Kupo Cafe Game Awards 2024 Day 1!!
Welcome in, kupo~!! Here are the awards for Day 1 of the Kupo Cafe! Game awards. Find out the moments that touched us throughout 2024!!
Jolly Cooperation Award - HELLDIVERS II by Arrowhead Game Studios
Presented by Moguri
Every since the heyday of Left 4 Dead, I've always been on the search of the next big one of these multiplayer team-based PVE shooter experiences that would really hook me and my friends in that same magical way. Out of all the games my friends and I tried (Back 4 Blood, Warhammer Vermintide, hell even Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Extraction), none had that staying power that Helldivers II had.
For the month and a half I spent with this game that seemingly came out of nowhere, it took me back to simpler times of the PS2 era. Campy writing, chaotic destruction, and you versus the world. Games I spent a lot of time on like Mercenaries, Saints Row/GTA, Destroy All Aliens, and Star Wars Battlefront, all came rushing back. All in a modern package that just lent itself to creating great moments and funny happenings especially with friends. The times where a bomb strike happened a little too close. The times where good plans go horribly wrong as giant armored ant creatures pop from the ground. The times where "yo guys check this out" often marks the moment before someone gets themselves killed.
just helldiving moments#mogclips pic.twitter.com/tJc3A7tycj
— Moguri @ Make Good Choices (@MogKnight) March 31, 2024
Alas, things must come to an end as did our time with Helldivers II. For some, the drama of connecting a PSN account soured the mood. For others, balance patches and design made them look elsewhere for the shoot-shoot games. For me, it was ultimately the grind for the biggest prize at the moment - the giant mech. The mech itself was ok, but matching with randos and especially the real try-hards really took it out of me.
Even now though, I would still love to go back with some pals to promote and defend democracy to the entire galaxy. Even with all the changes and all the new added stuff like another enemy faction, the world they built will be long-lasting in my brain.
The Strongest Start Award - Paranormasight: The 7 Mysteries of Honjo by Square Enix
Presented by Andrew
Welcome to the first of many essays on games that I enjoyed in 2024! We are going to start off with a game I feel conflicted over, but decided to write about regardless because I want to be able to promote and discuss things that have left some impact on me since I was able to experience them.
Paranormasight is a visual novel whose narrative revolves around urban legends, or as the game describes, “mysteries” of Honjo, a specific historical neighborhood of Tokyo. The plot begins by focusing on one of the game’s protagonist’s, Shogo Okiie, discovering a mysterious object in a seemingly-normal neighborhood park, and meeting up with a mysterious young woman. Things quickly escalate when it’s explained that the object that he’s found is a curse; a curse capable, under specific circumstances, of killing a person at the wielder’s whim. After escaping from a few more deadly encounters, Shogo is able to grasp the gravity of the situation he is in, and the story of Paranormasight unfolds from there…
When I first heard of Paranormasight, I think I was rather surprised to hear that Capcom had just funded, developed, and released a nice looking VN with very little fanfare, but upon hearing what the story was focusing on, rumors and the occult, I was intrigued, a healthy interest in the occult and especially local history really reverberated with me. What’s better, is that the first two hours of Act 1 are probably the best two hours of VN I have played in a very, very long time. I was hooting, hollering, gasping, and was otherwise stupefied on how many bells and whistles, clever gameplay mechanics, and witty writing those two hours were.
Without going into specifics about its bag of tricks, it reminded me a lot of other games I enjoyed, in which that the game isn’t asking you as the protagonist to play with its ruleset, but asking how you, the player, to be imaginative with the options available to you to manipulate the ruleset and discover the solution to the situation that the game is presenting you. Real good stuff, real video games.
And then, just like that, the Paranormasight never does anything that cool ever again. The witty writing, and the intriguing mystery kept me going yes, because I was invested to see where these rumors would lead me, but gameplay-wise I don’t think I was ever as enthralled than those first few hours. I was disappointed because I knew the game could do it! I felt how clever the game designers were, and they really frontloaded it. It leaves me with a burning question, of “why?” I could see points further in the story where more of those mechanics could have been welcomed, the many encounters with other curse wielders, when the narrative shifts perspectives to flesh out its story, amongst over scenarios. The rest of the story plays out well, with some highlights here and there. I am especially a fan of a certain mystic duo, and one specific character motivation is so bafflingly short-sighted that I can’t help but respect it.
