I found the pace bogged down a bit toward the end, once the enemy count per stage started getting up into the 40s. There's options to mitigate this, like turning off attack animations, but I was having enough fun I was more or less fine with it as is.

For when it came out, the 2D sprites on 3D backgrounds that you can rotate with the shoulder buttons probably looked quite impressive. Even now, they have a certain charm to them.

The game uses a system where your golems equip a main body (basically their class), and then two sub bodies that give access to their skills. It's not the most complex thing in the world, but it provides a little customization for your characters.

Day 197 of posting games I own. This time, Powers Kingdom for 3DO. The world has been overrun by the forces of Azrael, and you, a golem serving the goddess Erald, have to awaken your fellow golems and fight back. Extremely barebones plot, but there's some fun tactical RPG combat to be had here.

Once the main plot kicks off, and you go through the gate for the first time, this DX version pulls out a short segment where you play as Kilo. It was honestly one of the coolest bits the game did, and really sold the moment.

This entry is fully into comfy, laid-back territory, even more than I remember Sophie being, but I was more than happy to sit back and enjoy the slow island life. (The interactions with the islanders would have been stronger if they hadn't cheaped out on voice acting for their quests, but oh well.)

Day 196 of posting games I own. This time, Atelier Ryza DX for Switch. Been a while since I've played an Atelier, so I decided to give Ryza a try. The character designs and some of the camerawork were a bit hornier than I remember these games usually being, but the crafting's as addictive as ever.

Even the ending credits have charming sketches of the staff in old-timey outfits. More games should do this!

I'm quite fond of the character art. There's a small town worth of folks in three different time periods, even when they have nothing to do with the plot. (The art when navigating around town is very nice too, but I did not take screenshots. Oops.)

When they arrive at the professor's house, he's been murdered, and the culprit's escaped into the past using his time machine. The only thing to do is follow the clues they've left behind and get to the bottom of it. What follows is a well done time travel story that delivers on its foreshadowing.

Day 195 of posting games I own. This time, Toki wo Koeta Tegami for 3DO. My first game on the system. In 1945, two journalists with the Daily Casablanca investigate a friend who has disappeared, leaving behind a diary that asks them to stop her father's research from being used for the war effort.

I went into this completely unspoiled, and I wouldn't want to do anybody a disservice by robbing them of the opportunity to do the same, so I won't say much about it other than that I loved the cast, the art is gorgeous, and I enjoyed the battles, though they're kinda easy. Would recommend.

Day 194 of posting games I own. This time, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim for Switch. I'd heard a lot of praise, and wanted to check this out for a while. Most the twists turned out to be ones I'd seen before (was pretty happy when it lifted one from a certain mecha OVA!), but it's very well presented.

The last bit of content that the game has left is the mystery case files, where you have a couple of simple mysteries to puzzle through with scribble art. These apparently become a staple of the series after this. They were okay. Not much more to say about them.

Finished Yono's events. His introductory event, investigating a factory causing (probably) Minamata disease in a southeast Asian village, is a bit more substantive, and his later parts actually do provide more information on the overall case as he's the only one to meet certain characters.

Share a photo of your physical video game collection to scare a PlayStation executive. (It's time to admit I have a problem. That problem is that I need my wife to tidy up the junk room so I can put in another shelf.)

Turns out Yoko and Kumano don't have full routes, so much as a handful of events. They each get one short story of their own, then team up to catch that ultranationalist thug Jinguji was too busy to bother with, then each have one last minor chapter about what they were up to later in the story.

Jinguuji himself is reasonably empathetic to the plight of the migrants, who the game feels are being failed by Japanese society, having put themselves in debt to some particularly nasty yakuza to get to Japan, and unable to access basic health services or worker protections.

There's also a handful 3D exploration scenes. I was less keen on these. Didn't think they added much. Though, there is a car chase (which I did not grab a screenshot of because I was busy trying not to get a game over) using the same system late in the story that worked better.

The game is unvoiced, but breaks out the voiced FMV scenes occasionally. It's pretty effective for selling the big moments.

This entry adopts an anime-over-real-life-photographs look that may not have stuck as the series' aesthetic going forward, but I dig it.

Day 193 of posting games I own. This time, Tantei Jinguuji Saburo: Mikan no Rupo for Playstation. The Jinguuji series returns after having been dormant for a full console generation. It's an ambitious game, with four different playable investigators, and a whole lot of social commentary.

It does make me feel much less bad about that one time I left him alive specifically so I could hand him over to the girl who has an unhealthy obsession with him, though!

I loved the way it reveals details about its colorful cast and setting through events that emerge naturally across loops. Each loop goes by pretty quickly, and I'd say that it was perfect for picking up and putting down...if I hadn't gotten hooked and barreled through it in less than a week.

Day 192 of posting games I own. This time, Gnosia for Switch. I picked up a Switch 2 earlier this year, anticipating the price hikes, and while this single player sci-fi social deduction game with visual novel and RPG elements wasn't the first thing I played on it, it's the first I've finished.

The other thing that unlocks when you finish Dear Emile is a reworked port of the first game in what was originally a mobile game trilogy, Dear Martel. This one, the story of an amnesiac man who makes up in an orphanage filled with deadly traps, and more backstory about the pandemic.

Played this for my 12for12. This game nails the claustrophobic atmosphere it's going for. There's a certain visceral reaction whenever the poor girl gets hit by a trap, especially since so many of them could have been avoided if you'd just looked first, and maybe poked things with a 2x4.

Day 191 of posting games I own. This time, Theresia... -Dear Emile- for Nintendo DS. An amnesiac girl awakens in an underground facility filled with deadly traps. A breadcrumb trail of diary pages reveals the story of a pandemic, a massacre, and her over-possessive mother's involvement.

I have one messed up copy of Breath of Fire 4 that someone mutilated to fit inside an ordinary jewel case with the interior manual as the cover. (You can see the cuts on the spine card.) I should probably replace it someday, but I dunno, it has character so I'm in no hurry to.

Played through the last game. I liked the structure of this one, with Jinguji and Yoko pursuing separate cases that eventually merge into one. The framing, where you're telling Kumano the story, worked well with the password system. Also, you can pet the retired police dog that the agency adopts.