The Girl Who's Right on the Money: A Review of Money Idol Exchanger (PSX)

 💰Introduction💰

Last time, when talking about Magical Drop, I mentioned how I wasn’t too big into puzzlers. While I’m still not someone who actively plays puzzlers outside of casually killing time, my love for Magical Drop possessed me to check out some other games in the genre. While browsing the internet, I found a cute-looking puzzle game that almost instantly caught my attention. This game was called Money Idol Exchanger.

From a cursory glance, the game looked like something right up my alley. It was a puzzle game with gameplay similar to Magical Drop with a focus on exchanging coins into bills. The game was originally released for the Neo Geo MVS arcade system, and since I couldn’t get the Neo Geo emulator to work properly on my PC, the only way I could play the game for a while was to visit the local retro game arcade...which is an hour-long drive from my house.

It wasn’t until a bit later that I learned the game was also ported to home consoles and systems. So, I downloaded the PlayStation 1 version, booted it up on an emulator, and played it a considerable amount. The only real caveat was the fact that the PSX version was never translated into English, so I had to play the game in Japanese. That said though, while the game was quite simple, I still had a lot of fun with it and have a lot I wish to discuss and preach to the choir about. So, without further ado, Let’s Exchanging to Cash!! 

Steeling the Will to Fight: A Review of Vanguard Bandits (PSX)

Introduction

Robots! There, now that I have your attention, I wanted to briefly talk about a game I enjoy called Vanguard Bandits. It’s a humble game. It’s not Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy Tactics, or Tactics Ogre, it’s just Vanguard Bandits. I first discovered this game a few years ago, after I first played Popful Mail. I enjoyed Popful Mail a lot and wanted to play through more of the titles that Working Designs had brought over to the West. I had briefly heard some of Vanguard Bandits' OST online and was already into SRPG-type games, so I checked it out. My initial run was quite short, only playing until Chapter 5 before I got distracted with other stuff.

I came back to this game about a year or so later when I was in a Discord server that was for SRPGs. They had monthly events where there’d be two Games of the Month, and anyone who beat any of the two games would be awarded a cool role in the server and bragging rights. It was a fun little event, I wish more servers did stuff like that. Anyway, the two games for that month were Vanguard Bandits and La Pucelle: Tactics.

Since I had already planned on restarting my run of Vanguard Bandits, I saw this as the perfect opportunity. And by the time I beat it, I had really found myself enjoying the game a lot. I didn’t have a blog site back then to really summarize my thoughts, give my opinions, or talk about minor details that I found interesting. So that’s why I’m here today. So, I hope you enjoy it!

New Super Update Post!! - 9/14/2024

 Introduction

Hello, welcome, greetings, salutations, and... um... felicitations. Today, rather than talking about a specific game, I just wanted to briefly speak my mind on a few things and give some updates for this site and a couple of previous articles, since a few days ago, on September 11th marked one year since I made this site and published the initial draft of my Popful Mail review.

All Our Hidden Gems: A Review of Magical Drop III (PSX)

 🟢 Introduction 🟢

I’ve never been someone who’s been very interested in puzzler games; I’ll play a few rounds of Tetris or Puyo Puyo with friends in a casual setting, but aside from that, I’ve never cared much for the genre. That actually changed a few months ago when I was with a friend at an arcade. I was walking around looking for games to play and there was one small cabinet in the corner of the arcade which looked to be one of those SNK Arcade Candy Cab Machines. I don’t know the exact model, but this machine had three different games to choose from. I don’t remember the other two games, but the third one—Magical Drop III—drew me in because the art style was really cute. 

I played a few games against CPU players and found the game to be quite addicting. My friend was waiting on me though, so I only played for a bit but I remembered what the game was called. So, when I got home, I did some research on the game and downloaded a ROM for the PlayStation version. I was hooked. I was so hooked that I devolved into researching the history and lore of the series, checking out the competitive scene, looking up supplemental media, and drawing fan art. And because of that, you’re going to be subjected to another one of my schizophrenic rants— I mean reviews. So I hope you enjoy listening to me talk about my current favorite puzzler game, Data East’s Magical Drop III.

Slipping Away from the Pages of History: Taking a look at Celio, Wyler, and Sabre

 Introduction

The Archanean Fire Emblem games have a lot of characters; I’d even go as far as to say they have a ton of characters. FE1 in particular was notable for having nearly 50 playable characters. For an RPG game that came out in the early 90s on the Famicom, that's a big deal, and if you count boss characters, you have even more. But would you believe that there were going to be even more characters? Well, you probably did, but you’ve probably never heard anyone talk about them much in detail.

Today, I want to talk about three particular cut characters who I find particularly interesting: Celio, Wyler, and Sabre. Characters who were planned to show up in FE1, but were all cut for one reason or another. So, without further ado, let’s dive in and take a look at Celio, Wyler, and Sabre.  

Fan interpretations of Wyler, Sabre, and Celio drawn and/or edited by yours truly

The Gentle Sound of the Quiet Bow: An Analysis of Tomas: The Archanean Archer

 Introduction

Unlike my previous character analysis of Matthis, Tomas isn’t really a character that I feel is overhated or undeserving of the ridicule he gets, nor do I feel like I have to really play defense or anything like that. He’s still an unpopular character, don’t get me wrong, but that’s mostly due to the fact that people simply forget about his existence. And anyone who does remember him just sees him as a weak Archer who joins in the midgame, which…he is. 

When it comes to Archanea characters, some people may give them a lot of flak or write them off because they lack a lot of dialogue or any character, and Tomas is kind of one of the main poster boys of that notion. The guy straight-up doesn’t have lines of dialogue outside of death quotes in most of his appearances, so you’d expect this type of analysis to be devoid of substance. However, from the little we do get from this guy, I feel there is just enough for me to justify writing about him, talking about his character, and why I like him. So, let’s begin talking about Tomas, the Quiet Bow. 

Toki wo Koete: A Triple Feature Review of Super Robot Wars 1, 2, and 3 (GB/FC/SFC)

 Introduction

From the outside looking in, the Super Robot Wars series may seem rather intimidating, and well, it is. The series has been ongoing since April 20th, 1991, with 48 entries and 10 spinoffs, and the games have their own respective timelines and lore; some are isolated entries, while others have two or three sequels. I swear, if you want to give yourself an aneurysm, I’d recommend searching up and trying to follow some of the full series timelines that fans post online. And that’s not even mentioning the references and appearances of the individual mecha anime series that appear in these games, some of which are very niche.

That said, as a series that I consider one of my favorites, I wanted to take it upon myself to review the lesser-discussed games that started said series. I see very little discussion of these first three games online, let alone reviews of them, so I prepared a special triple-feature blog post to shed some light on the unique mechanics of these games, talk about their significance to the overall series, and talk about how they laid the groundwork for the series we know and love today!