This is a SNES RPG which came out very late in the system’s life, and was never released outside of Japan. I played this using a fan translation patch which itself is over twenty years old.
Here’s a summary of the things I wrote about in 2024.
This is a British cyberpunk novel, which I’m reading as this months pick for the Exeter Dystopian Novels Book Club. Structurally, the book has two narratives that end up joining together. One is the story of a character named Y, who has had her memory erased and been subjected to extensive body modifications. Not least, a third arm coming out of one of her shoulders. It turns out that she is in another dimension, one that was discovered by humanity many years ago but kept secret. This place is run by a character resembling some kind of feudel king named the Manor Lord.
This was mentioned on the Exeter Social Discord group, and it made me curious to see how well it has held up. I played the Mega Drive version, which was what I had when I was younger. I remembered it being pretty mediocre, bad but not as bad as most of the mascot or tie-in platformers of the era. That’s exactly how I found it today as well, the graphics are nice, the music is good but the actual platforming is fiddly and hit boxes are very unpredictable. It’s very short though, only five levels with a few stages each.
I think this is the first time I’ve finished this game. I’ve played it several times before on different platforms but always gave up before the end. There are only ten levels in the game, but a few of them are copies of previous levels that you go through in reverse. It’s clear that the development was rushed, because even within those levels there are sections that are copied over and over to pad out the game. The level called The Library is the one that people normally call out as having done this, but I think it is pretty common throughout the whole of the game.
This is a remake of the second Yakuza game, but it is the third game chronologically. I completed Yakuza 0 about the same time last year and very much enjoyed it, I also played the original Kiwami game years ago as well. I think this series has absolutely clicked with me now, I very much enjoyed this one.
This is a late-era SNES action RPG that was only released in Japan and the PAL regions. I live in the UK, and despite the SNES possibly being my favourite console and my love for RPGs, I never played it. It was released in December 1996, by which point I already had a PlayStation, so I imagine that’s why it slipped past me.
This is the twenty-ninth Discworld book, and it features the Ankh-Morpork city watch. Mostly, though, it focuses on Sam Vimes, who is sent back in time with a criminal named Carcer due to a lightning storm over the Unseen University. They arrive a few days before a revolution that Vimes participated in as a young recruit to the watch. In this new timeline, Carcer kills young Sam’s mentor, John Keel, and Vimes ends up taking his place.
I have read this before, but I could remember almost nothing about it. After having finished it again I can see why. It’s fine, but it feels like it doesn’t have a lot to say after the excellent original book.
I actually have a physical UK copy of this game, I think it’s supposed to be one of the rarest ever made. It was released after the Saturn was already effectively dead. I bought it second hand I think off of eBay when that site was new and you had to post cheques in the mail. It only cost me £30 I think.
I’ve read this several times before, but it’s this months pick for the book club. I figured I should read it again to have it fresh in my mind. I remembered almost all of it, the only thing I think I didn’t was the Soul Scrolls shop where unmanned printers are printing out prayers which get shredded straight away.
This is an RPG on the PlayStation made by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the man that created the Final Fantasy series. It’s set in modern day New York, and you play a cop that is dealing with horrific incidents caused by mitochondria coming alive and trying to take over the Earth.
This is the story of a morbidly obese man that is addicted to food. He has become trapped in his apartment due to his weight, and at the start of the book is going to be removed by crane to go to the hospital and have his foot amputated. This goes wrong however when everyone else seems to turn into rage filled zombies.
This is a GameBoy Advance game where you play a series of “microgames” one after the other. Each one lasts a handful of seconds, and you have to figure out what you have to do, and what the controls are before you run out of time. The aim in each section is to finish a certain amount of them without losing all your lives. Each level is themed around a different character, and has it’s own intro and ending cutscene.
I was obsessed with this game before release, I was reading up on Internet forums about it when it was going to be on the Nintendo 64. The director of the game was on a lot of forums answering questions and doing interviews. It released for the GameCube in the end, after being delayed several times.