I wasn't at first! When I played ZeroRanger for the very first time, years ago now, I didn't really get it. I'm not really hugely into mecha, I just picked it up because it seemed like a nice shmup. I got through two stages, died, closed it, forgot about it.

Then I played it again. This time, casually streaming parts of it to some friends, because we were hanging out in voice chat. A friend of mine saw it, and even though he's not a shmup player at all, knew he had to play it himself.

And that was also the time that I finally got it.

Out of nowhere

It is frankly almost criminal how much emotional impact System Erasure can squeeze out of the smallest of things. Their games don't look like much—green, orange. Shmup.

But it's... simply so much more, if you let it. But it's really hard to talk about their games! You don't want to say too much, but the people these games are for, will really resonate with them. But it's impossible to know it's for you without giving them more benefit of the doubt than a $10 game you found scrolling on Steam at 2am probably deserves.

Second impact

Thankfully, with Void Stranger, I already know they deserve it. I could have deprived myself of the experience again by simply not sticking with it long enough. But now I'm two solid sessions into it, and I'm already glad I have, and I would be playing more right now if it wasn't approaching midnight for me as I write this.

And that's even though Void Stranger is nothing like ZeroRanger. There's a definite vision that can be felt in both games (so far—I haven't finished Void Stranger), but they're not just riding out one gimmick (Yoko "I'm gonna delete your save file again" Taro comes to mind).

This is why I don't simply enjoy their stuff, but why I'm in awe: Two diametrically different games, in different genres, lovingly crafted, impactful, and both for me. I'm so happy that I'm allowed to be their target audience twice now. And even if they bring out titles that aren't for me from now on, I think I may be a fan for life.