Category Archives: Cover Games

The major, feature-length articles of MoeGamer. Each month, a single game or series gets the Cover Game treatment and is explored over the course of at least four articles.

Cover Games, Gal*Gun 2

Gal*Gun 2: Asking the Important Questions

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In any creative work involving a cast of more than one female character — particularly if said work is of Japanese origin — there is one question that is, to some people, seemingly of greater importance than any other.

I am, of course, talking about Who Is Best Girl, an eternally raging debate that no-one can ever agree on, and which you’re probably some sort of despicable idiot if you ever declare your opinion on as being some sort of universal truth.

With that in mind, then, I thought it a good time to look at Gal*Gun 2’s extended cast outside of its main heroines, and pick a few favourites from the mix! Join me! STANDARD DISCLAIMER: If you have different personal Best Girls… well, that’s great. Let me know who they are! This is not a definitive list by any means.

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Cover Games, Gal*Gun 2

Gal*Gun 2: A Strange and Sexy Little World

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A game where you blast cute girls to quasi-orgasmic ecstasy while attempting to fend off the mischief of a cheeky young demon might not sound like the sort of experience that would have good worldbuilding, but the Gal*Gun series as a whole is full of surprises.

It’s clear that developer Inti Creates has taken a great amount of care over the course of the Japan-only Gal*Gun, its sequel Double Peace and Gal*Gun 2 to make the series something more than a throwaway joke game. Yes, it’s amusing; yes, it’s silly; yes, it’s cheeky, fun and sexy; but none of those things mean that it can’t have some depth or be well-crafted.

So today, then, we’re going to take a closer look at how the series as a whole builds that sense of a coherent world, and where Gal*Gun 2 fits in with all that.

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Cover Games, Gal*Gun 2

Gal*Gun 2: Introduction

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Gal*Gun Double Peace was one of the most pleasant surprises I’ve had in my gaming career.

Going into it, I already knew I was going to enjoy the inherently silly concept of “shooting” cute girls with pheromones until they collapsed in a quasi-orgasmic state, but what I wasn’t quite prepared for was the fact that besides the absurd premise, the game was actually both very solid indeed from both mechanical and narrative perspectives. In retrospect, given the developer, this should never have been in any doubt, of course, but it was still nice to discover.

Now, two years later, we’re presented with a sequel: Gal*Gun 2, the third game in the franchise after the Japan-only original and Double Peace, our first encounter with the series in the West. How do you follow those? Well, read on.

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Blue Reflection, Cover Games

Blue Reflection: Sounds of School Days

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We’ve already talked about how distinctive Blue Reflection’s visual aesthetic is thanks to the contributions of Mel Kishida — but its music is worthy of some discussion, too.

It will come as no surprise to longtime Gust fans to hear that Blue Reflection has an excellent soundtrack — though it’s an interesting score overall in that it blends a variety of different styles to create something altogether unique.

It complements the action well and, between it and the visuals, means that Blue Reflection is one of the most distinctive games Gust has put out for a long time. So let’s take a closer look… listen, whatever.

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Blue Reflection, Cover Games

Blue Reflection: Kishida’s Pastel Paradise

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Gust’s games are known for having a distinctive aesthetic, but Blue Reflection is one of the company’s most beautifully presented titles.

Offering a combination of high-detail realism in its school scenes coupled with a ton of creativity for the action that unfolds in the manifestation of the collective unconscious known as “The Common”, it really is a lovely game to look at — perhaps not the best-performing game there is, no, but a lovely game to look at nonetheless.

A big part of that is down to the work of Mel Kishida, a frequent Gust collaborator, and an artist with a very distinctive style all of his own.

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Blue Reflection, Cover Games

Blue Reflection: Everyday Life with Magical Girls

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Blue Reflection is an unusual game in terms of its overall tone and how it “feels” to play, and a big part of this is due to its mechanics and structure.

If you had to pigeon-hole it into a specific mechanical genre, most people would describe it as a “JRPG”. But in many ways this isn’t a particularly accurate description, since although it features a number of common elements of the genre, it draws just as many influences from other types of game such as adventures and visual novels.

Whatever you want to call it, it’s certainly a pretty intriguing game from a mechanical and structural perspective. So that’s what we’ll be focusing on today.

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Blue Reflection, Cover Games

Blue Reflection: Introduction, and a Brief History of Magical Girls

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This month’s Cover Game is a Gust title I’ve been intrigued about ever since it was first announced: Blue Reflection.

Featuring a combination of Mel Kishida’s wonderfully soft-edged artwork translated beautifully into 3D polygonal graphics, a highly stylised soundtrack by Hayato Asano and an intriguing story about empathy and emotion, I always knew this was going to be an experience that was right up my alley.

So let’s begin our exploration with an overview of what the game is all about, and a look back at the “magical girl” genre that inspired it.

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Cover Games, Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Bringing the “Niche” to the “Mainstream”

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An interesting aspect of Xenoblade Chronicles 2’s Western release is the matter of its localisation.

I’m not talking about it from a “censorship” perspective or anything like that, mind you — largely because, in my experience, those sorts of discussions often tend to get bogged down and never really go anywhere.

Rather, Xenoblade Chronicles 2’s localisation is an interesting case because, more than anything, it appears to represent an honest attempt to bridge the gap between a genre of game that has come to be regarded as highly “niche interest” over the last few years, and the broader, mainstream audience Nintendo typically courts with its console platforms.

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Cover Games, Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Narrative, Themes and Characterisation

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The Xeno series as a whole has always been renowned for tackling challenging themes in ambitious ways… and occasionally not quite being able to match the ambition with the execution.

The Xenoblade Chronicles subseries has been somewhat experimental with its storytelling over its three installments to date. The original Xenoblade Chronicles featured a strong, linear narrative with a number of independent side threads that unfolded as you reached the various locales that were important to the story; Xenoblade Chronicles X de-emphasised its main scenario in favour of strong worldbuilding and a sense that you were just one part of something much bigger; and Xenoblade Chronicles 2, unsurprisingly, takes an approach somewhere between the two.

Does it work? Absolutely, and the sheer scale of the whole thing means that there’s a whole lot to talk about.

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