Atelier

Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland – Royal Responsibilities

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We’ve previously seen how the other games in the Arland series have tended towards being “coming of age” stories; Rorona learned how to respect the balance between tradition and modernity while learning to believe in herself, while Totori endured a more gruelling journey to adulthood than most!

With Meruru’s inherent position of privilege at the outset of the story, she’s obviously coming to her adolescence from a rather different starting point than her two predecessors did. But she’s still got plenty to learn about herself, the things she believes in, the things important to her and, of course, her place in the big, wide world.

Will she grow into the role of a “proper” princess by the time she hits twenty years old? Of course not, she’s got far too much work to be getting on with between now and then…

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From the Archives, USgamer

From the Archives: It’s Time to Admit Final Fantasy XIII Wasn’t Actually That Bad

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Final Fantasy XIII wasn’t a bad game. Neither was Final Fantasy XIII-2. And neither is the conclusion to the Final Fantasy XIII saga, Lightning Returns. Don’t just take my word for it, though; plenty of critics agree.

In one of the last issues of the sadly defunct GamePro magazine, my former colleague AJ Glasser gave FFXIII four stars out of five. 1up.com gave the game an A- rating. Eurogamer gave it 8/10. And, despite a couple of outliers, the overall consensus at the time of release was that Final Fantasy XIII was a good game — not a perfect one, by any means — but a good one. The same was true for Final Fantasy XIII-2, which scored slightly lower on average, and while I’ll admit Lightning Returns reviews were somewhat more mixed — not everyone enjoyed the game’s peculiar mechanics and structure — there were still a lot of comments about how interesting it was, despite its flaws.

Which is why it’s so baffling that I find a lot of the online discourse surrounding this particular part of Final Fantasy’s history so overwhelmingly negative.

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Evercade A to Z, Videos

Evercade A to Z: Exploding Fist

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As a great man once said: kick, punch, it’s all in the mind. It’s also all within easy reach of two buttons and a directional pad, as Exploding Fist demonstrates.

Originally released on 8-bit home computers and helping to birth the whole fighting game genre, Exploding Fist’s NES port never quite got finished and released back in the day — but thanks to Piko Interactive and the Evercade, we can now enjoy this early take on virtual martial arts at our leisure.

Check it out in the video below, read a bit more about the game if you feel like it — and, of course, don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

Puzzlers

Chew Man Fu: Balls to the Wall

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It’s fair to say that the PC Engine is primarily known for its huge collection of shoot ’em ups today, but that’s not all that the diminutive wonder-platform was good at.

And, pleasingly, Konami’s excellent PC Engine Mini console features a wide variety of these “other” games alongside some classic shmups, in both the localised Turbografx-16 and unlocalised Japanese PC Engine titles in its on-board collection.

One such example is Chew Man Fu, also known as Be Ball in Japan. This is a solid puzzler from 1990, developed by Now Production and published by Hudson Soft and NEC, and has been a real highlight of the platform’s library for me since I played it for the first time. So let’s take a closer look. And be warned, I’m going to use the word “balls” a lot of times in this article, so you’re just going to have to deal with it like a mature adult.

Continue reading Chew Man Fu: Balls to the Wall →

From the Archives, USgamer

From the Archives: Seeing the Good Within

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It’s often fun to think about your favourite “bad games” — games which were received poorly either critically or commercially — and exactly why you like them.

Today, I wanted to talk a little about an interesting related consideration: why would you ever want to play a “bad” game, and how should you handle the experience?

MoeGamer was, right from the beginning, built around the idea that those games commonly considered to be “bad” by press and/or public usually have some redeeming features to someone out there — and there’s actually some solid critical theory to back it up. So let’s explore the matter further!

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Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari ST A to Z: Hudson Hawk

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Remember the movie Hudson Hawk? Probably not. It was a Bruce Willis passion project that the people who actually watched found rather enjoyable, but it ultimately ended up forgotten by most.

Like many movies in the ’80s and ’90s, Hudson Hawk got a video game adaptation by Ocean. The remarkable thing this time around is that said video game adaptation didn’t suck; it was actually a rather good platformer that combined dexterity challenges, puzzling and light combat. It also didn’t feel the need to be super-true to the movie, which probably helped it in the long run.

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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Waifu Wednesday

Waifu Wednesday: Patricia Wagon

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It’s easy to work on the mistaken assumption that, these days, super-cute female characters are the exclusive preserve of Asian developers, while Western developers prefer the more “gritty, realistic” angle.

That, however, is emphatically not the case, as WayForward demonstrates on a fairly regular basis. Not only do they have the wonderful Shantae and her friends in their portfolio, but they also have the cast of the delightful puzzle-platformer series Mighty Switch Force! to draw upon.

Today we’re going to take a look at the lead from that series, one Patricia Wagon. Stop, in the name of the law!

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short;Play, Videos

short;Play: Inertial Drift

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What do you mean it sounds a bit like “Initial D”? Completely coincidental, I’m sure.

Inertial Drift is a brand new arcade racer with an unusual but highly effective twin-stick control scheme. It’s a ton of fun that channels some serious ’90s energy, and proof if proof were needed that indie devs are on point when it comes to resurrecting supposedly “dead” game genres.

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more.

Evercade, Namco Museum Collection 2

The Tower of Druaga: Persevere, Sir Knight

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The Tower of Druaga is an important part of gaming history — yet it’s also a game that has somewhat divided opinion over the years.

Back in its native Japan, it was widely loved and appreciated for its revolutionary nature at the time of its original release; in the West, however, it was lambasted for its slow pace, obtuse mechanics and monstrous level of difficulty.

Regardless of your feelings on it, you can now play the Famicom version as part of the Namco Museum Collection 2 cartridge on the Evercade retro gaming system. So let’s take a closer look, and see why this game is so important.

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Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z: Nightmares

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You think we have problems now? Back in the ’80s, video game distributors would refuse to stock games if they felt they would be “harmful to children”. And Red Rat’s Nightmares for Atari 8-bit was a victim of this moral panic.

It stung doubly hard for UK-based Atari 8-bit enthusiasts, becuase the stockist in question was Silica Shop, a longstanding supporter of Atari platforms and a popular choice for mail order. Unusually, it was actually the press that stepped in to help — Page 6 Magazine took on the task of distributing the game in place of retailers who refused to stock it, and perchance made themselves a few quid in the process.

Was the game actually any good though? Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more.

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