Actually a really well put together version of Tetris that surprised me in a lot of ways given the console it was on...



...and yet this only got released in Japan while the disjointed nightmare fuel that was 3D Tetris got released worldwide! Society has been beyond repair since 1995.

K-On is something that's had a huge impact on my life. I saw the anime back in 2021, and for a plethora of reasons, it's become not only my favourite anime, but also my all-time favourite piece of media. I've done a review of the show on AniList (that you can check out here: https://anilist.co/review/19150) and a 7 part analysis on the movie that came out in 2011 (which you can check out here at your own discretion: https://x.com/indigodaman/status/1767225163848806787?s=20), but since it's now the 15th anniversary of the anime, there's no chance I wouldn't do something to commemorate, and what better way to do that than to review the one piece of K-On media I've yet to analyse; the game known as Ho-kago Live.

I found out about this game's existence shortly after binging the anime, and I fairly liked it. Not a game I returned to often, but still fun for what it is. But the more I came back to this game, the more I've grown to love it, and it's at a point where this is one of my personal favourite games. I'll start with how it represents the show it's based on. It does a fantastic job at capturing the vibes and tone of the series in more ways than one. The cel shaded artstyle manages to nail the look of the anime with 3D models, and it looks really appealing, helped a lot by the backgrounds taking place in multiple of the show's locations that also look really solid, not even mentioning the new backgrounds that go all out with raw creativity. There are also these small cutscenes that play when going through the game for the first time, and while I couldn't make out the dialogue since it never got localized (I played this before the existence of the English fan patch, shut up), the animations really captured the silly nature of the series, and this is also prevalent when you see these cute chibi versions of the characters just walking around on the main menu and doing whatever they like. It also captures the more stylistic parts of the show amazingly with the menu UI, the layout for when you're playing songs resembling a music sheet, the awesome title cards that appear before you properly begin each song, and the multitude of references to the show through the MCs and animations.

So, we've established how great Ho-kago Live is at being a K-On game, but does it deliver on the gameplay? Yes, it absolutely does. It plays out like a typical rhythm game where you have to press the directional buttons and face buttons to the songs being played, in which there are 19 taken from the first season of the show and multiple albums and EPs. But what makes Ho-kago Live stand out is the approach it takes. Across the 19 songs, there is more than one way to play them, because you can pick between the 5 HTT members to represent a specific instrument, Yui being the lead guitar, Mio being the bass, RItsu being the drums, etc. And the rhythm in which you have to press the buttons changes to compensate, providing a unique experience for any given song across all 5 characters, enhanced by the different styles across each instrument. Yui uses the X and Circle buttons alongside the arrow buttons on occasion, with a good chunk of the prompts being held to represent longer, Azusa's the same but the Square button is more prominently used instead, Ritsu uses faster X and Circle button presses and you never do long strokes since you're using drums, Mio uses the directional buttons as she's a left handed bassist, which is a really cool detail if you ask me, and Mugi uses all of the face buttons. This also offers a variety in challenge, as it'll fluctuate quite a lot depending on the song you play and the character you choose for it, further making every character's style worth trying for every song.

Another element that makes its gameplay stick out from other games of the like is how a vertical line goes across the music sheet below as the buttons pop up, as opposed to the buttons scrolling accordingly. It adds a unique flavour to the gameplay style that I personally think makes it easier to focus on both the visual events happening during the songs and keep track of the button presses. The cherry on top of everything that works wonderfully about the gameplay is the ranking system. I assume this is also a staple of rhythm games, but the way it's handled in Ho-kago Live is a lot more fair and forgiving than Osu or Friday Night Funkin'. In order to get a high rank, you just need to get as many good button presses as possible while avoiding as many bad or missed button presses as you can. And to get a perfect clear, you gotta avoid the bad/missed button presses entirely. And it's just right in terms of difficulty. The game never gets so fast that it's impossible to keep up with the button presses, and you can take plenty of bad/missed button presses before getting a game over, so it offers plenty of room to practice, and the game puts the most emphasis on a specific instrument based on the character you pick, so it's a lot more manageable to follow along to the rhythm of the song in question, but believe me when I say that getting high ranks is no easy task either.

Some of these can be absolutely brutal, especially when you're going for a perfect clear (I have PTSD from the amount of times I attempted getting a perfect clear on Giita ni Kubittake as Yui), and god bless your soul if you decide to play these songs on the harder difficulties, because those are definitely options if the normal difficulty was somehow too easy for you, but they are also incredibly rewarding when you eventually get them. Not only because of the lovely voice clips you get, but getting high ranks unlocks plenty of stuff, from cakes that you can pick between before a song and use during gameplay to make things easier, which is another really cool feature for those who are really struggling without being too lenient on the player, a bunch of costume customization options for HTT, and plenty more. Oh, and a smaller detail I want to touch on are the MCs, which are essentially just voice clips that are placed at ether the start or the end of the song, and they add to the immersion quite a bit. When they're placed at the start of the song, it feels like a nice warm-up for the song you're about to play, and when they're placed at the end, it's a great breather depending on how fast you had to press the buttons or how much you practised to get a high rank. Either way, it's great.

