Ogre Run
banner
ogre-run.bsky.social
Ogre Run
@ogre-run.bsky.social
Research: Japanese Role-Playing Games and Media
Blog: https://ogrerun.com/
Contact: [email protected]
Support: https://www.patreon.com/OgreRun
Pinned
Next month: Finally moving away from Alfa System, I'll be writing about Namco's 2D fairy-tale RPG, 7: Molmorth no Kiheitai (2000), a beautiful game about children, heroism, and mythology, narrated by none other than Maki Nomiya of Pizzicato Five.
Through his criticism, fiction, and translation, Baxter has been doing extraordinary work for a few years now. Here are some of my favorites.
as I move increasingly quickly towards open heart surgery this year, consider....

if you like the stuff I'm doing on Tsundoku Diving and elsewhere (and you have some spare change) consider throwing a dollar or two my way! normally it'd go towards site maintenance, but you know, circumstances
Support Baxter
Support Baxter
ko-fi.com
January 6, 2026 at 2:18 AM
Reposted by Ogre Run
Hello! I'm the person who uploaded this. If you own the 2.0 or Legacy DVD sets for 8th Man made by 8thman.com, I would like to get in contact. They're incredibly rare, and contain much higher quality footage/audio than what's featured here!
January 4, 2026 at 2:33 PM
Reposted by Ogre Run
just a good Shinji Nagashima strip from an issue of Garo
January 1, 2026 at 11:34 PM
Reposted by Ogre Run
If you haven't played my fan translation of Puppy Love Story on the Loopy, it's only 2-3 hrs and the Professor says it's A-tier!! ❤️🙏

romhack.ing/database/con...
January 3, 2026 at 3:28 AM
Reposted by Ogre Run
映画「ファイナルファンタジー」は何が『FF』だったのか?制作史を紐解き内容を分析してわかった「抗う」という要素【年末年始特集】
映画「ファイナルファンタジー」は何が『FF』だったのか?制作史を紐解き内容を分析してわかった「抗う」という要素【年末年始特集】 | Game*Spark - 国内・海外ゲーム情報サイト
映画「ファイナルファンタジー」は何故制作されたのか?現存の資料を元にその歴史を辿った。
www.gamespark.jp
January 3, 2026 at 12:05 AM
Reposted by Ogre Run
Between 1985 and 1987, hundreds of domestically authored gamebooks flooded the Japanese market as dozens of publishers tried to jump on the Fighting Fantasy bandwagon at once. There's a fairly comprehensive statistical analysis of the genre's boom and bust if you're interested in a deeper dive:
ゲームブックのブームって、いつまでだったの?(データから見る) | なんだかこのごろ、毎日のように生き延びているな…
「ゲームブックはなぜ廃れたのか?」というテーマは、ゲームブックブロガーであれば誰しもが一家言をお持ちであろう、
kyunkyunpeachdisco.blog
January 2, 2026 at 10:00 PM
Reposted by Ogre Run
Nice read going over Sega's experimentation with online. Before PSO, Sega actually already had two online RPGs: Dragon's Dream (1997) and Dark Eyes (1999).
January 1, 2026 at 10:54 PM
Nice read going over Sega's experimentation with online. Before PSO, Sega actually already had two online RPGs: Dragon's Dream (1997) and Dark Eyes (1999).
January 1, 2026 at 10:54 PM
Woah, Nitroplus announces they'll be porting Gen Urobuchi's Phantom of Inferno to Steam. No release date yet but more early Nitroplus titles to come.
January 1, 2026 at 11:43 AM
Shy's buddy lists are always a pleasure to read and this year is no different, featuring writers discussing everything from Unlimited Saga to the planet Jupiter to Still House Plants and much more. While there's plenty to discover, the reflections here are equally as moving as they are enlightening
Hey girls. It's my birthday, it's new year's eve, but most importantly: it's buddy list day. For the fourth time, here's my annual tradition where I invite my friends to take up some space on my newsletter and talk about how they spent their year. Thanks for reading. 💜
www.shy.center/p/buddy-list...
once bitten, twice shy: the buddy list (2025)
Ten of my friends (plus me) take stock of 2025 and put the year to rest.
www.shy.center
December 31, 2025 at 11:45 PM
Reposted by Ogre Run
Next month: Finally moving away from Alfa System, I'll be writing about Namco's 2D fairy-tale RPG, 7: Molmorth no Kiheitai (2000), a beautiful game about children, heroism, and mythology, narrated by none other than Maki Nomiya of Pizzicato Five.
December 29, 2025 at 3:11 PM
Reposted by Ogre Run
another year, another 20+ translated Japanese game developer interviews published by @shmuplations.bsky.social at shmuplations.com —the final updates for the year just went up, so allow me to run down what's been translated over the course of 2025, from most to least recent: (thread)
shmuplations.com
shmuplations.com is a repository of Japanese game developer translations, covering primarily older arcade and console games from the 80s, 90s, and beyond.
shmuplations.com
December 30, 2025 at 5:04 AM
Raito's soundtrack is so good. I especially love how ethereal this song is: www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKjf...
December 29, 2025 at 4:30 PM
Next month: Finally moving away from Alfa System, I'll be writing about Namco's 2D fairy-tale RPG, 7: Molmorth no Kiheitai (2000), a beautiful game about children, heroism, and mythology, narrated by none other than Maki Nomiya of Pizzicato Five.
December 29, 2025 at 3:11 PM
Reposted by Ogre Run
December 29, 2025 at 12:30 PM
Reposted by Ogre Run
the High Impact Awards 2025, the most important awards ceremony that i just came up a few hours ago, is here.

