Category Archives: Articles

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

Delving Into..., Dragon Quest, Hand of the Heavenly Bride

Delving into Dragon Quest: Hand of the Heavenly Bride – #6

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Okay, I got it wrong. I have not yet finished Hand of the Heavenly Bride, nor was I near to doing so.

Well, actually, that might not quite be true. But I have been getting a little distracted on my way to what I can only assume is the final boss: first with grinding to get Bianca up to a similar level as my protagonist and their children, and subsequently with the subject of today’s article.

Many RPGs today concentrate primarily on their core mechanics, with their optional content involving those same mechanics: challenging combat, deep dungeons or hard-to-find items. But the Dragon Quest series, like Final Fantasy, is one that has always incorporated minigames into the mix, with their own completely separate ways of playing. And it’s that I’d like to talk about today.

Continue reading Delving into Dragon Quest: Hand of the Heavenly Bride – #6 →

Hundred Honeys, Waifu Wednesday

Waifu Wednesday: The Hundred Honeys Project – A New Venue

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That bedroom was getting a bit cramped with all the Honeys present, so I’ve moved the photoshoots to a new location. Which is already pretty full.

For those unaware, the Hundred Honeys Project is my attempt to see just how far I can push the engine of Illusion and Fakku’s excellent sex sim-cum-digital dollhouse Honey Select Unlimited — and specifically its Honey Unlimited Studio feature, which allows you to load in characters and pose them as you see fit for, you know, digital art.

Today, as a bit of a change, I thought I’d investigate the Illusion Game Cards Booru and download some creations from the wider community — specifically those that don’t make use of any external mods, just the included assets. Making use of someone else’s character couldn’t be simpler — just download the .png file from the booru, drop it in Honey Select Unlimited’s UserData\chara folder and… that’s it! The .png files contain all the info the game needs to decipher the custom character.

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Features, Sega Ages

Sega Ages: Tant-R and Bonanza Bros

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It’s a double feature today, as the two games in question were bundled together as Sega Ages 2500 Vol. 6 on PlayStation 2 in Japan, and indeed remain as a single “unit” in the Sega Classics Collection we got here in the West.

Bonanza Bros is a staple inclusion in most people’s Mega Drive libraries — indeed, it’s tended to find its way into most of the Mega Drive compilations for subsequent consoles over the years, too — but Tant-R may well be new to you, since prior to the Sega Classics Collection release it was Japan-exclusive.

The Sega Ages versions of both games don’t radically reinvent anything to the same degree as Tamsoft’s take on Monaco GP, but they remain solid games in their own right. So let’s take a closer look.

Continue reading Sega Ages: Tant-R and Bonanza Bros →

Delving Into..., Dragon Quest, Hand of the Heavenly Bride

Delving into Dragon Quest: Hand of the Heavenly Bride – #5

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I haven’t had as much time as I’d like to play Dragon Quest recently, but I took the time to play some at lunchtime today, and it reminded me of some things I’d like to talk about.

What I’m going to talk about today relates to the series as a whole, but with the release of newest installment Dragon Quest XI looming at the time of writing, it’s particularly pertinent to mention these things, given some of the issues that have been brought up by recent reviews.

So let us ponder a core aspect of not just Dragon Quest, but of the type of RPG that Dragon Quest went on to inspire. Let us contemplate grinding!

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Essentials, Wii

Wii Essentials: Wii Music

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Wii Music is one of those releases that a lot of people didn’t pick up back in the day, primarily due to its mediocre critical response.

At least part of this was down to the (not entirely unreasonable) assumption that it would be a traditional “game” of some description — or at the very least a collection of minigames, as with the other titles in the Wii [x] series from Nintendo. But it’s actually something rather different.

And take the time to engage with it on its own terms and you’ll find something both entertaining and educational. Let’s take a closer look.

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Waifu Wednesday

Waifu Wednesday: Blaze the Cat

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As we approach the end of our official Sonic month (although coverage of the games will continue as there are still several more I’d like to write about!) it’s time we took a look at a less frequently seen member of the Sonic ensemble cast.

In stark contrast to the series’ previous feline companion, the huge, lolloping idiot that is Big the Cat (voiced by Jon St. John, the voice of Duke Nukem, fact fans), Blaze is more in line with what you’d expect from a cat character. She’s lithe, agile, smart and deadly — the kind of badass you’d want on your side when things are going south.

Let’s see where she came from, and where you might track her down if you want to spend some time in her company.

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Essentials, Game Boy, Puzzlers

Game Boy Essentials: Donkey Kong

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You know Donkey Kong, right? Classic Nintendo arcade game, origin of Mario? Sure you do.

Donkey Kong is a classic with good reason: it’s solid arcade fare. Its mechanics are simple and straightforward to understand, it’s friendly to quick play sessions, it’s enormously addictive and it consistently challenges its players with just minor, progressively more difficult variations on the same four levels.

The 1994 Game Boy version surely can’t be anything particularly special, right? Or could it? Well, it came out thirteen years after the arcade original, so either someone at Nintendo was really confident in the staying power of its early arcade games — actually not all that unreasonable an assumption — or something interesting was going on.

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Features, Sega Ages

Sega Ages: Monaco GP

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In Japan, the PlayStation 2 era was a fantastic time for budget-priced, arcade-style releases.

D3 Publisher is the indisputed master of janky but charming budget fare in this period of gaming history thanks to its expansive Simple Series, but they didn’t keep this knowledge and experience to themselves. They actually collaborated with Sega on a project dubbed “3D Ages” (“Sega D3” backwards) which ultimately resulted in the Sega Ages 2500 collection — a range of games that retailed for 2500 yen each (about £17.50 in today’s money) and encompassed a variety of remakes of Sega’s classic arcade and console titles.

We didn’t see a lot of these games in the West, but we were fortunate enough to get a cool compilation of them bundled together on a single PS2 disc in the form of the Sega Classics Collection. So let’s take a look at exactly what’s on offer, beginning with Monaco GP.

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Delving Into..., Dragon Quest, Hand of the Heavenly Bride

Delving Into Dragon Quest: Hand of the Heavenly Bride – #4

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I think I’m nearing the end of Hand of the Heavenly Bride. It’s just a feeling I have.

As we’ve previously discussed, Dragon Quest is not generally a series for making a huge deal out of significant narrative moments, preferring to allow you to draw your own meaning from them rather than attempting to force you to feel a particular way through lengthy cutscenes.

This doesn’t make those significant moments any less meaningful or effective, however — it’s just a markedly different treatment of these events than you’d find in many other games.

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Waifu Wednesday

Waifu Wednesday: Cream the Rabbit

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There are many reasons one can find a character appealing.

Sometimes it’s as simple a base desire as “BIG FAT BAT TATS” — although many fans of Rouge will almost certainly point to other aspects of the character they like besides her formidable assets — but at other times it’s about a feeling of connection and warmth.

In many ways it’s a lot like the eight different types of love the ancient Greeks posited. Even among a cast of characters such as that of the Sonic series, where many characters have a lot of appeal elements in common, one can feel very differently about one character compared to how they feel about another.

Here’s Cream the Rabbit.

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