When I was little, I played an inordinate amount of Car Simulators which we could charitably refer to as “games”. These days I could drive a real car if I wanted to (I typically don’t), so the genre’s lost most of its luster.

R4, however, now THAT’S something I can call a racing game. The notion of automobile racing isn’t much more than a pretext for its kinesthetic virtuosity. You tap the brakes while turning and instantly turn 90 degrees while nearly maintaining your speed. You bump into an opponent in the final stretch and both of your cars fly away from each other like a child throwing a hot wheels across their bedroom. Every other car in the race jets out ahead of you at Mach 2 at the start only to slow down to a light jog, speeding back up to the same clip as you when you get close.

It’s giddily surreal; you’re not playing as someone driving a car, but someone daydreaming about doing so. It’s easier to say you like that sort of game than it is to even comprehend how to make one. Behind the scenes at Namco, some probably-underpaid systems designers painstakingly tweaked to perfection every little variable controlling the accelerations which make up that Sweet, Sweet Friction. That is to say, at least by 1999 videogames had come absolutely fucking nowhere since Pac-Man.

Of course, this would all feel sort of sterile if not for its similarly remarkable presentation. It’s got the most delightful UI I’ve seen in any game not named “Persona 5”, a soundtrack so legendary even JPEGMAFIA has sampled it, and its low-poly style oozes with charm to this day. Even the writing is pleasantly surprising, being at least as enjoyable as a sports movie you’d put on in the background while doing something else. Your coach goes through one of a few slightly different character arcs depending on how well you do in each of the campaign races, and there’s enough dialogue written that this always provides a cohesive storyline more or less unique to your performance (in my experience, anyways).

I understand why someone might be looking at these reviews skeptical of the unanimous praise heaped on this game, but my god dude it really is just that good.

One of the best satires I've ever played, Umurangi Generation is pointed, angry, and timely. You play as some kid making their living as a photographer, with some basic requests of subjects for photos and a couple of ways to earn bonuses. It all feels a little boring, though. You're making, like, $3 per photo anyways and there's no need for it to be in focus or anything like that in the first place. The game occasionally presents some interesting challenges in the forms of using certain lenses to get into the right position to line up a particular shot, but fundamentally it's clearly not what you're supposed to be focusing on.

What, then, is the focus? Well, really whatever you feel like photographing. The game can save your photos to your computer (or your SD card if you're playing the Switch version) and is clearly trying to goad you into taking pictures that you think are beautiful, or at least something you'd want to share with others. Its goal is to present you with an interesting world filled with things to say and frame.

The cool part, though, is how thoroughly realized your camera is as an object. I love the variety of the lenses it gives you and the ways you get to apply it, like one level where your visibility is limited due to it being a warzone, but you can get a closer look at your surroundings by snapping a photo and raising the exposure way up. It makes the camera feel like an extension of your character’s body, which is the highest standard a “photography game” can aspire to.

In terms of Umurangi Generation as a game in general, however, there’s still some hiccups. For one thing, it does the Katamari thing where most locations are supposed to feel realistic, yet they’re all covered in this thick smegma of trash littered across every square foot of the ground. What’s the angle here, exactly? That neoliberalism doesn’t provide adequate garbage collection, either? Or is it just to obscure the objects you’re looking for in order to fulfill level objectives? It’s got a similar issue with exposition: typically the game’s use of environmental storytelling is exemplary, but rather frequently you still see some graffiti that’ll say some shit like “THE UN IS ACTUALLY AN IMPERIALIST PRESENCE”. It makes me wish the game just had some dialogue instead. Maybe you’d get some conversations with the protagonist’s friends you’d get to read in between levels or something, since in its current form you just get this tactless immersion-breaking nonsense getting in the way of an otherwise excellent story.

I cannot stress enough that these are nothing more than hiccups; they’re blemishes on one of the most memorable games of the last few years. There’s a deeply realized culture to observe within the painstakingly detailed world that you come to explore. Innumerable RPG towns and AAA “prestige tours” are put to shame with the sheer scale of Life contained in Umurangi Generation’s little finger. And yet, there’s something even more remarkable in the absolute direction of the game, the way it manages to move you to feel one particular way about this world and understand what formed it. In summation: videogames own, dude

First of all, the elephant in the room: the game really tries to have its cake and eat it too with the H-scenes, trying to convey sexual anxiety via psychological horror but also sometimes being clearly intended to be jack-off material. I do believe there are some stories that could only be told with sex and all its complexities, but Everyday took my willingness for good faith too far at times. Frankly, you have to have a pretty strong tolerance to all sorts of problematic BS in eroge to be able to appreciate the good, and I’m not saying that to diminish the opinions of those who don’t have that tolerance. I always roll my eyes at people who call this a “kamige” and gatekeep people who can’t appreciate the “genius” of this masterpiece when it’s for a very particular audience.

I wish more discussion was put on the resemblances to Cyrano de Bergerac. At its heart, Wonderful Everyday is a compelling twist on the classic story. That fear of saying what you mean, saying what you want in your own words, is relatable to me and while I had mostly learned my lesson by the time I played this game, I could still recognize how profound that component is for someone who is still afraid to express themselves. That’s what the real wonderful everyday is: being able to live true to one’s self with people who love you for you. Miss me with all the philosophy quotes and namedrops, I’m not a fan of philosophy just for pontification’s sake and instead appreciate how it manages to translate to the human condition in practice even while being draped in surreality and metaphor. It’s this surprisingly soft, tender side that I think of the most whenever I reflect on the game, a lone point on this thorny rose with which it can be held and admired.

I can see how this title would have caught eroge players by surprise with its very contemplative nature as it gradually broke down certain tropes of the medium until sex became one of the less remarkable (and prevalent) aspects in the later chapters. I would never recommend this to anybody who isn’t comfortable with eroge, as there are certainly better-told stories with fewer caveats to be found elsewhere, but I also can’t understate the power to pierce through its target audience’s defenses and maybe that’s why it’s so special to some people.

mascotizing, de-eroticized, de-humanizing wooby doo-doo that started out as a low key homophobic ~sooo randim~ joke about how funny gay cultural nomenclature is to its straight creators but then got agonizingly retconned into game grumps' (ugh) flailing attempt at a self-serious inclusivity project. Too ignorant and afraid of offending anyone to portray anything resembling adult human intimacy or eroticism, and reeks with the no homo!!!! creator's fears of depicting anything messy, hot, or specific about icky degenerate gay sexuality. Never overtly cruel and clearly interested in playacting safeness and inclusivity, but the placid smoothness of everything feels like its own form of erasure--and it's a smug, self congratulatory one. This is clearly not really trying to provide anything meaningful or substantive for gay audiences: it's for obnoxious straight "allies" to play and have fuzzy wuzzies about how great they are for wubbing the cutesy wootsie daddy poos--they're smol pastel beans just like us!!! Heinous. I dont want to yuck anyones yum too hard or whatever but if you're a queer adult and love this game I kind of think you're a fucking idiot