it's a list of media i like a lot but haven't had the time to write about them as full posts. i hope people discover new things out of it: mimidoshima.neocities.org/main/posts/2...
Mimidoshima
The High Impact Awards 2025
mimidoshima.neocities.org
December 27, 2025 at 7:58 AM
Great thread and timely as well considering that Soraya Saga just announced her retirement. I’ve always preferred the density and strangeness of Saga’s writing in the earlier Xeno games, but the XBC series is not without its own charms.
December 27, 2025 at 6:36 PM
Reposted by Ogre Run
4gamer's end-of-year roundup's up: 194 devs sharing their games, media & persons of interest for 2025 & their plans for 2026 https://www.4gamer.net/games/999/G999905/20251219044/ 🇯🇵 just gonna go through and pick out whatever catches my eye (thread)
4Gamer年末恒例の「ゲーム業界著名人コメント集」企画。194名が2025年を振り返り,新年への決意を語る
毎年恒例の4Gamer年末企画,「ゲーム業界著名人の年末コメント集企画」を今年もお届けします。本企画は,国内外の著名なクリエイターや経営者を幅広く取り上げて,その年に感心させられたタイトルや注目した…
www.4gamer.net
December 27, 2025 at 12:31 AM
Recently, a fellow writer accused my own writing of being poor and claimed that I was also relying on A.I. I do not expect this to be the first or last time such accusation is levied against me. So I have published our exchange, taking care to anonymize said person: ogrerun.com/2025/12/26/a...
Am I Using A.I. to Write? A Response Towards a Concerned Reader
On being a human writer in the age of A.I.
ogrerun.com
December 26, 2025 at 5:54 PM
Reposted by Ogre Run
Witch on the Holy Night (Type-Moon, 2012).
December 22, 2025 at 12:54 AM
Reposted by Ogre Run
We also get coverage of Angelique 2 whose limited edition came with a travel set including a toothbrush. However, I want to highlight the now obscure and extremely ambitious RTS Quo Vadis 2 which really pushed the limit and style of the Saturn. Voice acting + loads of animated cutscenes.
December 25, 2025 at 3:19 AM
A cool issue and an ode to the diversity of games on the Saturn. Here’s Koei’s Dark Hunter, a supernatural thriller that was part of a larger franchise aimed towards teaching players English. The scenario was written by none other than Kaoru Kurimoto of Guin Saga fame!
December 25, 2025 at 2:01 AM
Reposted by Ogre Run
Happy holidays! In December's post, I was inspired to debunk some supposed mistranslations from Final Fantasy XIII.

I've only ever played in English, so this was an amazing opportunity to see the wonderful translation work behind this beautiful game.

annacairistiona.wordpress.com/2025/12/22/d...
Debunking Mistranslations in Final Fantasy XIII
Many years ago, I stumbled upon a forum post listing some of the differences the OP (original poster) had found between the Japanese and English versions of Final Fantasy XIII. They had come across…
annacairistiona.wordpress.com
December 22, 2025 at 9:24 PM