Games

Liberty or Death (1993) - Mega Drive - Played 4/15/25

Well well well--I won the Revolutionary War as America, huzzah for me!

I had a swell time walking around my apartment playing this on a Mega Drive emulator on my Vita! It is, at its core, KOEI doing an American Revolution Romance of the Three Kingdoms from this early 90s era, and I mean that in the most positive comp.

It has the depth and overflowing of systems and mechanisms (budgets, morale, stats, provinces and all that out the wazoo) of the ROTTK games but with cute little musket-era soldiers and boats moving around the 13 colonies.

The soundtrack and art are lovely, the interfaces are chunky and lovely and it's just wicked charming!

What brought it down for me was that it wasn't necessarily compelling enough to hold my attention for the entire campaign. I'll chalk this up to my choosing America and more or less following a slightly-improved version of actual reality, but I began to fall off when it became more or less map painting--it's a common thing I encounter in 4x games, so it's not an enormous drag on the game itself

All in all, I dug it and if you like these sorts of games I think you'll dig it too!

Vagrus: The Riven Realms (2021) - PC - Played 6/1/25

I really wanted to like this game--it's got the sort of traveling-party-story-make-your-own-fun kinda thing that a lot games I have a soft spot for have, and beyond that you can absolutely feel the powerful passion of the creators. These folks really made their dream game, so hats off to them

But honestly? I found it miserable to play. For as much as it tells you, "ok, go do anything!" there just isn't much there, and what is there is just lots of talking and losing things, talking and losing more things and then just fascinatingly wretched combat thrown in.

I have to admire and have a soft spot for the passion on display here, but it's wildly not for me.

Mario Kart World (2025) - Switch 2 - Played 6/15/25

The first Mario Kart I've ever owned on a system and my wife and friends and I had a fun evening playing this here racing game! The art is charming, there's complexity I'm sure (from what I've seen in Mario Kart speed runs at GDQs there's lots) but it's not needed to just race around as cute little guys and whatnot

Also the cow is absolutely stinking ADORABLE by the end we were all racing as cows, just 4 cows taking the field

I don't know if or why I'd play this solo, so it's hard to account for depth or whatever but as a party game to play while hanging out it's wicked fun

Uppers (2016) - Vita - Played 6/28/25

I'll lead with the main takeaway here: Uppers here is a pretty mindless way to pass time pushing buttons on a thing and watching a thing happen on screen. That's about the width and breadth of my feelings. Honestly I'm surprised I played as much of it as I did!

The like, late 2000s and into 2010s handhelds (I guess I'm thinking specifically of the PSP, 3DS and Vita here) have so many games where I imagine the core sort of user experience is fundamentally built around the idea that someone would be playing this while commuting on public transit, so the gameplay loop is this sort of like hub-mission-hub-mission kinda dealie with a very low skill floor and other mechanics and unlockables. It's a whole like, thing. And Uppers is definitely one of those things. You're a fella (you can be an honestly pretty badass lady but not for the story missions) who is beating up guys and that's about the long and short of it. Mash buttons to punch guys.

I'll mention that there is some truly like, you-laugh-and-roll-your-eyes chauvinism on display here. Honest to god I cannot imagine reacting to it with anything other than an eyeroll at worse--it's so over-the-top (collecting underwear as basically powerups) that it may as well be Adult Swim Johnny Bravo.

I can't recommend any of y'all play Uppers unless for whatever reason you're really really wanting to, but if you do you'll almost certainly just be like, "ah ok I get it".

Sakura Wars (1996) - Sega Saturn - Played 7/2/25

Some small part of me is a little...sad? to be writing my feelings out here about this one, so I'll start by concluding with this: I genuinely had to force myself to finish this, like Tom Hanks in that montage in 'You've Got Mail' where he's trying to read 'Pride and Prejudice'.

At the regional midwestern USA anime convention I grew up going to in the 2000s (attended every year from 1999 through 2011! That's 6th grade through undergrad!) there was a games room where staffers would have an N64 and other systems and just whatever games were like around, but people were welcome to bring their setups and basically do whatever. You can imagine that how this turned out is impromptu fighting game tournaments and plastic DDR-mat playing and what especially turned heads was anyone who had either a JP console or a modded console that could play JP discs. It cannot be overstated how mind melting it was to see the stuff you only saw on the internet in person with someone sort of speaking the translation out loud to the gathered crowd around the TV propped on one of those rolling TV stands.

