I’ve been playing this as my “I have 5-10 minutes to play a bit” game for the last couple months since I first got and CFW’d a Vita and it’s skyrocketed to maybe my favorite video game for that purpose ever.

Firstly this game looks ridiculously good for a portable game from this era. Unlike its Power Pros cousins, the Pro Yakut Spirits games are “real” players instead of the chibis and it looks great. There’s replays and even press interviews after games and really nice rain effects.

The manager mode is wonderful—player growth, scouting, draft boards and everything you would expect.

All in all, I just couldn’t possibly ask for more from a portable pick-up-put-down sports game like this.

This wasn't for me; it wasn't to my taste, unfortunately. I got out of the tutorial to the mode select and put it down.

I liked a lot about it: controlling a person made the visual novel stuff "feel" better for me than a visual novel ever had before, like i had a bit more control and agency and such.

The combat was pretty neato but probably for my taste it would've gripped me more if it was less abstracted or if i could zoom in and see the mecha punching the dudes--I did like that missile spam though that looked great!

I'm not the world's biggest fan of the big boobs and the naked girls in the mecha and whatnot; it's hard for me to get past stuff like that.

I've written a lot about how important Lunar: Silver Star is to me--specifically the Mega CD one--and Eternal Blue has always loomed in the background. I was aware of it as a kid, I was aware that a sequel to one of my favorite games like, existed, but it seemed...too much. It seemed to my child brain that it would be too hard to re-open that book; my emotions were locked into the first game, so why play a sequel?

As I got older, it became a bit of trivia I suppose--especially after I got rid of all of my childhood video game stuff and drifted from the hobby.

And then I came back and finally decided to play it, and it's wonderful. It's Lunar! It looks lovely in the same way Silver Star does. I love the cast of characters and the art style and the animations.

The story gets a bit more ambitious here--it's longer, too by a bit.

For me, it doesn't quite match Silver Star not just because of my emotional love of the first one, but also because Eternal Blue goes a liiiiiiittle wide. Not enough for me to dislike it at all, but it's noticeable.

If you like Silver Star you owe it to yourself to play Eternal Blue, for sure!

Ah Phantasy Star 4.

I decided to replay this on a whim after some friends decided against it as a game club pick, and with cheats and such I was done in about 6 hours or so.

It's just such a wonderful experience. Planet hopping, offing the big bad guy(s), funny dialogue, gorgeous looking graphics. I just adore it.

I don't have incredibly deep thoughts, but I just like it a lot.

Now
We're
Talkin

As I write this, I'm in the midst of writing an article about the history of SD Gundam tactical games, and this right here is the origin. This one!

I'd never played anything on the Famicom Disk System, and I found it fascinating. It was like a suped-up NES, and it was really rad.

This game is, well, it's what it says on the tin: it's the progenitor of what was to come, and it shows in every single way. The core DNA of the series is here right from the start: moving icons around on a grid, engaging in real-time battles, unit production and seizing cities to make more money.

What I find fascinating is the grid here isn't hexes; it's squares. You get all of the downsides that come with squares instead of hexes for movement on a grid, which I find really interesting--what it means is you can easily minimize the angles opponents can take to get to you because moving diagonally "costs" extra, whereas with hexes, it's all the same.

The art is adorable as usual, and the sprites are wonderful.

This is a little treasure of a game, and I would absolutely adore playing against a real human.

I wish I could elucidate in fancier words what I didn't like about this...

- I didn't love how it looked
- I didn't love any of the story bits that I got to see
- I didn't love the combat system

Just absolutely not a game for me, sadly.

I love how that Wonderswan one looks though!

I made a commitment to myself when I started this Backlogg'd that I would only log games that I played since starting the Backlogg'd, even if only for a little. Well, I noticed I had this beloved game o' mine on Steam this morning and fired it up and fired my brain back to middle school. Goodness gracious how much I loved this game.

I played so much of 2 when I was even younger (and calling the Rogue units "roo-zuh" (like the makeup) and my eyes popped out of my sockets when I got 3.

It's more or less everything I ever want from a video game. It feels like a comfy blanket, it feels like home, it feels like peanut M&Ms. The GOAT, plain and simple.

I got suuuper duper sucked into this today and ended up playing through, a bit accelerated at the end (after I reached the painting-the-map-cleanup part).

I really, really like this! I have a huge soft spot for Dune and I'm a big 4x head so there's lots for me to love here. The units and buildings look neat, and I like the way you expand your area.

I think where this game falls short is the lack of the game to really grip you diplomatically on single-player. With one or maybe two other human players this would really, really whip.

I can see the faint traces of the magic that people see in this game. I can hear bits of the echoes of the things that touch them or that they find charming. But for me, it came up very, very short.

I got all the way to the sand monster boss, where my game would not stop crashing, which I took as a sign for me to stop trying to force myself to have a good time.

I think I could go on at length if I could talk out loud, but having to formulate my thoughts right now in this little word box, I don't know if I can articulate why it doesn't click with me very well, but lemme give it a shot.

I've heard people compare this game to like watching episodes of a Saturday morning cartoon. People have said it's a hangout game, or a vibes game. I think that's true for those people, but the missing context there is that it's a certain type of Saturday morning cartoon; it's a certain type of hangout. It's a boy's club hangout.

DQ11 feels like the perfect, most magical game dreamed up by three 10 year old boys in 2002 from within a treehouse with a 'NO GIRLS ALLOWED' sign on it.

Just not my thing.

I'm 35 at time of writing this which means one can make some fairly reasonable assumptions about my video game history. Chief amongst them that I was the exact perfect age to become deeply obsessed with Pokemon when it was brand new.

And I absolutely did. This series had me hooked from the very, very beginning. Over the years I've assembled a living dex and I've bought both version of every single release and I've loved them all very, very much (I love Black/White and Black 2/White 2 the most very much though).

Anywho, this one was no different. I love the new formula, I love the world, I love them cute new friends, and I loved the story.

No notes, all vibes and love.