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ghostpia Season One is a kinetic visual novel by indie circle Chosuido. It is available on the Nintendo Switch eShop with a planned release on Steam.

This game is an absolute treat. It's violent, chaotic, and interpersonal at heart. It is a story about rekindling old friendships, finding a home as an outcast, violence against the state, and absolutely fucked up women. And it's all topped off with some of the most creative art direction I've ever seen in a visual novel.

If any of this piques your interest, I implore you to try it. There is currently a generous two chapter demo on Steam if you want to test the waters first. It is a roller coaster of a game.

With it also comes a digital art book and soundtrack release. Check it out!

Ah, the puzzle genre. And when I say puzzle, I mean very specifically what I call "Action Puzzle" games. Games like your Tetris or your Puyo, where you have kinda arcadey action and must react to patterns and hazards in order to keep playing. It's a genre that has faded with time, though everyone still does love and play at LEAST one. I don't know anyone who goes "Tetris sucks, all my homies hate Tetris".

But Action Puzzlers are possibly my favorite genre of all time, and there are a LOT of them out there. During their height in the 90s, countless obscure ones slid out the door, often into arcades, but also on the home consoles of their day. And I love playing and finding these games, especially in a multiplayer setting. These are my Fighting Games. But then again, Action Puzzlers are basically fighting games, just you're fighting in a different way. Anyways, story time.

So, PS1 emulator Duck Station released a version that allows for rollback netcode netplay earlier this year. Me and the rest of the puzzle community popped the fuck off at this. In excitement, I began compiling a list. I spent like two days hunting for every single PS1 multiplayer action puzzler I could possibly find. And then, once I did, I played everyone of those games. Most are not good! Most are terrible Puyo Puyo clones, but some are GEMS, and I wanna talk about all the coolest most obscure ones today. This will be a special episode of this series, where I do little mini reviews of a bunch of games. If that seems up your alley, keep on readin'!

(Note: mostly gifs from here on out to better show the gameplay. Some of these gifs are Big)

If you're curious, here's my personal curated list of every PS1 multiplayer puzzle game I could possibly find. This is missing a few that are already on Fightcade, like Cleopatra's Fortune or Super Puzzle Fighter, where the PS1 version isn't significantly different in any way. These are all unique PS1 only experiences. I'mma go over pretty much only good ones. Maybe I can do a post about all the terrible ones I found some other time.

Joshikousei no Houkago... Pukunpa - I mentioned terrible Puyo clones, but I think since Puyo is one of the most popular puzzle games, I should start with a few good puyo clones. This game is literally just puyo puyo with a different style of anime girl, but it has a few unique bits to it that set it apart from regular Puyo. You have the bubble pieces, which are kinda like trash in that you need to clear blobs near them in order for them to open up, but they can contain TWO blobs in there, which then push out to change up the stack as you clear. It makes for some really big brain twisting puyo play, and a good way to rexperience a game that you may have played so much it's become stale. Re-learn a whole new set of combos!

Tokimeki Memorial - Taisen Puzzledama 2 - There are two of these! Both are worth playing. Tokimeki Memorial is an EXTREMELY popular dating sim you might have heard of, but it also got a puyo clone side series, which is really wild to think about. I dunno. Platformers get spin off racing games, dating sims get spin off puzzle games? It's another puyo clone, but this one kinda became its own thing people would clone. Its main innovation is the same as Pukunpa, with the blocks you need to clear next to, and they'll turn into normal pieces. But it's a little less interesting to me, cause it's just a simple clear turning into a normal blob. Still a good game though, good for a twist on the usual Puyo format.

Tokimeki Memorial - Taisen Tokkaedama - This is the exact same thing, essentially, but with a different dropping mechanic. Instead, you have a cursor and you swap your blobs out. It's an even more different twist, and I actually think I prefer it.

Kuru Kuru Twinkle - I've mentioned this one once before on here, because I ripped the OST and uploaded it to Youtube. It's a solid ost. Anyways, this one is kind of like a twist on Panel de Pon, or Tetris Attack, but instead of swapping between two on one line, you swap between four on two lines, and you can swap up and down too. This is one of the most hectic puzzle games I have ever played in my life. Games can seriously last like, 15 seconds. There's also magic attacks that can choose from, and there's a LOT to this game I don't understand cause it's all in Japanese. It's still a pretty enjoyable time, though, and is fun to explore around and figure out what everything does :3

Otenki Kororin - Weather Tales - This is another spin on Panel de Pon, this time you can only swap between blocks on a single line, but the blocks clear like it's poyo, and the goal isn't to fill the enemy's stack with trash but to dig downwards and reach the goal first. This game is ADORABLE. It has an AMAZING claymation style, and fantastic soundtrack. The sounds are a bit much sometimes, and the gameplay is hectic and overwhelming at times, but it's another great twist on the Panel de Pon formula! One of my absolute favorites I discovered doing this.

Noon - Okay, I've been showing mostly clones of other puzzle games. How about something COMPLETELY unique? This is Noon, the "New Type Action Game". In Noon, both players are on the same top down field, where orbs spawn. You can push and then fling the orbs. If you fling an orb and create a line of three, it will clear, and make a "noon". This spawns bombs in your opponent's field. The goal is to fill up your opponent's field, while stopping them from filling up your's. And yes, you can kick your own bombs into your opponent's field. You can push blobs together to break them instead, and kick around and throw shit at your opponent. It is MASSIVELY hectic, and though I haven't been able to play this with people yet, I really want to. There's even a style of play for four players! It's absolutely wild, and very unique. The art style and vibe of it is also really great.