At its core, 7 Mysteries touches on tropes that I enjoy deeply, like the Twilight Town investigations from Kingdom Hearts II, the Kids on Bikes genre of stories, it reminds me of summers of my youth learning about all the creepy, and sometimes dark histories of the places I visited in my hometown. Just like Honjo, any place with a history long enough has some secret to uncover. Did the local university used to be an insane asylum known for its lobotomy clinic? Are the statues bordering a neighborhood there as decoration? What of the abandoned factory at the edge of town? Perhaps nothing, or perhaps something more sinister for the individuals willing to dig a little deeper. Except the abandoned factory, that’s just heavy metal poisoning in the groundwater from improperly dumped industrial waste, that’s not occult evil, just normal evil.
I hope the team behind Paranormasight is not disbanded and able to make something further. The game has style and has an incredibly capable writing team at their disposal that if I heard they made something, not necessarily a sequel, I would be on board immediately. But as it stands Paranormasight is not a game I could recommend to anybody, if you’re already reasonably familiar with VNs, I would recommend it for the opening act alone, but as it's too frontloaded, I can only have measured praise.
Hey, by the way, y’all fans of Master Hokusai?
Anime-ass Anime Game Award - Granblue Fantasy Relink by Cygames, Inc.
Presented by Moguri
f you ever read my previous works or just even look at the games I play, you'll know that, one, I do not know a lick about Granblue other than the fighting game and through internet cultural osmosis, and two, I do not play modern full-priced AAA games.
So, why Relink?
I have to admit, the constant cultural osmosis of Granblue has piqued my interest in it, plus when the fighting game got released it was a way for me to get my foot into the door while having a disdain of playing the actual gacha. Though I do respect all the other things about the gacha other than the game itself.
Plus it being a lower-stakes monhun-style game to where my other friend is also willing to play with me?? Count me in~. Oh, and I can also play my previous main Ferry?? Say less.
I will also say that before Relink, I never really played through an anime game all the way through in a long time. Of course, I played a few when I was younger. But now I hardly have the time to really sit through and experience a long story mode. After the first few chapters though, I knew I was in for a ride.
The most predictable yet still full of well-executed spectacle anime ride of my life.
It's got everything you want in an anime story: heroes being heroic, villains being villainous, quips of camaraderie and jokes between your crew, 3rd party NPCs who want nothing to do with you but end up getting wrapped in your business, change-of-heart plot twists, and, most important of them all, giant-ass monsters where each one of their form changes has to be interrupted by a non-interactable cutscene as a transition.
Needless to say, it was a fun time and a bit refreshing for me personally. The multiplayer is fun too, but for me it is the story that really made it all worth it to experience.
Can I tell you the big story beats on the top of my head? Hell no, it was so generic. But I can tell you that it was a fun ride. Sometimes it's about the journey and not the destination. But if the destination is ultimately getting me to try the mobile game, you bet I'm jumping out of this Granblue car.
The 2024 David Fincher Fan Award - A Hand With Many Fingers by Colestia
Presented by Andrew
I love me an investigation, in my day job as a spreadsheet nerd, I love when I get to look into anomalies or try to find a throughline for a theory, or connect seemingly-unrelated pieces of information together. A Hand With Many Fingers (AHWMF for short), gives very little introduction but gives a very basic premise. You are a researcher at a local library and have a very vague newspaper obituary on the death of some businessman. Your task is to research any ancillary information on the circumstances of this man’s death, and your tools are the reference materials in this building, organized into books and filing cabinets.
