Usually when a game becomes a meme it's for one of two reasons: Either it's "so bad it's good" such as something like Shadow the Hedgehog or because it's "YouTuber bait" like Surgeon Simulator. Winnie the Pooh's Home Run Derby is neither of these. This unassuming children's web game has neither any major deficiencies in its core design nor is it attempting to be intentionally funny. The humor that the gaming community has collectively found, of course, is the insane difficulty curve, no, difficulty brick wall that is the devil himself, Christopher Robin. If this was themed as a hardcore baseball simulator that would be one thing, but to foist this monster, this malevolent beast of absolute pitching savagery upon children under the guise of just being a fun hang out sesh with your favorite unemployed bear is simply unconscionable.

We will never know what the designers meant by this. We will never know if the original architects of the game were acting with utter disdain towards children, or if they perhaps had much too faith in the youth's determination to overcome this challenge, or if they simply playtested it once, got it first try, and then said, "eh, it's probably fine." But whatever the case, Winnie the Pooh's Home Run Derby has made its mark upon gaming history as the only pure inside joke game the gaming community at large has ever enjoyed together. What a piece of shit. But also, what a treasure.

A Libertarian's dream come true. Underage girls falling in love with adult men, a gun for every child, and crippling debt imposed by unfeeling megacorporations. All adding up to a pretty mediocre gacha money hole with a fairly polished presentation.

This is probably the most sus I've ever felt while playing a video game. The sheer amount of grooming that happens in the character stories is unhinged. I truly cannot imagine a sane adult playing through this game without ever feeling skeeved out at some point. This is truly video games' The Police's "Don't Stand So Close To Me." The very definition of a red-flag game.

Music's pretty good, though.

warning: political rant

This game is often criticized for its sorta hackneyed delivery of the "war is bad" theme and for making the player feel bad about actions they have no control over. But honestly, if you ask me, an American military shooter game that literally yells at and antagonizes its own player for liking American military shooter games is pretty cool and based, actually.

Like, I don't know man. I remember being a teenage gamer in America in 2012. I remember playing Call of Duty. I remember Call of Duty being "that game that all the boys play when they get together." I remember how, when the media talked about video game violence, they were pretty much specifically talking about Call of Duty (or sometimes GTA or Mortal Kombat or something). Regardless, American war shooters were all the rage and you couldn't escape talking about them, whether in praise or derision, whenever any topic concerning video games would come up.

One thing I don't remember hearing that much about though, and maybe this is just my experience, is how weird it was that all these shooting games were very obviously military fucking propaganda. Support for the military industrial complex is so incredibly ingrained within American society that the media will literally talk about how dangerous video game violence is to the youth without ever even entertaining the notion about how that violence glorifies modern imperialism or how it contributes to manufacturing the perceived necessity of foreign invasions. Game critique was so criminally underdeveloped that the only retort that gamers could come up with to "Do video games cause violence?" was "Actually, video games don't cause violence." Any further nuance about how this very specific glorification of military violence could, in fact, serve the interests of the state via its utility as recruiting material for impressionable young boys, needless to say, did not quite make it into the critical minds of teenage gamer bros at the time. So honestly, when Spec Ops: The Line came out and took an admittedly blunt hammer at issues like war hero worship and needless military intervention that even now, as a nation, we're still really bad at talking about, I actually found it refreshing.

I could ramble about politics for hours, and I haven't even really talked about the game at all...but honestly, so much has already been written about this game that I would literally just be making the same points other people have already made, but worse. Ultimately, the point is that Spec Ops: The Line hates you for liking Call of Duty and that's kind of awesome, in my opinion.

Alright, I've been playing for a couple days since launch. Here are my initial thoughts:

tldr; pretty standard gacha game with pretty graphics and standard predatory monetization.

Nikke is developed by Shift Up, who made Destiny Child, a flashy lottery machine of a gacha game with a Persona 5-esque aesthetic. They are also currently developing Stellar Blade, formerly known as Project Eve, which if you don't remember is the game whose trailer everyone made fun of for having an absurdly sexualized main character in a serious dystopian setting. This game has a very similar setting to that game, by which I mean it's basically their own take on NieR:Automata, in which the earth is ruined and taken over by robots and humans send sexy android women to fight them. I like to imagine the developers played Nier and was like, "what if this game had more 2B booty and less philosophy?"

