I'm a real patsy for games headed by quirky artists with no background in games development. They're frequently very shallow, and lack the engagement of those built off the back of rapidly-promoted programmers and project planners. My continued support of Keita Takahashi is evident of this.

Yosuke Kihara is less of a familiar name, but he's just the same as your Rodney Greenblats and 326s. Some wee guy sewing toy reproductions of famous album artwork and constructing ukelele dogs. He's also the lead figure behind cult PS2/Gamecube frog/golf title Ribbit King, and the preceding Japan-only PS1 game, "Kero Kero King".

Ribbit King is a very likeable and daft wee game. You take turns launching frogs off seesaws until you manage to land them in a hole on the other end of the course, for a "FROG IN". This is the sport named "Frolf", popular on the planet Hippitron. It's a much less predictable sport than Earth's "Golf". Your frog can land in flowing rivers, on bouncy spiderwebs, get bitten by snakes, or land in any number of other strange hazards. Simply said, it's not a game you play with skill and intent, but a sense of humour. It's a total crapshoot, and inherently much, much better enjoyed as a two-player than attempting to make your way through the campaign.

This applies far more so to Kero Kero King. It's a rougher, more naively designed game. Holes are often placed atop mountainous peaks surrounded by hazards, and the small degree of control you have over the game is much less reliable, with a jerky response on your swing meter. If you get anything less than a perfect shot, your frog will practically strafe in the air to avoid your target. Kero Kero King is very keen on penalising you, often in drawn-out, aggravating ways that send you right back to the start of the course. You will sweat blood and break furniture. This ain't your granny's Ribbit King.

I don't want to write off the game completely, though. It is incredibly cute. Dialling back on the polycount that Ribbit King players have grown familiar with is a start, but there's less of a space between the artist and the game overall. Characters are flat sprites, with geometry reminiscent of 90s graphics software (i.e. I think they were drawn in Microsoft Paint). There's a kind of awkward, unintuitive charm to the menus and overall presentation. The loading screen is a little cartoon frog hopping along. I really, really like it.

But then, there's actually trying to make progress in the game. Being torn apart by bullshit, like Sarah Connor holding onto the fence. I think of myself as a fairly patient person, but Kero Kero King has absolutely broken me. I can't take the humiliation of seeing my frog smack against a wall and swim back to the start of the course, over and over again. This can't be how I wilfully spend my free time. I can't ever let myself choose this over RK. (also, I've just realised the acronym for this is KKK, and that's pretty fucked up)

Never let me play this again. If you have to start a full scale intervention, I will thank you for it.

However, if you want to go for a two-player on this, we'll probably have a very funny night.

There's arcade compilations, games that try to emulate the arcade experience, and then there's Maboshi's Arcade.

Designed by Panekit creator Kuniaki Watanabe, Maboshi is a rare breed of game that not only tries to pay homage to a very specific subset of games, but attempts to elevate it, being on a different, more advanced platform and using the unique features of the system. You're presented three insanely simple, high score challenge games; titles that would have been around in the era of Qix, but with a brilliant central hook that ties it all together.

Maboshi contains three windows that you can choose to play any of the three games; at any point, someone else can jump in without interrupting your own play session and occupy one of the windows next to you, allowing each of you to chase your personal best side-by-side. This is a fascinating idea in and of itself, but what pushes it into brilliance is how each of the games can interact with one another, debris and projectiles flying from window to window that can help assist anyone playing adjacent to you.

In an early review for the game, indie dev Anna Anne Anthropy coined the phrase "cooperative single-player" to describe it, which really helps emphasize how unique and uncontested this concept is in the grand scheme of things. The individual games are addicting and enjoyable enough to play on your own, but chasing after your personal best side by side with a friend and being able to help one another (intentional or otherwise) is such an incredible concept, filled with untapped potential for other games to explore.

In order to test your understanding of these cooperative mechanics, the game even challenges you to assist a passive character named "Mr. Maboshi" who will ask you to help him reach a certain score using the knock-on affect system as he occupies the window next to you, even enticing you with a reward should you help him reach his milestone.

All of this would be moot of course, if the games themselves weren't enjoyable, but as I mentioned before, all three of them are addictive and enticing, though in my personal opinion one of them (Square) falls just short of the other two in terms of design, being neither as fast-paced or intuitive. The game even allows you to send co-op free versions of the games to your DS via download play, if you want to practice them on the go, and while the brilliance is somewhat lost without the overlap feature, it's a testament to how fun the games are that I still enjoyed playing them on their own.

Earlier, I alluded that Maboshi is, as its own title would imply, a game trying to pay homage to arcades or game centers. But it captures an element that most arcade tribute titles miss, which is the social aspect; playing completely different cabinets, completely different games shoulder to shoulder with someone else, and then using the fact it's all on one compilation to its advantage, using its single-player co-op system to create a unique, memorable multiplayer experience that can be simply enjoyed passively with friends, actively cooperating or even just enjoying it on your own. No matter which way you play it, Maboshi is truly an overlooked masterpiece for the Wii, chock-full of ideas that are begging to be expanded on further in other titles, or for a rerelease to save it from its badly-preserved status.

I know it's a slow paced game (I went in expecting that), but everything takes just a little bit longer that it should. Things like turning keys and opening doors are a bit of a chore, and the transition delay from picking something up to be able to move again really did affect my desire to wander around what is a very beautiful world.

Narrative wise, I think the game fares a lot better in the story it sets in the past. It does wrap up quite suddenly and not entirely satisfactorily at the end but it was an engaging tale. The adult sections on the other hand are incredibly barebones and seem to exist solely as a bridge to move time forward a few days in your flashbacks.