I was just getting ready for my upcoming guest spot at Anime Expo

which basically involves doing twice as much work as I normally do

in order to fill out that week of content in advance,

when I noticed that Steam is doing that thing that they do every summer

where they steal all of the money from our wallets

under the guise of giving us awesome deals on video games.

And I noticed that in particular they have quite a lot of anime games on sale.

Maybe too many.

Between all those enticing low rent visual novels and JRPGs

how's a basement dweller supposed to know what's actually good?

By blindly following the advice of a talking head on Youtube, that's how!

Behold, my followers!

These are the Anime Pope's Ten Commandments

for... uh... really good lesser-known anime-style video games

that are currently cheap because it's summer

so I think you should buy them!

™

Or if the Steam summer sale has ended by the time you watch this:

Just ten anime games that are good anyway

and you should buy them if you can afford them, I guess.

These are roughly ordered from my least to most favourite

although, to be clear I love all of them

and I've tried to provide a wide range of genres

so that everyone can find something that entertains them.

Also, just for the record, none of these recommendations are sponsored

and all are games that I bought with my own money.

Now these deals won't be around forever, so with all of that out of the way,

let's dive into the list.

In 10th place we've got Forgotten Anne,

a recent psuedo-indie game published by the Square Enix Collective.

And I'm recommending it because, I mean, Gosh, just look at it.

The whole game is an absolute feast for the eyes

with intricately detailed backgrounds and gorgeous hand-animated sprites

that flow seamlessly into even more gorgeous cutscenes.

Accompanied by orchestral music that will make your heart soar like a goddamn Ghibli film.

And I think the Ghibli comparison is more apt here than for just about any other game on the store

including that one that Ghibli helped to make.

Its hand-animated world is full of quirky, charming characters

bursting with personality and given some very unique character designs.

Every last one is an anthropomorphised object

brought to life with clever, expressive animations.

See, Forgotten Anne is set in the Forgotten Lands,

a wonderfully realised steampunk parallel world

where lost and forgotten household items - and sometimes humans - go to slowly fade away.

The objects sent there gain minds of their own

and while some continue to fulfil the purpose they had back on Earth

hoping to return there one day,

others seek to make more of themselves with their newfound freedom.

Anne, our protagonist, is a young girl caught in the middle of this debate and left to make a choice.

Well, a lot of choices.

Because this is kind of a fusion between a puzzle-platformer and a Telltale-style choice-driven adventure game.

And while the story of Forgotten Anne doesn't branch out too much

it's so delightful to play through that I don't think you'll mind.

There's no other game out there quite like this

and it got me to smile, laugh, and even tear up a bit

which was a lot more than I expected going into it.

Next up, in 9th place, we've got Tales of Berseria

the newest entry in Namco Bandai's long-running action RPG Tales series.

(It's Bandai Namco Geoff, not Namco Bandai)

And one of the best games in the series to date.

Berseria has a pretty dark story by Tales game standards,

but also one of the best in recent memory.

I don't want to spoil it, and I don't have time to properly summarise it,

but it goes to some pretty dark places and has some of the strongest character writing in the series.

And this is one of the most engaging game worlds that the series has had to explore

since it made the jump to full 3D with Xillia, as well.

There's a lot of places that it improves on the last few games.

But the real draw of the Tales series has always been the combat system,

a frantic, action-heavy affair that blends JRPG party management with fighting game-like battle mechanics.

The system has gotten more and more refined and fun to use with each instalment

and Berseria is easily the meatiest, most nuanced incarnation to date.

If you love mashing buttons and min-maxing characters like I do, this game is a dream come true.

But really, you can consider this a stand-in for all of the Tales games on the store

because Zestiria is quite fun, even if the story and world are kinda weak,

and Tales of Symphonia has an amazing storyline even if the combat and the port are kind of clunky.

So if either of those catches your eye instead, I recommend checking them out as well.

At number 8, I'm recommending an all-time classic.

A game for the truly sophisticated weebs among you:

Huniepop.

Huniepop is a visual novel dating-sim that

well, OK, let's be real, you know exactly what kind of game it just from looking at it.

It's the kind of game that was gonna be banned from Steam until Valve recently changed their minds

and the kind of game that I can't really show much on Youtube.

In regards to Huniepop's, uh, main features

I can attest that the CGs are very high quality as are the girls.

Their personalities are a little on the abrasive side

but generally in a pretty funny, endearing way.

And Kyu is best girl.

Kyu: Seriously? You're seriously gonna ask me that? It's fuckin' pink, bitch!

If you want a good 'dating sim' (wink wink) with all that that entails then Huniepop definitely has you covered,

but it also functions as a surprisingly fun and strategic match 3 puzzle game.

See, the game's hook is that instead of just dating girls through dialogue trees,

it uses a Bejeweled puzzle mechanic as a metaphor

for the dance of flirting, giving gifts and showing girls a good time.

You can even use those mechanics to 'seal the deal', as it were (wink wink),

once you get their affection high enough and go on that last date.

This is *not* an all-ages recommendation, though,

so if you have to ask your parents what anything I just said means,

then you should just move onto our 7th place suggestion...

JET SET RADIO!!!

Man, I- I can't do that justice

But this game is a strange one - a cel-shaded roller skating game from the Dreamcast era

that sits somewhere between Tony Hawk and a collect-a-thon platformer in terms of its design.

Though the Xbox exclusive sequel, Jet Set Radio Future, is a lot prettier and tighter overall,

this is still an incredible game that I think everyone should play at least once.

