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Hello everyone! I hope you’re doing well.

The wife and I have been having a troublesome few months. Our hob went, our roof leaked, our cats had fleas and yesterday our washing machine broke. Thankfully all but the latter of these have now been resolved (at varying levels of expense) but as I type this, the wife is in search of a suitable replacement washing machine to go in our awkwardly shaped gap.

But you don’t need to know all that, really. You’re here to find out what you might have missed in the last week or so, right? Read on, then…

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Cover Games, Shade

Gun Gun Pixies: Tiny Girls, Huge Hearts

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shadeheader-3172714This article is one chapter of a multi-part Cover Game feature!
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One thing I always like to see is when developers get a bit experimental.

Idea Factory and Compile Heart have always been good at this, and their numerous experiments over the last ten years or so have really allowed them to hone their craft, showing marked improvements from their earlier PS3 titles up until today. And when you partner up with an ensemble like Shade, who, as we’ve already seen, are certainly not averse to doing things a bit differently from the norm, the results can be very interesting indeed.

One such result is Gun Gun Pixies. So let’s take a closer look at what’s going on with this unusual game.

Continue reading Gun Gun Pixies: Tiny Girls, Huge Hearts →

Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy Marathon, Videos

Final Fantasy Marathon: To the Heavens – Final Fantasy I #17

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After successfully making takoyaki out of Kraken last time around, there’s just one more crystal for the Warriors of Light to, err, light.

It’s not going to be easy to get to, however; it’s guarded by the fearsome Tiamat, who has taken up residence in the Flying Fortress, the former home of the Lufenian people. And, what with the Flying Fortress being… flying, even reaching Tiamat is going to be a bit of an ordeal.

Thankfully, all the things the Warriors of Light have done up until this point have prepared them adequately for this moment… so it seems the only way is up. Baby.

Essentials, Puzzlers, Sega Ages

Columns II: The Most Passive-Aggressive Puzzle Game Ever

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Remember Columns? Remember how we talked about how chilled out it was, and how it didn’t want to stress you out? Yeah, you can forget all that with its direct follow-up.

Columns II is an example of an approach to sequels that was popular for a short while in the late ’80s and early ’90s: the provision of an experience clearly geared towards expert players, and a distinct case of “the same, but more so, and way harder“.

While Columns wanted everyone to relax and have a fun old time matching coloured gems, Columns II does everything in its power to stress you out at every opportunity. And I both love it and hate it for that!

Continue reading Columns II: The Most Passive-Aggressive Puzzle Game Ever →

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari ST A to Z: Damocles

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It takes guts to show up for a job you were hired for several months late… particularly when that job is saving an entire planet from destruction by a comet.

Unfortunately, your considerable tardiness (thanks largely to a delay on the planet Targ, as depicted in the original Mercenary) means that there are just three hours and ten minutes before the planet Eris is obliterated by the eponymous comet, and of course the solution to this rather pressing problem is anything but straightforward.

Along the course of your journey through this spectacular polygonal 3D open-world solar system, you’ll have to deal with the aftermath of eccentric professors having a spat with the head of state over a chess game, a severely incompetent post office, an overenthusiastic prison service and that most fearsome foe of all: British parliamentary politics. Damocles is a classic, and in this video I fuck it up completely. Enjoy!

Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.

Waifu Wednesday

Waifu Wednesday: Bee-Tan

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I respect anyone who knows what they want, and who is not afraid to freely express those things that they want, regardless of how it makes them look.

Pixie Team’s Private Usamael, better known by her codename Bee-tan, certainly falls into this category. Despite hailing from a planet that has largely lost the knack of everything to do with interpersonal interactions and relationships, Bee-tan is a libidinious young woman with a penchant for lusting after anything in a skirt. Including her own partner Private Kameriel, or Kame-pon.

She’s a colossal pervert, as gay as a window and I love her to bits. Let us celebrate this tiny little Pandemonian ahead of our in-depth exploration of the game in which she appears.

Continue reading Waifu Wednesday: Bee-Tan →

Warriors All-Stars, Warriors Wednesday

Warriors Wednesday: Starting Life in a New World – Warriors All-Stars #1

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With Warriors Orochi finally down for the count, it’s time to start a new game!

Warriors All-Stars came out in 2017 and was originally intended as another Warriors Orochi game, but subsequently grew into its own standalone project that de-emphasised the Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors characters in favour of… well, an all-star line-up drawn from a variety of different Koei Tecmo games.

And what a cast! We’ve got Sophie from Atelier Sophie; Arnice and Christophorus from Nights of Azure; Kasumi, Honoka and Marie Rose from Dead or Alive; and many more besides. With 15 possible endings ahead of us, we’ve got to start somewhere… so where better than with my favourite lesbian vampire (half-)demon, who seems a lot more cheerful than the last time we saw her?

Essentials, Mega Drive, Puzzlers, Sega Ages

Ichidant-R: Minigame Mayhem

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Say the words “minigame collection” to a modern-day gamer and chances are they will roll their eyes and say something about shovelware, perhaps the Wii.

But we’re not about that sort of negativity here on MoeGamer, particularly because I know that minigame compilations can be an absolute ton of fun, and there are numerous great examples from throughout the years.

One such example is Ichidant-R, the sequel to Tant-R, which in turn was a bizarre spinoff of Bonanza Bros. And wouldn’t you know it? Sega just happens to have released Ichidant-R as part of its excellent Sega Ages collection on Nintendo Switch. Let’s take a closer look.

Continue reading Ichidant-R: Minigame Mayhem →

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z: Jane’s Program

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Sometimes when you sit down in front of your 1980s microcomputer, you don’t really want to do anything particularly productive or meaningful.

If you’ve ever found yourself in this situation, you have long been well catered to, since both interactive and non-interactive demos and software toys have been part of the public domain software landscape pretty much since the earliest days of computing.

A great example of something that is fun to play with but has no real “meaning” to it is Jane’s Program, an addictive exploration of sound, colour and rudimentary physics that might be just the thing if you’ve had a hectic day!

Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.

Essentials, Racers

nail’d: Look Out Below

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I love a good racing game. And, while the definition of “good racing game” may vary from person to person, in my case that means “ridiculous, physically improbable and probably fatal things happening in realistic-looking environments”.

I have no interest in an accurate simulation of what it’s like to drive a Rover Metro around Donington Park circa 1987, but present me with the opportunity to fling myself off the side of a quarry on a motorbike going over 200 miles per hour while I admire the ruins of ancient Greece passing majestically by beneath me, and I am 100% there.

As you may have surmised, nail’d falls very comfortably and firmly into this latter category.

Continue reading nail’d: Look Out Below →

The best of overlooked and underappreciated computer and video games, from yesterday and today.