The art and character designs, which is what most people care about, are admittedly cool looking. The sexy military outfits remind me of Azur Lane, but instead of the nautical theme, they're going for a tacticool aesthetic, kind of like Girls' Frontline. However, compared to Girls' Frontline, the characters here are thiccer (by which I mean more voluptuous) and more overtly sexualized. There's also (currently) not nearly as many lolis as Azur lane, so that's a plus. Ideally we would have no lolis, but you know how the audience for these types of games are. The Live2d art is honestly amazing, it has the same high level of quality as Destiny Child. Unlike Destiny Child though, they actually bothered to put some gameplay in here, so props to the dev team for making something like an actual video game this time around.

The gameplay itself pretty simple: you just tap and hold to aim and shoot, and release to reload and take cover. It's very similar to an arcade shooter and very simple to operate. Apparently it was designed to be playable with one hand. Not gonna make the obvious joke here, but I really do like the idea of one-handed gameplay ever since I encountered it in Earthbound. However, it's not nearly as handy here since, like most gacha games, you can just full auto most levels if your team's strong enough, though manually playing's admittedly fairly fun due to the flashy effects. Also, I like that they use full-sized character illustrations for the combat instead of chibis. A lot of other gacha games use deformed chibi sprites for combat which I always thought was dumb, so good for them for not following that trend.

The story is ok. They're going for some darker emotional beats, and balancing with dumb anime humor. There's some ideas I'd say they ripped straight from Nier, such as virus corruption and memory erasure, and I'm fully expecting a similar turn in which you find out the machines are actually more intelligent than you thought. The writers managed to put a little bit of interesting intrigue in here though, so I'll see how it turns out. The full voice acting also definitely helps. There are a couple of fun side characters, like the S&M couple - always like to see positive portrayals of BDSM. Not really sure how I feel about the flamboyantly gay comic relief character though. I'm not familiar enough with Korean media to know how homosexuality is usually portrayed but I assume it's not great.

Alright, so now for the gacha bullshit. Rates are ok, it's 4% for an SSR. Hilariously enough, there's currently 9 Rs, 9 SRs, and a whopping 44 SSRs, so they really want you to roll for that waifu. The gems you can earn in game feel a little tight currently, similar to the Fire Emblem Heroes launch in my experience, where you're constantly scrounging around for gems so you can pull that sweet, sweet gacha. But maybe that's just how all these games feel on launch, idk.

Speaking of money, the whale fishing is absolutely hilarious in this game. So if you didn't know, "whales" are players with highly disposable income who spend an absurd amount of money on gacha games. I'm exaggerating but the idea is they basically make up like 1% of the playerbase but 90% of the revenue, so developers are always looking to milk them for all they're worth. If you're a normal person, you should probably only buy the $5 30-day daily gem supply. It's the same as the $5 monthly blessing in Genshin Impact, in that it's by far the most bang for your buck microtransaction in the whole game, nothing else even comes close.

If you're a whale though, your options include: a $20 seasonal battle pass, a $20 campaign pass that gives gems for completing story levels, limited time packages (available for 2 weeks after first playing) that range from $1 to $100 dollars, various daily, weekly, and monthly packages that range from $1 to $100, gem packages (with first time double bonuses of course) that range from $5 to $80, and various level up specials of increasing cost that last 2 hours after reaching certain commander levels. I know this level of predatory monetization is basically standard for these types of games at this point, but it still surprises me when a game like this is so brazen with it. I know people always say this but please, for god's sake, if you have a gambling problem, do NOT play gacha games, because holy shit this is awful.

Anyway, I'm a sick freak, so I'll keep playing for a bit. In general, the production values are certainly high, but people might be put off by the aggressive monetization, so we'll see how long the game lasts.

___

Update: Alright, as of the first Christmas update (Dec 2022), I've stopped playing this game. The microtransaction bullshit was just getting way too much, man. This might actually be the worst I've seen it in a gacha game (besides Destiny Child lol). Also, the game kept crashing for me, even on Bluestacks which was weird. I thought for sure they'd fix it eventually but the crashes still kept happening even a month after launch, which was very annoying. It's kind of a shame, though. Like I said before, the story isn't actually complete trash, there's some stuff there, I think. The Christmas story, for instance, was actually pretty sad, I quite liked it. But I figure the time I would have spent on this game will now be spent on better games that aren't hounding my wallet. So for anyone still playing I would honestly say you're better off uninstalling and just staying away from gacha in general. It's just not good for you, man.