And at just over a buck on sale, you're probably never gonna find it cheaper.

Jet Set Radio is a game all about leaving your mark -

literally, as it has you skating through the streets of Tokyo,

tagging as many buildings as you can with a huge assortment of pre-made graffiti

or with your own custom imported tags.

And you have to do it while doing crazy tricks and fending off rival street gangs

as well as the cops, who take stopping hoodlums like you from marking up the city VERY seriously.

Hilariously so.

The game doesn't really have much in the way of a serious storyline,

but it makes up for it with style and personality,

rewarding gameplay and quite possibly the best soundtrack ever put in a video game.

At least up until the release of that Xbox sequel that I mentioned.

If you've ever wished that Tony Hawk felt a bit more like The World Ends With You,

PLAY THIS GAME, IT IS LITERALLY MADE FOR YOU.

At number 6, I'm recommending Higurashi When They Cry Hou,

the excellent visual novel that inspired the equally excellent anime of the same name.

Higurashi, if you're not familiar, is basically a cute slice of life moe story set in a quiet mountain town

that goes very wrong, very quickly.

And then, well I, I won't spoil what happens

but this is one of the best horror anime - and horror games - ever made,

and I recommend going in fresh if you can.

If you're unconvinced and you wanna try it out, you can buy the game's first chapter as a stand-alone title for just a buck-fifty.

Trust me, it is more than worth it.

And since I've got a bit of time to spare, I'll let you know that the video game versions

of Steins;Gate, Clannad and Fruit of Grisaia are all also on sale right now.

If the horror-mystery stylings of Higurashi aren't to your taste, those are all fantastic games as well.

Also, there's no anime based on Cho Dengeki Stryker yet,

but there definitely should be, and...

OK, if I keep sneaking in visual novel suggestions we'll be here all day,

so let's move onto number 5:

Skullgirls, with the 2nd Encore Upgrade DLC being a must-have purchase on top of it.

Skullgirls is a 2D tag-team fighting game with a pretty nifty matchup mechanic.

You can fight with a team of between 1 and 3 characters,

but the more characters you bring in, the weaker all of them are.

That means that if you're not into the whole tag fighting gameplay dynamic,

you can use a single character to play a decently balanced match against a friend using a team.

And it adds a lot of variety to the potential matchups available without the need to create a huge roster of characters.

Although with 13 characters, including that DLC, it's no slouch in that regard.

At least, not anymore.

And it's easy to forgive the small-ish roster when you consider that this is an indie release,

and yet it looks, well, like this.

These high-res hand-drawn sprites are gorgeously animated

and can give even the best-looking 2D Japanese fighters a run for their money.

The cast is full of clever, memorable character desgins

that draw from both anime and classic Western animation.

Think Cuphead meets Blazblue.

There is a ton of variety in play styles, the OST is jazz heaven and it just feels great to play.

Taste in fighting games is obviously kinda subjective, but I personally think that Skullgirls

is the best American-developed fighting game ever.

ALSO, Valentine is best girl, and I will fight all of you on both of those points.

Next up, in 4th place, we've got two Steam clichés rolled into one:

an RPG-maker game that's also an indie horror game.

But don't let the cute chibi sprites and character portraits fool you - this game WILL fuck you up.

It's honestly scarier than most 3D horror games that I've played in my lifetime,

and that mostly comes down to the creepy ass writing,

which takes heavy inspiration from J-horror classics like The Ring,

which know that the scariest thing in the world is a little Japanese schoolgirl.

Originally created way back in 1996 with the OG RPG-maker software,

Corpse Party has stood the test of time through several remakes and a few kinda disappointing sequels

and still holds up for its mix of eerie psychological horror and terrifying gore.

The game follows a group of plucky teenagers on the world's worst field trip,

as they find themselves trapped in a dilapidated extradimensional elementary school

haunted by the hateful ghosts of dead children!

The game masterfully builds a creeping sense of existential dread

as you explore the decaying hallways of the school, and when the scares come,

holy shit you will not be ready.

The characters are very likable and well-developed, and with 20 possible endings, almost all of them bad,

you'll have a chance to see your attachment to every single one of them punished in the worst possible ways.

Do not play this game with the lights out or before you go to bed.

Now, if you're more into sad stuff than spooky stuff, you can substitute that recommendation

for the hauntingly beautiful To The Moon,

which is getting an anime adaptation, and gosh dang, am I ever excited about that.

Our 3rd place entry, Valkyria Chronicles, had a much, uh, less exciting anime adaptation

but that does nothing to taint how amazing the actual game is.

*cue epic music*

Valkyria Chronicles is a tactical RPG with third-person shooting elements

that falls somewhere between Fire Emblem and Worms in terms of how it handles.

On your turn you're given essentially free reign to run around the gorgeous watercolour-painted battlefields

within a limited range of motion

and you attack enemies by lining them up in an aiming reticle that gets smaller the higher your accuracy is.

But you can't just take your time moving into position and lining up shots

because enemies will fire at you from cover on your turn

so you need to move carefully and set up defensive perimeters of your own along the way.

Add tanks, sniper rifles and rocket launchers to the mix

as well as a huge roster of unique characters with perks and flaws based on their colourful personalities

including a few guest appearances from the all-time classic Skies of Arcadia

all of whom can permanently die

and you've got yourself a game brimming with strategic possibilities.

...And a little bit of bullshit game balance

that is totally forgivable in light of its brilliant story.

Set in a fictionalised steampunky version of Europe during World War II,