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Game 65: Mario Party-e: Free Challenge - Cast Away Mario! Aug2025

Honestly, a pretty fine game for what Mario Party mini-games usually are. It's a simple single button press type of crane game that only uses timing as it's challenging part. Kinda felt a bit like a mirco game from Warioware in a way, but also having the usual Mario Party flair and game style. I'm just a bit charmed by it despite it's lack of content. Sometimes simple just works words.

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Game 64: Night Flight Aug2025

A pretty good shmup style game that uses echo location to identify obstacles while also collecting berries for points. Just complete arcade fun with a sense of good control schemes, challenge, and gameplay. Would love to see this come back as a sort of Pokemon Stadium mini-game with better visuals. As is, a really neat surprise for everyone's most annoying grind fodder.

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Game 66: Rolling Voltorb Aug2025

Rolling Voltorb is so close to being an interesting arcade game, but as it is now, it's just too luck based. Voltorb is just too big of a target when it comes to dodging a bunch of rocks, and the amount of RNG in play here doesn't really feel like it can be played against. Magnemite, your power up, is also something you just have to hear with a visual clue. While using your ears to hear your power up is neat, sometimes you can go several screens without hearing them while sometimes Magnemite pops up so frequently that they mix with the music. It really is just a dice roll when it comes to this power up. Aside from that, Rolling Voltorb has some crisp sounds, fun music, and even a good gameplay loop of smashing through rocks to rack up points. It really is the fact their is more luck than skilled involved here that really brings the whole experience down. Maybe we could get a mini-game like it in the future to show it's potential, but as is, it disappoints.

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Game 67: Punching Bags Punching Bags is another arcade like mini game you can get through the Aquapolis Pokemon set, and I think if the game let you mess up a little more or the hit-boxes were a bit easier it be worth the time to play it. As it is though? Little Tyrogue has a lot of training to do because the game feels very clunky, sometimes unfair, and mostly stopping before it gets good. A lot of it just comes down to not understanding the movement of the game, and when you are consistently trying to get that right you are punished by having to restart the game entirely. And while I had a brief time with it, genuinely when the game starts moving on all cylinders it provides for a very hectic experience that I would want from an arcade game like this. It's really sad too because a lot of these E-reader Pokemon mini-games are usually just a step away from being good. Punching Bags, sadly is just too harsh, even if it's suppose to be training.

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Game 68: Dream Eater Aug2025 It's a game about a Drowzee harassing a Primeape that just wants to enjoy their life. Well either that, or Primeape punching the heck out of Drowzee. Regardless, it's a very simple button masher with an element of dodging between two spaces or else Primeape will ruin your streak of eating dreams. While the game functions just fine, it really isn't optimally done or particularly interesting. Each time you dream eat the Primeape it does a little animation to go down and the whole thing resets. Not exactly the worse offense out here, having longer animations, but those moments add up in an arcade like game like Dream Eater. That mixed together with only swapping between 2 spaces makes for little challenge in the short term, and more of an endurance run of being able to react to red light / green light. Certainly not the worse offender of the Pokemon E-Reader games, but equally not note worthy.

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Game 69: Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket: Mythical Island Aug2025* A lot of Mythical Island was overpowered in the sense there was simply not enough in the card pool to contest against it's own meta which included Gyarados ex, Celebi EX, and Druddigon. While a lot of these cards were very popular when it released, largely you barely see any cards from this set in the current meta. Mythical Island's relevance over the last few sets have made it clear that it barely added anything to the game while other sets appear to be more relevant due to certain trainer cards or various Pokemon in the game.

Thankfully, Mythical Island continues the tradition of Pokemon sets having really good art, and I feel like this set in particular really understood the ascetics it was going for throughout it's list of cards. While I certainly wouldn't have called Genetic Apex boring, the list of cards in Mythical Island were a testament to how refreshing new art can be on some older Pokemon, as well as seeing plenty of new faces in the digital TCG.

