I’ve asked this question before in our visual novel column, but it bears repeating: why do we play?

The answer is different for everyone, even between fans of the same type of game. Some enjoy JRPGs for their heavy focus on story and character development in a narrative sense; others enjoy the gradual process of building up their strength and power and being able to take on the toughest challenges the game has to offer. Others still enjoy finding all the secrets there are to find in the game — and there are usually a lot.

For me, as a self-confessed narrative junkie, I primarily enjoy the experience of hanging out with the characters, of fighting alongside them and, eventually, taking on some sort of earth-shattering, physically-improbable Big Bad, probably in space. Battling against all odds. Building those bonds between people that the Persona series is always banging on about, you know?

But this isn’t the only way to enjoy a JRPG.

This article was originally published on Games Are Evil in 2013 as part of the site’s regular Swords and Zippers column on JRPGs. It has been edited and republished here due to Games Are Evil no longer existing in its original form.

There’s a curious JRPG offshoot that can prove just as compelling as its more conventional, usually turn-based brethren. I’m not really sure quite what to call it (if anything) as it has a lot in common with both “traditional” JRPGs and the more Western format of open-world explorathons like Skyrim.

It’s actually a relatively rare format to see in JRPGs, as many still follow the “visual novel with battles” model that was set back in the 16-bit era and has been adhered fairly rigidly to ever since, but it most certainly exists.

I’m talking about titles such as Final Fantasy XII and Xenoblade Chronicles. Both of these games are markedly different from your usual JRPG experience in that you can freely wander around the world without being limited by various transport options, they’re relatively non-linear (in that each area sports a wide variety of tasks that can be tackled in any order) and the narrative takes a bit of a backseat to the experience of wandering the world, exploring and discovering things.

That’s not to say the narrative is weak, of course — both Xenoblade Chronicles and Final Fantasy XII have good stories for the most part. (Although I grant that Final Fantasy XII  flat-out becomes Star Wars without a single ounce of apparent shame towards its conclusion, it’s definitely solid up until that point.)

But the point of playing these games is very different from the point of playing, say, Persona 3. In the former case, you have a huge world to explore, filled with interesting people, places to see and things to do; in the latter, you have a much smaller world that is fleshed out in a considerable amount of additional detail. In the former, you’re making a journey through a massive and well-realized world; in the latter, you’re making a journey through time and seeing how the same locale evolves.

Confession time: I don’t really enjoy open-world RPGs in the Bethesda mould. Sure, I’ve beaten both Oblivion and Fallout 3, but at some point between Fallout New Vegas and Skyrim I realized that I just wasn’t having much fun with them. There was too much nothingness, too many tracts of green/brown/grey land with little to distinguish it from the green/brown/grey land I’d been clambering over for the past half hour. And when I eventually reached some sort of civilization, everyone acted like robots and had absolutely no personality about them.

I didn’t give a crap about any companion characters I picked up, either, reloading when they died purely because they were convenient packmules or because they were crucial to a quest rather than because I actually cared for them.

All this makes me quite surprised that I enjoyed Final Fantasy XII and Xenoblade Chronicles quite as much as I did, since ostensibly both of them follow the same patterns. So what’s different?

Well, several things. Firstly, color. It sounds like a simple thing, but if you compare and contrast the world of Skyrim to the world of Xenoblade Chronicles, it’s like someone whacked the Saturation control on your TV up to full for the latter and dropped it right down for the former. That’s not to say that either is necessarily “better” or “worse” than the other, of course, but in my case, I found the vibrant colors of Xenoblade Chronicles (and, for that matter, Final Fantasy XII) to be considerably more appealing than the comparatively drab, realistic visuals of Skyrim.

I play games in my free time primarily to “escape” reality, so immersing myself in a world that is obviously fantasy rather than something which could be a few miles away from my house (at least until some car-sized spiders show up, anyway) is always going to be preferable.

A bigger deal, though, is characterization. Skyrim has a beautifully-rendered world filled with some of the most boring people I’ve ever had the misfortune to interact with in a video game. There’s the odd exception, of course, but for the most part Skyrim’s populace is an army of cookie-cutter robots who all say the same thing until the end of time. (If I hear “arrow to the knee” one more time I will hurt someone, I swear.)

Xenoblade Chronicles and Final Fantasy XII, meanwhile, are filled with unique characters. In Xenoblade Chronicles’ case in particular, every single NPC in the whole game has a name, a job, a daily routine, a personality and a connection with one or more other characters somewhere else in the area or world. In fact, a completely optional part of Xenoblade Chronicles’ gameplay involves you wandering over the entire world attempting to connect everyone together on an “Affinity Chart.” Here’s proof that it’s possible. (I can’t take credit for this screenshot, sadly, though I made some decent progress on my own Affinity Chart over the 100+ hours I played.)

(Image via GameFAQs)

Of course, Skyrim and its ilk do plenty of things that Xenoblade Chronicles and Final Fantasy XII don’t — the Japanese duo don’t allow you the freedom to go on a killing spree in a town, for example, nor to dump baskets on people’s heads, nor to steal things, nor to be anything other than a model citizen, except when the narrative dictates that you should not be.

It seems that with an increased level of freedom comes a reduced level of “personality,” then — some players are happy to make that compromise, but for my money I’ll take stronger characters and more limited interactivity over being able to carpet my living room with cheese wheels any day.

This article was originally published on Games Are Evil in 2013 as part of the site’s regular Swords and Zippers column on JRPGs. It has been edited and republished here due to Games Are Evil no longer existing in its original form.

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One of the best things about the Mega Drive — and one of the aspects that makes it a system so enjoyable to revisit — is the prevalence of unabashedly arcade-style games — and indeed arcade ports — in its catalogue.

Namco’s Burning Force is a particularly fun example that offers something a little different from the norm; while received with fairly mediocre reviews on its original release thanks to a superficial resemblance to Sega classic Space Harrier, looking back on it from a modern perspective reveals a pleasingly distinctive shoot ’em up that both looks and plays great even today.

Also it features a pretty girl in a neon pink leotard riding a transforming hoverbike. What’s not to like about that?

Burning Force casts the player in the role of space cadet Hiromi Tengenji, who is coming to the end of her training. Unusually for a shoot ’em up, the action revolves not around saving the world from an alien threat, but rather simply seeing Hiromi through the rather brutal finale to her training regime, which appears to consist of six days of solid combat exercises with no time to rest.

Each in-game day is split into four parts: the first two consist of waves of enemies and obstacles which Hiromi must avoid or destroy while riding her bike. In these phases, it’s only possible to move left and right as well as speed up or slow down the bike to a small degree, though occasional jump pads put in an appearance allowing you to reach suspended powerups hanging from pillars or floating in the air.

The third phase of each day unfolds at night, and sees Hiromi briefly dock her bike in a mothership, receive a rudimentary briefing on an upcoming enemy’s weak points, then transform her bike into an aircraft to continue her mission. During this phase, the ability to accelerate and decelerate is replaced by the ability to dive and climb, giving you an extra dimension to think about when avoiding and destroying enemies. Bosses tend to make particular use of this aspect, requiring you to increase or decrease your altitude to avoid attacks while inflicting damage on weak points.

The fourth and final phase of each day actually takes place as the sun is rising on the next, and is a bonus round with no enemies. During this phase, Hiromi maintains her airborne capabilities and must follow undulating strings of orbs to score points and obtain extra lives. Once this phase is complete, you receive a score bonus for all the orbs you collected, then you move on to a new day with a new background, new colour palette, new enemies to challenge… and Hiromi back on her bike in its original form.

One of the things I really appreciate about Burning Force when revisiting it from a modern perspective is the fact that it doesn’t simply let you credit-feed your way to the end. You have the ability to continue, yes, but you don’t have infinite continues as you tend to be provided with in many modern arcade ports such as those of Cave shoot ’em ups and their ilk. Instead, upon losing Hiromi’s last life, you’re presented with a level select screen allowing you to start again at any of the non-bonus phases you’ve previously reached. In this way, if you’re chasing high scores, you can deliberately set yourself back a bit in order to inflate your score on a level you know you’re good at — or if you just want to try and beat the game, you can pick up from the beginning of the phase you left off at.

This aspect of the game’s design may be frustrating to those who just want to beat the game, but it’s a potent reminder of how games used to be, and how arcade-style games didn’t rely exclusively on the player’s own discipline not to simply credit-feed the way to the end. The limited continues provide new players with an ability to get a bit further than they might otherwise be able to should they only have a single credit to play with, and also increase the game’s overall longevity. In other words, it’s unlikely you’ll start and beat Burning Force the first time you sit down and play it, even on the default “Easy” difficulty.

Presentation-wise, Burning Force is still a good looking game. While the Mega Drive lacks the hardware scaling capabilities of the Super NES, sufficient frames of animation are used on Burning Force’s sprites to make the 3D effect reasonably convincing, particularly when combined with the smoothly scrolling striped ground effect. The enemies show a great deal of variety, and the different days each have a different overall theme that is reflected in their colour scheme, background and the obstacles you encounter; for example, in the first stage, where you’re riding over water, the obstacles are largely rocky outcroppings and metallic pillars in the sea; in the second, meanwhile, you’re in a desert, so you’ll need to carefully weave around palm trees while dealing with enemies that burrow beneath the sand.

The soundtrack is quintessential Mega Drive-era music, featuring exuberant use of the system’s trademark tinny FM synth to produce some crackingly catchy melodies, while the sound effects are typical of the era, consisting of synthesised beeps, burbles and distinctly crumbly-sounding explosions rather than digital sampled sound. The dated nature of the overall audio experience is part of the game’s charm, though; it’s making good use of the Mega Drive’s capabilities and working around its limitations, and I defy anyone not to have the first level’s music stuck in their head even after playing it only once.

Burning Force is by no means as well known as some of the Mega Drive’s more established classics in the shmup genre, but it’s a wild ride that is a lot of fun, as well as an experience that offers something a bit different from the more typical horizontal and vertical scrollers the system was primarily known for. While comparisons to Space Harrier are understandable given the two games’ similar aesthetic, Burning Force offers an experience very distinct from Sega’s classic, and as such is very much worth examining on its own merits rather than comparing it to something that it isn’t.

And if you can’t get enough of Hiromi and her pink leotard, she also showed up in a few later games, too, most notably PS2 tactical RPG and Project X Zone predecessor Namco x Capcom, and defunct Namco subsidiary ShiftyLook’s dating sim Namco High, the latter of which you can still play online here despite its official service ending in 2014.

Credit to MobyGames and GameFAQs for the screenshots used in this article.

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A recent article published by PlayStation Lifestyle suggested that Senran Kagura creator Kenichiro Takaki has considered toning down the fanservice elements of his most famous series.

Speaking with the site, Takaki-san reportedly said that he had pondered this possibility “a little bit… the game started out very small and that was the big selling point in order to move units. Now that the franchise has grown and is getting more popular, it might be worth considering having features that differ depending on where it’s being sold. That way it might be able to sell better in certain regions where it would be problematic to have that kind of content.”

He did, however, also note that “there are also reviews that ignore the games due to the sexual content, and write it off from the start, so those aren’t very helpful. If you’re going to write it off due to a main component then that game just isn’t for you, and that review isn’t really useful as feedback.”

I’d like to take this opportunity to address Takaki-san, Marvelous Games and any other content creators who make fanservice part of their work, and reassure them that their work is welcome, enjoyed and appreciated by fans of all descriptions from across the world.

As I’ve discussed in the many words I’ve written about Senran Kagura on this site over the course of the last three years, fanservice is obviously a significant part of the series, but the reason this is so appealing to many fans is not a simple matter of sexual titillation. This is, of course, part of it — it would be disingenuous to suggest otherwise — but I’d argue that for a significant number of Senran Kagura fans, particularly here in the West, it’s not even the primary appeal element of the series.

Speaking from a personal perspective, the thing I’ve always found most refreshing about Senran Kagura in particular is its brazen shamelessness, and I’d like to stress that I’m not using this descriptor as a pejorative; rather, it’s something to be praised. Senran Kagura has a clear idea of its own identity and what its creators want to be, and fanservice is part of that aesthetic. It recognises the fact that you can tell a serious story and have fun with the characters at the same time, and it acknowledges viewpoints other than those of straight, white men — a demographic that has become increasingly demonised by significant portions of the popular media in the last few years.

Perhaps most notable is Senran Kagura’s treatment of female sexuality, the acknowledgement that women can be attracted to one another without shame and the strongly empowered nature of its all-female cast, none of whom need the approval or assistance of men to accomplish their goals. It’s due to these aspects, particularly with regard to the openly homosexual tendencies of characters such as Katsuragi, that the series has attained a significant female fanbase (both straight and gay) alongside what many would regard as its “core” audience of straight men.

Since my own biological and sociological characteristics preclude me from commenting on the series’ appeal to women first-hand, I instead invite you to read this inspiring essay from “Atma Weapon”, a martial arts expert from California who has drawn great strength from the “shameless, happy, fulfilled lesbian” character of Katsuragi during difficult periods in her life.

Speaking as part of that supposed core demographic, however, the reason I’m continually drawn back to the series is not simply the physical attractiveness of the characters. Certainly, that may be something that initially causes people to take an interest in the games, and there’s no shame in that, but the reason so many people stick around — and the reason that the Senran Kagura online community is one of the most honest, pleasant and friendly fanbases on the whole Internet — is the fact that the game positively revels in its own identity, inviting everyone to come on in and enjoy the fun.

Despite having a single-sex cast, Senran Kagura doesn’t exclude anyone, and everyone can find something to like, whether it’s simply finding the characters visually appealing or being able to relate to their struggles depicted over the course of the games’ narratives. More often than not, it’s some combination of these elements. Speak to any Senran Kagura fan about their series “waifu” and you’ll doubtless hear them explain how they find them both physically and emotionally attractive; much like real life, physical attraction can spark that initial interest, but it’s an appealing personality, a relatable story or just a difficult to define sense of “comfort” that keeps people sticking around.

To put all this another way, while there is more to Senran Kagura than just fanservice, that fanservice acts as an important part of the wonderful atmosphere that surrounds the game. Boot up any Senran Kagura game and it demands your attention; “I’m here,” it says. “This is how I am. I’m not going to change. Deal with it.” It’s an inspiring message that encourages people to believe in themselves, to feel pride and not shame in their natural impulses, and to seek out and draw together with people who enjoy the same things.

Toning down Senran Kagura in any way would be an enormous mistake, because it would be counter to that immensely appealing sense of shamelessness — of pride — that the series currently has. Moreover, any attempts to tone it down would be a vain attempt to appeal to a demographic that has shown itself to be dishonest and intolerant towards those who are open and honest about the things they derive joy from.

And besides, in their eyes, the “damage is already done”. To them, Senran Kagura means little more than “boobs”, and sanitising a future installment is unlikely to convince them to check it out. As has been proven by the numerous “unhelpful” reviews that Takaki-san alluded to in his comments to PlayStation Lifestyle, some critics simply aren’t willing to engage with this type of work in good faith, regardless of the true nature of its content.

So I urge you, Takaki-san and your team at Honey Parade, Marvelous Games, and any other producers, developers, publishers and localisers of games featuring fanservice: have no shame in your work. There are people who love you for your honesty, your openness and the fact you embrace their tastes and desires. There are people who find your work important, helpful and inspiring. And there are those who respect your integrity, your vision and your eagerness to create what you want to make.

Please don’t give in to pressure to change. Those who want you to change are not the ones who support you — and changing to appease them is unlikely to garner their support. Those who do support you already love, appreciate and embrace your work, whatever form it takes.

And there’s nothing we’d love more than to continue to be able to enjoy it for many years to come!

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And so we come to Nekopara vol. 1, the first of this series of popular eroge, and the beginning of a worldwide phenomenon.

Except that’s not quite accurate; while Nekopara vol. 1 was indeed the first place that many fans came across this series — particularly in the West — it’s far from the beginning of the story as a whole.

To see the origins of Nekopara and everyone’s favourite catgirls, we need to look back much further to some non-game works by series artist Sayori, and how those designs evolved into the colourful, cutesy funtime we know as Nekopara today.

Sayori, for those unfamiliar, is a Chinese artist living in Japan, and founder of the doujin circle Nekoworks, creators of Nekopara. Sayori is a prolific artist, but from looking back over the archives of her work, it’s very clear that she’s always had something of a soft spot for her catgirl creations. (And Touhou girls, but if we get into that we’ll be here all day, so let’s concentrate on the cats.)

One of the earliest sightings of the characters we now know as Chocola and Vanilla, lead heroines of Nekopara vol. 1, was a 2010 calendar called Neko Bible. In Neko Bible, the two catgirls were presented in a variety of different situations and outfits, with a strong emphasis on Gothic lolita and Victorian-inspired fashions: lots of frills, lacy bits, crinkly skirts, roses and the colour black.

image via Danbooru

Both Chocola and Vanilla are already recognisable in this 2010 picture. Vanilla in particular has changed very little over the years; while her modern incarnation has rather less deep black clothing in evidence than this distinctly Gothic interpretation, she maintains her ornately frilled, maid-like clothing and even the same colour scheme seen later in Neko Bible.

