Video games, FGC, anime, super robots and misc from a veteran semi-professional nerd

Tohai settles gang wars with mahjong, and maybe also some spare organs

(As a general content warning, Tohai— yes, this mahjong anime— contains frequent graphic violence, including dismemberment, mutilation, torture, and sexual violence. Do not watch this series unless you are ready for anything; the violence escalates as the show goes on.) All the different Japanese manga magazines have a brand, and

What do we know about the connections between GQux and Gundam? A Missing Persons Investigation

(There’s no video release for Beginning, so I am running a bit off memory of a movie I saw last week. I will get things wrong; forgive me.) GQux Beginning wants to fit its whole alternate One Year War onto film, but as it only has so much time

I can't explain GQux without spoilers, so you might just want to go see it yourself, but just in case I wrote 2000 words on it

This is not Hideaki Anno's Gundam, everyone please stop calling it that

I’d tell you more about the Fatal Fury: City Of The Wolves beta if I hadn’t spent half my time waiting for a match

I had a great time playing City of the Wolves over the weekend and I’m looking forward to the completed game, but whether I buy it on launch or wait until it’s on sale depends entirely upon whether or not this online matchmaking experience improves.

Bonus: Some of my favorite characters in Virtua Fighter 5 REVO

Now that the review-vital stuff is out of the way, I want to talk about the point that actually makes VF so fun and so rewarding to return to. That’s the characters, and how well-defined they are. I get that they don’t have the lore and story modes

Virtua Fighter 5 REVO with rollback netcode is my Forever Video Game

Listen, I reviewed this game the last time it came out. On the Xbox 360. For Joystiq. Nine years ago. So I’m not going to write the same review again, say everything I’ve been yelling on street corners about Virtua Fighter for twenty years. I’ll try and

The Colors Within/Kimi no Iro is concentrated sweetness and transcendent performance

Her direction is natural, intimate, soft, gentle and sweet like a hand cradling your chin. She makes you feel like you are physically sharing the same space as the characters. It’s no surprise that her works have forged some pretty intense connections with their viewers.

I want to see impact and physicality in the new Virtua Fighter, and I don't want to see super meters

"...what I truly love about Sega’s arcade games is that they have always pursued a kind of magical realism. They’re obsessively detailed... but they aren’t actual simulations of real life. They’re exaggerations of it. That’s where you find the magic."

PSO2: New Genesis is probably a misfire, but that didn’t stop me from having a great time with it

After Thanksgiving this year I got pretty sick. On the one hand it was a pretty nasty cold, and the cough didn’t completely leave after two weeks. (After that, family emergency followed, wiping my December clean.) On the other, I had just purchased a brand new gaming PC, and

In honor of VF5 R.E.V.O, I'm going to teach you basic Virtua Fighter offense.

I’m seeing a lot of people in the fighting game community get curious about Virtua Fighter 5 now that it finally has decent netplay coming via the re-release VF5: R.E.V.O., and I’m really happy to see it! Virtua Fighter 4 and 5 were games ahead

Gapoli Pt. 2: I am going to review a bunch of medal games, and you're gonna either like that or you won't

We can say that an anime is officially “for old people”– or, charitably, "a nostalgia title"– when it gets the pachinko/slot treatment. Incidentally, there are two different Code Geass slots on Gapoli.

Gapoli is not the Sega/Sammy Super Game, but you can trade your points for a TV, so maybe it actually is

Before I go any further I need to explain the weird, fascinating legalized prize-room gambling going on in this app.