That was how I first experienced this game, was huddled around a TV with a couple other folks in the wee hours of the morning while some guy with his Saturn was translating to all of us as he played. And of course, as a Mega Drive, Game Gear, Mega CD, 32X and Saturn-having Sega Girlie(tm) at that age I knew about Sakura Wars--we all did. But to see it!! Being played!!

Ultimately after finishing this now for myself more than 20 years later some small part of me wishes that memory was where my time with this game was locked up.

I'm gonna move on to 2 still out of I guess what I'll have to call Sega Loyalty(tm)

Tokimeki Memorial Girls' Side: 1st Love (2007) - Nintendo DS - Played 7/10/25

The way I GASPED out loud when Morimura didn't show up at the church for me at the end. I had a damn Yukata when we watched the fireworks, I asked that dude about kissing me, I had a Furisode at our damn New Years shrine visit AND I PERFECTED ALL THREE YEARS OF CHOCOLATES smh smh smh

At least I got into my second-tier University; that feels pretty damn chill.

No but seriously I had a blast playing this--I absolutely loved how the "wait where did I say we'd meet" forced me to start taking notes, and also OMG MY GIRLFRIENDS SWOOPING IN and going into Versus Mode. Just hilarious and brutal.

What a totally fun time. Part of me thinks I'll hop right into the next one, because I didn't really like any of these fellas hahahah

Streets of Rage 4 (2020) - Switch 2 - Played 7/16/25

I paid a few bucks for the DLC so I could play as the lady with the braid only to find out she was a boss in the base game! The art style is great and looks cool and I love the animations and such

I suspect pretty experienced gamer folks would wince a bit at how I more or less just mashed but I was having a ball

Keep Driving (2025) - Steam Deck - Played 7/16/25

I had a sort of broad sense that I would like the way this game looks and "feels" based on screenshots, but I had no idea before hand that there were battles. I had a pit in my stomach from the very first one and I thought "oh no…this is what the game is" and it seems that way.

Ah well! It was fun for about 45m worth of vibes.

Cyber Knights: Flashpoint (2025) - Steam Deck - Played 7/16/25

I'll be the very first one to admit that I'm not the best or smartest gamer but the very first non-tutorial mission required me to find a red key card and look, I'm not dumb, I knew I had to look in like, the containers or whatever, but I couldn't find the damn key card

Did it bug out? Am I a big dummy? 🤷 I didn't love what I was able to play enough to keep it going

Pokemon Scarlet DLCs (2023) - Switch 2 - Played 7/30/25

When I wrapped up Scarlet a little while after it first came out, I had grand ambitions at the time to complete the Paldea dex and really like, finalize everything and then I just more or less...didn't hahah Life went on and on and in the past couple week's I've found myself really wanting to play some Pokemon, so I fired up Scarlet and realized I was a couple DLC behind! I just finished these two today and altogether I had a blast

Carmine was absolutely hilarious--the animations of her getting angry were very good. The whole little plot with Kiernan was cute too, and the whole idea of the Blueberry Academy like, Terrarium was wicked cool. I will say this: like hell am I going to ground out BP to do whatever's in there. Thank god I have a Living Dex up through Sword/Shield or else I'd be absolutely driving myself crazy

I think these were super fun! As a lifelong Pokemon fan (I'm old enough that my first gen was 1) I continue to deeply adore the games, even the newest ones. I'll be the first one to admit that my knowledge of all of the Pokes has dropped of precipitously now that we're over the 1000 count, but I still love these little guys and I can't wait for the next game, whatever it may be

Drive Girls (2017) - Vita - Played 8/22/25

As far as Vita games in the realm of "here's an arena and an array of currencies and such" I will say that this one has a novel gimmick at least! I much preferred the races to the fights but ultimately there's just not a lot here for me to want to be playing it. Or having fun playing it.

