If you’re not already familiar with Cave Story, it’s a Japanese freeware platformer, a 5 year labor of love by one man, and possibly the finest example of that 8-bit genre.
Our wacky friends from overseas pull out something so audaciously insane that you have to realize they’re operating on a whole different level.
Take your typical dojin eroge (which is in of itself an insanely complex and more than slightly disturbing phenomenon) and add hyper loli personifications of the major combatant nations of Europe in WWII, put in a land war strategic over game, decide battles with bouts of strip mahjongg, and make the player character a thinly disguised Charlie Chaplin look alike.
Viola you have: ベルリンは萌えているか!? Google tells me means, “Berlin is Sprouted, or?!“, I’ll go out on a limb and suggest something like Berlin is Moé?! WTF?! That may not be accurate but it does sums up my reaction. Yes gentle reader, as far as I can gather, you too can watch anime Hitler molest lil’ innocent loli-Germany-tan in her school swimsuit if you posses the mad Mahjongg skillz.
Somewhere there’s a brilliant Post Modern thesis in this whole thing. Thankfully that’s beyond me. orz
Just back from the Far East and I had to share:
Nanoha has officially jumped the shark. StrikerS is generic and makes Fate and Nanoha complete background cardboard in favor of new heroines with predictable story arcs. Too bad I was only there for hawt slash yuri with our tormented and barely (but at least now) legal heroines. You have one more ep to reedem yourselves by ditching chibi-Reinforce and bringing back Chrono!
Claymore is the suck. If you wanted to remake Blood+ set in the Lodoss War world with pretensions of being Vampire Hunter D but you accidentally added a heap full of suck you’d still prolly be doing better than Claymore. Ep 1 = End of Line.
Hidamari Sketch is brilliant. Adorable. Delightful. Quite literally cross Honey and Clover with Azumanga Diaoh and you’ll have this stylish and silly, all around pleasant slice of art school comedy. Some may say it’s like watching grass grow – true – but it’s very charming grass!
On the gaming front Gurugumin is the game I was waiting for Nintendo to import for all my 8-bit life span. A super cute action adventure in the mold of Link to the Past or The Secret of Mana done up with cheerfull 3D graphics and fantastic English voice acting. You play a doll like little girl who gains different abilities by swapping a variety of cute head gear as she fights to save a bevy of hapless and doll like monster whom only children can see. The only way this game would be more moetic is if all the characters were cutesy little girls!
I’ll do a more thorough review on Gurugumin and Hidamari Sketch later, but both get a full solid two thumbs up, and not just for their double saccharine helpings of moé! There be quality here. Take note!
There is a new Frak-Koma in the works. I’m just a little sidetracked by putting in a good 16 hours worth of work this weekend. (sucks)
Also, I just got a new Macbook Pro.
It does Windows.
So… there are approximately 10 years worth of PC gaming I must catch up with in short order now. (^_^);;
Here’s my short list in no particular order:
What else should I add? I feel somewhat obliged to actually try one of those visual novels, ne?