Overall, Mythical Island will be known mostly for it's gimmicky meta and giving us Leaf as a trainer card that helps get some of our beefy pokes out of play. While I certainly wouldn't say that Celebi or Gyarados were bad EXs, they do show just how fast the meta has rammed up over the course of a few sets as well as showing that these cards were only really overpowered due to gimmicks currently in play and not enough variety to check them. I will not miss the meta, but I certainly wish I got the Aerodactyl two star when I had a reason to pull from this set.

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Game 70: Mario Party-e: Free Challenge - Daisy's Rodeo! Aug2025 For a mini game that you have to do shorthanded, Daisy's Rodeo is a bit too challenging. It's pretty much the kind of game that gets easier the more you play it due to learning the trick to it's inputs and how the game itself works. As a Mario party mini game, I think it works well enough, and certainly something I think would work in other Mario parties with more characters. As this little challenge for a board game you probably only play once tho? Pretty bad first impression. Also both Daisy and the Bowser bull look pretty funky looking, but charming in their own dopey way.

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Game 71: Harvest Time Aug2025 Harvest Time is another standard E-reader Pokemon arcade game. The objective of the game is to rank a high score while collecting as many fruits and nuts as possible. This sounds like it gets really chaotic at first, but it's fairly standard and light in terms of movement and identifying your point getters. Not to say that it's a bad game, just not paced well mixed with not a lot of challenge going on with it. It's the exact opposite of Punching Bags problem with being too punishing; as this game is just too slow and easy. Perhaps if the movement was faster with Aipom or the Sunkern were more of a threat or even just simplifying it more so you weren't going around 9 spots and 3 layers. Harvest Time just missed the note somewhere. Due to that it's mildly entertaining at best, and a snooze fest at worst.

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Game 27: Astra's Garden (Jan2024)

Astra's Garden is a fun little flower shop / apothecary simulator with a nice heart felt emotional backbone to it. The usual gameplay loop is a very simple click on customers for money, and use said money to buy flowers that you can grow so you can reach your goals. The game uses a very low stakes time management system mixed together with certain goals you need to get in order to progress through the story and have more characters pop up in your shop. The amount of time and energy you put into Astra's Garden is exactly what you get. It's a game about vibing, reflecting on the past, empathy, and wondering what you can do about the future. Despite it being such a simple and short game, it's positively charged with emotion, and fun dialogue that makes me wish that we get a little more of it. Still we should cherish what we got, and for something that's free it certainly made me feel better.

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Game 72: Mighty Tyranitar Aug2025 Mighty Tyranitar is a decent arcade game from the Aquapolis E-reader set. Like that may seem like an underwhelming statement, but with the amount of mediocre and lost potential that the e-reader pokemon games have, it says a lot. Mighty Tyranitar just understood the assignment, and made it a very simple Alien Invader like game. Having to destroy as many volcanic rocks as possible by predicting their patterns before hand and using your hyper beam to destroy them so they don't hit the ground. Movement doesn't feel stiff, but can be slippery the faster you go. Your hyper beam may take a bit to hit a rock, but it's very responsive and can come in clutch. Like just basic controls that work well with a premise that is mildly interesting that features a Pokemon. It's basically what I was hoping for, for these games, and while my journey has been interesting in playing a lot of these E-reader Pokemon games, it's also been a bit disappointing. Like it certainly would have helped if this game wasn't so red, but really it never gets as bad as Virtual Boy blindness. And if my biggest problem with this game is just, it's hard to look at sometimes, I feel like the game did well enough.

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Game 73: Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket: Space-Time Smackdown Aug2025* Space-Time Smackdown is easily the best set out of the three that were released when it came out ; due to it still having a lot of relevance even 6 sets later. A lot of it has to due with mildly building deck archetypes or simply giving certain pokemon the edge in battle through trainer cards. Sometimes it's as wide reaching in the meta as Giant Cape or Cyrus. Other times it's a very specific tool set with the likes of Cynthia or Darkrai EX. Either way Space-Time Smackdown is where Pocket TCG starts to feel like it has a healthy meta with proper options aside from what everyone is using or the game forcing you into certain deck building types.

