Hey! You! Reader! Do you read my other site MoeGamer? If not, you're missing out! It's the site where I put a lot more care and attention into things rather than farting something out for daily posts, and it plays host to some of the games writing I've done that has made me most proud over the years.
With that in mind, I thought I'd share some highlights from this year, complete with links so you can go and enjoy them at your leisure. I'm not updating MoeGamer as regularly as I used to — the perils of having a job you actually like, and thus less time to spend writing during the workday! — but I've still written a fair few pieces this year, and I'd like to share some of them with you now.
A Re-Introduction
In this post, I explained my decision to finally move MoeGamer off WordPress.com and onto self-hosted. This was partly down to my running out of disk space on my WordPress.com account and the absolutely extortionate price they wanted for an expansion, but I'd been thinking about doing so for a while anyway. At the start of this year, I finally took that step.
Famicom Detective Club
Click here to read part 1, The Missing Heir!
Click here to read part 2, The Girl Who Stands Behind!
Click here to read part 3, Emio, The Smiling Man!
Early in the year, I was in the mood for a bit of virtual detective work, so I finally stopped waiting for the physical release of the first two Famicom Detective Club games on Switch that was clearly never coming, and downloaded the double-pack. I absolutely adored them, but felt a bit sad that we probably wouldn't see any more of them. I was proven wrong later in the year with the surprise announcement and release of Emio, The Smiling Man, which took everything good about the first two entries and married it to a brand new story — which takes the honour as probably the darkest, bleakest Nintendo game ever released.
Another Code: Recollection – the way remakes should be
I'd been thinking about picking up the DS and Wii duology of Another Code games for ages. With the Switch remake of both, I no longer needed to — but I'm glad I finally experienced these stories.
Helldivers II and the Battle Pass Delusion
Helldivers II made me angry. Not because I begrudged the game's existence — I really enjoyed developer Arrowhead's previous work, such as the vastly underappreciated first Helldivers and its fantasy counterpart Magicka — but because of the amount of apologism for rancid modern business practices that came along with it. Battle Passes are shit, full stop, and a game being not quite as predatory as other games that use them still means it's predatory.
One Piece Mansion: the puzzle of stress management
A kind YouTube viewer occasionally sends me goodies, one of which was this oft-overlooked PlayStation title from Capcom. I found it thoroughly interesting, so I wrote about it.
Yohane the Parhelion: BLAZE in the DEEPBLUE could have gone deeper
The headline says most of it: this exploratory platformer from Inti Creates was excellent while it lasted… but the limited amount of time it lasted is also my main criticism of it.
The lost art of "just enjoying something"
This is a sentiment I've expressed here in the past, too, but I feel it's a problem when people seem incapable of just enjoying something on its own merits. This article was particularly spurred on by the explosion in "modern gaming is DEAD!" videos on YouTube in the last year or two.
The enshittification of the video games press
The perpetual negativity of people online is, in part, driven by the enshittification of everything — including the games press. In this piece, I talk a bit about my personal experiences, and why seeing so many sites fall down the "endless guides" SEO juice drain is so saddening.
Tokyo Xanadu eX+
Click here to read part 1, Falcom's Forgotten Gem!
Click here to read part 2, musings on the "school RPG"!
Click here to read part 2, on Falcom's best-in-class worldbuilding!
This year I had several bouts of "this game has been on my shelf for literal years, let's actually play it". This was the result of one of those. Shortly after I beat the game, a new localisation (with 100% less "*chortle*" from what I understand) was announced for Switch. I am tempted to buy it again because it really was an excellent game. I am a silly person.
The growing important of media with a positive vibe
A good pal of mine wrote a review of Atari's Lunar Lander Beyond, and bemoaned how cynical the game's script was. That got me thinking; there's a lot of bleak, dour media out there, making stuff with a positive vibe feeling like an increasing rarity. I decided to ponder why that was important.
The Good Life: SWERY's Lake District holiday
SWERY makes odd games that often have a lot to say, and The Good Life, an open-world game about being a grumpy American journalist stuck in the Lake District, was absolutely no exception to this.
The Missing: a violent, personal journey
This game, also by SWERY, was an absolute masterwork in narrative through mechanics, telling a thoroughly compelling story about identity and self-acceptance.
Princess Peach Showtime: a short run on stage, destined to be forgotten
Princess Peach Showtime! was a good game, but it's testament to the usual quality of Nintendo titles that it just being "good" meant that it was considerably less memorable than many of its stablemates.
Neptunia Game Maker R:Evolution – satire through design?
Neptunia Game Maker R:Evolution is, I think, the first game in the long-running Neptunia series that I haven't adored. And I got the impression by partway through that this might have actually been intentional.
Disco Elysium: modern-day interactive fiction
Disco Elysium is amazing and everyone should play it. Here is why.
Sengoku Rance: deep yet accessible empire building
Sengoku Rance is often held up as the absolute best entry in Alicesoft's storied eroge series, and I can understand why.
A new taxonomy of RPGs
I decided to expand a shower thought into something more substantial.
Spirit Hunter
Click here to read part 1, Death Mark!
Click here to read part 2, NG!
Click here to read part 3, Death Mark II!
For once, I was between games when October rolled around, so I decided to finally tackle the whole Spirit Hunter series, which had been languishing on my shelf for a while. I came away incredibly impressed.
There's plenty more than just these, but the above are some of my favourite pieces from the year gone by. Stop by MoeGamer and have a browse, or check out the index to see everything I've posted this year.
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
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