The game has a real knack of emulating the systematic approach of researching topics. Generally speaking, areas of the library are organized by geographical location, then by year, then by specific topic or person of note. So as you read the initial obituary/newspaper clippings, you’ll want to note relevant countries, any significant dates and specific persons/entities mentioned. With some basic leads, you’re off to the races to see what you can dig up, hoping for either some answers or at least another lead. Once you’ve read through enough material you can start piecing together that there is more than meets the eye about the circumstances surrounding this seemingly upstanding citizens death, a history of shady business deals, bizarre trips to South America, and a inner ring of associates that may have already met similar fates in the past.
While AHWMF takes place on a sunny day in what seems to be a university library (not confirmed), the atmosphere is expectedly quiet, and calm. There is no one here to bother you on your tasks, you float about the library like a buzzy bee collecting only nectar from flowers, except your flowers are the muted grey filing cabinets filled with index cards. For the initial stages of your research project, it's just another afternoon, but as you continue, the world outside gets darker as day turns to night and you start to notice just how alone you are in this library. And certain peculiarities start to occur as your research starts to transform from an unfortunate fate to an international conspiracy.
After a certain point in your investigation you begin to travel into the basement of the library, while innocuous at first, this separate section creates a dilemma; up until this point the main floor and your research room are pretty open spaces where it has been pretty easy to monitor if anything or anyone has been around. But the basement, with its rows and rows of bookcases, limits your vision to anything hiding around a blind corner and cuts you off from your ability to keep an eye on whatever is going on on the main floor. You may have been alone now, but what’s stopping someone from coming in while you were away?
Its little things like this, sound, and the crafted environment that creates a fantastic atmosphere that matches the agency you begin to feel as the conspiracy is being unearthed by you, driving you further into the archives, or least for me, if someone is gonna get me for knowing too much, I might as well know the full story. Without going extensively into the specifics of what you uncovering, your suspicions might have been correct, there is someone out there that doesn’t want you to know what you’ve uncovered, and chances are this project isn't going to end with you walking out those library doors.
In fact, the game just kinda ends, and I don’t really know how I feel about it, granted with the direction the team has gone with this, I also don’t think that any other ending would have been any better. This is a game about getting really particular about the annotations at the bottom of a college paper (shoutout to my MLA/Chicago freaks out there). So a run and gun shootout wouldn’t have felt right either. Regardless, I enjoyed this game for what it set out to do. It’s a short, tight few hours that can be wrapped up in an evening, something like a David Fincher work, with some real satisfying reveals. Akin to a David Fincher work, this is a slow burn, that has some real subtle twists for those that like to read dry trade magazine copy and love a solid interactable corkboard.
Too Many Rivals, Not Enough Fists Award - Rivals of Aether II by Aether Studios and Marvel Rivals by NetEase Games
Presented by Moguri
Imagine working years on the next sequel of your successful game only to find it being shadowed over an objectively greater media franchise that has taken part of your game's name.
Luckily, they both play great and have a future ahead of themselves.
If you don't know, amid me playing through lots of narrative games and chore/relaxing games, I do enjoy the occasional shooter and fighting game. This year I tried getting back into traditional fighting games, influenced by a certain fighting game influencer who hosted jams that included people I watch, but they never really stuck or had a lasting power on me. I would play for like a week and I didn't really feel it. Same thing with going back into Overwatch 2. It didn't have the same juice as it did before.
Then came the release of Rivals 2. It felt fresh and refreshing, coming back to the platform fighter genre after all these years and falling out of Super Smash Brothers Melee recently. As others stated before, it is the perfect blend of how a certain mod of the popular Wii platform title and the mechanics plus character design elements of the original Rivals of Aether. It's not exactly perfect right now, but it's enough to where I feel in control when I play. And when I lose or win, I know it's on me. That right there is the beauty of playing fighting games for me, and why I think it's a think of beauty. Fighting games are an extension of your soul - a feeling you can't get with any other genre of game.
In contrast to that, it is hard to get five other people to really cooperate and play their character with their whole heart. Especially when the tanks are not tanking, the DPS are not damaging, and the healers then keep dying. But that's the essence of team shooters, baybee~. I will say though, when the team gets together and does something right, it does feel hella good.