Chocola has been through some more noticeable changes over the years. Most notably, her hair colour has been softened from the deep black seen in her early incarnations into an appropriately chocolate-brown tint. Her expressions, too, are noticeably softer and more child-like in her modern incarnation, whereas in Neko Bible she was very much embracing the “mysterious Gothic lolita” trope for the most part.

The core concept of Nekopara — cute catgirls help run a cafe, also there is sex — was first seen in Sayori’s book Neko Paradise, a book from a similar time to the Neko Bible calendar that mostly featured full-colour images of Chocola and Vanilla, but which also introduced a blonde, young-looking catgirl called Caramell [sic] as well as featuring a pornographic comic. It’s this latter part that led to today’s Nekopara.

image via Danbooru

Vanilla and Chocola’s Gothic-style fashion is still present and correct in this incarnation of Nekopara, though the contrast in their personalities is much more readily apparent. Chocola’s facial expression reflects her eager, lively and optimistic personality, while Vanilla’s seemingly expressionless face belies her dry wit and scathing observations of life around her.

Of course, there’s not much time to explore that characterisation in the original Neko Paradise, as by the third page of the comic the duo are getting down to some serious yuri business — originally, Chocola and Vanilla were not presented as the inseparable twin sisters they are in the games. The justification for the sex scene is the same as in the game, however; Chocola is in heat and needs relief. In the comic, it is Vanilla, who is visiting to help out in the cafe, who takes the brunt of Chocola’s affections — though her anonymous (and faceless) “Master” does show up towards the end — whereas in the game, Chocola goes straight for protagonist Kashou, with Vanilla “helping”. (The situation is reversed later in the game.)

image via Danbooru

A sequel to Neko Paradise was released a couple of years later, again featuring a selection of full-colour artwork and a pornographic comic involving Chocola and Vanilla. This time around, Sayori took the time to explain a little more about the two catgirls, depicting them both as being from Kansai, as being twin sisters, and as being rivals for the still-anonymous “Master’s” affections.

This incarnation of Chocola and Vanilla formed the basis for the characters we first meet in Nekopara vol. 1. In particular, Chocola’s inability to express her true feelings for her Master carries across fully intact, as does her strong desire to always be together with both Vanilla and her Master, even if that means they have to share out their affections. Vanilla, meanwhile, is described as being anxious about the idea of yearning for a male companion, and the curious threesome in which she finds herself with her sister and her Master is presented as being her ideal solution to the problem. She gets to remain with her sister and enjoy male companionship without anyone ending up feeling jealous.

Nekopara vol. 1 provided an opportunity to Sayori to explore these characters further than ever before. Unconstrained by physical limitations such as page counts, Sayori and Nekoworks were free to fully flesh out the backstories of these two already visually appealing characters, as well as start them down the road of a continuously developing narrative that, at the time of writing, has no end in sight.

Thankfully, for those of us who were never lucky enough to get hold of Sayori’s original artwork, calendars and books, Nekopara vol. 1 doesn’t assume any knowledge of Chocola and Vanilla, instead introducing the pair of them from the perspective of Kashou, the previously anonymous “Master” referenced in the comics, and the owner of the cafe in which they were shown to be working.

Chocola and Vanilla are introduced as a pair of catgirls who technically “belonged” to Kashou’s sister Shigure, but who stowed away in Kashou’s boxes as he moved away from home. Kashou was attempting to escape a deteriorating relationship with his parents and hoping to start a new life as a bakery owner, but he had not counted on how much he had come to mean to the two catgirls.

In the world of Nekopara, catgirls are explained as being “genetically modified humanoid cats”. Despite having the ability to communicate and interact with the world like humans, their animal instincts are very much still in evidence, and their rapid growth mirrors that of their feline counterparts; indeed, Chocola and Vanilla are presented as being no more than a year old at the start of the story, despite having the physical (and, to an extent, emotional) maturity of a young adult.

Despite their inherent “humanity”, catgirls are “owned” by people in the world of Nekopara. They’re technically pets, though most are depicted as growing to be part of the families they join, with some owners coming to regard their catgirls as children, others taking them as lovers — or “catpanions” as the English translation rather charmingly puts it.

An important part of Nekopara’s overall narrative is Chocola and Vanilla’s desire to overcome their natural instincts and become true companions to Kashou. Deep down, they know that they’ll never quite be able to stand alongside him as complete equals, as although they demonstrate a certain amount of emotional intelligence over the course of the narrative — and Vanilla in particular is appealingly pragmatic about many of the situations in which she finds herself — they lack a certain degree of street smarts and common sense, particularly when put under stress.

However, the situation isn’t completely hopeless for the pair of them, and the world of Nekopara is set up to cater to those catgirls who aspire to be something more than loving pets to their families. Specifically, as Kashou’s sister explains, the “Bell” program allows catgirls to demonstrate that they can be responsible and independent by proving that “a single catgirl can fit into human society”.

Shigure and Kashou’s other family cats, introduced briefly in vol. 1 and explored further in subsequent Nekopara installments, are depicted as having already successfully undertaken the Bell examination, so it falls to them to help educate Chocola and Vanilla in the ways of the world. In a delightfully memorable scene, however, each and every one of them demonstrates that it’s impossible for any of them to completely leave behind their feline instincts — teaching Vanilla and Chocola the important lesson in the process that no-one is completely infallible, and if you constantly strive for perfection you’ll probably just end up frustrating yourself and denying your true nature.

The cat-like aspects of Chocola, Vanilla and the other catgirls represent some of the most keenly observational — and hilarious — writing in all of Nekopara. Sayori and the team at Nekoworks clearly know cats: how they behave, how they interact with humans, how they make themselves part of the family. Whether it’s Vanilla deciding she wants to sit somewhere and threatening to “use force” if Chocola and Kashou won’t move out of the way to make space for her, or the mature-looking (but actually very young) Coconut getting distracted by a fly while attempting to help Chocola and Vanilla out with their Bell studies, the cast never quite lets us forget that, despite the moe exterior, they’re still cats.

Which, of course, puts us in an interesting position when it comes to the sex scenes of the 18+ version.

Much like in the original comics, Chocola and Vanilla are depicted as being in heat. Chocola initially misinterprets the physical signals of her situation and Kashou, despite having made the effort to read up on catgirl ownership in an attempt to be a better Master, skipped over that part on the assumption that it probably wouldn’t happen. Vanilla, meanwhile, pragmatic as ever, recognises the signs immediately, and it’s she who practically forces Kashou and Chocola together into physical intimacy, contributing a little of her own input along the way to demonstrate her deep, pure affection for her twin.

The sex scene between Chocola and Kashou is initially presented almost as Kashou doing Chocola a “favour”; relieving the stress in her mind and body brought about through her natural instincts and physical condition. As the scene unfolds, however, it becomes clear that the pair of them have genuinely come to care about one another, and far from being a functional, therapeutic exercise, it ends up causing their relationship to reach a new level.

Taken literally, the sex scene between Kashou and Chocola — and indeed the later ones between Kashou and Vanilla, then Kashou and the both of them — can be interpreted as the catgirls embracing their human sides by enjoying the most intimate way it is possible for two human beings to be together with one another.

It can also be read in a somewhat more abstract manner, however, as a means of representing the fact that real cats and their human owners often bond through physical contact and interactions. Not sexual contact, obviously — at least I’d sure as hell hope not — but most cats are definitely very tactile, physical creatures who enjoy being petted, stroked, tickled and cuddled.

Most domestic cats are spayed or neutered before they join a family, so generally them “being in heat” as Chocola and Vanilla are isn’t an issue, but that doesn’t mean they don’t enjoy physical closeness and contact. Indeed, as I type these very words, my cat Ruby is sitting next to me on the sofa, positioned in such a way that the entire left side of her body is pressed up against my right leg. She enjoys expressing her physical affection in that way. The erotic scenes in Nekopara can be considered in the same way, as a means of the “cats” wanting to get close to their “owner”: since Chocola and Vanilla are mostly human, however, they can express that physical affection in more extreme, intimate manners.

Crucially, Nekopara vol. 1 remains completely non-judgemental about the situation in which Kashou eventually finds himself, enjoying a physical relationship with two beautiful catgirls who already wished to stay by his side even before their relationship took that next step. People entering into relationships with their catgirls is presented as perfectly normal in the world of Nekopara, and indeed Kashou, though embarrassed at first, soon comes to consider himself proud and lucky to have such two devoted companions perpetually by his side.

It’s the final scene in Nekopara that humanises Chocola and Vanilla the most, however. Deeply concerned by Kashou’s illness brought about by overwork and fatigue, they set out to try and find him some medical attention, but in their panic they forget to bring their Bells with them and find themselves at the mercy of the police.

The scene serves a few purposes: firstly, it mirrors Chocola and Vanilla’s backstory of them originally being picked up as strays from the streets — though in this case they’re just incorrectly perceived as strays thanks to their absent-mindedness — and secondly, it shows that Chocola and Vanilla, up until now pretty much presented as “the perfect girlfriends”, are every bit as fallible as their older peers.

Most importantly, the scene serves to demonstrate the fact that, however independent these girls would like to think they have become, they will always have a certain degree of dependence on Kashou — though at the same time, Kashou has, by this point, come to depend on them, too, making the relationship a lot more “equal” between the three of them than any of them realise.

“After that incident, I learned that there’s no way to keep Nii-sama from attempting to achieve the impossible,” notes Shigure in vol. 1’s ending, having brought all the other catgirls with her to help out the overworked trio. It’s a touching moment of bonding between them all, and the beginning of Kashou coming to understand how important family is to leading a happy and fulfilling life, even if most of those “family” members aren’t related by blood.

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Since starting to play Fate/Grand Order, I’ve cleared the prologue story chapter and moved into the next Singularity… but from thereon I haven’t made a great deal of progress in the narrative.

The reason for this is that I’m finding Fate/GO’s core battle gameplay to be so enormously appealing and enjoyable that I’ve been having a blast doing nothing but the daily quests. These are a series of narrative-free challenges of varying difficulty set up to provide you with an easy way to acquire experience-yielding cards for fusion, currency to pay for various character powerups, mana prisms to produce bundles of helpful items, or simply to test your skills.

It’s testament to Fate/GO’s excellent mechanics that “the daily grind” isn’t a chore, and is instead an interesting and varied way to try out varied party combinations from day to day.

Much of my time has been spent playing the “ember gathering” daily quests, which provide you with various grades of cards you can fuse with your Servants to level them up. Since Servants don’t earn experience simply through fighting like party members do in Granblue Fantasy, this is the best and quickest means of powering up your party.

Each day yields two different types of card, plus a chance of acquiring cards for Berserker-class Servants. The types of card available correspond to the classes of enemies you’ll encounter in these quests, so you’ll need to make good use of the game’s Class Affinity system in order to clear them quickly and efficiently.

As I type this, for example, the dailies pit you against Saber and Rider-class foes, meaning it’s in your interests to take an Archer and an Assassin with you, with the third slot in your party — the one reserved for “borrowing” Servants from other players — either filled with another one of these two, or perhaps a Berserker, who is strong against everything but needs carefully protecting.

One of the reasons I don’t find these daily quests a chore is that the very nature of Fate/GO’s battle mechanics means that no two battles are quite alike. The card-based system that determines which characters attack when and how on each turn provides a great deal of variety, and encourages careful, tactical thinking about how you can defeat your foes most efficiently. Is your character strong enough to topple that first foe with nothing but a Quick card so one of their peers can jump in on the next enemy, or should you just throw everything you have at that one enemy, running the risk of “wasting” damage that could have been better used on a different target?

The way you “borrow” friends’ Servants with each quest gives you the opportunity to try out characters you may not have felt inclined to level — or perhaps that you haven’t even drawn. By using your friends’ Servants you might find yourself discovering a new favourite character that you’d like to acquire or level up — or you might just feel vindicated in your particular choices of character thus far!

At the time of writing, there’s a campaign running which allows you a considerably increased chance to draw Gilgamesh, a powerful 5-star Servant of the Archer type. Given that the game is presently quite short of good Archers, as evidenced by the number of players who have the one-star Arash in their Archer support slot, Gilgamesh is a good character to get on your team — and he has some of the most enjoyably over-the-top attack animations, too, inspired by popular depictions of the figure of Gilgamesh across various media as a collector of weapons. (Additional note I’ve been made aware of: Gilgamesh doesn’t go into the regular draw pool after the event, so this is a rare chance to get him, so get summoning while you can!) 

Alongside this campaign, it’s also half AP to play the daily quests, which means it’s a good time to get hooked on the grind. The level 25 and 40 daily quests are easy enough to build a party for, and they yield a considerable amount of experience for your Master character, allowing you to stockpile a lot of “overflow” AP to use in the future.

Not only that, but working your way through the whole list of dailies — even those that are way too easy for your party’s current power level — is a great source of Mana Prisms, which can be used to acquire a number of useful items. Perhaps most notable among these is a stack of 10 4-star experience-yielding cards that apply to all classes — i.e. they don’t provide a particular bonus to one specific class, unlike those gathered in the dailies. This is probably the best way to level up deuteragonist Mash, who, as a Shielder, doesn’t neatly fit into any of the class brackets and so is otherwise rather tricky to level without feel like you’re “wasting” cards and bonus experience.

Reaching a character’s level cap means you can then “ascend” them by using special items, which increases their cap and usually changes their costume in some way. And then, of course, the levelling process begins all over again, your party getting stronger and stronger with each set of embers you feed them.

Eventually I feel like I’m going to hit a cap on how far I’ll be able to progress my party’s power level using nothing but the dailies, but I’m not there just yet — and once I do reach that part, well, then, it’ll be time to crack on with the story a bit more, won’t it? And I sense that I’m probably going to be able to steamroller a fair bit of that content fairly confidently with my current lineup of Servants!

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The concept of the “fandisc” is a curiously Japanese phenomenon that allows fans to engage with their favourite works in alternative ways, and for creators to celebrate the success of a work without making a full-blown sequel.

The closest equivalent we probably have here in the West is downloadable story DLC or expansion packs for popular video games, but those aren’t quite the same thing as a fandisc; while exceptions exist, they tend to be about “adding value” to an existing product, whereas your typical fandisc stands by itself as its own discrete title in the context of a larger series.

Such is the case with Nekopara vol. 0, an all-ages fandisc for the series that launched in August of 2015, about eight months after the surprise success of vol. 1.

Nekopara vol. 0 is a fandisc in the truest sense, in that although it stands quite comfortably by itself as a self-contained piece of entertainment, it’s best experienced with an understanding of the source material and an idea of the context in which it exists.

As a work, it’s much shorter than the mainline installments of the Nekopara series, clocking in at about an hour of reading compared to the main games’ 6 or so hours each, but it accomplishes what it sets out to do in that time without feeling like it is either stretching things out unnecessarily or rushing through proceedings to produce a cheap cash-in.

The basic concept of Nekopara vol. 0 is that rather than unfolding from the perspective of series protagonist Kashou as the main installments do, we instead see things from a third-person non-participant omniscient perspective as we observe the female characters of the series (including the catgirls Chocola, Vanilla, Azuki, Maple, Cinnamon and Coconut as well as the protagonist’s decidedly brocon sister Shigure) go about a typical day in their lives.

Kashou himself is barely in vol. 0 at all; he shows up towards the end of the day, but he has no dialogue and the characters don’t interact directly with him at all on screen. As the subtitle suggests, vol. 0 unfolds shortly before Kashou secretly moves out from his family home so he is, at this point, attempting to hatch his master plan to open his patisserie, and Chocola and Vanilla are still living with — and “owned” by — Shigure.

Unfolding through a series of vignettes that each represent an hour of time in the Minaduki household’s day, Nekopara vol. 0 explores the relationships between the different characters as well as giving us a better idea of how they feel about Kashou. The first “episode”, for example, depicting Chocola and Vanilla attempting to wake up Kashou but finding his bed already empty, sees the two catgirls and Shigure invading the now-unoccupied bed to spend a bit of time enjoying the scent of the one they love.

Rather than focusing almost exclusively on Chocola and Vanilla as vol. 1 does, however, vol. 0 gives each of the Minaduki catgirls a bit of time in the spotlight, usually paired up with at least one of their peers and/or Shigure. Throughout the various vignettes that make up the novel’s complete run time, we again bear witness to the Nekoworks’ team’s excellent knowledge of how cats behave towards one another. This is particularly apparent in the scenes involving the fiery tempers of Azuki and Maple, both of whom are prone to starting fights with one another for no other reason than they secretly rather enjoy it. Just like real cats.

We also get to learn a little more about Coconut, who is the most physically imposing of the catgirls and, with her long blonde hair, tanned skin, large breasts and distinctively Western style of dress, seemingly an embodiment of the gyaru trope. With Coconut in particular, however, we run into Nekopara’s talent for subverting our expectations with regard to these characters; far from being the overbearing, loving “onee-san” type character her appearance would appear to suggest, Coconut is both childish and charmingly insecure, self-conscious about her size compared to the other catgirls (which she attributes to her being based on the typically rather large Maine Coon breed of cat) and embarrassed about her natural feline tendencies to chase butterflies or play with pieces of string.

