Chem

Rave Racer (1995, Arcade)

As someone who's been trying to get more into Ridge Racer, this little update to the original scratches that fast, twitchy racing itch yet again, before the series moved in a more Gran Turismo-esque direction. Thinking I might try either R4 or V next!

I'm super hyped they're finally releasing Dragon Hopper and Zero Racers, but I also hope that someone datamines the ROMs out so I can just play them on my actual Virtual Boy

How'd I miss this!!!

Dragon Hopper and Zero Racers 🥺

Enjoyed Paranormasight 2 on the whole, but the trailers made it seem like the scuba diving segments would've been a big part of the game, which would've made it the coolest damn game ever (Everblue plus visual novel!!!!), but it's just one minigame and one short segment toward the end and that's it

Paranormasight: The Mermaid's Curse (Switch, 2026)

Comes just shy of reaching the original masterpiece, but the strong writing and clever puzzles persist, making for yet another engaging experience. The big thing missing is the crazier puzzles from the original that had you thinking outside the box

Great game, tied with RAD as my favorite of the series

Konami Classics Series: Arcade Hits (DS, 2007)

Without even touching on the selection of games or the emulation quality, the extra features M2 put in here are just beautiful. Being able to play with the arcade board on the touch screen, or hooking up a second DS for tate mode is just insane

-3D Dot Game Heroes
-Black Knight Sword (PSN)
-Drakengard 3
-Folklore
-Hard Corps: Uprising (PSN)
-Numblast (PSN)
-Puppeteer

Virtual Lab (Virtual Boy, 1995)

It's hilarious that I'm priced out of having a complete Virtual Boy library by only four games, and this infamous piece of kusoge is one of them. It's honestly a good idea for a puzzle game, mixing Pipe Dream with Tetris, but the poor, single dev had only a week!

Oh this is neat!

MGS4 release countdown timer as the PS3 install screen: mgs4.site

@gingerbeardman.com

Thrift of the day: one of the rarer, pricier Wii games for a whole $3

Flowcharts for Otogirisou, Kamaitachi no Yoru, Machi, and 428. Drawn by Takehiro "Shigatake" Shiga. SOURCE: https://x.com/shigatake/status/312137217038499841

One of Vanillaware's co-founders (Takehiro Shiga) drew this cool illustration depicting the structure of Chunsoft's most famous sound novels. This was posted around the time 13 Sentinels was entering production, so the devs may have been studying these sound novels while conceptualizing the game.

Also my chef dad's response to me recommending The Bear

Aooni (Switch, 2024)

I've played better RPG maker titles; the biggest problem is the titular Oni which starts off scary but just gets annoying, detouring your progress constantly. That being said, the scares and the puzzles are actually quite good, including some that break the game's own rules

Penny-Punching Princess (Vita, 2016)

Even when they’re duds, I’m really fascinated by NIS’ experimental one-off titles, but this one’s pretty good! Having to take your hands off the face buttons to tap a calculator in the heat of battle makes for some really frantic and fun combat

SNES ones are all great and consistent across the board. There’s two N64 ones, one plays like the SNES ones the others a Zelda-like and they’re both really good. Heard good things about the RPGs but I never tried them myself personally

Shoutout to Square Enix for greenlighting a Paranormasight sequel with Endless Ocean gameplay, they literally could not make a game that pandered any harder to me if they tried

Bought the Switch version of Aooni, not realizing it came with some free posters

Don’t feel like having nightmares, thanks!

Ad for Sound Novel Tsukuru 2. Taken from Dengeki PlayStation Vol. 55 (1997-9-26). SOURCE: https://archive.org/details/play-station-vol.-55-1997-9-26/page/n5/mode/2up

This is an ad for Sound Novel Tsukuru 2, a tool for making games similar to Chunsoft's sound novels. Ryukishi07 actually attempted to make his own novel game using this software on the Sega Saturn. This experience began the domino effect that eventually led to him creating Higurashi years later.

LOL (DS, 2008)

Wildly ahead of its time, a party game where you give each other prompts and just try to make everyone laugh. Jackbox really refined the concept with various game modes to lend some structure, but still, it's aged beautifully and still hilarious with the right group.

Dr. Chaos (NES, 1987)

Pretty rough and janky, but it has some ideas I love, combining platformer with Portopia-style adventure game segments, and a surprisingly brilliant moment of design where monsters can break into the rooms you initially think are safe. Got a good jump out of me the first time!

16t (Mega Drive, 1991)

Almost a self-parody of Sega's own Teddy Boy Blues, this one starts with a fake-out game crash (maybe the first game to do that?) and then launches you head-first into some classic arcade mayhem, with enough strategic wrinkles to keep it engaging. Really cool!

Advanced Dogiemon, a brief write-up on a doujin Ys tribute game, where you play as Dogi the wall-crusher as he rescues a kidnapped Adol. Also includes a download link to the PC88 game so you can play it yourself! www.hardcoregaming101.net/advanced-dog...

Rub it. Rub that tum.

My big apprehension with playing the first two is that the remakes don't look that hot but they're the only official way to play them in English

idk what it is with mages but everytime they remake a classic VN they make the artstyle so generic and watered down

Anyone ever play the Famicom Detective Club games? Do you need to play them to get the most out of Emio?

"I heard his theme music, he's around here somewhere!"

Pinobee & Phoebee (GBA, 2002)

It's definitely an improvement from the first one, more polished in terms of gameplay and presentation, though, sadly, rather than refining the more interesting mechanics from last time, it just ditches them, losing what made it so unique in the first place