Nintendo Sports, the latest release in the Wii Sports series will definitely appeal to many readers of my blog here. Not only are the games fun, but there’s tons of Gacha Style elements with limited dressup items dropping every week. Gotta catch em all. It will take a lot of online play to earn enough points to spin that gacha and each gacha only sticks around for about 2 weeks. Nintendo has said they want to release new cosmetic items every week. The game’s only been out less than a week and they’ve released 3 Gacha so far. One of them is ending in about 5 days. If you manage to get all the items in the gacha, you also get some awesome super rare event dressup items. It honestly reminds me a bit of Miitomo which I miss so much.
Thanks to the folks at Galdra Studios for allowing me to review their debut visual novel, Arcadia Fallen. As a first release from an indie game publisher, Arcadia Fallen definitely exceeded my expectations in many ways. First of all, the game’s high production values from voice acting, to character portraits, and even a catchy anime opening song and animation, all pull you right into the game. From there, the characters and story and unraveling the mysteries of the game keep you glued to your gaming chair. For those that find routine visual novel gameplay a bit dull, you might like the puzzle aspects in Arcadia Fallen because it has a nice crafting and alchemy feature.

As you may know from my blog, Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side is one of my favorite game series. I’ve played all 4 of them now – although none to 100% completion (meaning all routes). The fine folks in the fan translation community have translated all 3 of the first games and I have had the pleasure of playing each of them. I bought the 4th game as soon as it released and have been using Google Translate on my phone and aiming it at my Nintendo Switch.
I’ve used both a lazy neck holder and a snake like clamp holder with varying degrees of success. Both of which I bought on amazon. You just need to make sure the holder you buy does not cover the back camera of your phone because you need that camera to use the Google translation app.

I have been playing Gnosia in my free time for the past 2 weeks. There might be some vague spoilers here. I will try to be vague as possible, but when reviewing a story driven game, it’s bound to have some spoilers. So be warned.
I am ashamed to say it took me over 160 loops to complete the game – and I didn’t know about the true ending until reading a guide for something else entirely – I got stuck on my last “loop” I couldn’t figure out how to get the last data I needed about Remnan. – If you’re stuck like I was, you have to defend him in the debate, talk to him before going to sleep, be lucky that he won’t die that night, or get picked for cold sleep the next morning, and then talk to him again. –
I recently started playing Angelique Luminarise in English. The game was just released in May of 2021 in the Japanese Nintendo Eshop. It is not available in English. Not commercially – and not fan translated either. So how am I playing it in English?
Well it ain’t pretty, and it ain’t perfect but here’s how. Pretty simple really. The main thing you need is a smartphone with the free Google Translate app. I like to download the Japanese language pack for offline viewing too – but you don’t have to.
2021 is more than halfway over. Here’s what I have been playing (new releases) and what I’m looking forward to releasing for Nintendo Switch this year. They’re not in any particular order. The first one is my favorite, the next 20 are in reverse chronological order (newer games or unreleased games first) – After that, who knows lol. There’s of course many more great games that I just couldn’t cover all of them here. Nintendo Switch is truly the best console for gamer girls.
This game touched my soul so deeply. I haven’t cried so much while playing a video game in years. I can’t remember the last time I’ve enjoyed a game as much or connected as deeply to the characters and story as I did while playing this game.
So a bit of background. This is a cheap quick little indie game. It’s what I would call a story-driven game. In this game, you play a young girl whose family fell apart after her grandmother passed away. Her grandmother was kinda the backbone and glue of the whole family. After her grandmother’s passing, her father started working more hours and days further from home in a city far away. He almost never came home which left the girl’s mother feeling insecure and depressed. Slowly their relationship deteriorated, until one day, her father just stopped coming home altogether.
Miitopia is a cute fun casual game that brings the DS classic to the Nintendo Switch with a few new additions. I will say, I wish that instead of Miitopia we were getting MiiTomo as I friggin loved that game – but maybe if Miitopia does well, MiiTomo might be next? Maybe not though as it was a mobile game. Ah rest in peace Miitomo. I actually wrote 2 reviews about my experiences in MiiTomo before Nintendo shut down the mobile game. Read my original Miitomo Review Here and the Updated Miitomo Review Here. I still miss Miitomo very much. RIP.
Nintendo just released “New Pokemon Snap” yesterday, just in time for the weekend. I spent a few hours last night learning the ropes and taking my first few photos. Here’s what I learned so far, and also what I think of this game. I did indeed also play the original Pokemon Snap back on Nintendo N64. But to be honest, I haven’t played it in so long that I don’t feel confident or comfortable enough to compare and contrast how each game differs. Maybe after I get bored of New Pokemon Snap, I’ll go back and replay the original one again.
1.) Lunar
Still my favorite game series of all time, Lunar, deserves a sequel and has plenty of source material to derive such a sequel or rather, prequel from. What I’d like to play is the original tale that started it all, playing as Dyne, with the original reincarnation of the goddess Althena, and Ghaleon, and Mel, and the other 4 heroes (whose names I’ve forgotten at the moment). Of course, they could always just spin it off in a new direction in a future somewhere and use return appearances or references of some of the characters. But the logical next step to me, would be to let us see and play the tale of the original 4 heroes.
I just purchased Calico and began playing it over the weekend. Calico is a cute anime style Cat cafe game. The gameplay is simple and relaxing. You collect cute animals and run errands for towns folk while baking cute treats to sell in your cafe. You can also buy and unlock new recipes, new furniture, and new outfits.
What I love most about this game is how inclusive it truly is. You can be fat, slim, short, tall, black white, or green, or yellow, red, pink, whatever. You can have long hair, short hair, curly hair, straight hair, bangs, no bangs, side bangs, etc. I mean my character looks almost exactly like me in real life. And within game, the NPCs are various body/skintone types too.
I just watched both the English AND Japanese Nintendo Direct Lives – and it came as a little surprise to me, that they both feature some different games!! – The Japanese one looks fantastic! So many good games for girls. The North American one – not as much but still some good surprises!
You can watch both of the presentations below for yourself in full. Each one is an hour long. Each one has a few of the same games – but also some unique to each region. I hope beyond hope that most of those Japanese games will get an English release!
I did a little online shopping today. I thought I’d write up a blog post to share some of the best deals I found. This might be updated later today or over the next several days.
Gamestop is having a sale on games of course. I picked up the Yakuza collection which features Yakuza 0 – 6. It was $29 regularly like $59. I also (finally) picked up the remake version of Final Fantasy 7 which was similarly discounted.
Also, I already owned it, but for those who don’t yet, Story of Seasons for the Switch is on a big discount too:

I spent the weekend with my Chinese Parents… video game for Nintendo Switch that is. There are many aspects of this game that I really enjoyed. It is quite addicting. I probably sunk 20 hours into the game and am on my 5th generation. I’ve sprinkled some random screenshots throughout my review. At the end of the review is our score card and final verdict along with a gallery with all the screenshots I’ve taken so far. (Gallery is having some errors, too many photos, so I will try to add it in later).