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, Senran Kagura

Senran Kagura Bon Appétit: The Fastest Route to the Heart

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When the Senran Kagura series first launched, I’m not sure anyone could have quite predicted the trajectory it would take.

While some fans lament the fact that the series has deviated somewhat from its original course of “cool female ninjas fight youma, also there are breasts and bums”, I can’t say I’m the slightest bit sorry for the existence of games like Senran Kagura Bon Appétit (also known as Dekamori: Senran Kagura in Japan).

It’s a game that bills itself as a “hyper busty cooking battle”, and gives us the opportunity to see that enormous cast of delightful characters in a rather different context to normal. What’s not to like?

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Cover Games, Senran Kagura

Senran Kagura: An Almost-Comprehensive Look at Gessen’s Use of Classical Music

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The Gessen girls, introduced in Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus on PlayStation Vita and pretty much a fixture ever since, are certainly a distinctive lot.

Taking a rather different approach to being “good” shinobi than Asuka and friends at Hanzou National Academy, the students of Gessen Girls’ Academy learned everything they know about the world from their adoptive “grandfather” Kurokage.

And that includes their musical tastes, which is reflected in the games’ soundtracks; Gessen girls’ themes make extensive use of Western art music. So I thought that might be interesting to take a closer look at.

Continue reading Senran Kagura: An Almost-Comprehensive Look at Gessen’s Use of Classical Music →

Cover Games, Senran Kagura

Senran Kagura: Introduction

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Senran Kagura. Now there’s a series we’re no strangers to here on MoeGamer, but it’s been a long time since it graced the Cover Game feature. With the recent release of Peach Ball at the time of writing, I thought it was about time we fixed that.

This Cover Game feature is, as much as anything, me fulfilling a promise to myself; I absolutely love the Senran Kagura series, yet I’ve been falling very behind with it, so I’ve been promising myself for… probably a couple of years now that I’d get caught up!

Since Estival Versus was the first ever Cover Game feature here on MoeGamer back in April of 2016, we’ve had Peach Beach Splash, Burst Re;Newal, Reflexions and Peach Ball, plus a lovely Limited Run Games packaged release of Bon Appetit, a former digital-only title. And, with the exception of Reflexions and a bit of Bon Appetit, I haven’t played (or covered) any of these yet. This leaves me with a fair amount of work to do, but I’m looking forward to it; I hope you enjoy it too.

Continue reading Senran Kagura: Introduction →

Cover Games, The Expression: Amrilato

The Expression: Amrilato – Konversacio kun SukeraSparo

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One of my favourite aspects of being Someone Who Writes About Games is that you occasionally have the opportunity to sit down with the people who created these experiences and pick their brains… or at least exchange some questions with them via email and interpreter!

For me, there’s always been a certain amount of mystique surrounding both game development and the art of bringing a commercial product to market. I’ve felt this way for as long as I can remember — even to this day. It’s an aspect of what is, I guess, childish innocence that I’m keen to never let go of; video games, visual novels and creative works are exciting, and the people who create them are magicians, and I don’t ever want to forget that.

With all that in mind, I was delighted when MangaGamer, localiser and publisher of The Expression: Amrilato’s Western release, agreed to let me have a chat with the developer SukeraSparo and find out a bit more about where this unusual, fascinating title came from.

Continue reading The Expression: Amrilato – Konversacio kun SukeraSparo →

Cover Games, The Expression: Amrilato

The Expression: Amrilato – Nova Vivo de Rin

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A lot of Japanese popular media tends to place adolescent characters in leading roles. There’s a very good reason for this: adolescence is a point in your life where your understanding of the world and your beliefs are at their most fluid and dynamic.

Many dramatic Japanese stories explore the concept of adolescence as a turning point in one’s life. For most people, adolescence is where they truly establish who they really are, how they see the world and how they choose to live in it.

Most of us don’t have to go through an ordeal quite as turbulent as The Expression: Amrilato’s protagonist Rin as part of this journey of discovery, however…

Continue reading The Expression: Amrilato – Nova Vivo de Rin →

Cover Games, The Expression: Amrilato

The Expression: Amrilato – Suddenly Voiceless

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The prospect of learning a new language is a daunting one for many people — particularly English speakers, who tend to take their language’s position as “default” for granted.

What this means, more often than not, is that if you’re not put in a position where you have to learn a new language, chances are you won’t. There are exceptions to this rule, of course — some people learn a new language to improve their career prospects, some learn to broaden the range of language-dependent arts and entertainment they can engage with and some just do it for fun — but for the most part we, as humans, are rather lazy when it comes to this sort of thing.

When The Expression: Amrilato’s protagonist Rin finds herself in a version of her hometown that seems to be all “wrong”, she soon finds herself learning firsthand what being in a position where you have to learn a new language is like.

Continue reading The Expression: Amrilato – Suddenly Voiceless →

Cover Games, The Expression: Amrilato

The Expression: Amrilato – Introduction

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Video games have been used as a means of helping people learn things pretty much since the early days of the medium; even the humble Atari 2600 played host to basic spelling and mathematics challenges.

As technology has advanced and creators have become more proficient at using interactive media to tell stories and express themselves, more and more ways to educate people have become readily accessible.

Best of all, people have realised once and for all that we don’t need a hard divide between “games” and “educational software”, so today we find ourselves with titles like SukeraSparo’s The Expression: Amrilato, a visual novel that provides its audience with both a romantic story of blossoming love between two girls, and the opportunity to learn some Esperanto.

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Atelier Arland Trilogy, New Game Plus, Videos

New Game Plus: Iron Giant (Finale) – Atelier Rorona DX #20

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It’s time for the grand finale of our Atelier Rorona DX playthrough!

My “ambition” for this particular run has been to achieve the Adventurer ending, which requires you to get Rorona and Cordelia to level 50, then defeat the Iron Giant superboss in the depths of the Orthogalaxen dungeon.

Did I pull it off? Well, you’ll have to wait and see, won’t you?

Atelier Arland Trilogy, New Game Plus, Videos

New Game Plus: The Essence of Alchemy – Atelier Rorona DX #19

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We’re nearly there! Rorona just has one final assignment to do: demonstrate what she has learned over the course of the preceding three years.

On this New Game Plus run, said demonstration is perhaps not what was originally intended by the assignment, but hey, whatever works, works!

Just one more episode to go after this and our run is complete… hopefully with at least one ending I haven’t seen before!

Cover Games, Our World is Ended

Our World is Ended: The Harmony of Chaos

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Doubtless many of us have thought at one point or another what it would be like to lead a “perfect” life, with nothing to worry about, nothing to fear or perhaps even nothing to think about.

Chances are these thoughts were followed up in fairly short order by the conclusion that such an existence would actually be rather tedious and boring, as desirable as it might seem when contemplated from afar. Human beings are at their best when confronted with some sort of adversity, after all, whether said adversity is something that is about to kill you or a particularly tricky error in a piece of JavaScript.

A core message at the heart of Our World is Ended is one of true diversity: the acceptance of others, regardless of how unfathomably different they might seem to you and how much of a problem it might seem to bring such disparate elements together — and how those differences, when assembled into something greater than their individual parts, can actually create something incredibly strong.

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