A scene featuring all the catgirls partway through the narrative allows us to see how they all interact with one another, and the contrasts between their personalities. The scene itself is utterly absurd, consisting of them discovering an automatic air freshener which has recently been installed in the Minaduki house’s toilet before quickly descending into farce, but provides a good opportunity for the whole cast to assemble as well as depicting cats’ natural curiosity when confronted with things that they don’t understand.

The conclusion to the scene also gives us some insight into why Chocola and Vanilla are routinely praised as being “well-raised” throughout vol. 1 — we see Shigure, probably the least physically intimidating member of the cast, nonetheless managing to defuse the situation with nothing more than a smile and an expression of slight disappointment in their behaviour. In many regards, as we see in both vol. 0 and vol. 1, Shigure is more of a parent to both the catgirls and Kashou (leaving aside her obvious attraction to him in the latter case) than the seemingly perpetually absent adults of the household.

The other catgirls’ time in the spotlight in vol. 0 doesn’t mean Chocola and Vanilla get neglected, however. On the contrary, we get further reinforcement of the deep bond between them — and the noticeable gulf in common sense and intelligence between the pair of them. Chocola remains charmingly naive throughout vol. 0 — with occasional inappropriate references based on things she’s heard on TV — while Vanilla retains her dry wit, scathing putdowns and desire to never see Chocola “corrupted” — indeed, she outright states on several occasions over the course of vol. 0 that she “never wants [Chocola] to change”.

vol. 0 concludes with a slight sense of melancholy, as Shigure, Chocola and Vanilla in particular reflect on how they haven’t had much opportunity to spend time with Kashou recently. They know that he’s preparing for his new life — though during the period depicted in vol. 0 it’s clear they’re perhaps not prepared for how drastic his next step will be — and come to the conclusion that they need to accept and understand him, because he’s always been good to them.

Ultimately Nekopara vol. 0 fulfils its purpose admirably: it gives us a deeper insight into these characters, allows us to see them in a context other than the “main plot” of the series, and provides additional material we can use to understand what the characters get up to in the future installments. It’s a solid example of a fandisc, and while it doesn’t exactly advance the overall narrative a great deal — not that a sweeping, epic narrative was ever the primary reason for Nekopara’s existence — it’s a great addition to this utterly charming, gently humorous series that wants nothing more than to let you sit back and enjoy the appealing fantasy of everyday life surrounded by pretty catgirls.

Thanks to Eve at Denpasoft for the review copies.

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Final Fantasy is probably one of the best-known names in the JRPG genre. And yet even within this long-running series there are titles which have had more attention than others.

Everyone can vouch for the quality (or at least impact) of Final Fantasy VI and VII, but what about the ones people don’t talk about in quite such reverential tones?

Today I’d like to talk about one of the less fondly-regarded entries in the franchise and explain why you should give it another look.

This article was originally published on Games Are Evil in 2013 as part of the site’s regular Swords and Zippers column on JRPGs. It has been edited and republished here due to Games Are Evil no longer existing in its original form.

Final Fantasy X-2, the first ever “true sequel” in the game series (not counting the anime Final Fantasy: Legend of the Crystals, which was a sequel to Final Fantasy V), was a big departure for Square in many ways. The simple fact it didn’t have a soundtrack by series mainstay Nobuo Uematsu was enough to get people raising their eyebrows and clicking their tongues at it, but there were plenty of other things that made people go “Hmm…” as well. Let’s run through them.

First up, it has a much smaller playable cast than many other Final Fantasy games. Rather than the seven-in-total, three-at-a-time party lineup of its predecessor, Final Fantasy X-2 instead limits its playable cast to the same three characters for the whole game. Yuna and Rikku return from Final Fantasy X with new costumes, while newcomer Paine is introduced for the sequel. While initially it’s jarring to not be able to switch out characters in mid-battle as in Final Fantasy X, the game quickly shows its true colors and how having just three playable characters doesn’t compromise the flexibility of the game’s systems in the slightest.

No, on the contrary, Final Fantasy X-2 features a wonderfully flexible system that is an excellent evolution of the series’ classic Job system, and which doubtless later informed the development of the Paradigm Shift mechanic seen in Final Fantasy XIII and its sequel as well as Lightning’s outfit-shifting in Lightning Returns.

Dubbed the Dressphere system, the mechanic requires each character to equip a combination of a Garment Grid and the eponymous Dresspheres. The spheres go in the slots of the Garment Grid and each correspond to one of the classic Final Fantasy Jobs. Each sphere has a stock of abilities to be learned through earning ability points in battle and via a few other means, and each character has a single unique Dressphere that only they can use. Oh, and as the name implies, each Dressphere has its own (deliciously flamboyant) costume, too.

So far so Job system, you might think. But the intriguing thing with the Dressphere mechanic is that it becomes possible for characters to switch character classes in mid-combat, replacing the party member switching of Final Fantasy X and providing a marked contrast to earlier implementations of the Job system, which only allowed switching between battles.

A degree of strategy and forward planning is involved in switching Dresspheres on the fly, as each Garment Grid only has specific paths between the nodes into which the spheres can be inserted, and thus if you’ve put a desired Job two nodes away, it’ll take twice as long to switch to. To counterbalance this, however, a number of Garment Grids feature special “gates” that confer bonuses on the wielder when changing to a Job that causes them to pass through it. To add further complexity, switching to each of the characters’ unique Dresspheres requires that she switch to all of the Jobs on the grid she currently has equipped over the course of a single battle. This is very difficult to achieve on more complex Garment Grids, but straightforward on simpler ones — the tradeoffs are that you can’t have as many Dresspheres equipped at once, and these simpler ones often don’t have the bonus-conferring gates.

What’s interesting about the available Jobs is that they all feel very distinctive from one another, perhaps even more so than in earlier Final Fantasy installments that used a Job system. Some of them don’t even have an Attack ability, for example, which requires you to think more carefully about your strategy than simply hammering the X button until the enemy falls over.

Others have different length Active Time Battle bars — yes, the ATB system is back in Final Fantasy X-2 after a brief absence in X – and others still have helpful passive abilities that assist either themselves or the whole party. By combining various sets of Dresspheres and the variations each character brings to each Job when they switch to it, there’s actually a large amount of character customization here — something that was, at times, a little lacking in Final Fantasy X, particularly when playing with the default “Basic” Sphere Grid configuration that forced characters to develop in a mostly linear manner. (This problem was somewhat mitigated by the “Expert” Sphere Grid option that appeared in the International and PAL-region releases of Final Fantasy X, which started all characters in the middle of the grid and allowed players to develop them as they pleased.)

Aside from character development and a hugely fun battle system, Final Fantasy X-2 is also noteworthy for drifting away from the typically linear format of past Final Fantasy games. Rather than the “start at one end of the world map, run to the other end then zip around all over the place” approach of Final Fantasy X, X-2 instead jumps straight to the “zip around all over the place” part by immediately providing the player with an airship and allowing them to visit anywhere in the game world from the outset.

There’s a natural sequence of places to visit according to their difficulty level (which is explicitly stated), of course, but there’s nothing stopping you from going off-piste and exploring freely for a while. This new structure means that the game has a much more “non-linear” feel about it — there’s still an unfolding story with a beginning, middle and end, yes, but along the way there are a lot more smaller self-contained episodes, many of which feature recurring characters either from Final Fantasy X or created specifically for X-2. It’s impossible to see all of the game’s content in a single playthrough due to a fork in the plot partway through, though it is possible to get 100% storyline completion and see the “true” ending in one run.

Final Fantasy X-2 is much more obviously “JRPG” than the rather somber Final Fantasy X in that it’s colourful, flamboyant and distinctly more exaggerated about everything it does, but it certainly doesn’t suffer from its significantly more light-hearted tone throughout — and it still knows when to turn on the drama to keep things exciting.

Despite the fact that the game isn’t talked about all that much these days (by contrast, it was voted the 32nd best game of all time by readers of Famitsu in Japan [Editor’s Note: at the time of original writing]), to date it remains one of my favorite installments in the long-running franchise, and it’s well worth revisiting the remastered version for PS3, Vita and PS4.

This article was originally published on Games Are Evil in 2013 as part of the site’s regular Swords and Zippers column on JRPGs. It has been edited and republished here due to Games Are Evil no longer existing in its original form.

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Granblue Fantasy is filled with an enormous variety of awesome characters, most of whom are playable characters that can be drawn in the gacha.

From the very outset, though, you have two faithful companions who never leave your side: the protagonist’s feisty baby dragon-type thing Vyrn, and Lyria, the latter of whom in particular is a big reason I find myself continually drawn back to the game.

While initially appearing to be the same sort of “mysterious young girl” character seen in a wide variety of Japanese role-playing games over the years — and particularly in mobile-social RPGs such as Granblue Fantasy and its peers — Lyria quickly distinguishes herself as a thoroughly pleasant character to have around, making her an ideal companion for you, the player, as you proceed on your journey around this fantasy world.

Art: Kouji (Astral Reverie) – via Pixiv

While Granblue Fantasy is beloved the world over for its wide variety of enormously attractive and sexy collectible characters of both genders, Lyria is a little more understated in her appeal. She’s certainly pretty and cute, and characteristics such as her long, flowing turquoise hair, semi-transparent white dress, bare feet and elaborate jewellery mean that she’s immediately recognisable as a “mascot” for the game, but she’s more than just visual appeal. Her soft but enthusiastic voice and her energetic dialogue mean that she’s an encouraging presence that pushes the player on to achieve great things.

Lyria herself is also a major plot component in the main scenario of Granblue Fantasy, being one of only a few individuals with the ability to absorb the immense power of Primal Beasts. It would have been easy for her to be left in this role, only really pulled out when Important Story Things were happening, but instead she’s extremely effectively used as a character to reinforce and encourage the player-protagonist.

Protagonist Gran (or his female counterpart Djeeta) is completely mute throughout Granblue Fantasy, save for a few dialogue options you get now and then which usually don’t have much of an effect. Lyria, then, often takes on the role of speaking “for” the protagonist, though rather than adopting the Legend of Zelda (and/or Lassie) approach of simply implying they said things by using phrasing such as “…What’s that you say? Timmy fell down the well?”, Lyria instead tends to take the initiative in conversations and then ask if the player agrees with them. There is lots of “…Isn’t that right, Gran?” and “Don’t you agree, Djeeta?”

Art: Eredhen – via Pixiv

Although Granblue Fantasy’s main plot is resolutely linear, Lyria’s keenness to involve the player-protagonist in everything she talks about helps you to feel engaged in the story, like you’re part of it. It’s very easy for silent protagonists to feel like passive observers swept up in events that are beyond their control, and this approach sidesteps that issue nicely. While Gran isn’t the most important character in the story by any means, he’s still the player’s avatar in the world of Granblue Fantasy, so it’s important for the player to feel like they’re not simply watching events unfold from behind a glass wall.

Lyria’s character can be interpreted in different ways according to who you are, whether you truly choose to inhabit the role of Gran or Djeeta, and what you actually want from your “relationship” with her. She’s often depicted as being jealous of other people who express an interest in getting close to the player, for example, but her writing is such that it’s kept just a little ambiguous as to whether she feels this way simply because she wants to be friends, or if she has romantic intentions towards the protagonist. This helps to keep things inclusive for a variety of different players, as well as allowing those who find Lyria a particularly appealing character to indulge their fantasies of being fawned over by a pretty young girl.

Art: Akiha (Attract) – via Twitter

Lyria also acts as a constant presence throughout the game’s side content, allowing this to be written in a “universal” manner regardless of the characters the player has managed to acquire either through the gacha or story progress. While the main scenario quests make use of a gradually growing core cast of characters as you progress, sidequests are pretty much always accompanied by just Lyria and Vyrn, who offer some commentary on the situation (“…isn’t that right, Gran?”) before you find yourself thrust into the inevitable battle. In some ways, this helps make it feel like the sidequests are providing you with the opportunity to spend some “alone time” with Lyria, when in fact you’re still making use of your carefully curated party to overcome a battle challenge.

Lyria tends to be the character that has the most attention lavished on her during special events quests, too, often finding herself with a variety of custom sprites depicting her in various new outfits and poses. During a cookery-themed quest, for example, she had some adorable new sprites depicting her in an apron holding a mixing bowl; the recent summer-themed quests, meanwhile, saw her in both a school swimsuit and an adorably oversized straw hat at various different points.

Art: Hankuri – via Twitter

In many ways, Lyria is the “main character” of Granblue Fantasy, despite the fact that she’s not even a playable party member except under certain very specific circumstances. She’s certainly the face of the game, appearing on most of the game’s various title screens as well as in chibi form to highlight important achievements, new journal entries and story progress in the game interface — not to mention in much of the game’s marketing.

She’s an inoffensive, universally appealing character, and manages to pull this off without ever crossing the line into blandness. Rather, she has enough personality and energy about her to make her a memorable character in her own right, while having a broad enough appeal that players of all ages, genders and sexualities will almost certainly find something to like about her.

She’s one of the best things about Granblue Fantasy, and I’m not ashamed to say that I love her quite a lot — as do, clearly, quite a lot of other people from across the world!

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With today’s news about the suicide of Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington, I thought now might be a good time to reshare a very personal piece I wrote a while back on my now-defunct personal blog.

Its link to Bennington is tenuous at best, I’ll freely admit, given that it’s an article about video games, but there’s an important core message in here that is relevant.

There are times in our life when we feel like we’re suffering, like things just can’t and won’t get any better. During those times, it can be tempting to contemplate taking drastic steps, up to and including ending your own life.

But, and you’ve probably heard these words a lot today already: don’t suffer in silence. Reach out to people and ask for help if you need it. And if there’s something that helps you cope, make use of it. Taking this advice is why I’m still here today.

This piece was originally written in April 2016, so some references may be a little dated! Oh, and here’s the source for the header image.

When I first thought about writing this piece, I was angry. I got suddenly very angry about something I’ve been angry about before, and had been doing my best to not be as bothered by: the ongoing “culture war” that has all but destroyed rational, reasonable discussion of popular media — particularly gaming — through public social channels such as Twitter, as well as all but destroying any credibility, inclusiveness and, in many cases, entertainment value the mainstream video games press had.

It wasn’t really a specific event that made me feel angry; it was more a buildup of tension that just needed to be released. Controversies over the Baldur’s Gate expansion, the press and “social justice” types outright lying about why people didn’t like it, needless outrage over Tracer’s butt in Blizzard’s Overwatch, the ever-present undercurrent of the morally superior looking down on people who are into video games and branding them misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, cis white heterosexual male scum… all of it was getting on top of me, even though a lot of it didn’t even directly concern me and the games I’m into. But the controversies still resonated with me, since I’ve also seen very similar nonsense aimed at the games I am into.

When I get angry about something, after the fact I often like to take a moment to reflect on exactly why I got so angry — why is that thing in particular so important to me that it had such a powerful emotional effect on me? Video games are dumb timewasters, aren’t they? Why should I care so much what some people I’d never want to hang out with at parties (not that I generally want to hang out with anyone at parties save for people who want to join me in another room and play computer games all night) think of the things I enjoy? Why do I feel compelled to continually defend my hobby and this medium from people who desire nothing more than to tear it down and remake it in the way they think it should be — because make no mistake, the loudest critics like this aren’t after true “diversity” or “inclusion” since they, in many cases, simply cannot accept the existence of material they deem “problematic”, nor can they understand that some people enjoy said “problematic” material and don’t want to be called sex pests/paedophiles/misogynists/assholes simply for the things they happen to be into. Why?

Well, “video games are important to me” is the simple answer. And I could leave it at that. But I’m not going to: I’m going to explain exactly why video games are important to me.

Growing up, I was a bit of an outcast. I was shy, I lacked confidence, I didn’t know how to talk to people. (Since I originally wrote this, I have learned that a lot of my social issues in particular can be explained as a result of Asperger’s, a condition I’ve only been diagnosed with relatively recently.)

I remember on my first day at secondary school I turned to Matthew, one of my few friends from primary school and, with genuine fear in my eyes, whispered to him that I “couldn’t remember how to make friends”, which was putting me at something of a conversational impasse with Murray, the boy I had been sat next to in our tutor room. (Murray turned out to be a massive bullying twat, whom I finally punched in the face just as the headmaster was walking around the corner one memorable lunchtime; I escaped truly serious punishment on the grounds that he most certainly had had it coming for a very long time indeed.)

Growing up, I wasn’t into sports. I was into stuff that other people weren’t into. I played the piano. I played computer games. I wrote stories. (All of these are things I still do.) These were things that I learned I enjoyed at a very young age, so I have clung onto them with all my might for my whole life — and I’ve always known when someone would turn out to be a true friend, because they’d be into at least one of those things, and preferably more than one of them. Indeed, when I did eventually successfully remember how to make friends at secondary school, the group of friends I surrounded myself with were all a little like me to varying degrees — I was by far the most awkward and nerdy of them, but we all had our shared interest in video games which we felt like other people didn’t really get the appeal of.