Now let's talk about the music, the thing that matters the most in a rhythm game. K-On is home to some of the greatest songs I've ever heard in my life, between the openings and endings between seasons, songs that played during a performance, miscellaneous songs exclusive to albums and EPs, and the character image songs where each HTT member gets their chance to shine with their own vocals. There's a huge range of absolute bangers across the discography, and there would have been no questions at all if Ho-kago Live merely just ripped edited down versions of the songs and called it a day. But it went the extra mile, going out of its way to remix every single song that you hear. And it's never jarring because these remixes are absolutely fantastic and fully keep the charm of the original songs intact. In fact, I actually prefer the remixes over the originals in some cases, particularly Curry Nochi Rice, Gita ni Kubittake and Mezase Happy 100%. That's how amazing these remixes are.

Not only did they provide absolute bangers of remixes to the songs, they also created incredible visual events to go with them. I already commented on how the artstyle and backgrounds were great, but I cannot overstate how well they all go with the songs that play over them. And there's plenty of appealing stuff beyond just those aspects that make them really cool. Each song offers a multitude of unique character animations to go with them, and it's always a joy to see how they play out. And one of the character image songs for each HTT member occasionally presents a slideshow of shots from the show, and the moments that they show off from the series give off a sense of growth and accomplishment, especially when the songs in question reach a point of triumph and hype energy, and it's genuinely one of the greatest feelings I could get from anything that I don't know how to properly describe.

Remember when I brought up how you could unlock costumes for the characters earlier? Well, that's the final thing I wanna talk about. This adds a huge level of appeal and charm to the game because you aren't just limited to HTT's school uniforms with this addition. You can go all out with picking between casual outfits, mixing and matching with accessories and hairstyles, or even choosing really cool outfits that go with the theming for songs like Hello Little Girl and Don't Say Lazy. This layer of customization is a very big one that enhances the feel of and charm of the game, and it gives out the best unlockable rewards in the game for getting high ranks.

Overall, K-On Ho-kago Live is a fantastically crafted game that perfectly captures the spirit of K-On in every aspect, and excels at being a rhythm game in its own right with incredibly put together gameplay that has a lot of options, methods and general replay value, captiviating and charming visuals, phenomenal remixes of already amazing songs, and solid customization in multiple areas. It has a lot to offer on all fronts, and it is definitely worth checking out if you are a fan of rhythm games and especially if you're a K-On fan.

With my passion for Mario Kart being at a all time high as of August of last year, it's finally brought me to revisiting Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. How does it hold up to me? Well, I'd say that I love it just as much as 7, if not slightly more. Because it has a mix of things that I think it does better and things that I think it does worse.

For the improvements, it's undeniably with the general gameplay. Drifting now feels even smoother, faster and tighter than it did in 7 while maintaining everything that made it work, with the cherry on top that makes it even more joyous being the addition of a third drift boost you can pull off It adds so much more to the gameplay than one could ever imagine as you now gotta find perfect opportunities to turn long and hard enough to get that juicy purple spark, and I know I'll have a blast with Time Trials because of this.

The returning mechanics from 7 are just as great as ever, barring gliding which feels more stiff and less free-flowing than in 7, but it still feels good overall, so it's not a huge dealbreaker. Underwater driving feels just as great as it did before, and tricking is even more improved upon, as there's now an even bigger sense of timing to pulling them off, making them more satisfying to do as a result. Kart customization also makes a return, but now with more karts, wheels and gliders to work with, so it's essentially more expansive.

Then we have the newest addition to the gameplay; anti-gravity, which literally flips Mario Kart on its head as now it opens up huge opportunites for the courses to go crazy with layouts. Because you can now drive on walls, ceilings and miscellaneous other things you can access that you normally couldn't in previous titles.

Speaking of the track design, at its best, its easily some of the best course design in any Mario Kart, giving us bangers like Thwomp Ruins, Shy Guy Falls, Sunshine Airport, Dolphin Shoals, Electrodrome, Mount Wario, Cloudtop Cruise, Bowser's Castle, Mute City, Super Bell Subway and Big Blue. All of these tracks make amazing use of the existing and newly introduced mechanics to provide some truly exhilarating courses. Although it is less consistent with how many bangers it provides compared to the previous 3 entries in the series, on top of providing one of the most pathetic Rainbow Roads since 64's. Like, seriously, imagine having a Rainbow Road be themed around a fucking space station, that literally goes against the entire point of Rainbow Road's appeal.

