Game:

Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru (1992)

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Originally recorded: January 19, 2025
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Another year, another slate of streams. Honestly, what I find so surprising about this year's main line-up is that all three of my nominations managed to make it. Couple that with the two picks I get by default and I ended up picking out five out of the eight streams in 2025's initial line-up. Something about that just feels a bit surreal. Almost like I got snared in a trap, somehow...

Oh well, I guess I'll just have to see how things play out. I also decided to shift from dice rolls this year to using a picker wheel for the main line-up. That sort of kills off the strategic element that past years had, but it's also low maintenance and it means that every game always has an equal chance of being picked, rather than sticking to a roster of six games at the most. I can't deny that I miss the playfulness of the old way, but I put it to a vote... and going with the wheel won by a landslide. Hell, I don't think anyone voted to keep the dice roll intact.

First game of the year was one of the games I mandated. Known to those few Anglophones in the know as "The Frog From Whom the Bells Tolls", Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru is an obscure Japan-exclusive Game Boy release from Nintendo that would eventually help inspire Link's Awakening -- one of my favorite games in that entire series. Since it's had a fan translation for years now, I've wanted to play it... but always felt a bit iffy on whether to do so, simply because I knew at least one of my friends wanted to play it themselves first. But since I'm approaching the end of my regular streaming schedule in the next few years, I figure that it's time to start pulling out all the stops.

And yet, despite my high hopes for this game, I think all of my expectations were exceeded in this first session. While I can't deny that I had my concerns about the game's "auto-battling" mechanic, it really didn't bother me whatsoever. If anything, it simply adds a new layer of strategy, which is honestly pretty cool. I'm not going to say that I like this game more than Link's Awakening, but unless there's some catastrophic failure before the credits roll, I doubt this game will score lower than a 9 when everything's said and done.