Cover Games, Shantae

Shantae: You Stay

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The Shantae series as a whole is a wonderful symbol of endurance, and of holding on to the things you believe in.

I’m not talking about the narratives of the games themselves — though for sure this theme certainly makes an appearance numerous times throughout Shantae’s career to date — but rather the fact that series creator Matt Bozon and the team at WayForward have always believed in the quality of these games, even during difficult times.

It’s gratifying to see that, at the time of writing, the Shantae series as a whole is finally coming to see some mainstream acceptance and appreciation with its latest installment 1/2 Genie Hero. But this doesn’t mean the earlier games aren’t worth checking out. Quite the opposite, in fact… so let’s go right back to the beginning.

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Essentials

Mega Drive Essentials: Shadow Dancer

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What happened to ninjas? I feel like they were unironically cool in the ’90s, and that they were everywhere.

Perhaps they simply learned that being highly visible is not an especially desirable characteristic for a ninja, and thus deliberately relegated themselves to the world of overly tryhard “wacky!” memes alongside pirates, dinosaurs and zombies. Put them all together and you get LOL SO RANDOM, yo. And these days, everyone wants to ignore that nonsense. The perfect cover.

Anyway, here’s Shadow Dancer for the Mega Drive, a 1990 release from Sega and one of the first games I ever played on the system.

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Waifu Wednesday

Waifu Wednesday: Marin

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Since its third installment A Link to the Past, Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda series has had a fine variety of memorable female characters.

My personal favourite from among this varied cast hails from the fourth game in the series, Link’s Awakening. This is one of my most fondly regarded installments for numerous reasons, including its divergence from the “traditional” Zelda narrative formula, its solid gameplay and the sheer technical feat of squeezing such a sprawling, consistently well-designed game onto the Game Boy.

But for all these good points, when I think of Link’s Awakening, my mind always goes to one place before anything else. And that place is sitting on a log overlooking the ocean, sitting next to Marin and wondering if there’s something between us.

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One-Shots

Supipara Chapter 2: With a Spring in Our Steps

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[Editor’s note: as of February 2019, it appears that unfortunately minori is ceasing operations. This article has been left in its original form as published in June 2018 to preserve the original intention behind the series, even if it will likely never happen now.]

It’s wonderful to see that minori’s ambitious Supipara project is moving along nicely.

As you may recall from when we explored the first chapter, Supipara is intended to ultimately become a series of five visual novels, all based around the same characters. Rather than taking the crowdfunding route a lot of current visual novel developers and localisers have been taking recently, developer minori has instead been ploughing its profits from sales of the existing Supipara chapters as well as its eden* project into development of the rest of Supipara.

It’s worth noting, however, that despite the series as it stands only consisting of two out of the five proposed chapters, each chapter stands very much by itself as a complete, self-contained story, and is well worth your time if you enjoy this sort of thing.

Continue reading Supipara Chapter 2: With a Spring in Our Steps →

Podcast

The MoeGamer Podcast: Episode 3 – This Is the Game Preservation Society

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Whew! This was a pain to get uploaded. Pro-tip: never put Pokemon footage in your YouTube video because it will get the damn thing blocked in all countries.

Anyway. This is the latest episode of The MoeGamer Podcast, featuring the triumphant return of Chris and a return to our usual format.

Hit the jump to see the new episode and find out more!

Continue reading The MoeGamer Podcast: Episode 3 – This Is the Game Preservation Society →

Cover Games, Gal*Gun 2

Gal*Gun 2: A Fond Farewell

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It’s almost time to say goodbye to Sakurazaki Academy — at least until our next visit — but I couldn’t leave without showing at least a bit of appreciation for some more of the extended cast.

As you’ll hopefully recall, Gal*Gun 2 includes a feature known as “Rendezvous”, where once you’ve acquired the phone numbers of any of the secondary cast (and, under certain conditions, the main cast of heroines) you can invite them to several places, chat with them, fill them with sugar, look up their skirts and stand uncomfortably close to them in an attempt to indicate that you might want a kiss. Wholesome!

Today I thought I’d focus specifically on the third-years of Sakurazaki Academy, as I feel they were a little under-represented last time around. So let’s contemplate further the age-old question of Who Is Best Girl?

Continue reading Gal*Gun 2: A Fond Farewell →

Essentials

Sega Mega Drive Classics: Yes, It’s That Time Again

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You know a console generation has truly reached maturity when it gets a compilation of Mega Drive games.

Sega’s library of 16-bit classics must surely, by now, be some of the most frequently officially and legally emulated games of all time — and yet we keep getting these packages. And people keep buying them. People like, yes, me.

So is this latest bundle of games worth picking up? Well, read on and find out — and over the course of the coming weeks, we’ll be looking at the individual games in the compilation in more detail, too, through the Mega Drive Essentials column.

Continue reading Sega Mega Drive Classics: Yes, It’s That Time Again →

Hundred Honeys, Waifu Wednesday

Waifu Wednesday: The Hundred Honeys Project Update

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You may recall that a short while back I decided to see exactly how many honeys Honey Select Unlimited could handle on screen at once.

Thus far I do not appear to have reached any sort of upper limit, though the frame rate my Honey Unlimited Studio application is running at has taken something of a nose-dive.

Still, so long as I can keep squeezing honeys into a scene, I will keep doing so! So let’s take a look at the latest additions to the harem…

Continue reading Waifu Wednesday: The Hundred Honeys Project Update →

Essentials

PS2 Essentials: Crimson Tears

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Once upon a time, there was a funny little fighting game on PlayStation called Ehrgeiz.

Ehrgeiz was noteworthy for a number of reasons: its high-resolution graphics; its beautifully slick framerate; its inclusion of Final Fantasy VII characters in its roster… and the bizarre inclusion of a full-on dungeon-delving action RPG mode.

If you have fond memories of that particular aspect of Ehrgeiz, then you’re most certainly going to want to check out Crimson Tears, since it’s by the same developer (DreamFactory) and expands that concept into its own distinct experience. And, given the apparently enduring popularity of games with roguelike elements, it’s a game that remains impressively relevant even today.

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Essentials, Taito

Taito Essentials: Lunar Rescue

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When someone mentions Taito arcade games from the 1970s, the first one that doubtless immediately springs to mind is the genre-defining Space Invaders.

However, this is far from the only game Taito put out in these early years of the games business — and moreover, it’s far from the only good one, too.

Today, we’re taking a look at a game that, while simple, built on the basic formula of Space Invaders with additional mechanics — and likely played a role in defining subsequent games with “rescue” mechanics such as Williams’ Defender and Dan Gorlin’s Choplifter.

Continue reading Taito Essentials: Lunar Rescue →

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