It’s that time of year… The time of year for gingerbread lattes, festive music, and holiday gift guides! I love doing yearly Chic Pixel gift guides because it gives me a chance to share a wide range of fun options for anyone looking for a unique gift for a nerdy friend. Each year I theme my guide slightly differently, and this year I decided to go for manga and video game-related picks!
It is with a mournful werewolf howl that we bid adieu to the Horror Game Community Game-Along and dive headfirst into one of my favorite Community Game-Along themes of the year: visual novels! November is the only month I can be certain I’ll participate in regardless of how busy I am, because I’ve always got at least one visual novel I’m chipping away at. At first it was a little harder to have a broad range of quality titles available to recommend in English, but with every year there are more and more amazing visual novels to choose from!
Now that I’ve been a fan of situation CDs/otome drama CDs for a few years, I can safely say there is a CD on practically any theme you can think of! And when I saw the amazing Halloween-themed cover for Amasu Toki no Kataribe ~ Halloween no Hi o Kimi Totomo ni (Spare-time Storyteller ~ Halloween Day with You), I knew I had to get my hands on it. Luckily, on a recent trip to Japan, I was able to find the special edition that comes with a picture book for a very good price at a Mandarake in Tokyo!
Last month was the Stealth Game Community Game-Along, and that means it’s time for a roundup! After ever Community Game-Along, I round up the submissions from as many participants as possible so everyone can see what people played and maybe get some ideas for games to play in the future! You can also check out #StealthSeptember on Twitter to see everyone’s thoughts and submissions.
Happy Spooktober, everyone! It’s time for the return of one of my favorite Community Game-Along themes: horror games! Playing a horror game or spooky-themed title is a great way to get ready for one of the best holidays of the year: Halloween! I may not go trick or treating anymore, but I can still get in the spirit of the season with a creepy game!
This year, I followed up the always-busy JRPGJuly with an Action RPG Community Game-Along for August, and I’m glad to see so many people participated! Some folks even doubled up and picked a game for JPRGJuly that worked for ARPGAugust, which is a great idea! Read on to see what everyone played in August, and look forward to the October Community Game-Along post in just a few days! (If you want to start preparing now, the theme is horror games!)
Over at Tales of the Backlog, Capsulejay reviewed Ys Origin and Beyond Oasis, and Jakejames Lugo also reviewed Beyond Oasis over on his Youtube channel. At JRPG.moe, Griffin reviewed the Japan-exclusive Dreamcast game with a fun title, Napple Tale: Arsia in Dreamland. I’d never heard of this game before Griffin started playing it before ARPGAugust, but it looks super adorable and apparently the creative team was comprised of mostly women!
Chestnut at Gamer Girl Confessions played Diablo III, and Fullmetaldrippy reviewed Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix. Then, the M Disc Gauntlet returned with Secret of Evermore.
Okay, looks like #ARPGAugust gives me good reason to get to SMT Devil Summoner 2. It’s one of the few of my unplayed games I’d bought new..like ten years ago. No clue why I forgot, the first one is great fun.
Oh! And it came with a cute Jack Frost plushie, dressed as Raidou! pic.twitter.com/FCpiyXhmK4
— Hayley Winter✨ (@driftglass) August 6, 2018
Meanwhile, @SweetieAshe played Ys VI, @Akrophin played Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, @cassiehalladay played Nights of Azure, @zhel played Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom, @bunnycartoon played Bloodborne, @driftglass played Monster Hunter: World, @kaitou_al played Bioshock, and @daswhalebeard played Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
#SquadGoals #ARPGAugust pic.twitter.com/MObQOymtzO
— Simon (@sparrowtimes) August 17, 2018
Finally, I’d like to congratulate @sparrowtimes for finishing Bloodborne, @mdiskplaylist platinumed Bloodborne, @felghanas beat Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and @charassic for completing Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom! Great job to everyone who completed their chosen games this month!
Thanks again to everyone who participated in August! Enjoy the last few days of StealthSeptember, and start gearing up for HorrorGameOctober!
When September rolls around, it’s time for the next year of Hobonichi Techo covers to go on sale! This year I decided to get a new Earthbound cover after using my 2017 cover for 2 years, and I couldn’t resist picking up a few extra goodies from the Hobonichi online store while I was at it! Check out my unboxing video to see my full haul: