Why Don't You Play Soccer In Hell?

something about this game had a weird hold on me. it has this real purgatory-like sense of atmosphere to it, reimu stuck in a near blank void where she must play bizarro arkanoid for all of eternity. entire thing feels super ominous, with its dark color pallette, its imposing level start font, the atari-esque sound effects, the air raid siren that made me shit my pants that goes off if you take too long on a level, its soundtrack built mostly of one musical idea repeated ad infinitum with riffing around it, reimu eating shit on the game over screen. and i have no idea how intentional it is! big homie zun just kinda managed to make this bizarrely effective dos torture chamber, and its mesmerizing.

unfortunately this torture chamber also has gameplay. its not horrible, and you can definitely get some kind of a hang on controlling the ball but at the end of the day this is still just really scuffed arkanoid. scuffed arkanoid with some truly badly designed levels. special shoutout to the final boss of the makai route that can just decide you lose when it wants. very funny.

even with (and partially because of) its sub-sub par gameplay this game remains a fascinating oddity and possibly the weirdest start to any vg franchise ive ever seen. how the fuck this became the media juggernaut it did following this is beyond me.