Dirty Racing (1993) - Gameboy - Played 8/22/25

Judged primarily by the criteria of "how well does this hold my attention to pass the time" this gets incredibly high marks! Even on easy I find it wicked hard, but that sort of hard where I feel like it's barely within reach

It's racing, there's like individual races then little like, cups. You can upgrade your car with money at the end of every race and on that screen is a 1993 video game lady in her underwear

I played for a few hours while in and out of waiting rooms and the time flew by! Can't ask for much more than that

The long and short of it is I had a total blast playing this. If I hadn't hooked my wife on wanting to play it couch co-op when we first started I would have absolutely marathoned my way through it obsessively, but as it stands it took a loooong while because she tends to get a bit bored of video games pretty quickly, so we beat the story in like 1-2 hour chunks of playing

I've been what I would call a Diablo fangirl since the very beginning. I'm the exact right age that I was 9 when the first one came out so I was a young teen when 2 came out, and those two games had their hooks in me deep

Diablo 2 especially, I'll always have a soft spot for. The summer of 2000 was the only time my family ever moved. I had lived in North Dakota for my whole childhood, and in the summer of 2000 we moved to another state where I would spend the rest of my youth (Middle and high school and undergrad). I was absolutely despondent to move. I'm quite sensitive to routines as an adult and as a kid I was as well, so I wasn't, y'know, handling it all that well.

My folks more or less bribed me with getting Diablo 2 on release, and in a memory that is still as vivid in my memory right now as reality was then, the same day I got it I kicked the computer tower out of frustration as it was taking a while to load and it made some unholy noise so I ejected the play CD and discovered I had scratched it badly. I cried the entire way to the Comp USA in the neighboring town where my dad bought a CD repair kit that somehow (?????) worked.

In a kind of wonderful way, I can similarly place my playing of Diablo 3 and now Diablo 4 into these fascinatingly distinct categories. Much like when I first played Diablo 2, my wife and I moved across the country just this last fall and I wasn't feeling incredibly hot, but we started playing it and it's not so connected to this specific place which we've grown to love.

What I find so interesting about discussions and chatter and reviews--and even development!--about all of the games in this series is how important the grinding and high end dungeons and repeatability and longevity are, and here's where I'll show a bit of my weirdo flag when I say that my entire passionate engagement with this series has always been with them as more or less one-and-done story games: I never played D1 on Battle.net after the first time I ever did and got in between a PK v. PK-PK battle and decided it wasn't for me. I beat the game with all three heroes and was done. The same was true for D2--beat it with all the classes and that was that. With D3 I didn't even play it until the Necromancer was in and I just played the story.

And now here were are with D4 and I'll be very, brutally, totally honest with you: I genuinely don't know what it means for there to be these "seasons" the interface is hitting me with. On the lives of my cats I promise I'm not doing a bit when I ask: how is one meant to play this? Am I meant to create a new character each season and replay the game every season? To what end? For what purpose? I truly don't "get" it.

For me, the Diablo games are story games first--and I love all of the world building and the whole setting (I'm a lesbian Episcopalian who was raised Roman Catholic of course i love this religion/demon stuff). I especially love how this one is a post-apocalypse. It feels so barren and sorrowful and wretched and dark but without being (imo) like, grimdark. This may be a weird pull, but I found it compelling in its sort of millenarianism/dead world energy in the same way I found that in the Zelda Switch game. There's something so compelling about traversing your way through a world that's existing as a candle flickering in the wind

Fundamentally, I'm the last person you're going to be interested in getting like, concrete button-pressing gameplay action vibes from: I played as a Necromancer and I just had my skeleton friends and a golem and pressed some buttons while my wife was a Rogue who shot arrows and such. The honest truth is that I don't think we were ever in any serious risk of danger even in the big bosses and I'm glad for that because we were just there to press buttons and whatnot

I had an absolute blast, and I'm so excited for us to play the expansion

Fundamentally I think it's impossible to talk about Yu-No in any real way without addressing that it's an eroge. And to be clear it's not just like, pervy, it's actively, fully, one-thousand percent porn. Being able to roll with (or actively enjoy? Hey who am I to judge) that aspect is a table-stakes thing for Yu-No, and one that, going into playing it, I didn't know I would so easily be able to roll with, to be honest.