As for the retros, again, at its best, it provides some of the absolute best remakes ever seen in a Mario Kart game as much like the previous game, it really goes all out with revamping many of them to fit the modern gameplay mechanics, such as DS Cheep Cheep Beach, 3DS DK Jungle, DS Wario Stadium, GCN Sherbet Land, 3DS Melody Motorway, N64 Rainbow Road, GCN Yoshi Circuit, GCN Baby Park, GBA Cheese Land, SNES Rainbow Road and GBA Ribbon Road. But much like the nitros, it's less consistent with providing phenomenal retros like 7 did, and two of them are just straight up bad remakes that miss the point of the original courses. N64 Toad's Turnpike rips away the difficulty of the original track by widening the course while not adding more cars to compensate, and literally having anti-gravity walls that allow you to drive over all of them, which a design choice so stupid that you'd expect Mario Kart DS to pull it off (look, I know I have MKDS ranked as my favourite Mario Kart game, and it still is, but some retros in that game really blew). And GCN Dry Dry Desert just rips away everything that made the original great, with tornadoes being replaced with an oasis portion (in a track called DRY DRY Desert), and making the quicksand portion easier to get out of if you end up closer to the hole.

Now for the new items, which are quite the mixed bag. On one hand, you have the Boomerang Flower and Piranha Plant which are great items that add a lot to the trademark Mario Kart chaos, with the latter being one of my favourite items in the series, but on the other hand, the Coin makes a return as an item from Super Mario Kart, and it's just as worthless here as it was back then, and the Super Horn is good for taking out incoming items around you, but serves as a pathetic "get out of Blue Shell free" card.

Although speaking of, I'm not exactly fond of how the game handles some of its recurring items. All the Shell and Banana variants now work so you can't collect other items while you have Triple Shells or Bananas activated or single Shells or Bananas behind you. It's somewhat alleviated by Deluxe in particular bringing back the double items from Double Dash, but still. What it doesn't alleviate for, however, is how Triple Bananas now circle around you instead of being able to hold all 3 behind you. That really doesn't make anty sense to me when they do not function like either of the Shells. And the Blue Shell got nerfed hard as it now does as much damage as any other item compared to the devastating blow it caused to the player in 1st place in pretty much every other entry.

So yeah, that's essentially the few things that I think 8DX did undeniably worse than 7, and when comparing this to everything I think it did better, I think it's understandable why I don't think it's better or worse than 7 overall. However, there are two things that give 8DX more of an edge, and those are the return of the VS. Race mode and the battle mode.

7's biggest and most baffling drawback is that it didn't have a VS. Race mode like DS and Wii, which heavily killed replayability if you didn't love the game enough to want to go through a whole cup every time. Personally, I have come to appreciate 7 a lot to the point where I have no issue replaying these cups in their entirety, but it was still a baffling thing to not include for a handheld title. 8DX not only brings this back, but brings its customization in full force, with the addition of even being able to customise which items are in a race Granted, this was in a much later update during the BCP waves, but it's an amazing addition nonetheless, and it's available for anyone to experiment with even if you haven't bought the BCP yet.

And for the battle mode, it's easily the best one the series has had since Mario Kart DS. The Mario Karts between DS and 8DX fumbled in one way or another with how it handled their battle modes. Wii had the addition of Coin Runners and some really based battle tracks, but was held back by the fact that it forced you to play in teams, and you couldn't choose how long to play for, nor how many rounds you can do. 7 had most of the same issues, but it doesn't force teams onto you, and then vanilla 8 just had nothing of value, only giving you the most limited Balloon Battle ever, and only 8 normal tracks as battle maps, none of which were fun to battle on. But now, wth 8DX, it now provides 5 amazing modes for you to pick between; Balloon Battle, Coin Runners, Renegade Roundup, Bob-Omb Blast, and Shine Thief. All of these modes are a joy to play on, and have as much epic customization as VS. Race as you can finally customise how many rounds you can do and the amount of time allotted among other things. And to top it all off, you have 8 amazingly designed courses to battle on, oozing with creatvity and charm, including Dragon Palace, Lunar Colony, Luigi's Mansion, the return of Wuhu Town and Urchin Underpass.

So, overall, while it defnitely has its own drawbacks compared to previous titles, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is an absolute gem of a game that has a lot to offer and can definitely be considered the definitive Mario Kart experience with how it refines so much of the formula, and whatever issues it may have are far from enough to detract from the joyous experience anyone can get from it. All this without even taking the Booster Course Pass into consideration that we got between 2022 and 2023, which is definitely something I plan to check out at some point in my life. For now, though, I'll just indulge in the fantastic base game and the huge amount it has to offer.