Puzzle Star Sweep - Another pretty unique one. In Star Sweep, you can... spit(?) these star blocks out anywhere on the board, though they will fall with gravity. They clear by having the star part of each block touch the star part of a block of the same color. It is... SO HARD to figure out, it's like learning another language. I'm so used to things like Tetris or Puyo, but this is so weird, I wouldn't even know how to handle it. It's pretty neat, though!

Tripuzz - I've talked about this one before, but imagine Puyo, but with triangular pieces. 4 matching nearby clears, combos hit harder, and if you get a diamond of air surrounded by the same color that also clears for a good amount. This is yet another game that is impossible to figure out without some practice, it's very weird, but pretty unique and fun! And the characters are cute too.

Tall Twins Tower - Also talked about this one before. A lot. This is my favorite puzzle game of all time, this is Tall Twins Tower. Spin blocks around and match colors to grow blocks. Combos cause more and more blocks to spawn across the level. Create ten whole layers of blocks, and you move onto the next level! It also has two characters with their own unique powers, slide and crane. And of course, there's multiplayer. It is hectic, requires a lot of focus, and LOADS of fun at high levels. This game is also hard as shit. The unfortuante thing is this game is so obscure, and I've played so much of it, that there's a single person I know who can play this close to my level, and that's @Ratttz. I want more friends to play this with ):

There are some others, but these are the best ones. If y'all found this interesting, absolutely check some of these out :D NONE of them are available like, anywhere (I THINK Twins Tower is available on the JP PS4 shop but I have no way to tell. Also, if y'all found this interesting, let me know! I could totally do more, including some Bad Ones.

Thanks for reading. Play and enjoy some puzzle games <3

I think it's fair to say that even in a post-Breath of the Wild world, for almost all intents and purposes, most people, developers and players alike, probably consider open world games to be mostly the dominion of western developers. Although the very earliest roots of Japanese experimentation in the genre actually date back to a similar time frame as western efforts by way of games such as Doukyuusei for the PC-98, it wasn't without a kernel of truth, at least depending on whether and how you qualify a game's environments as open world.. If we're talking about vast sandbox-style games in the mold of Grand Theft Auto III and onwards specifically, then, yeah, budgetary realities previously meant few Japanese developers had the financial means and team sizes to seriously attempt them, let alone compete at an international level. It's not say that there weren't games that tried, especially around a decade, decade and a half ago, but it's fair to surmise that few left any lasting impression and some games outright crashed and burned for getting too close to the sun.

The problem with this mindset is that it presupposes that open world games are, by their nature, a format of action games first and foremost, if not exclusively. Games like GTA, Just Cause, and Saints Row where you have an antagonistic relationship with the environment and the fun and pleasure come from subjugating that environment and its denizens as you increasingly navigate and engage with it on your terms and only your terms. It's true that a lot of the most globally successful examples build upon such templates, and for perfectly understandable reasons. In a world of suffocating socioeconomic realities weighing the majority, for those in the poor and working class, there's a real catharsis to be felt in attaining a digital safe space to cast aside their inhibitions and be on top of the world for a change, and an often violent change at that. I felt as much in the summers I spent in New Mexico taking turns with my cousins seeing how long we could all survive in Vice City and it's a premise that's only gone on to resonate to exponentially higher degrees over time.

But it's not the only way to make open world games and the real reason most Japanese open world games don't look as though they can compete to that standard is because they aren't. The open world ideal as expressed through Japanese games tends not to be an action game, but an adventure one.

I meant to rechost this sooner since I know I originally posted it at an ungodly hour for most people, but here's an impromptu essay I wrote last week about Natsumon, the open world summer break 'em up from Boku no Natsuyasumi and Attack of the Friday Monsters creator Kaz Ayabe. It's about the design paradigms and genre inspirations that tend to inform the best Japanese open worlds and how they can still capture my attention time and again years after the western AAA take has worn out its welcome with me.

It's also secretly an essay about PachiPara and why a pachinko sim with an open world RPG side mode still lingers in my mind a decade later. It has been a genuine, years-long struggle to figure out where and how to even begin discussing that series' profound impact on my outlook on Japanese games. My coverage and arguably even parts of my career wouldn't be what they are without those games. But it turns out a humble little game about a kid just running and jumping all over the place in open fields was as good of an opportunity as any.

With the release of Baldur's Gate 3 has come a wave of discourse about reasonable and fair expectations of modern game design and what different teams are, budget and size permitting, able to achieve in terms of complexity. Throwing fuel on the fire this week was IGN with a video that some say puts undue scrutiny on an indie dev--and not nearly enough on the consumer base that has high expectations for game performance with little consideration for context, circumstance, or the well-being of creators.

Addressing that topic this week is former Game Developer EIC Brandon Sheffield, who says the conversation didn't have to play out this way. Read his thoughts in this featured article over in our blog section.

Submit your blog to Game Developer here: https://reg.gdconf.com/blog-submission.