Personally I’m against videogame scores as they tend to simplify and label games in a reductive manner which doesn’t reflect the contents and experiences that most of the modern videogame productions offer to the player. Games such as Archime-DS, or the majority of the titles you mention in this blog for that reason, defy the pre-established reviewing methods and formats. How to rate a game like Moon, for instance? It belongs to that (ever increasing) group of videogames that surpass the status of “product” – they’re inventive, unique, and they’re certainly not designed according to mainstream tendencies. Rating systems are in no way built to recognize the independent and audacious work of artists who, like Kenichi Nishi, struggle constantly to have their projects financed and released.

Sure, I’m also able to understand why things work that way: people have a morbid tendency to rate everything using numbers - even aspects of their lives which aren’t quantifiable, like relationships or feelings. Assuming that magazines depend on this sort of public to survive, scores must be issued in order to simplify the player’s choices. It’s one of those sad, yet irrevocable aspects of this and other industries. But in the case of a worthy game such as this one, that has no hype around it and no publicity… to rate it 7 in a single, bottom page of the magazine is, I’m afraid, quite the same as assuring that Bakushow will be dead and buried before anyone decides to take a closer look. Of course, my disapproval isn’t directed towards you, but to this working method that most publications need to follow.

I’m constantly surprised by the lack of ego that some artists often show. I just wish they were all as approachable.

I wish I had the album there so he could sign it. 99$ would then skyrocket to a larger, three figure value, I’m sure! But I never thought he’d be so accessible and nice in order to actually shake my hand and talk for a while before going to rest.

Sometimes I still wonder if it was real or not: that such a great artist came to such a small town at the end of the world to play two nights in a row!

But then again I ask how many of these games have crossed the japanese borders? Just yesterday I was able to play for the first time a couple of japanese-only Dreamcast games, one named Treasure Strike (by KID) and the other one called Sengoku Turb (published by NEC). Really “whacky” games, both, very colourful and droll in their own fashion. But I clearly understand why they never left the japanese market.

Thanks for yet another great post! Be sure to update the Youtube video link on the previous post as it was reported to be broken..