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November 2024
over a year ago i found masaya matsuura's pippin music toy, TUNIN' GLUE, as part of the PSY-S CITY project. the software was published by bandai for their multimedia PIPPIN console, their effort to capitalize on the mid 90s CD-ROM wars the game industry faced, which they ultimately dropped. a few years later bandai put out the WONDERSWAN, initially designed by ex-nintendo engineer gunpei yokoi before he passed away mid-development. the wonderswan is a slice of the late 90s game industry, released in the midst of japan's handheld gaming boom, with the mostly unrealised potential to change the market forever, and this video is about how it ultimately made me feel.
July 2024
with the last video being so so long, i wanted to go with an easy topic to make a short video about -- but sonic is far from an easy topic!!! in this video i discuss its weirdly complex early history, the way it rose to success with weird regional variants that majorly contrasted each other, and how that success was instantly hindered by SEGA's sudden shift in priorities during the fifth console generation. i also use this topic as an excuse to talk about yellow magic orchestra and touch on the relationship between games and music!
March 2024
after my first video about KINGDOM HEARTS, i decided to follow it up by discussing my first experience with its two sequels, CHAIN OF MEMORIES and KINGDOM HEARTS II, and everything inbetween. this one took a heck of a long time because i kinda poured a lot of research in here, like way too much, like oh my goodness it was a lot. i wanted to explore not just the games themselves but their circumstances and place in culture, emphasizing disney's involvement and the ways fans discuss the series, which is why it's like double the length of the first video. oops?!
January 2024
a lot of things happened between when i started working on this video and when i finished it, and this video is kinda about that! it's also mainly about a lot of games i love and the elements of the "slice of life" genre present in them - whether it's intended by the game or not! sometimes you just wanna look at random shop signs for empty buildings. sometimes those signs aren't random and you can go inside. that's the kinda thing i discuss in this video!!!
July 2023
in may 2023 i discovered & researched a game called "THE SEVEN COLORS: LEGEND OF PSY-S CITY". i played it, too, but i spent a lot longer researching it in preparation for this video project. i went over different games developed by nana on-sha, my experiences with japanese pop music, and the tragedy of an artist abandoning their earlier work. i wanted it to be short but because of the amount of linked subjects to the main topic it resulted in about a solid hour. oops!
April 2023
for my first scripted video ever i decided to document my experience playing KINGDOM HEARTS for the first time, going over my opinions & thoughts step-by-step in an attempt to understand the game, why people like it, and why it's... Like That. part of my understanding included researching as much as i could about the game's development, its place in the early 2000s console market and realizing that maybe games don't need to be objectively good, or even fun, to still be enjoyable.