The last week of any year is usually a busy time for me, but I reaaaalllly didn't want my last game of the year to be Ironsword: Wizards and Warriors, so I loaded up this old infinitely-scrolling launcher game to play a few rounds. Two hours later, I realize that's a bad idea: "a few rounds" on Nanaca Crash doesn't exist.

It's quite remarkable how addictive this is without having to resort to the usual cheap trick of progressively unlocking more features; what you see at the beginning is exactly what you get, and it's very minimalistic. You crash your bike into Taichi and see how far you can send his smug mug flying; every 10meters or so you'll pass one out of a possible seven characters (each of whom Taichi interacts differently when he crashes into them), you get three upward boosts, one downward boost that slowly recharges over time, and that's it.

Besides the obvious hilarity inherent in the premise of seeing how far this guy's buddies can karate chop him, what makes this game effective is how its relatively few elements interact with each other. Many characters have an alternative effect if you land on them when certain conditions are met, with two being of particular note: a girl who either stops you dead in your tracks or gives you the biggest boost, and another girl who either blocks the next boost effect or confers a very beneficial power-up. This adds a risk-reward element that makes the game a lot more interesting. The boosting mechanics add a good measure of decision making as well - the rechargeable downward boost can be both used as a last-gasp effort when you're losing speed and to knock Taichi into other characters. When do you use your three upward boosts - is it when you've built up a head of steam and want to keep your momentum going as long as possible? Or do you want to save a couple of them in order to avoid crashing into undesirable characters? All this makes this deceptively simple game surprisingly interesting and varied.

There is one element that tarnishes the experience somewhat, and it comes in the form of a character - a guy that, if you crash into him, switches your horizontal and vertical momentum around. This is a terrible idea because he almost always ends up bouncing you into the stratosphere but slowing your horizontal movement (which is what matters) to an absolute crawl - it also slows the charging of your downward boost, which only charges when you're onscreen. I'm all for adding traps and challenges to games like this, but when a trap punishes you by slowing the game down as well as making you unable to interact with it for long periods, it actively makes the game far less fun.

Nanaca Crash is a shining example of how an extremely simple game can become an excellent "one more try" Skinner box through elegant mechanics, but it's also an example of how one single misstep can drag the fun factor down significantly.

Record: 37310.10m

For a simple arcade experience, you can't go wrong with Nanaca Crash for a quick 5 minute arcade funtime. There's a simple joy in watching Taichi bounce around in the air to a good song, and even ramming him a few more times with the bike for good measure. You can't not love it.

If you're going to play this in 2023, then as far as content goes, this game is outdone by its spiritual successor, Katawa Crash, in terms of amount of whacky shit that can happen and objectives for you to do. If you want a simpler game stick with this, but for something that will last you longer go there.

That said I think landing in Misato's arms is a pretty good way to end, no?