue reading Kotodama – The 7 Mysteries of Fujisawa: Stripping Away Deceit →

Announcements, Community

Around the Network

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Happy weekend everyone! Hope it was a good one.

I’m winding down towards a nice holiday away from the trials and tribulations of everyday life, so as I think I’ve previously mentioned, there will be no new Cover Game feature until my return in early July. In the meantime, however, you can continue to expect the usual mix of modern and retro games and visual novels.

The site just passed the 1,000 post mark this week — let’s check out what you might have missed around this historic occasion!

Continue reading Around the Network →

One-Shots

Educational Esperanto Visual Novel Struggles with Valve’s Amorphous Content Policies

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[UPDATE 22/06/2019: The Expression: Amrilato is now available on Steam! See this blog post by MangaGamer for further details. I’m leaving this story up, as the discussion points it raised remain pertinent.]

I don’t normally cover “news” here on MoeGamer, but this is something I think it’s important to talk about right now.

Prolific publisher and localiser MangaGamer announced today that its thoroughly intriguing-sounding visual novel The Expression: Amrilato, a game that combines a romantic yuri narrative with educational, linguistic content approved by Japan’s National Esperanto Association, had been released on its own storefront and GOG.com.

The game was also intended to release on Valve’s popular Steam storefront but it, like many other Japanese games and visual novels, has fallen foul of the company’s ill-defined policies regarding acceptable game content. Let’s talk about that.

Continue reading Educational Esperanto Visual Novel Struggles with Valve’s Amorphous Content Policies →