I'm sure someone incredibly smart has said something incredibly smart and insightful about how it's often the art that surprises us the most and pushes our own taste and understanding of that taste the most that we end up liking the most, but that's certainly true for me in a lot of ways. I came to Yu-No through Gunbuster. What I mean by that really is that I came at it from a couple angles:

1) References to it kept popping up in the JP stuff I've been stumbling through in reading through/watching/exploring Gainax after being blown away a couple months back by my revisiting Gunbuster for the first time as an adult. This game seems to have dropped like a bombshell into the nerd scene of mid-late 90s Japan in a way that continues to make ripples today. This is a game that is probably amongst your favorite Japanese game developer's/mangaka's most formative influences, and so I felt like I almost owed it to myself to experience it.

2) Visual novels have been a genre that have been a complete undiscovered country for me in the past. I tried 13 Sentinels and hated it. I've tried Ace Attorney and hated it. I do really like Snatcher, but apart from that I'm really out in the cold dark on the entire genre. So, a game as beloved and influential as this one seemed like a good place to give this the old college try.

3) As a fun, stupid, silly sort of hobby thing, I've been taking advantage of the fact that I have a family member stationed in Japan who can ship things at reasonable prices to assemble a PC-98. This is, admittedly, very silly, and it's been an enormous pain in my butt, but a pain that has been pretty fun in the way a lot of tinker-y hobbies are. Why? I think because in all of the games I've ever played ever, there is something about the overall general broad style of what games on the PC98 looked like that most appeals to me. Put another way, PC98 games are I think the best looking video games ever, based on my taste.

So now we arrive at Yu-No.

Other reviewers here have pointed out the obvious: we play as a fella who sucks in a lot of ways, but in ways that I think are just very banal "dudes suck" kinda ways. I want to put this right here and say that I was never scandalized by anything in this game, really. It's very standard retrograde 1990s stuff, with the layer on top being that it's a porn game, so it's very much appealing to a certain sensibility. I think on the whole like, there are interesting discussions to be had about these things, and I don't think people who are scandalized by any content are like "wrong" per se, but for whatever reason it didn't bother me in the way a lot of non-porn fan service does. Is it an expectation thing? I don't know. But I think there's something to knowing right off the bat that you're playing a porn game that just accepts that you're gonna see underwear in every. Single. CG. It just like, that's how it is, so I just kinda shrug at it. Also, this isn't the time or place for this sort of thing in any depth but like, not all (or even most) of the explicitly porn-y stuff is even objectionable, really. It's porn. "Whom amongst us" etc etc

With all of that said, I do want to talk about mechanics a bit, because again, I don't have a lot of context or understanding of this genre. I'll say outright that I would have been utterly and completely miserable and lost without a guide. A very, very, specific, hand-holding, "do exactly this" guide. I want to be clear when I say that I had no intention of ever engaging in the mechanics of this game without instruction, because to be completely honest, as soon as I got to the in-game diegetic save states I genuinely did not know what their use would be. I'm not genre savvy or patient enough to have experienced this game to 100% map/ending completion like I did all on my own. So my experience, like with most games I play these days, is a Cheaters Experience.

Seven paragraphs into writing and I'll now say outright that I was so blown away and enraptured by Yu-No that I could barely put it down. The bulk of my play time came while my wife was out of town for a workshop so I marathoned it in a way I haven't marathoned a game in ages. Hunched over at the PC98 drinking barley tea and only getting up to get more water or snacks, mildly neglecting everything else in my life but the barest minimum chores and pet stuff—I was completely engrossed. Completely and fully taken in. And sitting here even now, I both love and am surprised by that. I had no idea I even could be taken in by a game like this. A porn game. A porn game visual novel! But I wanted to know everything. I wanted to understand the plots, I wanted to unravel the mystery, I wanted to complete the paths! And surprise after surprise and moment after moment kept piling up because this game does. Not. Stop. Throwing curveballs at you.

It's something that would be harmful, I think, to a first-timer's playing of this game, but the fact that you play the prologue in dialogue tree format and then THE ENTIRE WAY YOU INTERFACE WITH THE GAME CHANGES after the prologue was jaw dropping to me. And then, once you get all of the endings and start in on the last part, YOU PLAY AN ENTIRE GAME IN AN ALTERNATE DIMENSION. Seriously probably 5+ or more hours of gameplay spent in a completely different world with mostly different characters. I was gobsmacked; my brain was turned to absolute jelly.

