The magic academy-themed yuri visual novel Perfect Gold: The Alchemy of Happiness is the third game by the Philippines-based indie studio YangYang Mobile, and the Nintendo Switch and iOS/Android ports have just been released just in time for Pride Month. As a short and sweet romance with gorgeous visuals, I couldn’t resist checking it out!
I’ve been following YangYang Mobile’s titles since their first release, The Letter, a horror visual novel. Their second title, Love Esquire, is a romantic comedy dating sim with RPG elements with a clear bishojo influence. It’s really fascinating to see their trajectory (they currently have a new horror title, Saint Maker, coming out later this year), but I was admittedly a little apprehensive about how a company without any yuri titles in their lineup might handle the subject matter.
Welcome to Pixel x Pixel episode 91, where you can get internet cool points for guessing the game box that the above art is from! In a thrilling turn of events, Marcus and Anne have both been working on something, and that something is the same thing – namely, content about the Birushana: Rising Flower of Genpei limited edition! Marcus has posted a Collector’s Cabinet, while Anne published an unboxing video. Plus, Anne finished her Touken Ranbu Warriors review, the pair watch a certain film with a rabbit, and both share their thoughts on all the latest summer game news!.
12:00 – Media Minutes: Perfect Gold: The Alchemy of Happiness, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Raw Danger 31:00 – Notable News: Final Fantasy VII anniversary stream, Resident Evil DLC and third-person mode, Dragon’s Dogma 2 announced, Persona 3, 4, and 5 ports announced, Overwatch 2 going free to play, changes at Giant Bomb, FujoCon
♫ “Willie Lomans,” “5 minutes pleasure,” and “6 pence and moon” from Alphabet Planet by Hiroki Kikuta
A lot of properties have gotten the Warriors treatment, from The Legend of Zelda to One Piece, but Touken Ranbu might be one of the best-suited series for the Warriors format from the premise alone. Originally a free-to-play browser game released in 2015, Touken Ranbu features a huge cast of anthropomorphic historical swords in the form of handsome men designed by various artists. Since then, it’s become immensely popular, particularly in Japan, and has multiple adaptations in the form of anime, manga, stage plays, and even a live-action film. There is now also a mobile version, as well as an English localization of the game that was released in 2021.
The premise of Touken Ranbu is that the Touken Danshi (“swordsmen”) are elite fighters sworn to protect history from the History Retrograde Army, who are threatening to change the course of history by going back and time and interfering with significant battles and historical events to further their own goals. Players of the browser/mobile game take on the role of the Saniwa (“master”) to manage and deploy the various Touken Danshi on missions to protect the timeline – and, of course, create new Touken Danshi as they’re added to the game through the gacha mechanic.
Just going to put it up front – Tomoegata is my fav in Touken Ranbu Warriors!
While the source material has limited gameplay that is mostly automated, it’s easy to see how a bunch of sword boys fighting forces that are trying to change history makes for a natural fit for the “1-on-1000” action format of Koei Tecmo’s Warriors games. Of course, Warriors developers Omega Force are behind Touken Ranbu Warriors, but Ruby Party, Koei Tecmo’s team best known for their otome game titles, also assisted with this release. That effectively makes it the first Ruby Party game to come out in English for PC and Nintendo Switch!
Episode 90 of Pixel x Pixel presents the grand return of Marcus’ and Anne’s writing careers! Marcus went to a super-cool horror convention and wrote a brand-new Checking the Score article on Jumping Flash!, and Anne attended a Princess Tutu anniversary event digitally and writes a full recap. Then, a very important game was finally completed, and a current hot movie was watched. Finally, this episode’s Notable News is another spicy one, with a discussion of the visual novel term “all ages” and the proceedings around the new Seven Seas Union. Plus, lots of game announcements!
20:00 – Media Minutes: House in Fata Morgana, Touken Ranbu Warriors, Detective Conan: The Bride of Halloween, Crimes of the Future 47:00 – Notable News: JAST BLUE dogpiled for use of “all ages,” United Workers of Seven Seas, Sony State of Play, Our Flag Means Death season 2 confirmed, Yomawari: Lost in the Dark English release announced, Haunted Obakestra upcoming localization Kickstarter
♫ “Willie Lomans,” “5 minutes pleasure,” and “6 pence and moon” from Alphabet Planet by Hiroki Kikuta
The Princess Tutu anime recently celebrated its 20th anniversary and held a fan event called the spring festival, aka Frühlingsfest! I believe this was the first Princess Tutu event available to be streamed overseas, so I excitedly jumped on the opportunity to watch the recording via Mahocast. Though the landing page had the event description in multiple languages, since the actual stream didn’t have English subtitles, I thought someone might be interested in hearing about what happened in the event. If that’s you, read on for a full recap of all the proceedings!
Hope you like a podcast you can really sink your teeth into, because this is a juicy one! Marcus has finally gotten his hands on a Steam Deck and has all the details on how Valve isn’t living up to their “every game you own will work” bargain. Not only that, but he went to RuPaul’s DragCon and a drag king show and is ready to report back on the festivities! Meanwhile, Anne has finally returned to playing one of the highest-rated games of all time… House in Fata Morgana! Plus, stick around for a very heated Notable News – we promise you don’t want to miss out on this one!
Better late than never – a new episode of Pixel x Pixel is here! Both Marcus and Anne have exciting, podcast-relevant things to discuss in the intro, namely: Marcus is finally getting his hands on the Steam Deck, and Anne had the opportunity to interview the writer of the new UNICO manga currently on Kickstarter. Plus, since Marcus forgot to talk about Passions last episode, we’ve got a double dose of the Passions Preamble, and he also saw The Northman so the pair can discuss it in (no spoiler) detail!
16:14 – Media Minutes: Passions Preamble, The Northman, Fuga: Melodies of Steel 37:40 – Notable News: Console mod Wiki, handheld Mister prototype, Build a Bear Grookey
♫ “Willie Lomans,” “5 minutes pleasure,” and “6 pence and moon” from Alphabet Planet by Hiroki Kikuta