When the time came for me to go to university, I was terrified at the prospect of having to deal with new people and even live with them. Fortunately, I found myself living with a flat full of thoroughly decent people who tended to be remarkably understanding of my quirks. There were still occasions when what I now recognise as social anxiety would get the better of me, and I’d want nothing more than to lock myself away and escape into the wonderful worlds and stories gaming let me explore and be a part of.

I continued my love of video games throughout my adult life. They always served as something comforting to me: after a challenging day at university, games were there to help me relax. After a difficult day working in teaching, games were there to help me vent my stress. After a day of chaotic retail, games were there to help me chill out and forget about the previous eight hours. And after a day where everything felt like it had gone wrong, games were there to save me.

I’ve been through a few difficult periods over the last seven years in particular. The most notable of these was in 2010, when my first wife and I parted ways and I was left unemployed, with no money and facing the prospect of having to move back home — something which I found mortifyingly embarrassing for a man of my age who had actual qualifications (and a failed/abandoned career based on those qualifications).

As time passed, I sank deeper and deeper into a very dark depression indeed. There were days when I was completely unable to function normally. I had a long period where I didn’t — couldn’t — get up until about 5 in the afternoon, which would always make me feel terrible when I’d stagger, unkempt, to the shop across the road from my flat and the guy with the smelly armpits behind the counter would ask “how my day had been”.

Everything felt like it had gone wrong; I felt like I had completely failed at life. I felt like I had made all the wrong choices, and that there was no way out of the situation in which I found myself. And so my thoughts turned, as do those of many people in a similar situation, I’m sure, to whether or not this world really needed me in it any more.

Once that initial floodgate bursts and you start wondering such things, all manner of unwelcome thoughts start coming to the fore. Would it hurt? What’s it like to die? If I did die, who would find me? Would anyone find me? Should I tell someone I’m feeling this way? Should I tell someone I’m going to kill myself? If I do, do I actually want them to stop me?

More often than not, these strings of thoughts would cause my brain to get into a bit of a feedback loop and I’d end up eventually just passing out from exhaustion, often after having had a spectacularly undignified cry and/or rage about the whole thing. But so long as the situation remained, the thoughts wouldn’t go away entirely. I’d picture different ways of how I might do it, and what would happen once the deed had been done and someone found me — or what would happen if no-one found me.

To cut a long story short, I pushed through all that — more on how in a moment — and, for a while, things started to look up, and I started to think that I might have finally gotten myself into a situation where I could be happy and content, looking forward to the future rather than dreading it.

That didn’t happen. The unceremonious loss of my job at USgamer for vague (and, frankly, probably spurious) reasons, followed by the horrendous way in which my subsequent employer energy company SSE (or, more specifically, my immediate managers) treated me while I worked for them — yes, I am naming and shaming here, because it fucked me right up, and I am still bitter about it to such a degree that I often have flashbacks to my particularly horrible last day — caused me to once more sink into an awful pit of depression, and it wasn’t any easier this time around, either.

Those thoughts of not being sure if I wanted to be part of this world any more started to come back. Familiar images of me holding a gun to my head came around; questions over what would happen if I followed through on these thoughts started to rise up once more.

And yet, even though I wouldn’t describe myself as being out of the worst of it even now, I never once harmed myself, let alone made an attempt on my own life. Even in my darkest moments, I was always pulled back from the edge of that particular precipice.

Why? Two reasons, the first of which is the one I imagine most people in a similar situation quote: awareness of the few people in the world who do care about you, and what it would do to them if you were to do something as drastic as killing yourself.

The second is video games.

I’m not joking. A big part of why I am still on this planet is because of video games. And it’s hard to explain exactly why, because there are a myriad of reasons I feel this way, but it is absolutely true, as ridiculous as it might sound.

Games have always been important to me. But over the last few years in particular — since about 2010 or so — I feel like I’ve really found the niche of games that interest and excite me, along with a group of publishers and developers who consistently and regularly put out things that keep me enthralled for hours on end. These games engage my emotions and draw me in with their stories and characterisation; these games make me feel like I can be someone that I’m not; these games put me in a situation where, while there might be problems and strife, there’s always a way to deal with it, however challenging.

As I became more and more conscious of how I felt about these games, I started “stockpiling” — picking up games and visual novels that I had no real intention of playing immediately, but which I wanted to add to my collection while they were still reasonably readily available. I also started re-acquiring games that I had previously owned that had made me feel the same way. And, one by one, I’d work my way through them, constantly finding new and enjoyable experiences to discover — even where, in many cases, said experiences weren’t received particularly well by critics.

And here’s how games saved me: the knowledge that in every DVD and Blu-Ray case on my bookshelf there is a new experience to be had; a new world to explore; new characters to fall in love with — that’s the one thing that, every time, pulls me back from the brink of doing something drastic, however dark the situation in which I find myself might be, and however persistent those horrible thoughts in my head might be. I have literally had the thought “I can’t die until I’ve played all the Neptunia games”. I have literally had the thought “I’m not going anywhere until I’ve played all the Ateliers”. And so on and so on; so much do I value these experiences — and the ability to talk and enthuse about them with those people I know who do respect my interests, even if they don’t share them — that I can’t bring myself to even hurt myself, let alone make an attempt on my own life.

You may think this is a dumb reason to keep living. You may think that this is unhealthy. You may think that there are more deep-seated problems here (and you’d be right). But trust me when I say: when even a tiny part of your brain starts considering whether or not you’re really needed in this plane of existence any more, the part of you that is still concerned with self-preservation will cling on to any thing — however dumb it might seem — that will help you survive.

For me, that thing is video games, and to my reckoning they’ve saved me from three particularly bad periods in my life: the nervous breakdown that convinced me once and for all that no, classroom teaching was not the career for me; my first wife and I parting ways; and my more recent employment woes.

Hopefully it is now clear to you, dear reader, how important video games are to me. And, bearing in mind how important they are to me, can you perhaps understand how frustrating and upsetting it is to me when a needless, pointless cultural war comes stomping all over them — with the games that resonate with me the most inevitably being the ones that come under the heaviest fire from some of the most obnoxious people on the Internet?

Video games — as they are today, regardless of how “problematic” or whatever other bullshit adjectives you want to apply to them — saved my life. So you damn well better believe I will fight back with all my might against anyone who wants to change them and the culture surrounding them for the worse.

Video games saved my life. Thank you, video games — and everyone who makes them.

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Roguelikes have been around for many years now, but in recent years we’ve seen an explosion in popularity of more accessible games that present a friendlier face to this notoriously obtuse genre.

Well-received Western indie titles such as Spelunky, Rogue Legacy, Dungeons of Dredmor, FTL and numerous others helped popularise (and, some may argue, dilute) the roguelike genre. At the same time, games such as One Way Heroics and the Mystery Dungeon series helped develop the genre in a distinctively Japanese direction.

But this development isn’t quite as recent as you might think. In fact, we’ve had accessible console-style roguelikes since the 16-bit era, though many may not have been aware of “roguelike” as a genre at the time. And a great — if particularly punishing — example can be found in the form of Sega’s Fatal Labyrinth (aka Shi no Meikyuu: Labyrinth of Death, no relation to Compile Heart’s MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death) for Mega Drive.

Fatal Labyrinth begins looking somewhat like a traditional console-style RPG. You wander around a town talking to people, most of whom seem to believe that you are the only person who can possibly defeat the dragon who has taken up residence in the local Foreboding Tower of Doom, despite you being rather ill-equipped for the task at hand.

Once you’re into the tower proper, however, it’s easy to see from a modern perspective that we’re well and truly in traditional roguelike territory, despite the use of graphics rather than ASCII characters to represent what’s going on. Everything is turn-based, with enemies moving as you move, and there’s a strong emphasis on careful positioning to ensure you don’t find yourself overwhelmed by enemies surrounding you.

Fatal Labyrinth starts throwing you interesting situations to deal with almost from the very outset, with enemies that can put you to sleep or attack from range putting in an appearance early in your adventure. And the game expects you to have the courage and confidence to experiment in order to deal with these situations, because it sure as hell isn’t going to tell you what that “orange potion” you just picked up does until you quaff it and deal with the consequences.

Unidentified (and randomised) items is an aspect of the genre that many modern, more lightweight roguelike-inspired games tend to forego because it’s a mechanic that is not, at heart, terribly friendly or fair to the player. When anything you pick up has the possibility of at worst immediately killing you, there’s always a moment of genuine trepidation before you hit the “use” button on the item in question.

But that’s what makes Fatal Labyrinth exciting. Sometimes you’ll chug a potion only to discover it’s actually poison, yes, but other times you’ll find it buffs your strength up considerably, heals you or allows you to discover hidden treasures more easily. Likewise, sometimes you’ll cast a spell from a scroll only to find yourself teleported to a den of monsters who all look rather hungry, while at other times you’ll find yourself shooting deadly flames at your foes.

Dealing with the potentially negative consequences of the items you pick up is part of the fun of Fatal Labyrinth. Because once you deal with those immediate negative consequences — assuming you didn’t simply die in the process — you can then make use of future occurrences of these items to your advantage. That bottle of poison you accidentally guzzled down which caused you to spend the next 30 turns attempting to keep your internal organs on the inside could become a useful thrown weapon if you were to find another one.

Fatal Labyrinth doesn’t really have a story beyond your initial reason for entering the dungeon in the first place. This is probably for the best, because it produces its own rather enjoyable emergent narratives each and every time you play, and emergent narratives can clash somewhat with carefully composed, pre-scripted stories. It also helps prevent repeat playthroughs from becoming tiresome, since you’ll never find yourself having to watch the same cutscenes and story sequences again, because there aren’t any.

And you’ll be starting over in Fatal Labyrinth a whole lot. Because not only is this a traditional roguelike in the sense that there is permadeath — albeit with the caveat that every five floors you successfully traverse allows you to start a new run in the same session from that point — but there’s also no save system whatsoever, meaning that you can’t simply stop playing and pick up where you left off later, nor is there any sort of persistent progression that gradually makes the game easier over time as you unlock more content.

No, Fatal Labyrinth is a pure and simple roguelike that most certainly does not want to let you get through to the end, and this means, from a modern perspective, that it won’t be to everyone’s taste.

However, its attitude towards progression — and its demand that it be beaten in a single session, because emulator save states are for pussies — is firmly in keeping with how Mega Drive games, particularly in the early days of the system, were designed. Sega’s own games, as well as many of the platform’s other most well-regarded titles, were put together in a similar fashion to arcade games: they were designed to test a player’s skill rather than patience or persistence, and Fatal Labyrinth, despite not being a particularly arcade-style game in the first place, is no exception.

It might be unthinkable to contemplate a role-playing game with no save system from a modern perspective, but that’s what we have with Fatal Labyrinth — and this structure is also what makes it a surprisingly rewarding game to play. Make it through to the end of the game and you know that you’ve achieved something significant; you might have made use of the “continue every five floors” feature, sure, but you’ve still beaten the game in a single sitting.

And that, in turn, allows you to set interesting new goals for yourself: perhaps the next time you play, you can try and clear it without continuing. Or within a certain self-imposed time limit. Or without using certain types of item, or at as low a level as possible, or with killing as many enemies as you can.

Fatal Labyrinth’s simplicity allows for it to be enjoyed in a variety of different ways as well as making it friendly to both long and short play sessions. It may not seem as feature-packed, convenient or friendly as modern takes on the roguelike, but in many ways that purity of experience is rather enjoyable; Fatal Labyrinth knows exactly what it is, and isn’t trying to be anything more than that. If you want to make anything more of it, it’s not going to stop you, mind, and indeed that is where veteran players can continue to find enjoyment from it even after beating it.

It’s not the flashiest game on the Mega Drive, nor, arguably, is it even one of the most memorable. But it’s a solid addition to any collector’s library — and a game that will keep its most dedicated players busy for quite some time as they attempt to conquer the labyrinth’s many challenges.

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Less than five minutes after the first episode of GAMERS! started, I had a broad grin on my face.

This, it was abundantly clear, was a show put together by people who understood gaming. People who understood why people play, why they feel so passionate about their hobby — and even why, at times, you just want to enjoy it by yourself without sharing it with others.

After the two episodes that have already aired at the time of writing, the show is already a delight, and looks like being a distinctly “feel-good” summer hit.

The protagonist of GAMERS! is one Keita Amano, a somewhat immature high schooler who is a passionate gamer but also someone who has, up until the time at which we join him, been quite happy being a loner.

Keita’s social interactions at the start of the show primarily consist of offering support to a fellow player of a distinctly Granblue Fantasy-esque mobile game, so he is very surprised to find himself face-to-face with Karen Tendo, believed by most people to be the “prettiest girl in school”, and moreover to find her requesting that he join her in the school’s Game Club.

Being rather socially inept, Keita immediately interprets Karen’s interest in him as her having romantic feelings towards him, though his hopes are seemingly crushed when he discovers he is not the only one who had been invited to pay the Game Club a visit. He presses on, however, and discovers an active if low-key club where everyone seems to have found a niche for themselves, and where the members have been pushing themselves to achieve great things in competitions giving their activities a sense of “legitimacy” in a society that may otherwise look down on games as being a waste of time.

Unconvinced that the Game Club’s members are playing for the same reasons he is, Keita refuses Karen’s invitation to join, saying that he prefers to simply play for fun rather than for competition or to prove anything. He immediately regrets his decision, but feels at this point he is unable to go back on his word, so walks away feeling rather guilty and dejected, feeling he has missed the opportunity to share his passion with others.

Parallel to Keita’s story is that of Tasuku, a classmate of Keita who was once a massive nerd back in middle school, but made a specific effort to become cool for his high school career. Presented as a stereotypical deep-voiced, mature-looking character, Tasuku is conflicted inside when he comes across Keita and starts to feel some old, familiar passions that he thought he had completely repressed starting to rise up to the surface.

Keita, meanwhile, finds himself similarly confused about the way he feels; even though he rejected Karen’s invitation on the grounds that he only wanted to play games by himself in order to enjoy them on his own terms, he finds himself experiencing a whole new world of enjoyment by playing multiplayer arcade machines with Tasuku.

Tasuku is also surprised to discover that his pink-haired girlfriend, whom he has been going out with for some time but still clearly hasn’t quite figured out his own feelings towards, was in love with him even during his nerdy phase back in middle school. This naturally throws Tasuku’s internal world into turmoil, as he starts to question whether or not he has done the right thing by denying his “true” self and constructing his new, cool, well-liked persona.

The nice thing about GAMERS! is that the things the characters struggle with, at least in these first two episodes, are things that are eminently relatable to those who have a passionate interest in anything, particularly if that pursuit is something of the nerdy variety.

Tasuku’s internal conflict over whether he should just let go, embrace his passions and enjoy himself as he did in middle school is reminiscent of the choices many of us make over the course of our lives as we attempt to decide and discover which particular subcultures we feel accept us most readily, and the question as to whether or not we should “change” in order to attain the approval of our peers is a common one.

Likewise, Keita’s confused feelings over whether or not he wants to keep his hobby to himself or share it with others will doubtless be familiar to many of you reading this, particularly if you’ve ever been engrossed in a single-player game and received a message from a friend asking if you want to play a multiplayer session of something. On the one hand, it’s an opportunity to spend some time doing something you enjoy with a real person and develop your friendship in the process; on the other, wow, this last hour of game was really friggin’ great and you don’t want to stop now!

Besides the eminently relatable conflicts at the core of the core cast, GAMERS! demonstrates itself to have a pleasing knowledge of real-world gaming by featuring footage, posters and packaging from real games rather than the lookalikes and soundalikes we typically see in other anime. In the first episode, for example, we see a character playing Guilty Gear Xrd Revelator, while in the second, Keita and Tasuku bond over playing Persona 4 Arena Ultimax in the arcades.

Likewise, Keita’s bedroom is depicted with BlazBlue posters on the walls, and the background art for the Game Club’s room features numerous big-box PC releases including Fallout, Civilization and even Western budget re-releases of games on the replay label.

It’s easy enough to incorporate visual references with a bit of rudimentary research, of course, but what made GAMERS! such a delight for me is the combination of all the factors described above. The clear knowledge of and appreciation for gaming culture; the acknowledgement of the internal conflicts many gamers struggle with; the relatable characters; the real games.

Plus, of course, it doesn’t hurt that leading lady Karen is super-pretty, either.

GAMERS! is simulcast on Thursdays at 4:30pm BST on Crunchyroll.

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Although the abstract nature of the puzzle game genre makes it theoretically possible to make a game out of pretty much anything, we tend to see a lot of the same sort of thing.

In particular, over the years, we’ve seen a lot of “match dropping things so that their colours match”, “swap things around to make lines of three like-coloured doohickies” and “shoot bubbles at precarious arrangements to make groups of three like-coloured blobs”. As such, it’s always rather pleasing to come across a game that does something a little different from one of these common conventions favoured by the most popular titles in the genre.

