Tag Archives: mechanics

Psikyo Shooting Stars, Shmups

Strikers 1945: Not Quite How the History Books Told It

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You know a game’s on to a winner when you think “ah, I’ll just sit down and have a quick play on this to take some screenshots” and then suddenly it’s over an hour later. Such was the case with Strikers 1945 for me today.

Part of the excellent value (and beautifully packaged) Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha compilation from NIS America and City Connection, Strikers 1945 originally hails from 1995, and was the fourth game that shoot ’em up specialists Psikyo put out for the world to enjoy.

Blending real-world aircraft with ridiculous, fantastic elements, Strikers 1945 is a straightforward but extremely solid and accessible shooter that remains well worth playing even today. Let’s take a closer look.

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Sega Ages

Sega Ages Shinobi: Rescue Those Kids? Shuriken!

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With apologies to Senran Kagura Peach Ball for shamelessly stealing its Dad joke-tier ninja pun, it’s time to look at another in Sega’s excellent Sega Ages series for Nintendo Switch.

This time around, it’s 1987’s Shinobi, an important game from the relatively early days of Sega’s video gaming portfolio, and a title that doesn’t seem to get talked about all that often these days.

Hailing from the height of the “ninja boom” of the 1980s — a popular culture phenomenon that is regarded to have kicked off with Menahem Golan’s 1981 movie Enter the Ninja — Shinobi remains a solid, challenging game today, and well worth revisiting.

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Atelier

Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana – The Craft of Combat

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cropped-atelier-megafeature-header-1-8868334This post is one chapter of a MegaFeature!
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Now we’ve explored how Atelier Iris handles the series’ core concept of using alchemy and other crafting techniques to create items, it’s time to look at the other aspects of the game.

While all of the previous Atelier games featured strong RPG-style elements such as combat and exploration, for the most part — fourth game Atelier Judie was an exception to a certain extent — these were expressed in the abstract, with the emphasis being placed firmly on the main character and their workshop. That’s where the name came from, after all.

Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana seemingly saw the series take a bit of a sidestep into more traditional RPG territory. But there are a lot of things about it that make it stand out from what you might traditionally think of as a turn-based, menu-driven console RPG. So that’s what we’re going to look at in the next couple of articles.

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Green Tea Area

DEPA★PAKU: Department Store Munching

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Japanese artist ryokuchamichi, also known as Green Tea Area, leads a double life.

Not only do they draw rather lovely ecchi art with a particular focus on squishy plump girls and silky sheer hosiery (see their somewhat NSFW Twitter), they also have a talent for paying homage to the classic 8-bit home console era with their own original games.

At the time of writing, we’ve already seen the SameGame-inspired endless puzzler Dig Dig Mine; now, get ready for DEPA★PAKU, a platformer that feels even more like a lost NES title.

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Atelier

Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana – It’s an Alchemy Thing

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cropped-atelier-megafeature-header-1-8868334This post is one chapter of a MegaFeature!
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Despite being the sixth game in the series, Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana was the first to come West.

The exact reasoning behind this isn’t entirely clear, but it may be something to do with the fact that the early Atelier games were primarily abstract management simulations with RPG elements, while Atelier Iris unfolds in a manner much more like what the Western audience would have understood “an RPG” to be in 2005.

Perhaps it was assumed the West wasn’t ready for that sort of thing. Perhaps the amount of text in the earlier games made them impractical to localise at the time. Or perhaps they just sort of fell through the cracks. Whatever the reasoning, Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana was the West’s first Atelier game, so that’s where we begin our journey.

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Sega Ages, Switch

Fantasy Zone: Intergalactic Monetary Fund

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An unstable economy might not sound like it would make the setup for a compelling video game, but Fantasy Zone is here to prove you wrong!

To be fair, the premise is little more than a justification for the fact that all the enemies in the game drop coins that you can use to upgrade your ship; Fantasy Zone is instead much better known for being one of the progenitors of what came to be known as the “cute ’em up” subgenre, alongside Konami’s Twinbee.