It's a little funny too because looking through this set it's honestly a 50/50 split on what exactly is good or not. Not that any of the EX pokemon fell off, but they certainly aren't played compared to some other ones out there. Even something as mundane as Roserade was once considered playable, not good, but it was an interesting option in your deck for experimental purposes. Now the meta is far too fast to consider even something like a 2 energy, 50 damage attack that poisons. Like it's not even I'm mad about the increased pacing or the way some cards feel like filler or way too niche either. I think a lot of the cards when it released, were interesting options, and with each new set those options just didn't fair as well as most TCG types do. The important thing is that the cards of it's time didn't feel so off balanced.

As well I got to say that Space-Time Smackdown just hit the floor harder compared to previous sets art styles. I don't know if it's a me thing or simply being nostalgic about gen 4 Pokemon, but everything from it's regular art to it's immersive cards look amazing. They just really got the gold stars and up to really pop in a way that I feel the first two sets just didn't accomplish. Like the rainbow cards for each set I feel are always stunning, but the two star EX cards just didn't look appealing till this set. Perhaps it's due to the way they outline it or something else my lacking eye can't describe, but I really feel any gold star in this set is worth looking at.

Overall, this expansion was a great set for the TCG both in terms of eye candy, and the meta then and now. Even looking over this set for review I got some interesting ideas for new decks that felt fruitful enough to test. That's simply not something I can say about Mythical Island or Genetic Apex nowadays.

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Game 53.5: Last Day of Spring Apr2024

Last Day of Spring is about a friend simply trying to enjoy her newest friends birthday, and the struggles that comes with it. What starts off as a rather wholesome plan to get together turns into a lesson of empathy and understanding the struggles of trans folk.

Not going to lie, this might be the weaker story of the bunch, but only for the fact that we aren't exactly doing much here. The majority of the time we are planning a party, and when we finally get to the party the game is almost over. It's basically a story to hand hold people into the struggles of being trans, and while I don't think that's a bad thing, I do wish we got a little more time and interaction with Erika and Haru. All the characters are absolutely charming and cute, but it doesn't exactly translate when they are texting on the phone. The story honestly just needed a little more interaction, but beyond that I do think it properly hits the beats it needs to in order to work as a connected story with the other games it's attached too. Honestly, it just needed a little more story is all.

Erika may not be the best protag of the Springs crew, but all 3 of them are absolutely friend shaped and feel like a proper friend group trying to help support each other and make life suck less. The music is cutesy, the character design is charming, and the backgrounds are simple yet sweet. If you enjoyed One Night, Hot Springs, you'll have a good time here, but aside from a positive outlook and LGBT friendly vibes, I don't see much here to make people interested. This game is enough for me though, and I really did enjoy seeing more of this friends hanging out.

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Game 53.9: Spring Leaves No Flowers Apr2024 The best of the bunch of the "A Year of Springs trilogy"! It captures the exact moment that someone realizes they are not exactly how society dictates them to be, and does it in such a natural way that it almost feels like it actually happened.

As usual, the game is absolutely a soft vibe with the returning cast of Manami, Haru, and Erika all coming together and just interacting with each other. The game follows a bit after the last game, Last Day of Spring, and sorta fills the gap through out it's own story. Eventually, Erika makes an off handed remark to Manami, and Manami starts questioning her sexuality. Through this process Manami can ask for help from her friends, and eventually is outright told to look into it through the internet. Rightly, this whole ordeal is a self discovery story, and what it can mean to their current relationship and friendships. If not for the outright positivity and bright cast of characters I can absolutely seeing this going south fast, but the way they all help support each other is delightful and tugs at your heartstrings.

Spring Leaves No Flowers just feels like a honest look into what finding out about your own sexuality is, and with the way each game has sorta of made way for each characters understanding and established relationship in this current game makes this a wonderful ending to the series that works well.

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Game 54: A Year of Springs Jan2024 A Year of Springs is bunch of visual novels in the soft story telling that I have come to know npckc for. It doesn't deal too much in drama, and lets it's cast be supportive and open with each other in a way that can sometimes feel unrealistic to my generation. That being said, I do feel these games have a place properly in the future as more people want to look into their own sexuality and find more positive works of discovering yourself.