Starsweep, a game that originated in Japanese arcades and was subsequently ported to PlayStation and Game Boy, is just the ticket to refresh the jaded puzzle fan.

Starsweep immediately distinguishes itself by its time pressure on the player coming not from blocks dropping from the top of the screen, but instead arrangements of blocks rising up from the bottom. This mechanic, somewhat reminiscent of how Tetris Attack and the Puzzle League series do things, forces you to think about things in a different way, since it demands that you clear a path for yourself rather than try not to block yourself into a corner.

Starsweep’s basic mechanic revolves around colour-matching, but rather than dealing with objects that take up a single “tile”, we’re instead concerned with straight blocks that are three tiles wide, with a star at either or both ends. To remove a block, you simply need to touch two stars of the same colour; this will remove both the stars and the blocks they are attached to, and anything these blocks were holding up will fall down to the bottom of the screen or until they hit something.

As you might expect, a big part of high-level Starsweep play involves setting up chain reactions of blocks, and this can be achieved both through careful forward planning and taking advantage of the game’s gravity system. When you throw a block into the playfield, it will drop until it hits the floor of the well or another piece, but when the screen scrolls up by a step, any pieces that were on the base of the well but which are now unsupported will drop down. Unfortunately, it can sometimes be hard to predict what is coming next, but when you pull off a combo in this manner it is immensely satisfying.

Starsweep features a number of different ways to play, including a single-player mode where you simply have to “dig” down as deep as you can against increasingly tight time pressure, along with the obligatory versus mode that will have you shouting and swearing at your significant other or best friend in no time. In true late ’90s arcade game tradition, the later stages of the player-vs-computer “story” mode are nigh-impossible to beat and will lead to a lot of controller-flinging if you’re anything like me — and yet somehow the simple mechanics will keep you coming back for just one more try, utterly convinced that this time will be the time you pull off an amazing combo and send that CPU opponent packing once and for all.

The home ports of the game also feature an “Attack Mode”, which consists of a variety of different challenges designed to test different aspects of your skills. Link Attack, for example, tasks you with getting as many chains as possible within a short time period, while Combo Attack challenges you to clear as many blocks simultaneously as possible given a minute to set up your masterpiece.

Both the single-player mode and several of the Attack Modes feature “obstacles”, which take the form of clouds that cannot be directly matched with the coloured star blocks. Instead, to clear an obstacle, you must match star blocks so that they touch the obstacle, at which point it will dissipate and get out of your way. This aspect is somewhat similar to the Nuisance Puyo mechanic from the Puyo Puyo series, and the Attack Modes in which you have to clear the screen of obstacles or simply survive as long as possible while obstacles are continually being thrown your way are great practice for dealing with these annoyances, which will come flying your way thick and fast in the versus modes.

Starsweep is a game that is easy to pick up but very difficult to master, because it requires a very different skill set from that required for success in modern, popular games such as Bejeweled, Tetris and their derivatives. In particular, the aspect of the game where you can throw blocks into a gap in the middle of an arrangement rather than simply dropping them on top takes some getting used to, but once you get your head around that it opens up a whole host of potential new strategies and routes to success.

It’s a charming, enjoyable and dangerously addictive game that remains enjoyable and playable today. Moreover, its distinctive, unusual mechanics immediately set it apart from modern games in the genre, making it a game long overdue at the very least a re-release, or perhaps even a modern reimagining a la Puyo Puyo Tetris.

Starsweep is a game very much of its time in that it’s somewhat difficult to imagine a game like it getting a full retail release today, but no-one batted an eyelid at its presence on store shelves when it was originally released. That said, the release of Puyo Puyo Tetris on PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch has demonstrated that there absolutely is a market for substantial standalone puzzle games outside of the free-to-play mobile market, so perhaps it’s high time we started seeing more games like this again.

In the meantime, the only way to play Starsweep is to track down its original arcade, PlayStation or Game Boy incarnations and find some means of playing them, be it on original hardware or via emulation. It’s worth your time to do so, however, if only as a reminder of how prolific and inventive the puzzle game genre used to be.

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Honesty is the best policy, as the idiom has it. And the further you delve into the Nekopara series, the more it becomes clear that this enjoyable series of visual novels is designed with this philosophy at their core.

Several of the Minaduki catgirls describe themselves as inherently honest (albeit whimsical) creatures, preferring to rely on their natural instincts and desires rather than indulging the distinctly human tendency to say one thing and mean another… though it comes more easily to some than others.

The rather deadpan Vanilla, who is explored in detail in the first volume of the series in particular, finds it very easy both to be honest — to an abrasive fault at times — and to encourage her peers to be honest with themselves.

Others such as Azuki and Coconut have a tougher time, however, and it’s this latter pair’s struggles with this concept that forms the backdrop to Nekopara vol. 2.

Coconut, as we learn over the course of vol. 1 and fandisc prequel vol. 0, is the youngest of the catgirls besides Chocola and Vanilla, but looks older than all of them thanks to her being based on the distinctively large Maine Coon breed of cat. This leads to some entertaining scenes where she subverts expectations by physically looking like the stereotypical “sexy onee-san” type but behaving more like a kitten — even more childishly than the nine month old Chocola and Vanilla in some instances.

Coconut, it transpires early in vol. 2 shortly after she and the rest of the Minaduki catgirls have started working alongside protagonist Kashou, Chocola and Vanilla in Kashou’s patisserie, is not entirely satisfied with her lot in life.

She’s not specific about her dissatisfaction to begin with, simply whining that “nothing ever goes right for her” and getting into frequent fights with the oldest “sister” of the Minaduki catgirls, Azuki.

It’s clear that something is bothering her, though, particularly as she seems to be making a clear effort from the very outset of the story to act like someone she isn’t. She often self-corrects her use of what she perceives to be common vernacular or dialect and makes an effort to be a lot more polite than apparently comes naturally to her. Her other “sisters” Cinnamon and Maple also wax nostalgic about when Coconut used to call Azuki “onee-chan”, whereas now she typically just uses her first name, especially when the pair get into one of their frequent arguments.

Kashou picks up on Coconut’s depression and growing inferiority complex, and decides to try and help her with her self-esteem issues firstly by encouraging her not to think of herself as “worthless” simply because she hasn’t found her true talents as yet.

Coconut’s issues stem from a deep-seated desire to not be considered a “little girl” any more, despite her being the youngest of the Minadukis aside from Vanilla and Chocola. “I have two little sisters now, Chocola and Vanilla,” she explains to Kashou, “and I got my bell with full marks. I can’t always let Azuki look after me. I’ve grown taller than all of my big sisters, too. I just felt like I had to grow up.”

Coconut’s admission mirrors that of a youngster who, accustomed to being an only child in a family unit, is suddenly faced with the prospect of a new sibling, and of no longer being the “baby” of the family. Different children tend to handle this in different ways; some act out in an attempt to convince their parents to continue paying attention to them, while others — as Coconut does — attempt to grow up well before their time in order to prove that they are a responsible, reliable member of the family.

“It is weird,” says Kashou in response to Coconut’s enquiry as to whether he thinks the reasons for her changed behaviour are odd. “You’re forcing yourself to be someone you’re not. That’s why you’re having such a hard time. It’s written all across your face.”

Coconut explains to Kashou that she believes she needs to put up this facade and strive to be more than she actually is, because she feels like she is the only member of the family who has nothing unique to offer.

“You don’t need to do everything perfectly,” says Kashou. “It’s okay if you’re still just a kitten. What would you do if you saw that a member of your family was in pain and forcing themselves to be something they’re not?”

It transpires that the reason Coconut has been struggling so much with seemingly basic tasks is because of the mental pressure she has been putting on herself by not being honest about who she really is; once Kashou encourages her to relax and be herself, she finds herself a lot more able to function normally. It’s not an immediate process, but she learns to be a lot happier with who she is rather than depressed about who she isn’t.

Azuki, meanwhile, has her own issues with honesty. Depicted as the most responsible, reliable member of the Minaduki sisters — understandable, since she is the oldest, despite her diminutive Munchkin breed making her look a lot younger than even Chocola and Vanilla — it becomes clear over time that Azuki is quite highly strung. She certainly doesn’t resent her position as the oldest of the group with all the implied responsibilities that entails, but it’s also very apparent that she doesn’t get a lot of “time off” from that role, and as such has great difficulty in letting her hair down and truly being herself.

Her frequent, often violent spats with Coconut act as one means of her blowing off steam, but she recognises there is a deeper issue following a late-night incident in which Coconut catches the tail end of a conversation between Azuki and Kashou out of context, mistakenly believing the pair to have been badmouthing her behind her back. Filled with frustration at being unable to get through to her “sister”, Azuki slaps Coconut in an uncharacteristic display of genuine anger rather than the more typical feline showboating she shows in their usual fights.

Azuki’s problem here stems from her difficulty in truly expressing herself. Like Coconut, she puts up a facade to the world, though unlike her “sister” this is less about pretending to be someone she isn’t and more about protecting her somewhat more delicate true self from potential sources of pain. Coconut describes her as “tsundere” at one point, though Azuki is keen to distance herself from “that overdone archetype”, insisting that she is “more complicated” than that, and indeed her personality is not quite as straightforward as your common or garden “hot and cold” tsundere.

It’s Vanilla who finally gets Azuki to open up and reveal her true self, however. After catching an Azuki who passed out after masturbating in Kashou’s bed — an incident in turn caused by Azuki witnessing an earlier sexual encounter between Kashou, Chocola and Coconut — Vanilla corners the pair and won’t let Azuki depart until she’s admitted how she really feels.

“I really don’t have that much confidence in myself, you know,” Azuki admits. “I don’t really know how to take compliments or criticism, and I don’t really like having my younger sister teach me something.”

“An honest Azuki is a cute Azuki,” says Vanilla as she pushes the situation into lewd territory, partly out of her own desires and partly from a sincere wish to help her suffering sister. “You’re normally level-headed, but you’re so crazed with desire now.”

Vanilla further drives the lesson home by telling Kashou to stop — and ceasing her own contributions to the situation — every time it seems Azuki is about to reach an orgasm. In doing so, she further encourages Azuki to let her guard down and be honest, forcing her to literally beg Vanilla and Kashou to let her reach the climax she is continually denied.

This brings up another interesting aspect to the concept of “honesty” being core to Nekopara as a whole, and to vol. 2 in particular — and it’s something that only becomes particularly apparent if you’re playing the 18+ versions.

Nekopara’s sex scenes are, not to put too fine a point on it, messy. They typically conclude with everyone involved absolutely drenched with sweat at the very least, and in various other cases, covered in saliva or other bodily fluids. Indeed, when Azuki is finally allowed to reach her explosive orgasm in the scene discussed above, she loses complete control of her body and wets the bed; in other erotic scenes, everyone involved is typically too caught up in the moment to bother cleaning up Kashou’s previous ejaculations before moving on to different “activities”.

This depiction of sex is certainly a far cry from the soft-focus, heavily romanticised view of sex that is stereotypically part of many relationship-centric visual novels. Nekopara’s depiction of sex might even initially seem to be a little jarring, particularly as it seems at odds with the distinctly “cute” aesthetic that the rest of the series puts across, but when taken in context of that core concept of “honesty”, it makes a lot more sense.

Sex is messy. It absolutely can be full of romance and passion and love and all that good stuff too, of course, but the way it often gets shown to us in the media tends to be an idealised depiction. The reality of a sexual encounter is often rather less “perfect” than movies and TV shows in particular might suggest, and consequently Nekopara’s depiction of it as messy, dirty and even a bit gross at times is, in fact, perfectly in keeping with the concept of “honesty”. “This is how it is,” the game seems to say. “If you’re going to lust after these girls, this is what you’ll have to be prepared to deal with.”

To develop an idea we discussed back in our exploration of vol. 1, this aspect of Nekopara’s presentation can also be read in a more abstract, non-literal manner as a reflection of the reality of pet ownership. Owning cats — or indeed any sort of pet that is aware of your presence and enjoys your company — is delightfully rewarding, especially when they shower you with as much love and affection as you give them, but the grim reality is that taking care of a pet is also fraught with less glamorous aspects such as cleaning up sick, piss and poo, dealing with the revoltingness that is wet food and, in the case of cats in particular, running the risk of finding a nice dead “present” for you on your doormat.

The presentation of Nekopara’s sex scenes can thus be interpreted as an acknowledgement that even the most idyllic-seeming life has its disgusting aspects to deal with, and that for most people, if the net result is that you end up happy, you can probably learn to live with a few bodily fluids along the way. For indeed, as we’ve already seen Kashou say to Coconut, “you don’t need to do everything perfectly”.

Nekopara as a whole is a series designed to encourage people to be honest with themselves. From the moment you boot it up and are presented with its cheerful music and colourful visuals, you should be under no illusions as to what sort of experience you’re letting yourself in for.

There’s no sense in being ashamed about wanting to spend virtual time with cute catgirls if that’s something that makes you happy, and indeed with the enduring popularity of the series — over a million copies sold worldwide as of April 2017, and over a million dollars raised in crowdfunding for an official OVA adaptation of vol. 1 — it seems that this is a message that has well and truly got through to the audience.

Here’s hoping we get to spend many more years in the company of the Minaduki catgirls.

Thanks to Eve at Denpasoft for the review copies.

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Those with a longstanding interest in the worldwide shoot ’em up scene may well be familiar with German developer Hucast Games.

A developer primarily known for helping resurrect Sega’s defunct Dreamcast platform for modern audiences through the release of original, new arcade-style games for the system, Hucast’s work has had mixed reception over the years — though not necessarily entirely due to the quality of the games themselves, as this article from Segabits in 2015 explains in more detail.

As we move further into the “digital age”, however, it becomes a lot easier for developers such as Hucast to ply their trade — and, should mistakes occur, to correct them. Which is how we now find ourselves, two years after its original Dreamcast release, with an HD version of Hucast’s shmup Ghost Blade for Windows PC, PS4, Wii U and Xbox One.

And hey! It’s really good.

Ghost Blade HD cites its inspirations as the shoot ’em ups of the ’90s, and it’s clear from the outset that the whole thing is very much a love letter to Japanese danmaku shooters, especially those from Cave. The game bears more than a passing resemblance to the DoDonPachi series in particular, and even features similar combo-based scoring mechanics — though Ghost Blade HD is a lot more forgiving than Cave’s classics.

Mechanically, Ghost Blade HD is simple and accessible, featuring a three-button control scheme: one for a wide-angle shot, one for a focused shot and another for bombs. Bombs do not clear the entire screen as in some other danmaku shooters, but rather affect a circular area around where they are dropped, necessitating a certain amount of tactical positioning in order to use them effectively. The game’s easiest difficulty also features auto-bombing when the player takes a hit and has bombs in stock, too; unlike some other danmaku titles, there’s no distinction between an auto-bomb and a “proper” bomb, and no penalty for allowing an auto-bomb to go off — it’s simply a concession to less skilled players who want a more accessible experience, and it works well in that manner.

In fact, Ghost Blade HD works well as an introductory danmaku shoot ’em up. While it does indeed feature screen-filling bullet patterns as you might expect from the subgenre, it never becomes completely overwhelming, particularly on the easier difficulties. Its original Dreamcast incarnation drew some criticism for being much too easy, but its HD reincarnation seems to have balanced things nicely. While most players will probably be able to clear Easy mode within a credit or two on their first attempt, the two more challenging difficulty levels make things more interesting and demanding — and the fact the game features limited continues discourages excessive credit-feeding and instead demands that the player gradually improve their skills in order to progress further.

That said, there’s no real penalty for continuing aside from resetting your score; unlike in the aforementioned DoDonPachi, for example, using a continue doesn’t reset things like the score items you’ve picked up in a level, and you’re still able to register your name against the highest score you attained in a single session rather than it being automatically set to “=C=” or similar if you happened to continue since achieving it. In this way, Ghost Blade HD strikes a good balance between demanding a certain amount of player skill in order to see it through to its conclusion, and allowing those still learning the game to progress a little further — and attain higher scores — than they would otherwise be able to get on a single credit.

Presentation-wise, Ghost Blade HD addresses another common criticism of its Dreamcast predecessor by being a good-looking game. With art assets clearly designed with HD screens in mind rather than the blocky upscaled pixel art we often see in many other modern shmups with arcade origins, Ghost Blade HD features an interesting variety of backdrops over the course of its five stages, ranging from the red sands of Mars to a space station covered in blossoming Japanese cherry trees.

Enemies, too, look good, running the gamut from small, single-HP popcorn enemies to larger, bullet-spewing flying foes and ground installations. Different enemies exhibit different behaviours that need to be learned, as well; some explode into suicide bullets when destroyed, while blasting others into oblivion will cause their bullets to turn into a shower of score items. And an optional “soft slowdown” mechanic allows you to either play with a constant 60fps frame rate (much more challenging!) or with the kind of deliberate slowdown Cave shmups in particular became known for.

There’s also a choice of two thumping soundtracks to accompany your mission: one by Rafael Dyll (Söldner X-2, Rainbow Moon) and another by Ser Flash. Both are great, though for my money the Ser Flash “alternate” music just has the slight edge by being a tad more evocative of that ’90s arcade feel.

