rose

maddi and i started playing madou monogatari i for the mega drive / genesis and it's really good. the precursor rpg series to puyo puyo, the game features arle trying to climb a big rpg dungeon crawler tower as a test to pass magic kindergarten. it's both simple and mechanically surprising / creative in a way that made me feel like when i was new to video games and didn't know how they're supposed to work. the battles have fighting game input-style magic spells and instead of hp/mp numbers they say things like "tired, but doing my best." or "i'm done for!". the fan translation's super charming, and the character sprites / ui are super cute and the game has a sparkly magic orb in the corner at all times. highly recommend