Finished* Odin Sphere, and I’m a full fledged fan of Vanillaware now. Muramasa: The Demon Blade was a game I enjoyed thoroughly, though I rather wish it had a more involving story. OS is kind of the opposite – the gameplay isn’t as tight, fast, and just plain fun as Muramasa‘s, but the story set in the (lightly) Norse-inspired fantasy universe with 5 characters whose paths all intertwine is absolutely fantastic. And, of course, there’s the visuals. At this point I can safely say that, to me, nobody in the gaming industry makes 2D games that look better than Vanillaware’s. What I wouldn’t give for an HD versions of these games…

Going to have to get GrimGrimoire too, and really interested in whatever they’re working on next.

If it wasn’t for how much other stuff I’m already planning on buying (including the Momohime figure that is supposed to be released this month), I’d probably very seriously think about getting this Gwendolyn figure:

*: By which I mean I played through about 2 hours on PCSX2, then downloaded a PS3 virtual memory card save and watched 6+ hours of cutscenes for the story. Protip: game plays better on a PS3 (and, I assume, real PS2) than emulator… the character response to inputs is already less-than-immediate, and adding slightly more input lag when playing on emulator makes it even worse to the point of being extremely annoying.