Dear humans,

Today, Yumi’s Odd Odyssey hits the eShop. In fact, it happens like half an hour from now. This marks the first time a personal favorite series (Umihara Kawase) has made its way into English after nearly 20 years. That’s pretty rad – though admittedly the game uses so little text they probably could have just dumped the raw Japanese version onto the service without any trouble.

This game is not going to sell particularly well, and it’s pretty strange, and I don’t know exactly how well this sequel turned out as I’ve only played a small amount of it so far. But I hope you will consider picking it up. Yes, so much for journalistic impartiality, bloo bloo bloo. It’s a fascinating little series, designed around simple mechanics with complex interactions, and it requires a good deal of skill and mastery. I feel like certain people aren’t afraid to master very obscure and intricate game mechanics in the face of unrelenting difficulty these days, and while this is an abstract 2D platformer rather than a grim 3D action RPG, the spirit remains.

You will never be more afraid of tadpoles than you are in this game. But I hope you will consider downloading it. Natsume was pretty cool for taking a chance on it, and I like when cool people who take chances see their risks pay off.