That's the beauty of Marvel Rivals so far for me. I am not a big Marvel fan itself, but I do love the idea of certain characters like Spiderman (my Marvel oshi, I guess). This game is fresh, refreshing, and just feels good. A blend of simple and familiar mechanics, new unique mechanics, and mechanics that require skill and precision to be effective. Pair that with an existing franchise that people know, then it's bound to be a hit. Not to speak ill of the fallen, but Concord could never.
Anyways, I think this year I fell off of competitive gaming until this part of the year where not one, but two games released where I can feel that drive again. Where I can actually feel again. Just kidding. But I did miss having this drive. The drive of escaping Bronze III, to say on the internet that I am a gamer who games.
I have to admit though, I am currently not having a good time with that. But, I know. My day is coming.
5th Annual Genshin Impact Award - Genshin Impact by Hoyoverse and Zenless Zone Zero by Hoyoverse
Presented by Moguri
This award honors the excellence put forward by all those gacha mobile developers with high standards that really serves to line the pockets of investors through live-service updates and FOMO-exploitation. To this, I give this award to the only game I have been playing for 4 years plus and...
wait a minute...
a new challenger approaches??
FROM THE TOP ROPE
MIYOHO STRIKING AGAIN
IT'S...
Zenloss?! No, Zoneless?? No, that's not right either...
ZENLESS ZONE ZERO~!!!!
Jokes aside, I have been playing Genshin Impact ever since it came out in 2020. And I will be honest, I reached a point of fatigue. The year for Genshin started off strong - multi-nation character interactions and mini-game story quests that I actually like (crafting potions and running a store, helping run an attempt of starting a new cultural festival, and the big summer event of exploring a magical fantasy toyland). I also appreciate that there are things that I don't even bother with and can just ignore, like the card game and the new dungeon fighting thing (I had to look it up since I forgot the name - the Imaginarium Theater).
In terms of the main story, as Fontaine wrapped up and going into Natlan, there was a bit of unease going into it. Fontaine, I think, wrapped up fantastically. Probably the peak so far in terms of archon quests (which are the main story beats for all you non-players). Natlan, the new region, looked great in all the teasers and landscape shots. But here comes the problem that was predicted at the very beginning, and one that did also come up when Sumeru dropped - representation of culture.
Without getting too much into it, I think Natlan combines so many different ideas and takes a lot of surface-cultural ideas in a way where it does set itself apart and it is fun to look at and experience, but with so many internal sub-cultures (6 different tribes) and the fact that it plays into a tribe structure of leadership within the fantasy nation, it does not gel together in an easy way. Combine that with me already tired with the game in different ways (all the combat-focused events, the character design drama, big world questions that don't interest me in the slightest, voice actor striking problems which is not the VA's fault as they should get protections against AI usage of their voice, and just being in the grind for 4 years), it's all so much. I have invested too much time though so I definitely want to see where it ends.
THAT BEING WRITTEN AND SAID
Zenless Zone Zero came out at a time where I went to the yearly pilgrimage to sunny Los Angeles's Anime Expo. I was instantly hyped for the game because of the urban yet retro and analogue aesthetics and design. Normally I do not care for new gachas, but when you slap that MiYoHo sticker on it boy my eyes light up.
So, I carried along in my luggage my 8 pound (or 3.6 kg) laptop with mouse, gaming keyboard, and a big power brick.
Was it worth it?
Hell yeah.
ZZZ really hooked me on its style, and the gameplay is simple enough get does require a certain amount of skill and timing to where it just feels good to play. Where it really shines for me is the story and how the characters, even though they're written a bit trope-y, do really feel unique and meant for this world of New Eridu. The team they have for this game really went all out in a way where it's hard to believe this is a free-to-play game one can play on their phone.
I'm really excited to see where they take this game from here, especially story-wise. I love how the MCs of this game really feel like separate characters rather than a self-insert. And with the way 1.4 ended recently (no spoilers but I do love me a "the gang's all here" trope done right), ZZZ will continue to be on my radar.
That also means not just one photo gallery, but two!!
Just kidding!! I put them together.