A couple quick things from my notes that I want to shout out as quick hits:

- The first time I went into the cafe I literally said, "wow" out loud to myself at both the art and the FM Synth version of Gymnopedie No. 1. Probably a literal top 5 video gaming memory for me now.
- There is some incredibly effective spooky stuff in this game. There's a section—right before a sex scene even—where you hide in a locker and hear footsteps coming and the way the footsteps sound is genuinely unsettling and spooky. Same with sneaking around and into the mansion, and the first time you see, in shadow, the hanging body of Ryuu-Sensei's mom? Absolutely buck wild stuff.
- Timecop Eriko just absolutely rocks. Cannot say enough cool stuff about her.

There is a lot I have here in my notebook about fate, disaffection, discovery, history, the Lost Decade and all of the other influences and connections and everything that kept coming up as well, but it's not the sort of thing I would get a lot out of typing into this review. It made me feel a certain type of nostalgia that made my whole body hurt with longing to not live in 2025 anymore; I want to live in Sakimichi and I want to be 20 again and spend all night at a 24 hour diner chain smoking clove cigarettes and drinking bottomless coffee with someone else who has played this game and loves it as much as me.

As part of my wanting to commit to writing something about every game I play, I don't want things I play for a few hours (or complete in a few hours, for that matter) to have their very own post, so I'll be compiling smaller game thoughts and screens into potpourri volumes!

Comix Zone (1995) - Mega Drive - Played 1/4/25

As a Sega Channel kid I tried Comix Zone dozens of times and my strongest memories are of the little rat friend and the "mic check" Sega logo opening.

This is a famously difficult and punishing game and revisiting it as an adult made that even more obvious. I had to use save states and then an infinite health cheat to get through it—what a pain in the butt

I love a lot about how this looks and I love the idea of going through comics! It also can't help but be a charming time capsule of a certain 1995 zeitgeist. My guy's name is Turner, he's a comics bad boy, has a ponytail and a rat and grunge-style tunes

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Sega Ages 2500 Vol 1: Phantasy Star Generation - 1 (2003) - Playstation 2 - Played 1/5/25 and 1/6/25

After a lifetime of loving Phantasy Star by way of 3, 4 and PSO and after a couple aborted attempts over my lifetime of trying to beat the Master System version of 1, I finally did it with this version, and had a pretty decent time

With enormous caveats though. PS1 was made with a sensibility that I can't get on board with and don't have the time or energy to jive with in my adult life—having to talk to every NPC in an exacting order and having an enormous world but with very specific triggers and flags to set…not to mention the mazes and mazes…

It's just not for me, so I stayed glued to a guide and maps, not to mention max level, money and health cheats. All in all, I was here for the vibes

And it delivered! I've always loved the Phantasy Star world, and Alisa rocks. The characters and art are awesome—I love this and the original equally and for different reasons

This was a fun way to kill some time and finally play Phantasy Star 1. Can't say I'll ever do it again but I can say I had a lovely time

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Virtual Volleyball (1995) - Saturn - Played 1/7/25

I love watching and playing volleyball and I love the Saturn, so a Saturn Volleyball game was right up my alley

There's a wicked adorable little volleyball mascot guy on the startup screen and menus, which got me excited too!

The actual gameplay is…honestly not too shabby by the standards of Saturn/PS1 3D sports games! It revolves around timing, with the ball glowing red when you're supposed to press the a volley or spike button. It's also got this interesting thing where you can queue up fighting-game style commands to your players on the court that I didn't really spend a lot of time fussing with, but seems like it has an absolutely wild amount of depth

Ultimately didn't hold my attention for wicked long, but I played for a couple hours in between work meetings today and that was honestly more than I expected it would

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Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap (1989) - Master System - Played 1/8/25

This game charmed my socks off!

The Master System I grew up with was the sad and neglected system that gathered dust relative to the family PC and our Genesis; my memories of the Master System are mostly my dad playing things borrowed from his other Air Force colleagues, and one of those may have been this one (but I doubt it)!

All of that is to say that for all of my Sega bonafides, I had never until this very week, played one of the brand's most iconic games (or franchises)—imagine that

And this was fun! I'm not a platformer gal and I typically bounce all the way off of the Metroid style games—but I was never lost or confused here.

I had fun, I thought it was adorable and it didn't make a nuisance of itself—what else can you ask for from a classic?

