Category Archives: Articles

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

Around the Network

Another week over. Hooray, I guess?

To be absolutely frank, I haven’t had an amazing week in terms of general personal and mental wellbeing, but I won’t bore you with the details here — that’s what my exclusive daily blog for Patrons is for! (Among other things, obviously, please don’t get the impression it is nothing but Pete is Sad posts.) But, as always, my various ongoing projects have helped bring me a certain degree of joy and distract me from the general bleakness of late January that everyone seems to suffer under the weight of.

That’s a nice uplifting way to start, isn’t it? Let’s check out what you might have missed this week, and maybe we’ll all feel better afterwards.

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Pete Plays Dragon World: The Real Treasure is Love

And now the epic conclusion of the Dragon World saga!

Back when we played this in the classroom, you were doing really well if you made it to Part 2, which wouldn’t allow you to even start playing without a password. (“ogweb”, if you’re too lazy to deal with Part 1’s nonsense)

Part 2 takes you on a surprisingly unforgiving treasure hunt through the aptly-named Town of Treasures… so let’s see if we can find something to make all dragonkind happy!

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Pete Plays Dragon World: A Friday Night Well-Spent

If you’re British and of a certain age, you probably have… well, if not fond memories of the BBC Micro, then certainly memories of it.

A fixture in classrooms across the whole nation, the BBC Micro played host to a variety of software packages, many of which were specifically designed to be used in the classroom.

One specialist of such software was 4Mation, best known for a funny little quasi-educational adventure called Granny’s Garden. But I have much more vivid memories of one of their lesser-known works…

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Delving into Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown – #2

I’m flying over a small island. Glancing out of the side of the cockpit, I can see the small amount of “civilisation” on this otherwise untamed little piece of land; the rest is dominated by a large hill, covered with trees.

As I pass over the summit of the hill, my craft comes out from beneath the cloud cover. Sunlight suddenly streams in from behind me, bathing my instruments and multifunction displays in bright light, punctuated by the dark, intense shadows my cockpit struts cast.

As I pull the nose back, wondering how high I can make this bird fly, I think to myself, “this is beautiful; this is what I’ve always wanted to do.”

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Waifu Wednesday: Pamela Ibis

One of the earliest “non-human” character types I feel like I developed a bit of a “thing” for was the humble ghost.

Aside from occasional arguments with my wife over whether or not they are technically “undead” (they absolutely are), I’ve always found the concept of life beyond death fascinating for a variety of reasons. The feeling of freedom that being an incorporeal spirit doubtless affords you — but simultaneously a feeling of being trapped and lonely; these are things I found fascinating, and often wanted to explore in my own creative writing as well as the media I consumed.

So of course a super-cute ghost girl with a fine line in traditional European dress (including a rather daring and formidable neckline) is going to be My Type. Yes indeed. Here’s Pamela from the Atelier series.

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Delving Into Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown – #1

I’ve been playing a lot of Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown since it released the other day. And I wanted to talk about it a bit!

I’ve elected to use the “Delving Into” format, because that also provides a suitable framework for me to explore (and revisit) the rest of the series along the way, too. For the unfamiliar, my “Delving Into” pieces are more immediate, personal reactions to games or series I want to explore over the long term, but which don’t really fit into the Cover Game structure.

Each article will focus on a particular aspect of the overall experience, or something that I’ve found otherwise noteworthy. Let’s kick off today with my impressions of the game’s overall sense of style, based on my playthrough of the single-player campaign up to mission 17 so far.

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What’s in the Box: Senran Kagura Burst Re:Newal Bountiful Beauties Edition

Senran Kagura is a longstanding favourite here at MoeGamer, so there was no way I was going to miss out on a shiny new limited edition for a reimagining of the game that started it all.

Marvelous Europe’s limited editions have been consistently good quality in my experience, and they’ve really outdone themselves with this one. The overall packaging quality is excellent, and there’s a variety of really cool goodies in the box just waiting to be enjoyed.

Without further ado, then, let’s take a look inside.

Continue reading What’s in the Box: Senran Kagura Burst Re:Newal Bountiful Beauties Edition

Around the Network

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.

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Waifu Wednesday: Esty

There’s a lot of hoo-hah about “representation” in games right now from various sources, tending to lead to arguments between people who don’t think it matters and people who think it is more important than absolutely anything in the whole wide world.

For the most part, I tend to stay out of these discussions because I have no particularly strong feelings one way or the other and I’m not going to just sit here and hollowly say “the right thing” for Internet brownie points. For me, it’s always cool to see characters who are a bit “different from the norm” in various ways, yes, but it’s not something I specifically find myself seeking out. Unless you count generally favouring Japanese games with female protagonists or at least leading cast members, in which case… uh… well, look at the stuff I’ve covered on this site over the course of the last few years. Hmm, maybe I care about it more than I think.

Anyway, all that said, it’s nice when you feel some sort of connection to a character depicted in a piece of media. Even if it’s just in one small way…

Continue reading Waifu Wednesday: Esty

Magical Diary: Wolf Hall – A Wolf in Wizard’s Clothing

Those of you who have been following my work for a while may recall a good few years back now I was rather enthusiastic about a game called Magical Diary: Horse Hall.

This unusual game, developed by Hanako Games and Spiky Caterpillar, blended elements of visual novel, life sim and first-person dungeon crawler to create something very interesting indeed — and something that was clearly intended to be the start of a series.

That was back in 2012. Now, in 2019, we’re finally getting a follow-up — so let’s take a first look at what the sequel, Magical Diary: Wolf Hall, has to offer, and how Hanako Games and Spiky Caterpillar will be making use of crowdfunding to realise their goals.

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