Perhaps the best news for those who have been following the saga of Ghost Blade since its 2015 Dreamcast release, however, is the addition of a dedicated Score Attack mode, which takes the place of the originally promised (but subsequently abandoned, much to the chagrin of supporters) Caravan Mode, where the player was to be given a limited amount of time to rack up as high a score as possible.

In Ghost Blade HD, the Score Attack mode consists of a single level in which you have infinite lives where you must score as highly as possible; since losing a life resets your combo meter, it’s in your interest to try and survive as long as you can, and the set difficulty level of this mode means that there’s no auto-bomb safety net for the newbies, either! It’s a particularly nice addition for those who fancy a quick blast but don’t want to run through the whole game; it has its own separate, dedicated leaderboards, too, making it an ideal mode for a bit of friendly (or even more serious!) competition.

On the whole, Ghost Blade HD is a great addition to any shmup fan’s collection, featuring highly polished graphics and sound, challenging but fair and accessible gameplay, and plenty of replayability across the three different playable ships, difficulty levels and Score Attack mode. And for those who came away a little disappointed with the Dreamcast predecessor, this is a good opportunity to revisit the game in a much more solidly put together form. It’s just a pity we don’t have a nice shiny physical release to enjoy!

More about Ghost Blade HD

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As the Nekopara series has progressed, it’s clear that Sayori and the rest of the team at Nekoworks have become more comfortable and confident with these characters.

With each new installment, the series steps further away from the admittedly appealing initial novelty value of the main cast being catgirls, and further into stronger characterisation, including deeper exploration of the girls’ personalities, backgrounds and attitudes towards one another.

Nekopara vol. 3, the latest installment to be released at the time of writing (though a vol. 4 has already been confirmed), is the strongest episode to date, featuring some truly touching scenes, wonderful characterisation and, if you’re playing the 18+ version, it has to be said, some of the absolute hottest H-scenes in the series.

Following the trend of the previous volumes (vol. 0 excluded, which explored the family unit as a whole), Nekopara vol. 3 focuses mainly on a pair of catgirls from the Minaduki household — though this doesn’t mean the others are neglected.

In fact, the game makes a point of ensuring that the stars of the previous installments Chocola and Vanilla (vol. 1) as well as Azuki and Coconut (vol. 2) get a bit of time in the spotlight even as the main narrative makes it clear that the perverted Cinnamon and the haughty Maple will be taking centre stage this time around.

Those playing the 18+ version will be particularly aware of this, since both of the previous pairs of stars get their own H-scenes in the game well before Maple and Cinnamon get to do anything even vaguely naughty.

In this way, Nekopara acknowledges what has come before, but doesn’t allow itself to get bogged down in retreading old ground. Partway through vol. 2, both protagonist Kashou and the player are reassured that the catgirls of Nekopara’s setting are naturally polygamous creatures, and as such have no problem with someone they have chosen to bond with taking other partners. In this way, the extravagance and fantastic aspects of Kashou’s growing harem are both acknowledged and given context without breaking “character” or resorting to each episode being a different “route”, mutually exclusive of the others.

Nekopara vol. 3 also takes some time for a little meta commentary on the surprising success of the series since it first launched. An early scene sees an anonymous little girl visiting Kashou’s cafe, recognising all the catgirls from their fame online (since Kashou’s sister Shigure has been diligently updating a daily blog about their activities, partly as her own business and partly to support her brother) and asking them to demonstrate all of their most recognisable traits.

This aspect of fame and following your dreams forms the springboard for the majority of the rest of vol. 3’s central narrative, which concerns the proud but rather distant Maple, and her closest friend Cinnamon’s efforts to support her.

We learn that one of the most popular entries on Shigure’s blog is a video of Maple and Cinnamon as kittens performing the theme song from a popular anime, though it transpires that Maple hasn’t really sung since. Cinnamon, utterly devoted to her best friend due to an incident in their pasts that bonded them together a lot more closely than even siblings Chocola and Vanilla, sees an opportunity to reawaken this nearly forgotten dream during a bit of audience participation in an event at an amusement park; Maple is reluctant to go along with her plan initially, but ultimately sees little choice between potentially embarassing herself on stage and definitely embarrassing herself by running away.

Shigure, naturally, is on hand to capture the moment on camera, and the online response to Maple’s performance is overwhelmingly positive. Something bothers her deeply, but she doesn’t admit it; Kashou, having learned to read his feline friends rather well by this point, however, correctly surmises that the root of her discomfort is down to the fact that every single comment about her performance makes reference to the fact that she is a catgirl rather than simply praising her outright.

Cinnamon is aware of this too, and feels some regret at having forced Maple into the situation in the first place, but simultaneously proud that her friend put on such a stirring performance. Kashou, having already developed something of a reputation among the catgirls as being a bit nosy by this point, decides to step in and talk to Maple about it.

“I gave up that stupid kittenhood dream a long time ago,” explains Maple. “I was pampered so much back then. Do you really think I understood how the world works? In the first place, a catgirl having a dream is just dumb, isn’t it?”

Maple is referring here to the fact that, despite the fact they often look and behave very human — particularly in the case of the Minaduki girls, who have all been “raised” very well by Shigure and Kashou — catgirls are still considered to be inferior beings. As we saw back in vol. 1, they’re not allowed out on their own without their “Bells”, showing that they’ve taken a test proving that they can function in society without a guardian, and we learn in vol. 3 when Cinnamon goes bra shopping that there are even some establishments that won’t allow unattended catgirls in, even if they’re carrying Bells.

In other words, despite Maple’s rather proud nature and attempt to put across an air of being mature and aloof — something she pulls off a lot better than the actual oldest “sister” of the family Azuki, who, as we saw throughout vol. 2, is a little too hot-tempered and sarcastic for her own good — she’s still painfully aware of her “place” in society.

Kashou’s having none of this, however, and he explains why with a bit of background information about what led him to his current situation.

“Ever since I was little, my dad told me that I would be studying to make Japanese sweets,” he explains, referring to his parents’ traditional Japanese confectionery store. “I never considered that I had any other choice. So I did as he said and studied how to make Japanese sweets. Since my family has some ancient traditions, my upbringing was pretty strict. Playing with friends, club activities, hobbies… I had to forgo all of them for the sake of studying the family trade.”

The traditionalist nature of the Minaduki family that Kashou describes here goes quite a way to explaining a few things about the cast, most notably why Kashou’s younger sister Shigure is perpetually dressed in traditional Japanese garb rather than the more modern clothing the catgirls wear. It also goes some distance to explaining why Kashou felt the need to sneak out of the house to start his patisserie back in vol. 1, rather than doing so with the full support of his parents.

“One day I went to a patisserie by myself,” he continues. “Everyone there looked so happy eating their cake. Everyone. Even those who might be austere or sad otherwise. Every single customer had a smile on their face. Before, I was completely focused on my family’s trade and saw nothing else. Then someone asked me ‘why is it that you’re making these sweets?’ Back then, I really didn’t know what I had been doing up until that point. I struggled with it, but I decided that I wanted to be like that person. I wanted to make something that could put a smile on anyone’s face when they ate it. Enough that I was willing to give up all that I had worked so hard and so long for.”

Kashou’s words have a strong impact on Maple, and she comes to understand why Cinnamon forced her up on stage at the amusement park — so much so that she resolves to start taking her singing seriously, picking up that “stupid kittenhood dream” right where she left off, and this time taking it a lot more seriously.

From here begins the first main conflict of vol. 3, which comes when Cinnamon feels like the best way to support Maple would be to give her space and allow her time to practice rather than being constantly attached to her as she usually is. Kashou and the other catgirls quickly notice that both Cinnamon and Maple seem to be suffering as a result of this, however; neither really wanted to be apart from one another, so clearly another solution is necessary.

“Don’t use me as an excuse for not choosing your own path,” says Maple, admonishing Cinnamon, who has become thoroughly miserable with the situation by this point. “We promised we’d always be together, didn’t we? I was just as lonely without you around, you know? I’m just a lot more selfish than you are.”

Cinnamon takes Maple’s words to heart, and her honest, selfish desire is to remain by Maple’s side and make music with her. As such, Kashou buys her a keyboard and the pair begin practicing together, rekindling a close bond with one another that had, for a while, been at severe risk of withering and dying.

Their shared love of music ignites a flame of passion within both of them, however, and they remember how important they are to one another; unlike Chocola and Vanilla, who simply share a close bond as siblings, a rather touching (and erotic) scene between Maple and Cinnamon demonstrates that the pair have been in love with one another for quite some time, but had refused to allow things to go any further than kissing out of fear of impropriety — at least on Maple’s part. Cinnamon, meanwhile, attributes her current state of perpetual arousal and perversion to the day when Maple told her that they shouldn’t be doing things together any more, but is delighted when her now grown up friend appears to still reciprocate her feelings, albeit after some initial protestations.

An opportunity for Maple and Cinnamon to work towards their dream of performing together soon arises as Kashou hears from an old friend who saw Maple’s video on the Internet and wanted to invite her to perform at a high-class party. Maple, unconvinced that she is good enough to attend such an event — “if it’s such an important party, she should hire a professional singer,” she says — is initially reluctant, but subsequently convinced into it with another pep-talk from Kashou and Cinnamon.

“You can’t follow your dreams without being willing to suffer a bit of shame along the way,” says Kashou. “And you need to be dumb to do that.”

“Believe in yourself,” adds Cinnamon with uncharacteristic earnestness. “I know that you’re working hard when no-one else is watching. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a human or a catgirl. You can do it, May-chan. I know you can. Even if you don’t believe in you, I believe in you more than anyone else could.”

After much agonising over what song to perform, and subsequent rehearsal in secret, the day of the party arrives, and Maple’s confidence is nearly destroyed right as she is about to realise her dream thanks to an insensitive, rude guest of the party demonstrating the fact that he is rather intolerant of catgirls and believes that they should “know their place”. The catgirls immediately shrink back and apologise for the inconvenience they have caused, but Kashou is angry. Maple holds him back from doing something he might regret to the guest, however.

“Seeing you mad is enough for me,” says Maple. “Cinnamon and I, we’ve decided to go through with this. It doesn’t matter if they laugh or make fun of us. We’re going to do our best for us.”

Sure enough, Maple and Cinnamon put on a spectacular performance with a beautifully heartfelt rendition of “Grandfather’s Clock”, dripping with emotion and meaning, their love and affection for one another and for Kashou infusing every phrase. The performance brings much of the audience to tears and elicits a round of rapturous applause, and even puts the rude guest from earlier firmly in his place by demonstrating that catgirls are far more than “just pets”, as he previously asserted.

At some point during these events, Maple realises another way in which she hadn’t been completely honest with herself: the matter of affairs of the heart. Despite describing being in love as “acting like a moron” in the opening scenes of the game, Maple comes to realise that it’s not quite as simple as that, and Cinnamon agrees — “you have everything to lose when you’re not honest with yourself,” she notes to Maple, a callback to vol. 2’s central theme of honesty.

And so it is that following their performance at the party — and the pair of them getting completely plastered on champagne afterwards — that Kashou finds himself with two more catgirls confessing to him. Cinnamon, naturally, is pretty straightforward about her admission of love, but notes that she had been waiting to deliver it until after Maple was willing to be honest about it. Maple, meanwhile, is hesitant and uneasy about showing such a delicate and vulnerable side of herself, but ultimately comes to understand how, in her words, “gratifying” being in love is.

Her struggles aren’t completely over until she learns how to deal with her personality’s tendency towards jealousy, however. Despite Kashou’s other “catpanions” being absolutely fine with them all loving the same person, Maple finds herself unable to express her feelings and ask for affection from Kashou, even following their initial night of passion following the party. She is still, it seems, putting up a few walls around her heart and finding it difficult to truly let people in.

But it’s Maple who finally overcomes this challenge by herself without any input from Kashou or Cinnamon; during a date in town, ostensibly to buy her some new guitar strings, Maple tests the waters with a simple, “selfish” request to take some photo stickers in a nearby arcade, and after this proves to be successful — albeit not without a few farcical incidents — sees that it’s all right for her to ask for things, even if they’re seemingly a big deal.

And so it is, during an encounter in the love hotel that Maple subsequently rather assertively asks to take Kashou and Cinnamon to, that she truly comes to understand herself and her place in the world. She’s not, in any way, inferior to anyone — whether it’s her “sisters” or humans — but she will always have a certain competitive streak that is never truly going to go away.

“I’ll be a lot more honest,” she admits, “But I’ll stop being resentful of the people around me, too. In exchange, I’ll do the best I can to make you throw yourself at me.”

Now those are the words of a young woman who has truly come to understand who she is… and what the people around her truly mean to her.

More about Nekopara

Thanks to Eve at Denpasoft for the review copies.

If you enjoyed this article and want to see more like it, please consider showing your social support with likes, shares and comments, or become a Patron. You can also buy me a coffee if you want to show some one-time support. Thank you!

MoeGamer turned three years old back at the end of April, and this April also marked a year since the launch of “MoeGamer 2.0”, the current format of the site featuring monthly Cover Games.

You may have noticed a few behind-the-scenes tweaks and pokes over the course of the last week or so, in which case you’re probably wondering what’s going on. (Or perhaps you didn’t notice at all as yet, in which case consider this an official “announcement” of sorts.)

Today I’d like to talk a bit about these new changes, what I’d like to achieve in both the short- and long-term with the site, and unashamedly ask you to continue supporting the site!

Gravity Rush 2 (PS4)

The most notable new feature for “MoeGamer 2.5” is the addition of Hub Pages for all the games that have been covered to date on the site. You can see a full list of these (including links to the Hub Pages in question) on the All Games page, or the Cover Game and Mobage menu items in the top navigation bar also link to Hub Pages where appropriate.

A Hub Page is a place to collect all the information about a particular game in one place. It includes a short blurb to summarise what the game is all about, some pertinent information about it (including platforms it’s available on, with links to digital storefronts where available) and a list of articles about the game.

In the case of Cover Games (here’s Dungeon Travelers 2 as an example), these will be listed first in their own section, in chronological order. This means that unlike the old default category listings, the Introduction to the month’s features on the game will now appear first rather than last, making navigating the full coverage of the game much more straightforward and logical.

Dungeon Travelers 2 (Vita)

Then comes a list of other articles about the game, in reverse chronological order — most recent first. Note that this list is based on tags, so the articles listed here may not be specifically or solely about the game in question, but will mention or discuss it fairly prominently.

After that comes a gallery of artwork and screenshots from the game in question, including the ability to comment on specific images if you so desire. And beneath that comes a comment section for the game under discussion on the Hub Page; this is where to go if you want to talk about a game, but don’t want to attach your comments to a specific article!

On the rare occasions when I run giveaways, the Hub Page comments are also where the competition will take place; at the time of writing, for example, I’m running a giveaway for Steam copies of Nekopara vol. 0, 1 and 2, so drop by the Nekopara Hub Page and reply to the appropriate comment at the bottom of the page to try your luck! (Closing date Friday August 4, 6pm UK time.)

Nekopara (PC)

The aim of the Hub Pages is to turn MoeGamer into an ever-expanding encylopaedia of Japanese (and, as ever, Japanese-inspired) gaming. While the Cover Game format means that some games will inevitably get a lot more column inches than others, everything you find on the All Games page (and, by extension, the Hub Pages) will provide some information that will hopefully be helpful or at the very least interesting. Games that just get a passing mention will not be added to the All Games list; the intention for that page (and for Hub Pages) is to highlight the games which have had articles in which they are either the main or at least an important point.

So that’s already in place, which means I can start looking forward to what comes next! With July’s coverage of Nekopara now drawing to a close, I have a number of games and visual novels primed and ready for the Cover Game treatment over the course of the next few months. The tentative plan for now is to cover Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood in August, then in subsequent months (I haven’t quite decided the order yet, as it will depend on how long each takes to get through, and whether I feel like doing multiple visual novels in a row!) to look at classic (and still not officially localised) visual novel Fate/stay night, MangaGamer’s recent and long-awaited release of Rance 5D and Rance VI, the much-maligned and widely misunderstood PS2 RPG Unlimited Saga (which I freely admit I absolutely hated in my early 20s so am keen to revisit from a more mature perspective — and with a lot more tabletop gaming experience), plus Gust’s new titles Blue Reflection and Nights of Azure 2, Falcom’s Ys VIII and perhaps Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash.

Nights of Azure (PS4, PC)

As ever, the Cover Game features will be punctuated by one-shot and Essentials articles about games and visual novels I find interesting or otherwise noteworthy, so if you’re reading this and you’re a localiser/publisher/developer/distributor of such titles and have something you’d like me to take a look at, please feel free to get in touch. (Please note that despite my ongoing coverage of Granblue Fantasy and Fate/Grand Order, I will generally not consider mobile games for coverage, particularly if they are free-to-play; both GBF and FGO are particularly interesting cultural phenomena in their own right as well as being solid games, making them an exception to my typical rule.)