The game also has a neat little unlock feature for leading into the next game, and a gallery mode to see all the cute pictures you acquire through out your playthroughs. As well, there is an epilogue that shows the cast of characters a little after everything is resolved, and while I hope we get more of them, it's nice to see them being sweet to each other one last time. If you're looking for a comfy game for your gays, this trilogy hits the spot.

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Game 51: Celebrities Hacked Apr2024 It's a Qix type game which means that you have to fill in spaces to control the broad, and manage your enemies in a way that benefits you. As someone that is new to these types of games I absolutely had a blast, but that's only due to how little exposure I have to the Qix type genre. On reflection, I found that I just had more fun with something like Gal Panic, and it's mainly due to how this game was made.

Celebrities Hacked feels like a rather uninspired, somewhat AI generated game that doesn't do much to impress or balance itself to be fun. Often I had to restart levels or died due to randomized enemy placement, and little equipment to actually deal with it. It wasn't so much I was doing runs to get better, but rather I was doing runs to get a good run going. Across the whole 6 levels, and 2 girls this game offers without any DLC, I mostly had fun on the first girl due to easier level design. Once you hit the 3rd level, it becomes apparent that a lot of timed star requirements are just there to extend gameplay over actually being that do able. Add that together with some jarring music choices, no story what so ever, and some rather abysmal drawings of girls and really we don't get anything enjoyable aside from the Qix gameplay.

On a pure gameplay level, Celebrities Hacked does make some interesting choices with it's Qix board design, but it's the enemy placement and randomizing that makes it rather difficult with no sense of balance. Add random power ups that, while helpful, active on the spot and can sometimes mean death for picking it up really just adds to the problems rather than helping balance the gameplay. If you are really thirsting for Qix gameplay and find this game on sale or otherwise, it might be worth it? Otherwise I just suggest looking else.

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Game 56: Syrup and the Ultimate Sweet Apr2024 Another cozy, queer friendly visual novel? It's that NomNomNami dev again isn't it!!!! Seriously, this dev always got such lovely hits and ways to express their characters that just tickles yourself in a way that makes the characters feel real in such a short amount of time. You mix that together with alternate endings, proper character interactions, and multiple games within the same universe and it really makes for some fun world building that kinda domino effects into her other games.

I don't think Syrup and the Ultimate Sweet is Nomnomnami best work, but with the larger cast of characters, multiple endings you can get; certainly gives the story enough breathing room to start making these characters endearing to you. While there isn't much path straying in this visual novel, the interactions are consistently different when you make certain choices. On top of that, the game is absolutely just filled with fluffy, gumball vibes of music and sound effects that really help yourself immerse in the soft vibes the game sets itself.

Syrup and the Ultimate Sweet is a great start for anyone touching the NomNomNami gaming universe, and for those that have already touched some of their games it makes for a familiar welcome home that sticks around a bit longer than usual. While I don't think there is much here to keep everyone entertained, Syrup and the Ultimate Sweet ironically also being short and sweet sorta of work for itself. Match that together with a built in ending finder, and it's charming characters probably means you'll be getting your full dosage of Syrup from this game. Any game that compels you to 100% in such an entrancing way is great in my book.

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Game 47: Final Fantasy IV: Interlude Mar2024 Final Fantasy IV: Interlude feels more like a bonus for buying Final Fantasy IV The Complete Edition over actually giving anything worthy of substance. It is rather neat to revisit the characters again after the events of Final Fantasy IV, but as a plot there really isn't anything hanging on here that you will miss between IV and The After Years.

On top of that, the game completely reuses assets and settings without any ambition to it. Nothing really changes between when you visited these places in IV and during interlude, and it really makes for a rather static and empty map in the long run. The game would have greatly benefited from being more on rails or at least as a small set of cutscenes, but what we get is a mild adventure of more Final Fantasy IV gameplay, and some unresolved issues. If not for the fact this was a free, and had a neat little dev. room area I would say this is final Fantasy at it's lowest, but really it just feels like some last minute extra that was given with little thought to it. If you're a fan of Final Fantasy IV, you might find some enjoy to it, but really you aren't missing much if you can't get your hands on this game.