One of the greatest video game soundtracks ever produced. The songs span multiple genres and yet somehow still feel thematically cohesive, how do they do it. As incredibly joyous and pure fun as the game is, I sometimes found myself battling with the controls and collision mechanics. A couple times happened where I would get stuck between two objects and then clumps would just fly off the Katamari. Other times I would struggle to climb up a hill I know I'm meant to climb but the collision thinks I'm bumping up against a wall instead of climbing up a slope.

These are some pretty minor nitpicks though and honestly completely expected of a game as incredibly innovative and creative as this. When you're inventing entirely new mechanics to gaming, there's unavoidably gonna be some jank. Hopefully they remaster the sequel at some point so that more people can experience the only other Katamari game directed by its original creator Keita Takahashi. It just kinda feels weird for one the games to be remastered but not the other, y'know?

A truly magical experience. A collage of interesting ideas stemming from the keystone concept of purely dynamic systems working seamlessly with the central theme of the unavoidable march of time. The promotion of discovery and exploration not merely as goals for the intended game experience but as central mechanics where it's not your character gaining experience, but you. The visual and musical aesthetic combination of hard sci-fi and backwoods folk effortlessly bridging the love of the natural world and its peoples with the love of scientific curiosity and the pursuit of knowledge. This game achieves all these things while still managing to feel like a small, intimate experience of profound empathy and consideration. It's not perfect, and I had more than a few minor annoyances throughout the experience, but I will always treasure my first playthrough as distinctly mine, and no one else's. Go into it knowing nothing and have your own first playthrough, and then come to a slight melancholy when you realize there's nothing else quite like it but you're thankful for the experience you had.

(Also, I would recommend using a controller)

Quite honestly the most well written porn game I've ever played. The characters are charming, the world is incredibly fleshed out, and the humor is genuinely pretty funny. This game has become somewhat of a favorite of mine over the years and it kind of drives me crazy that more people don't know about it! I suppose it's understandable as the game isn't even finished yet, but right now there's at least 80 hours of JRPG content here and it's all good.

First of all, the characters are great! I love how smart everyone acts and how they think through their actions rationally. The protagonist in particular acts with more thought and compassion than most heroes in media in general. He's a bit of a Mary Sue, especially in the later chapters, but he's so likeable overall that I can forgive it. The main party is generally pretty fleshed out, although the party members that have "variants" tend to suffer a bit from a lack of depth. I also did not expect to like the existentialist philosopher orc character so much but goddamn is his dialogue actually fun and thought-provoking.

The game provides a lot of things I didn't expect, really. The focus on religion and its nuanced conflicts with sexual expression, the part where you have to dishonestly play geopolitical diplomacy during an intricate international summit sequence, the financial headache of trying to figure out which business investment will provide the most returns at the end of the next chapter. The game covers a lot of topics, notably a lot of genuinely adult topics, and it portrays them in a mature, rational lens. I draw attention to this because this is one of the first porn games I've played that seems geared towards actual adults rather than the typical audience of horny teenage boys who tend to uh, not have the best opinions about women and who often find those opinions reinforced through the "horny culture" that a lot of other porn games promote.

In fact, the game in general acts as a sort of deconstruction of the typical eroge. It actively explores the normalization of rape in the genre, and fully examines what a world that is obsessed with sex would actually look like and how it would actually function. Even the gameplay is kind of a rejection of JRPG grinding mechanics in that there are no random battles and a finite amount of money, making mob battles desirable instead of annoying and giving equipment purchasing decisions some real weight.

The only thing holding this game back is the fact that it's made on a pretty old RPG maker engine. As a result, the overall presentation isn't really anything remarkable at all. The character portraits are pleasantly well-done but the spritework is pretty generic and the illustrations for the sex scenes are honestly amateurish (sorry to the artists). I first played the game before there were even illustrations and it was just straight up text erotica, and I think I actually prefer it that way, but that's just me.

But yeah, big glowing recommendation from me for anyone wanting a proper RPG experience with their erotica. Can't wait until the game's finished so I can properly experience this wonderfully-written story as intended.