Now, longer term I would like to expand MoeGamer further. Firstly, I want to get my hands on a Nintendo Switch, since it’s looking more and more like this is going to be many Japanese developers’ platform of choice, particularly as the Vita slowly winds down. These are not cheap, particularly while they’re out of stock in a lot of places, but getting one will let me cover an even broader range of games here on the site. If you think you might be able to help with that, read on.

Splatoon (Wii U)

I’d also like to upgrade the site itself with things like media hosting and audio/video players rather than having to rely on YouTube videos when discussing soundtracks and music, and I want to start providing more in the way of video content. Both of these wishes have associated expenses — a subscription to WordPress’ premium services in the former case, and the necessity to pick up some decent quality capture/streaming hardware in the latter — so here’s where I do the shameless thing and ask you to consider supporting the site.

There are several ways you can do this. Firstly and most simply is to share MoeGamer’s content on social media. I don’t get any money from ad impressions — any ads you see give money to WordPress, not me — so it’s not about clickbait, but obviously the more people reading my work, the more people willing to show their support in various ways. You can hang out and chat with me on Twitter, and this is also where you’ll see links to articles as they’re posted. I don’t really have a prominent presence on any other social networks or forums, but feel free to share my articles on Facebook, Reddit and any other sites you frequent.

Ne no Kami: The Two Princess Knights of Kyoto (PC)

Secondly, doubtless you’ve noticed the “Buy Me a Coffee” buttons dotted around the site. These are effectively a one-off “tip jar” where you can throw me a dollar or two either as a simple show of support, or specifically to show your appreciation of a particular article I’ve written. The provider for this feature, Ko-Fi, is safe, trustworthy and widely used by creative types across the Internet, so if you want to chip in something towards the things I mention above but not commit to regular contributions, this is the way to go.

Thirdly and finally, you can become a Patron via Patreon, a service where you can pledge an amount of your choice per month to show your support for the site. Even just $1 a month makes a huge difference, believe me, and many other Patreon creators agree; every bit of support is incredibly valuable and massively appreciated!

VA-11 HALL-A (PC)

I’m currently offering two digital rewards for those generous enough to sign up for ongoing support in this way: pledge $1 a month or more and you’ll get access to my Patrons-Only feed on Patreon, where I’ll be posting some more immediate thoughts, impressions and reactions to games and cultural phenomena; pledge $5 a month or more, meanwhile, and not only do you get access to the Patrons-Only feed as with the $1 tier, you’ll also get monthly wallpapers featuring MoeGamer’s mascots Midori, Yumi and Penelope. Down the line I have a few other, more substantial rewards in mind to offer, but those will have to wait until I have a few more Patrons!

I firmly believe MoeGamer provides something very different to most other gaming sites out there, and it’s a project I’ve greatly enjoyed working on ever since I started it. I’m delighted so many of you already support the site in various ways, and I’m excited about the future.

Katawa Shoujo (PC)

Whether it’s your first time here, you’re a regular reader or you’re a full-on paying Patron of the site, I’d like to offer you a heartfelt thank you for showing that you care about what I do. The work I do here already means a great deal to me, and knowing others enjoy and appreciate it makes it all the more worthwhile.

Here’s to more games, more good times and many, many more words on these pages.

Pete Davison
July 31, 2017

If you enjoyed this article and want to see more like it, please consider showing your social support with likes, shares and comments, or become a Patron. You can also buy me a coffee if you want to show some one-time support. Thank you!

Ah, OutRun. The quintessential “Sega blue sky” series… and one that has kind of fallen by the wayside a bit since the expiry of Sega’s license with Ferrari.

After listening to a bit of the soundtrack to the upcoming Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash and thinking “gosh, this sounds a bit like early 2000s Sega music, I feel like playing some OutRun” I decided to… well, play some OutRun.

Specifically, I decided to play some OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast. And yep, it’s still a great game.

Unlikely as it may be, there’s a chance that some of you reading this may be unfamiliar with the OutRun series, so here’s the gist: you, as an intrepid sufferer of a mid-life crisis, have found yourself with a shiny new Ferrari and a girlfriend who is almost certainly only after your money. The obvious thing to do in this situation is drive as fast as possible across the entire country in an attempt to outrun… well, I don’t know really. Child support from a previous marriage, perhaps?

Okay, I made most of that up, though the part about you driving a Ferrari and having a girlfriend is real, the latter of part becoming particularly relevant in some of the game’s modes. Ultimately, OutRun is a series that doesn’t pause to ask silly questions like “why am I doing this?” because the answer will inevitably be simply “because it’s fun”. Nothing more complex than that, because it doesn’t need to be any more complex than that.

The original OutRun was a sprite-based point-to-point racer of the kind that were popular in the late ’80s. There were a few spinoffs in the arcades and on home computers and consoles, but a “true” sequel didn’t appear until 2003, when technology had improved considerably, allowing for full polygonal graphics at beautifully slick frame rates rather than the sprite-based “fake 3D” effect of the original.

It would have been easy for Sega to make OutRun 2 more simulation-like, since the inherently more realistic nature of polygonal graphics lends itself well to more believable handling such as that found in titles such as Sega Rally. Thankfully, they did no such thing, and essentially made OutRun 2 into a very pretty version of the original game from 1986, along with adding a bunch of welcome new challenges that only further emphasised the exuberantly arcadey feel of the game.

Of particular note was the “Heart Attack” mode, where not only did you have to race against the clock as in the standard game, you also had to fulfil increasingly unreasonable and dangerous requests by your girlfriend such as smashing cars out of the way, drifting around corners and breaking “tapes” between pairs of cars. Performing well in these challenges added to your overall Heart Points, which represented how much your girlfriend liked you, and at the end of your race you’d be graded based on your overall performance. Every man’s worst nightmare.

OutRun 2 was subsequently ported to home consoles by Sumo Digital, and this version included not only a faithful port of the arcade game but also a series of challenge missions that could unlock a variety of other content.

OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast, meanwhile, was exclusive to home systems, including PS2, PSP, Xbox and Windows PC. Rather than being developed as a collaborative effort between Sega’s AM2 team and Sumo Digital, OutRun 2006 was entirely developed by the latter. It included the entirety of the OutRun 2 SP arcade game, an expanded version of OutRun 2, as well as a substantial “career mode” called Coast 2 Coast, in which you were tasked with completing a variety of missions for a selection of characters.

“Flagman’s” missions focus on racing, and his objectives consist of winning races or drifting as much as possible. The missions for the three “girlfriend” characters, meanwhile, are primarily based on the Heart Attack mode, with a few additions to the formula to keep things interesting.

Coast 2 Coast shakes up the basic formula of OutRun 2 by not requiring that you play through the same old stages time after time in the hope of doing a bit better this time around. Instead, the missions tend to be shorter affairs that focus on one or two of the stages from the complete course of the arcade version, although some of the “girlfriend” missions allow you to drive the complete course and see how far you can get — in fact, this is a necessity to unlock all the individual sub-missions you need to complete to obtain her full approval!

In terms of how OutRun 2006 plays, it’s very similar to OutRun 2, which in turn had a very distinctive, totally unrealistic handling model. Rather than treating the race in “true 3D” as in many other modern racing games, OutRun 2 continued its predecessor’s approach of seeing you always proceeding forwards along the road and largely adjusting your horizontal position rather than “turning” as such. There’s a strong emphasis on drifting around corners to maintain your speed, with a drift being accomplished with a simple tap on the brakes, and techniques such as slipstreaming other traffic or rival racers are very helpful, particularly on the tougher challenges.

The whole thing is such a gloriously colourful, cheerful experience that it’s impossible not to find yourself smiling while you play it. It’s the very essence of what made this era of Sega games special: exaggerated but easy to understand handling; colourful visuals with prominent blue skies; giant numbers on the screen giving you immediate feedback about how well you’re doing; and a surprising amount of hidden depth to its challenges.

It’s a great pity that the expiry of Sega’s Ferrari license means that OutRun 2006 — and indeed other versions of OutRun 2 such as Xbox Live Arcade and PSN’s OutRun Online Arcade — are pretty tough to track down these days, and certainly not readily available on digital storefronts. But physical copies of OutRun 2 and OutRun 2006 are still floating around for all of the platforms they were released for, so thankfully these excellent games haven’t completely disappeared just yet… so if you’ve had a hankering to jump into a shiny, noisy car with a pretty girl and just drive, you better try and track down a copy of OutRun 2006 before it… well, you know.

More about OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast

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Light-gun shooters are, as you’ll know if you read the Gal*Gun Double Peace coverage from last year, a venerable genre, dating back to the very earliest electronic games.

They are, however, also a genre that has fallen by the wayside over the years, thanks partly to changing trends in gaming but also due to significant changes in display technology — most notably the change from the flickering, interlaced images of CRT TVs and monitors to the stable, constant displays of today’s flat panels; a change which meant old-school light-guns no longer worked.

Light-gun games have remained popular in arcades, however, since they tend to be large, “showcase” machines that are immediately impressive to visitors, and the advent of motion controllers with the Wii (and, to a lesser degree, the PlayStation Move) brought about a half-hearted renaissance for the genre at home, albeit pointing a remote-like device at the screen wasn’t quite the same as fervently gripping a plastic weapon in your hands.

With the advent of affordable virtual reality solutions, however, the light-gun shooter is well and truly back, and more fun than ever.

I’d like to draw your attention to two games today, both of which are available for PlayStation VR and HTC Vive: one called Pixel Gear, from Chinese developer Geronimo Interactive, and another called Mortal Blitz, from South Korean developer Skonec Entertainment. Both offer slightly different twists on the basic formula, but both capture the simplistic but highly enjoyable fun of pointing things at pixels and polygons, then pulling a trigger.

Pixel Gear is the simpler of the two games, taking the form of a relatively straightforward, static shooting gallery featuring a variety of voxel-based enemies. Standing atop a platform in one of several different rather sharp-edged environments, you must fend off a series of waves of enemies, blast ghosts and finally take down a boss via the time-honored method of shooting its helpfully marked weak points.

Pixel Gear’s controls are very simple, requiring only a single Move controller which acts as your virtual “hand”. You reach out and grab a pistol to begin the level, then pull the trigger to fire the gun, your aim point helpfully marked with a laser sight to allow shooting from the hip. As you defeat enemies, a Skill meter charges up, and, when full, this can be unleashed with a tap of the circle button. This slows down time for a few seconds and also temporarily gives you a more powerful machine gun with which to mow down enemies.

Completing a wave causes a series of ghosts and angels to fly up from the ground into the sky, though these only appear if you’re looking directly at them. Shooting ghosts rewards you with points and coins which can be spent on upgrades between waves, while shooting angels carries a hefty score penalty. The purchasable bonuses include increased clip sizes, health boosts and new weapons, including the machine gun you temporarily get when you use your time-slowing skill and a grenade launcher. Both of these have limited ammo, however, in contrast to your default pistol, which has unlimited ammunition but requires reloading every time you empty a clip.

Pixel Gear is mostly about recognising the different types of enemies, how they’re likely to attack you, and how to deal with them. Most enemies can easily be dispatched with a shot to the head, though some protect their heads with helmets and others require multiple shots to fell. The game doesn’t expect you to dodge incoming shots; instead, it clearly marks them on screen and allows you to shoot them down before they damage you. Most of the game’s boss fights require you to fend off an attack in this manner before hitting the boss’s weak point in an opening.

Pixel Gear is simplistic but fun. The levels are just the right length to satisfy the urge for a quick blast, and there’s enough content there to allow you to keep playing if you’re enjoying yourself. The game perhaps suffers a little from a lack of enemy types once you’ve been playing for a while, but the boss confrontations keep things interesting, and the varied environments the different levels offer see you dealing with enemies up close, from a distance and with cover involved. It’s an enjoyable shooter; perhaps a little unpolished in places, but certainly no less enjoyable for its rough edges.

The Unreal Engine-powered Mortal Blitz, meanwhile, is an altogether more immediately striking affair that channels a very strong sense of classics of the genre such as Time Crisis, while providing some interesting VR-powered twists to the formula.

One of the ways Mortal Blitz channels its spiritual predecessors is by having a largely indecipherable plot that doesn’t really matter. As part of a three-man team consisting of Hot Girl Who Appears on the Cover Despite Not Being That Important, Butch Guy who Grunts a Lot and You, your mission is to infiltrate a series of installations, blast everything in your path and try not to get shot full of holes, set on fire and/or eaten by rampaging bioweapons.

As I say, the context for Mortal Blitz doesn’t really matter all that much, since all it does is provide a convenient excuse for sending you through a variety of cover-based shooting setpieces in which you tend to do all the hard work while the two speaking characters get all the glory.

Unlike Pixel Gear, Mortal Blitz makes use of two Move controllers for dual-wielding funtimes, and you have a few options as to how you can take advantage of this. You can hold a pistol in each hand for additional damage or firing in multiple directions at once, or you can leave one hand empty to pick up environmental objects and throw them around or use them as makeshift cover. There are also weapons and grenades to pick up scattered around the levels, so you’ll need a free hand to use these.

Mortal Blitz’s main gimmick, however, is its “anti-gravity control system”, which is somewhat reminiscent of Bulletstorm. Shooting an enemy enough to make them “groggy” but not kill them allows you to grab them using a laser lasso-type thing that emanates from a free hand, then fling them into the air and fill them full of holes as they fly over your head in pleasingly cinematic slow-motion. Doing this not only rewards you with bonus points at the end of the level, it also causes the unfortunate enemy to rain powerups down on your head, with this being probably the most reliable means through which to heal yourself.

Mortal Blitz uses the PlayStation Camera to track your position, so as long as you stay within its field of vision, you have freedom of full-body movement. This means you can duck down and hide behind things, lean around corners, peep over the top of things and blind-fire at enemies. It’s incredibly immersive — at least until you walk into your coffee table — and the PlayStation Camera’s field of vision means that you don’t need a huge room to make this aspect of the game work; you’ll need horizontal space more than distance from the camera. There’s rarely a requirement for you move around too much, since you can take a good few shots before dying and thus can probably dispatch your enemies before they kill you, but the fact you can take cover just by moving naturally is an enjoyable part of the whole experience.

Moving between encounters is accomplished by pointing at a hotspot and pressing the Move button on the controller, which “warps” you to the new position rather than making you virtually “walk” there, so those who get motion sickness in VR will probably be all right. (Just don’t look out of the windows on the train level.) The accuracy of the motion tracking on both the headset and the Move controllers is also very good, minimising any feeling of “disconnect” between you and the virtual world unless you accidentally leave the camera’s field of vision.

Mortal Blitz’s story mode consists of a scant few levels that can be completed for the first time in less than a couple of hours, but which can then be replayed on higher difficulties. The developers also promise that the current content of the game is also just the first “episode”, with more to come, though there has, as yet, been no indication of when we can expect more or if we will have to pay for it.

There’s also an excellent “training” mode, however, which challenges your gunplay with a variety of different minigames, and arguably the game has a lot more longevity as a result of this mode than its story content. A selection of trophies task you with reaching various milestones in this mode as well as completing the story on the three difficulty levels and with accuracy above a particular threshold, and there are unlockable weapons and colour schemes with which you can customise your experience. In other words, there’s plenty here to keep you busy; certainly a lot more than the 20 minutes of gameplay the original Time Crisis on PlayStation offered!

Both Pixel Gear and Mortal Blitz are strong takes on the light-gun shooter in VR, offering distinctive experiences that make them both worthy of a place in your library, assuming you like shooting things. Of the two, Mortal Blitz is the more obviously polished, substantial experience — but don’t discount the accessible, enjoyable appeal of Pixel Gear’s pick-up-and-play simplicity, particularly if you want to introduce VR to newcomers.

Light-gun shooters may not be the most inventive, creative use of VR and motion controllers — but by golly, they’re certainly as fun as they’ve ever been, and with the new twists on the formula that VR adds, things can only get better from here. Now, howsabout a new House of the Dead, Sega?

More about Pixel Gear
More about Mortal Blitz

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Square Enix’s second Final Fantasy MMORPG is a big success now, having just enjoyed the release of its second expansion pack, but things weren’t always so rosy.

In fact, the story of how Final Fantasy XIV came to be what it is now is one of the most interesting in all of gaming — and certainly an inspiring example that demonstrates even if you release a completely broken mess of a game, it’s not necessarily beyond redemption.

Today, then, let’s take a look at the history of Final Fantasy XIV as a whole, and in particular how it’s developed since the release of A Realm Reborn in 2013.

The original incarnation of Final Fantasy XIV went live back in 2010 after an already mixed reception to its alpha and beta testing periods. At the time, localisation lead Michael Christopher Koji Fox and current producer/director Naoki Yoshida told the documentary team Noclip, Square Enix as an organisation was suffering somewhat from arrogant delusions, and this had a severely negative impact on Final Fantasy XIV even before it came to market.