First released to arcades in 1986 and subsequently ported to a variety of different platforms, Fantasy Zone has been a beloved part of Sega’s back catalogue for many years now. And, at the time of writing, the recent Sega Ages version for Nintendo Switch promises to bring it to a whole new audience. So let’s take a closer look at that particular incarnation of this colourful blastathon!

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Essentials, Shmups

Sisters Royale: Five Sisters’ Story

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Oh no! Seytan (spelled differently, presumably for copyright reasons) is threatening the land with his massive, throbbing evilness. Whatever will we do?

Fret not, my friend, for there is a prophecy. There always is a prophecy in situations like this, and indeed this time is no exception. The prophecy states that five sisters will combine their formidable magic powers and defeat Seytan once and for all… and wouldn’t you know it — it just so happens that five sisters with formidable magic powers have just shown up. Whew, that’s a relief, isn’t it?

Well, it would be if they didn’t all hate each other, of course. It seems they have a bit of unresolved business to deal with before any sort of “cooperation” will be taking place…

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MoeGamer Awards 2019

The MoeGamer 2019 Awards: The “I’m Definitely Going to Get Around to This in 2020” Award

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The MoeGamer Awards are a series of “alternative” awards I’ve devised in collaboration with the community to celebrate the sorts of things that never get celebrated in end-of-year roundups! Find out more here — and feel free to leave a suggestion on that post if you have any good ideas! We’re fast running out of time for this year, but leave a suggestion anyway and I might use it next year!

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To quote a now sadly defunct group of gamers of which I used to be a member: “Games of Shame. You know you have them. They sit in your closet, collecting dust: little jewels that you always tell yourself you are going to play, but never get around to.”

Part of the reason MoeGamer is a thing at all is a continuation of what this group, known as the Squadron of Shame, was known for: deliberately delving into the overlooked and underappreciated games from both yesterday and today, and playing the crap out of them until we could talk about them in detail.

As someone with an absolutely enormous… backlog, I have quite a few games that I’m absolutely dying to write about. But one in particular keeps mocking me from my shelf… and by golly, I’m going to make 2020 the year in which I actually knuckle down and crack on with it!

And the winner is…

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MoeGamer Awards 2019

The MoeGamer 2019 Awards: The “That Was Unexpected” Award

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The MoeGamer Awards are a series of “alternative” awards I’ve devised in collaboration with the community to celebrate the sorts of things that never get celebrated in end-of-year roundups! Find out more here — and feel free to leave a suggestion on that post if you have any good ideas!

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One of my favourite things about deviating significantly from what can be considered “mainstream tastes” is that you have a vastly increased chance of accidentally stumbling across absolutely wonderful experiences that you promptly want to tell everyone about.

Today’s award, suggested by Kharne83, celebrates one of these games from this year. A game that I initially didn’t really feel anything about… until I played it. And I was absolutely hooked. And I think you should partake, too.

After all, news of these games is best spread by word of mouth — because heaven knows press and marketing alike are inevitably terrible about letting people know they exist!

And the winner is…

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Cover Games, Pokémon Sword and Shield

Pokémon Sword and Shield: Living a Trainer’s Life

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header-6-2861792This article is one chapter of a multi-part Cover Game feature!
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When the original Pokémon games were announced, I didn’t initially realise that they were RPGs — at least partly because I wasn’t overly familiar with how RPGs worked myself at the time.

Nowadays, of course, I know much better. But “RPG” is such a broad term, particularly when you throw its tabletop counterpart into the mix. There are lots of different ways you can approach the idea of an “RPG” from a mechanical perspective, and lots of different games over the years — including Pokémon — have experimented with the formula.

Pokémon Sword and Shield are, of course, no exception. Let’s take a closer look at the game’s mechanical components and contemplate how these games approach the idea of you “role-playing” as a Pokémon Trainer.

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