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I Love Softball (1989) - NES - Played 1/8/25

I played a couple games and I don't have incredibly complex thoughts but as a big time connoisseur of baseball video games I cannot express how rare baseball games with women are, especially from this era! So I love it for that, but above and beyond that, there's some extra character here which is lovely! It has a sort of "campaign" which has little in-between game interstitials and other little touches that I think are really funny/cute

What isn't cute is the: Doot do duh doot doo, doot do duh doot doo music on and on and on and on forever when there's runners in scoring position

Pretty good for an NES sports game!

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Alisia Dragoon (1992) - Mega Drive - Played 1/9/25

I enjoyed this! An all timer ending screen with our gal in a very Popful pose (I got "Salamander" )

I had fun with this, but wouldn't have made it five seconds without making Alisia invincible—seems like a really tough one to play for real!

The levels were kinda neat and I liked the verticality of some of them, and I loved the cute little dragons! The boomerang one was my favorite, and for the life of me I couldn't figure out what the little one made of orbs is for—I'm assuming he heals you?

Fun little game, nice way to chill out while watching GDQ

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Ace wo Nerae! (Aim for the Top!) (1993) - Super NES - Played 1/9/25

I'm writing this at the Prefectural Semifinal against Midorikawa and I'm gonna finish the whole thing but I don't think my opinion is going to be different after that so I thought I'd gush about this now!

This is amongst the best—maybe fully the best?—tennis games of any era prior to fully fluid 3d type games. It's absolutely peerless on the Genesis/Super NES at the very least

Firstly, it looks and feels awesome—it's bright and that cool Super NES 3d effect is so stinking neat in how it's used here. The little story mode is cute and the tennis gameplay itself is really ahead of its time

Much like every sports game of this era there are ways to exploit the mechanics and AI—and you can ace every single serve (to non Midorikawa players at least—her speed lets her cover it) and you could argue that net play is overpowered for sure. In fact I don't think you could win any matches with baseline play because there's no stamina meter or anything like that

Anywho if you like retro sports games and/or tennis games you gotta play this one—it's the cream of the crop in game feel

Now for some images!

It must be said that if I had to, as part of some awful curse, claim only one anime "allegiance" it would be to the Gundam franchise. I was absolutely taken with my first ever exposure to Gundam as a young kid in the early 90s and the obsession has more or less never slowed down. Ultimately what that means is that Gundam acted as a gateway drug to all things Big Robots…

Or should I say "most things Big Robots" because even though I did fall head over heels for other big robots (Eva, Gunbuster, Rayearth, Escaflowne, Macross, Full Metal Panic) I was either blind to or put off by some of Gundam's own peers, influences and offshoots.

As such, despite knowing about and seeing a lot of Super Robot Wars over more or less my entire gaming life, I really only knew the Gundams and in my fits and starts of trying to play translated SRWs before this one, it never really stuck.

Until SRW 30, that is—and wowzers did it STICK!

I had an absolute blast with this game. As a lover of grid-based tactical games and a love of big robots, I couldn't get enough. It helped get its claws in me by my knowing that the Rayearth gals were in it—and I used them a lot—and I liked that I could have a lady protagonist. But from the jump I was enthralled.

I absolutely adored the combat animations, and I love how SRW has its own funky timeline where it seems like the OYW, the happenings of Mazinger and some other of the OG robot things a) all happened and b) all happened like 10 years ago. Incredible stuff.

Also this game introduced me to the fact that a show I watched as a kid (Super Human Samurai Syber Squad) was a Power Ranger-ized Gridman! I stinking loved Gridman! How fun to use.

All in all, I spent about 50 hours with this, so I spent a long time with all of these bots, and I loved it, but I'm glad it's over with.

A couple little quick hits from my notes:

- It's a shame the Quaster suits are SO boring since we fight them all the time.
- I loved how when the Victory tire suits/ships show up everyone acts as they should (Uh?…)
- The super huge optional boss bad guy the only time I did one of his missions had this like 30 second long multi-dimensional horror attack that did….3k damage hahaha I love that sort of thing
- The first time you fight Infinity it has a tiny little Mazinger on its head and I thought that was adorable

Now for some images!

Brought over from Cohost (unironic RIP)

Brought over from Cohost (unironic RIP)