Koji Fox noted that the success of XIV’s predecessor Final Fantasy XI had caused the company to feel there was little need to research the competition on the market, even as Final Fantasy XI was closer in execution to early MMOs such as Everquest than the current, more accessible formula popularised by Blizzard’s World of Warcraft. The initial intention for Final Fantasy XIV was simply to create a more up-to-date version of Final Fantasy XI, but it should have been clear after World of Warcraft’s astronomical success that business trends and what people expected — and wanted — from an MMO were very different now.

Yoshida added that Square Enix’s reputation for high-quality graphics, particularly in the Final Fantasy series, had also contributed to the company’s overall arrogance; the company as a whole, he said, believed that they were the only ones who could produce games that looked that good, that they were “very arrogant and very prideful”.

As a result of this arrogance and pride, the initial version of Final Fantasy XIV certainly had a strikingly gorgeous appearance. It was based on a variation of the impressive Crystal Tools engine that had contributed to the PlayStation 3’s Final Fantasy XIII being one of the best-looking titles on the system, but unfortunately, as the team discovered over time, what works well for a highly scripted, cinematic single-player game isn’t necessarily ideal for a massively multiplayer online game.

Performance suffered, not only as a result of bizarre decisions like environmental objects having as many polygons as characters, but also due to the game being built on a scripting engine. While the scripting engine had helped the team to assemble the game as a whole more quickly, the fact that so many things are happening at the same time in an MMO meant that lots of these scripts had to run at once, which would both stress the servers and drag the performance of the game client down.

The team knew that they had a bit of a stinker on their hands even before it was released, but with Final Fantasy XI in mind decided to press on with the assumption that anything majorly wrong with the game could be “fixed” in post-release patches. It became clear after negative feedback from press and public alike post-launch, however, that this was not going to be a “quick fix” at all; something pretty major would have to be done.

Square Enix assembled a task force to determine what the highest priority problems were and what the development team would need in order to resolve them. Many of this task force confided in Yoshida, who was working on other projects at the time, and this led Yoshida to believe that there was such a fundamental problem with how the game had been developed up to this point that something drastic was in order. He spoke with Yoichi Wada, Square Enix’s president at the time, and asked him to declare a company-wide emergency in order to gather the resources needed to “fix” Final Fantasy XIV.

This was, after all, one of the company’s most high-profile, flagship brands, but the current state of the game was putting the series as a whole at grave risk; the Final Fantasy name had been sullied, but Yoshida believed that it wasn’t beyond help. He was subsequently made producer and director of the game by the request of the development team.

Yoshida asked his new staff, with whom he had not worked before, to give him three months. In that time, he told them, he believed that the members of his team could make an informed decision about whether or not they believed he was up to the significant challenge ahead of him. He did not try to immediately take control; instead, he sought feedback and researched MMOs in general — including the then-current form of Final Fantasy XIV, which he did not enjoy playing at all — with a mind to deciding how best to proceed.

Yoshida provided two options to Square Enix’s leadership: patch the game gradually to fix its most glaring issues, but let it die gracefully in the process, potentially permanently destroying the Final Fantasy brand in the process; or patch the current game while simultaneously building an entirely new Final Fantasy XIV experience.

Astonishingly, Square Enix’s leadership chose the significantly more difficult second option, and work got underway. Final Fantasy XIV’s 1.0 version was updated to address the most common concerns of the player base as well as advancing the game’s overall story towards an apocalyptic “ending” that would come to be known in-world as “the Calamity”; meanwhile, work began in earnest on A Realm Reborn, with the intention of picking up some time after the events of this grand “finale”.

Towards the end of Final Fantasy XIV’s 1.0 cycle, players noticed a strange object in the sky: one of the world’s moons appeared to be getting closer. As time went on, the moon, known as Dalamud, grew larger and larger in the sky, and the population of the game’s virtual world started to see more and more powerful monsters appearing. Ultimately, the truth of the matter was revealed the day the servers went down — November 11, 2012 — when players were logged out for the last time and treated to a spectacular cutscene showing Dalamud breaking open to release the powerful Elder Primal (and recurring Final Fantasy summon) Bahamut, who promptly started laying waste to the world, even as the last vestiges of resistance bravely fought back against the unstoppable tide of monsters.

It would be mid-2013 before A Realm Reborn, the new incarnation of Final Fantasy XIV, made its first appearance with a series of beta tests that gave players the chance to find out what happened to the world since that fateful day.

Unfolding five years after the events of the original version’s game-ending Calamity, A Realm Reborn sees players waking up to find a world much changed, but still very much in one piece. Bahamut was apparently sealed away, and the realm of Eorzea was trying its best to rebuild, albeit not without some resistance from the main villains of the piece, the Garlean Empire.

A Realm Reborn was a complete reboot of the game. From a technical perspective, almost everything was replaced, from the engine to the core mechanics, though in narrative terms many core concepts, characters and locales from the original incarnation of the game were maintained. It was designed in such a way that those who had played the original game to its dramatic finale could pick up where they left off, while those coming to the game for the first time would have enough context to not feel like they had missed out on anything. Perhaps most pleasingly for veteran players, the game’s original series of hardcore raids — known as “The Binding Coil of Bahamut” — helped bring the story of version 1.0’s finale to a comprehensive conclusion in absolutely spectacular fashion.

A Realm Reborn was met with much more positive reviews than its prior incarnation, because everything about it was better. Gone were the painful performance issues of the old engine, although the graphics and animation had received a downgrade as a result. Gone was the stamina-based combat system, to be replaced with a “global cooldown” mechanic more akin to what you’d find in games that follow the World of Warcraft mould. And gone was the rather vague structure to the whole experience, to be replaced with a much more authentically Final Fantasy-style experience, featuring a resolutely linear main storyline punctuated with sidequests at the various locations the player character visits throughout their long journey.

The initial success of A Realm Reborn made it clear that this time around, Final Fantasy XIV was here to stay, and as such Yoshida and his team set to work on producing new content for the game, with the intention of a major, story-advancing update every three months. To date, the team has stuck roughly to this schedule, with the original game and its Heavensward expansion both enjoying five major content updates at three-month intervals, with smaller updates pretty much every month offering balance adjustments, new ways to play and further refinements to the game systems.

A Realm Reborn launched with enough content to take players from level 1 to 50, at which point they’d take on two “final” story dungeons before being presented with the endgame, which we’ll explore further in a subsequent article. The major updates primarily consisted of an episodic continuation of the main narrative — often teasing what to expect from the upcoming expansion — and were primarily geared towards players who had already reached the level cap. The story content usually involved a new dungeon and/or major boss fight as well as a series of quests that were primarily narrative-based in nature.

That’s not all, though. The first content update introduced the first 24-player “casual” raid, based on Final Fantasy III’s Labyrinth of the Ancients. The second provided a new tier of hardcore raid, continuing the story of Bahamut. The third added Final Fantasy III’s Syrcus Tower as another 24-player raid; the fourth added the Final Coil of Bahamut, bringing this narrative arc to its conclusion; the fifth likewise brought the Crystal Tower arc to its own finale in the World of Darkness. The patch cycle for A Realm Reborn also introduced a new playable class: Rogue, which became Ninja at level 30, and which was one of the most-requested new Jobs in the game after its popularity in Final Fantasy XI.

By the time Heavensward came around in June of 2015, the formula for the game was seemingly well in place, but Yoshida and his team would clearly have to think about things a little differently this time. Rather than having 50 levels to spread new abilities over gradually, they were adding just ten new levels to character progression, so had to take care that players had ample opportunity to learn how their class played with the new options available to them.

As it happens, each and every class in A Realm Reborn played significantly differently at Heavensward’s cap of level 60 when compared to A Realm Reborn’s 50. Some changes were better received than others; those who played tank class Paladin, for example, were grateful for a bigger variety of combos to use in combat, while their Warrior counterparts were likewise extremely happy with the devastating amount of damage their class became able to dish out. Bow-wielding Bards, however, were initially less than thrilled with their class’ significant shift from a highly mobile kiter to one that played more like a mage, requiring the player to stand still while they “cast” abilities that had previously triggered instantly.

Over A Realm Reborn’s lifetime, Yoshida and the team had grown accustomed to player feedback and often acted on it, but only if their opinions aligned with those of the player base. Consequently, tanks found themselves having their damage formula adjusted a few times over the lifetime of Heavensward, while Bards still had to deal with cast times — something which many learned to deal with and even enjoy over time. The new classes introduced in Heavensward, too — tank class Dark Knight, healer class Astrologian and damage-dealing class Machinist — all enjoyed numerous balance tweaks and refinements post-launch, too.

Perhaps more significant about Heavensward was the team’s willingness to experiment with content a bit more outside the basic World of Warcraft-style formula followed by A Realm Reborn. One of the most notable additions was The Palace of the Dead, a 200-floor, randomly generated dungeon that could be tackled by between 1 and 4 players, and which had a completely separate progression system to the rest of the game. This subsequently became one of the best ways to level new character classes, and is very much a fixture in the complete game experience today.

Other additions were less well-received; the Diadem, for example, was supposed to provide the thrill of exploring uncharted territory in airships, but instead tended to devolve into 72 players all yelling at one another to try and spawn rare monsters rather than just doing what they wanted to do. So poorly received was the Diadem that it had a complete refresh towards the end of Heavensward’s life cycle; it still didn’t attain much popularity with the player base, but at least Yoshida and company were trying to improve it.

This is probably one of the most key things about Final Fantasy XIV’s development as a whole, particularly since the launch of A Realm Reborn: Yoshida and his team’s willingness to experiment and be bold, and not to be discouraged if things didn’t quite go according to plan. It’s been clear from the start that the developers behind Final Fantasy XIV are keen to “learn by doing”, and what better way to test out new game mechanics and structures than by getting a worldwide player base of millions to try them out for you? Stuff that works can be revisited in the future; stuff that doesn’t can be left to die quietly.

Which brings us to Stormblood, the newest expansion pack to the game at the time of writing. Stormblood represents a significant mechanical overhaul to the game’s battle system by reducing the “ability bloat” some players had complained about in Heavensward while shaking up the way classes do things.

The most notable addition to the formula, which, again, we’ll explore further in a subsequent article, was the Job Gauge system. Now, instead of relying purely on combos and perhaps self-buffs, many classes had the ability to build up another resource outside of the usual HP, MP and TP. Different classes implemented the use of this in different ways, allowing each class to significantly distinguish itself from others both visually and mechanically — the Job Gauges are all beautifully, intricately designed interface elements — without overcomplicating things.

Like Heavensward, Stormblood also introduces some new classes into the mix, though this time around only two of them, both of which are damage-dealers. Samurai is a “pure DPS” class focused on outputting enormous amounts of damage, while Red Mage is an interesting, technical class that involves a combination of melee combat, spellcasting and careful manipulation of two resources using their Job Gauge.

Thus far, at the time of writing, Stormblood’s reception has been very positive, even attracting numerous lapsed players (including myself) back into the fray with the promise of new story and game mechanics. That’s not to say there aren’t still things to work on for Yoshida and company, however — besides the expectation of content patches, the addition of another ten levels of character progression has meant that every class will need to be revisited in terms of balance and party role. In particular, players of Machinist, Summoner and Scholar have already been vocal about their dissatisfaction with aspects of how their class plays at level 70.

While Yoshida and company’s work will never truly be done — at least until they decide they’ve had enough and want to bring this virtual world’s story to a close once and for all — the future looks bright for Final Fantasy XIV. Both the lifetime of Heavensward and the initial response to Stormblood have proven that the game has what it takes to stick around for some time yet, and the most dedicated core player base of the game remains committed, enthusiastic and passionate — arguably a little too much so at times — about the experience as a whole.

We’ve come a long way since Final Fantasy XIV’s version 1.0 incarnation; while the story of A Realm Reborn is an inspiring tale of a phoenix rising from the ashes, the new incarnation of Final Fantasy XIV has proven itself more than worthy of carving out its own legend in its own right, even without its fascinating origin story.

Long may it continue. And long may everyone involved with the project walk in the light of the Crystal.

More about Stormblood

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One of the most interesting phenomena of the early PlayStation eras was D3 Publisher’s “Simple Series”, a range of low-budget — and budget-priced — titles produced by a wide variety of external developers.

The series began on PS1 with some pretty straightforward interpretations of concepts such as mahjong, tennis or racing, but over time gradually expanded to take in role-playing games, dating sims and even enhanced ports of arcade games.

By the time the PlayStation 2 rolled around and the Simple 2000 subseries launched — so named because each game cost 2,000 yen (a little under £14 today) in its native Japan — the range had become a great place to find fascinating (but often flawed) games that, by virtue of their low budgets, could afford to be a bit experimental. Essentially, they fulfilled the function that the digital-only indie scene does today, only you had to buy them on disc because digital games weren’t yet a thing on consoles.

And so it was that we found ourselves face to face (or, well, face to ankle) with Tamsoft’s The Daibijin (The Gigantic Beauty), localised for Europe as Demolition Girl.

Demolition Girl’s concept — and indeed audio-visual presentation — is right out of a ’50s B-Movie or Japanese kaiju film. Gravure idol Riho Futaba has been doing a bikini-clad photoshoot on the beach, but finds herself bitten by a strange creature that she initially assumes to be a jellyfish. She passes out, but when she awakens she has grown to the size of a skyscraper and, understandably confused about what has transpired, is now wandering around making a real mess.

It’s up to you, as an unnamed member of Japan’s National Guard, to deal with the situation, initially by researching the enormous young woman and subsequently by dealing with the interference of the strange creatures who have apparently caused this whole mess.

Unfolding across six different missions, Demolition Girl is a simple, straightforward vehicle-based action game, where each level has a different focus.

In the first mission, you must fly a helicopter around Riho to take measurements of various parts of her gigantic body. In the second, you must fire anaesthetic missiles into weak points so she can be picked up and researched. In the third, you must fly a jet fighter and defend the helicopters carrying her body across the sea from UFOs. In the fourth you must use your helicopter to defeat the creature that has attached itself to her head, equipping her with superpowers and causing her to become even more destructive. In the fifth, you must race a running Riho into Tokyo, slowing her down long enough for the population to evacuate. And in the final mission, you have to shrink Riho down by firing antidote missiles at her as she climbs up a building, before finally defeating what appears to be the “mastermind” creature behind the whole situation.

Demolition Girl isn’t a particularly difficult game — indeed, most of the challenge comes from the extremely sluggish controls of most of the vehicles, which were seemingly designed more with digital D-pads than analogue sticks in mind — but the challenges of its varied missions are interesting and enjoyable to participate in. Some longevity is added to the overall experience both through the addition of three difficulty levels and a series of “Quests” — essentially proto-Achievements — for fulfilling various conditions in the game’s six levels. Completing these Quests unlocks special images, and once a level has been cleared once it can be played by itself at any time in Free mode rather than having to go through the whole story again.

Each of the vehicles works in a pretty similar way, with their main distinguishing factor being movement: the helicopter can hover, turn on the spot, move forwards and backwards and strafe; the jet fighter can pitch, roll and yaw as well as speed up and slow down; the tank, meanwhile, largely runs on autopilot, leaving you to man the guns and alternate between shooting at Riho to slow her down and destroy cars on the freeway to get them out of the way.

Where things get interesting is in the selection of weapons on offer. Each mission generally requires you to use a specific “main weapon” — in the first, for example, you use a short-range scanning device to take Riho’s measurements, while in the third you use heat-seeking missiles that need to be locked on to enemies before firing. But on top of that, you also have a sub-weapon — usually either a machine gun or laser gun — that can be fired indefinitely until it overheats, and up to three “items” to carry with you.

In the more combat-centric missions such as the third and fourth, these items are typically limited to explosive shells that have wide splash damage, but in those where you’re buzzing around the giant Riho taking her measurements or attempting to knock her out, you have the option of throwing out various “distractions” to help you get into position more easily. One allows you to drop a giant strawberry shortcake on the ground, for example, which causes Riho to bend down and eat it; a giant pepper pot, meanwhile, causes her to stand still and sneeze a few times. These aren’t essential to success by any means, but given Riho’s fairly random, unpredictable movement as she joyfully skips around each mission’s location, blindly destroying anything she happens to bump into, they can make it a lot easier to line up a tricky shot.

Ultimately, Demolition Girl is pretty much a game about fighting a single boss in various ways, which means its long-term appeal is rather limited aside from breaking it out to show others just how strange games can be sometimes. It doesn’t look amazing — most of the graphical care and attention has clearly been lavished on the Riho character model, which looks and animates very nicely — and doesn’t play great either, but there’s something enormously charming and fun about the whole experience which, giant cakes and pepper pots aside, plays itself entertainingly straight.

Moreover, the reason it’s well worth having in your library even though it’s not, by any definition, a particularly “good” game, is because it’s a wonderful example of creativity. It’s clearly the work of a team who thought it would be a good idea to make a PlayStation 2 game about a giant bikini-clad woman stomping around, and by golly, that’s most certainly what they have provided us with.

With that in mind, Demolition Girl’s numerous flaws are easy to overlook, leaving us with an enjoyably silly experience that is a perfect example of what the Simple Series is all about.

More about Simple Series
More about Demolition Girl

Header art source (影日のルー via Pixiv, 2013; see also Twitter)

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