(Content warning: rape)

Yeah this game is extremely rapey, which is kind of a shame, because the gameplay itself is actually extremely fun. The Rance series is apparently the oldest erotic game series ever, with the first game being released in 1989 for the PC-88. Each game has entirely different gameplay but is usually some brand of rpg. This particular one, the 7th main game in the series, plays like a visual novel stapled on top of a grand strategy game. It's a pretty cool mix, actually.

The focus on characters' personalities and charming dialogue mixed with the cold strategy of war tactics actually reminds me somewhat of Fire Emblem, in that you actually care about the characters you send off into war and want to see them grow stronger and consequently shout at the screen when they die due to your own tactical mistakes. The turn counter is an especially ingenious design in that the less turns you take in completing the game, the more bonus points you get for use in the New Game plus store, which gives you fun features to use in subsequent playthroughs. It's honestly such a fun idea I'm surprised more games don't do something like this as a way to encourage both getting good at the game and replaying it in cool new ways.

The main character Rance, is actually a lot of fun and his brazen, despicable nature actually plays really well in just decimating what would otherwise be a completely serious story moment down into slapstick comedy. It's just kind of a shame the guy's a serial rapist. And it's like, there are plenty of good consensual relationships in the game, like with Kenshin (best girl) or Maria, so clearly the writers are capable of not being so rapey, but I guess they just can't help themselves.

The writing in general's actually pretty dang good, and funny, even. I actually ended up endeared to the characters by the end and wanted more. The worldbuilding's also pretty weird and cool, though they do a good job really only hinting to it when it's not directly relevant to the story, like when the characters mention someone being "over the bridge".

Overall I would recommend the game not just as a porn game, but as a legitimately good visual novel / grand strategy game...as long as you can handle all of the uh, incredibly nonconsensual sex scenes. If you can't, then stay away from Alicesoft games, because that seems to be what they're all about. Maybe play something like Kamidori instead, honestly.

This has one of the biggest and most filled-out open worlds in gaming and none of it is even remotely interesting.

I honestly could not believe that the global statistics for the final choice could be anywhere even near a 50/50 split when it absolutely turned out to be exactly that. Like, what do you mean? Is this not the most clear-cut moral choice a human being could make? I was genuinely flabbergasted. How could 50% of the audience for this game make quite possibly the most obviously wrong choice you could make in a video game?

Thinking back on it, though, I realize people probably just went back and selected the other option so that they could see both endings. In fact, this is probably the best example of how much of a farce "moral choices" in video games are in general. I realize now that many people don't think of moral choices in video games as genuine moral conundrums or as honest thought exercises for what you would actually do in a morally complex situation, but merely as a later option that you'll get to in a second or third playthrough. But at the time when I first saw those stats, I was under the impression that people were genuinely making what they thought was "the right choice," which pretty much made me completely lose hope for humanity, so props to the game for making me feel that I suppose.

Really dig the aesthetic. Kinda wish it wasn't a roguelike, though. Like, why do I have to solve the same mysteries over and over again, I already know the answer. Not everything has to be a roguelike, y'know.

Also, as someone that's read a lot of Junji Ito, I couldn't help but think "Man, Junji Ito did this part way better" throughout the whole thing, but I understand that's more of a me problem.

Shitty, generic military propaganda. Not worth your time.

Banger soundtrack. Game is alright, though playing manually during combat kinda sucks. You gotta buy the AI upgrades for the game to feel fair. Having your gladiators die feels really punishing to the point where I honestly just feel like resetting to avoid the hassle.

Also, as others have said, the developer had a weird mental breakdown in the game's patch notes. Kinda funny, but also sad. Dude could've put that energy into making some pretty good games, this one had some nice ideas going for it. Shame.

To be honest, it would've been better if it wasn't a roguelike. The story and atmosphere are so strong that if they had manually tailored the combat progression more rather than leave so many elements up to random chance, it would've felt more of like a polished experience which would've better served the cinematic vibe they're going for. Otherwise, some pretty solid sci-fi that, in my opinion, succeeds in making the player asks themselves some pretty interesting philosophical questions, the goal of any good sci-fi really.

Absolutely livid that Nintendo gave you the baddest character design on god for like 5 minutes at the very end. You telling me I gotta buy a whole ass Hyrule Warriors game just to see my goth queen again? Simply diabolical.