Epsillica

Author: mollipen

  • Little Red Riding Hood’s Zombie BBQ

    Little Red Riding Hood’s Zombie BBQ

    For a long time now, I’ve had a thing for Little Red Riding Hood. Not any specific girl, mind you, but the overall idea of the character herself. It’s a tale with a lot of potential, you’ve got to admit: young girl with a distinctive look, trying to save a loved one from the threat of a vicious wolf. I’ve even had, for many years, the perfect game based around the character planned out in my head. You’ve got Little Red Riding Hood, dressed in a blood-red Japanese Elegant Gothic Lolita-style outfit, traveling through the dark and daunting German countryside (complete with fully German voice acting), hunting down the bloodthirsty werewolves she has unwillingly been tasked with killing. In grand Devil May Cry fashion, the action is fast and furious, and you must fill your enemies full of silver bullets until they are severely weakened, giving Riding Hood the opportunity to relieve them of their heads with a swing of her mighty sword.

    …er, anyhow, what I’m trying to say is, Little Red Riding Hood as a game character is an interesting proposition, and when I found out that not only would there be a game with her in it, but with her battling zombies of all things (another favorite of mine), I simply had to give the game a go.
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  • Retro Game Challenge

    Retro Game Challenge

    Shinya Arino–one of the two members of Japanese comedy duo Yoiko–hosts a late-night TV show in Japan called GameCenter CX. GCCX is a celebration of video gaming, but more specifically, it is a celebration of the days gone by of video gaming. Arino himself is a huge game fan, and every episode–at least, for every episode I myself have personally seen–he helps bring us a look back at gaming’s golden days, from what titles were released by a particular company back in the 80’s, to interviewing folks like Yuu Suzuki about his start at Sega, to meeting a man living somewhere in Tokyo who proudly owns every Famicom (Japan’s version of the NES) game ever released.
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  • Persona 4

    Persona 4

    Each character is a tragic hero, and yet, they are at their core nothing more than ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations. Because of this, we can relate to them, progress with them, live the adventure that is Persona through them.

    Eleven years ago, I wrote those words as part of the opening to the official GameFan strategy guide for a quirky new RPG brought to the United States by Atlus called Revelations: Persona. It is funny that they would then end up being at their most relevant nearly a decade later at the release of the franchise’s third official chapter, Persona 3.
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  • Valhalla Knights

    Valhalla Knights

    Though survival horror may have swept into my life and stole away my heart, there is no genre of video game that I have loved longer or more completely than Japanese RPGs. Almost twenty years ago I first set out into the world of Phantasy Star, and from that moment on, I knew the genre was for me. Unfortunately, the love affair has been a bit rocky as the years have gone on. I still love JRPGs, but there’s just no getting around it; the genre, in my eyes, just hasn’t seen the kind of gameplay progression that other genres have seen, and has suffered because of that.
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  • Rule of Rose

    Rule of Rose

    Way back in 1999, I got my first taste of Konami’s new horror series Silent Hill. While the mechanics behind the game itself weren’t of the utmost quality, all of the story-line elements had been crafted with such care and dedication that Silent Hill was no longer a game, but a mental and emotional experience. I bring this up because my introduction to Rule of Rose brought up many of the exact same feelings. Not since the tale of Harry Mason and the search for his lost daughter has a horror title so perfectly, yet so seemingly easily, created an entire universe and mythos that clicks from the very moment it begins.
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  • Persona 3

    Persona 3

    During a phone conversation between session of playing Persona 3, somebody asked me how I was liking it. After a brief moment of thought, I summed up all the feelings I had for the game in one simple sentence: “It has changed the way I think about RPGs.”
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  • 1/7 Scale Mitsuru Kirijyou (Persona 3)

    1/7 Scale Mitsuru Kirijyou (Persona 3)

    The first of what would end up being only two releases in the Kotokubiya line of Persona 3 characters. Well, okay there were actually four: Mitsuru, Aigis, Akihiko, and the main character. Unfortunately, after collecting the two females, I found out the two males would be in a totally different size ratio, meaning that they wouldn’t all match up together.

    So, as far as I’m concerned, they’re dead to me.
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