games

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.

David Cabrera

25 Nov 2024 — 13 min read

I thought at first that I could fit throughts onto the games into the overall Gapoli review, but that piece quickly became about the game's dystopian gambler economy, basically pushing out the fun games. So I'm doing a second piece that's even longer where I look at the games individually, from medal games to pachinko.

This is really two posts' worth of material– hint hint, subscribe to this newsletter– but there came a point where this article needed to go up, already.

Be aware that Gapoli plays these games via streaming cloud video: that is fine for playing them in a tiny mobile-sized window, but the screenshots are going to suck. I'm using real images of the real machines when my screenshots are particularly bad.

I never really got to fit this into the first post, but the biggest problem with Gapoli is in fact the tiny screen resolution of the games. The tiny screens of the pachinko games, or the phone-size "smart" screens in the side of the newer slots, are especially difficult. The zoom-in feature is laughable.

Medal games

Not to toot my own horn or anything, but this might be the only set of English reviews of this bunch of Sega medal games you’re ever going to see. And that seems as good a place as any to put the paywall.

HYOZAAAAN!! and KAZAAAAN!!

These two are variants of the same simple “where will the ball fall?” game. Hyozan (Frozen Mountain) is ice-themed with softer odds and smaller payouts, where as Kazan (Volcano) is of course fire-themed with tougher odds and a massive top payout that you’ll never see in a million years.

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.

I revisited the Mobile Suit Gundam trilogy in theaters and it's still a masterpiece

(This will contain spoilers for the now over 40-year-old original Gundam films. These plot points are so old and so well-known that even if you haven’t seen Mobile Suit Gundam, you’ve probably seen an anime that’s made a joke about them. Giving you a spoiler warning for

I saw Atarashii Gakko the other day, and now I understand with all my heart how those idol guys feel

I saw a major Japanese idol group a few years ago. I won’t say who because I don’t want their fans to read this and take it the wrong way. That’s how idol stuff is, I’ve learned. There’s a reason for that word, “idol”, and

I inevitably got hooked on Konami medal games for a week - 2 - Coin pushers, horses, and everything else

"For example, the game gates progress with gear that only stays equipped for one dungeon and which costs medals to use: how interesting, you know what we call that? An ante!"