Tsukihime A piece Of Blue Glass Moon - Review

More like Lunar Legend infodumpTM.

Genre: VN.

Developer/publisher: Typemoon.

Platform: PS4,switch.
VNDB: https://vndb.org/v17909

Release date: 27-6-2024

 

I decided Tsukihime remake would be my next game as I wanted to try it... since I liked MahoYo.

This version of tsukihime is a remake of the original, I am well aware that it is

a partial remake but nevertheless I decided to buy and play it now.

Sadly I didn't really like this game as much as I would have liked

but it is definitely not the worst urban fantasy VN i've laid my eyes upon.

Rather it feels like this game just wants you to be upset or get angry with its MC.

 

Pro's

- Interesting setting and complex characters.

- For a story that includes the supernatural, its solid.

- High production values but the quality of CG's varied.

 

Grey area

- MC is difficult to like yet by the end of the 2nd route he had a full stamp card of pity points.

 

Con's

- Strong violence and horror. Did I mention gore? (Could be a grey area but yea...)

- Comparing the scene presentation to MahoYo, same style yet Tsukihime at times felt basic.

- Some CG's never get added to the gallery, I couldn't find Ciel's umbrella CG.

 

The opening doesn't play till you land on a character route

which isn't till 5 hours depending on your reading speed.

 Both routes have their own opening but I will only link Arc's.

 

 

I wasn't as hooked to this unlike MahoYo and thus didn't enjoy it as much

but what I won't deny is that it was for the most part pretty well written

its just overstayed its welcome for me, I am really sorry! it ain't for me.

Not much of note happened till  Arqueid shows up something

happened that made me do a record scratch *freeze* frame moment.

At that point the game utterly disgusted me because of what happened.

That aside everything else was interesting enough I pressed on, I have to say

from then on I started to feel constantly on edge and didn't like Shiki as much as before.

The MC Shiki is a broken guy who just tries to live but despite the advice he got from

his master, he just barely seem to hold himself to it almost as if its a silver lining.

Sure he has regrets of something really bad he did, you're given that choice

but the rest of the game just made me nervous because he's quite unstable mentally.

Shiki gets what he deserves when he gets roped into the stuff surrounding Arqueid

and there were some bad ends where I was like yea he had it coming.

It isn't like till later on in Ciel's route that I understood why the heck Shiki did what he did

and I just started to really get as to what was going on. Honestly I didn't think the plot

was badly written and for a story about vampires its not bad just... once again not my thing.

 

Had this been any other VN it would probably be romantic but this is Tsukihime...

In terms of other characters; I didn't care much for his sister Akiha, she looked too much

like an Aoko clone but not as snarky. It wasn't untill later I saw her as her own character.

 I found Akiha to be too much like a girlboss which would make Arcueid the gatekeeper.

Arihiko was funny at times but he looked too much

like Shirou from Fate except he's like a delinquent version...

I liked Kohaku but Hisui was a bit too stoic and/or deadpan to me but she gets better

its just I could never get too invested in them in this game which like Akiha is probably intended.

Arcueid would be fine she's fun, For Ciel it felt like there was more to her than meets the eye but

she is definitely best girl. I disliked Noel though as much as most of the girls at Shiki's school.😅 

Noel also got worse as Ciel's route progressed which did not help... at all.

I loved Mario and his potty mouth though, easily the best side character. 

The rest? too much of makes an appearance thus I forgot them because of infodumps.

Honestly I kept playing mostly for Arcueid and I didn't really care for Shiki as much.

Because I didn't do any of Ciel's events in the common route on my first play

she was also sort of just there, later on she becomes a bit more interesting

but when I started her route, I couldn't help but think she's a bit too perfect...

 

Me when I think about the story in this game.

I did start to wonder why was this game even popular? because its violence? unhinged mc?

shock value? or because it was typemoon's first ever work before they got big from fate.

I mean Tsukihime started out as an unprofessional doujin, not many would probably try nowadays

unless you're super invested in nasu's works. Now what would happen if you turn that doujin

into a professional work? while fleshing out all the added lore it got via a fighting game no less. 

I think the latter is why Tsukihime got popular, its Arcueid that carries it hard. Tsukihime is

likely aimed at people who tolerate these themes, I find it hard to get into it because sure

there's a good plot here but its buried beneath layers of lore which gets dumped on you in parts.

Anyways what I really liked about Tsukihime was Arcueid as a character and Ciel.

I didn't really care as much with the protagonist but I could sympathize with him a little.

Tsukihime looked like a normal visual novel and for the most part it just loves gore&blood

about as much as Virche evermore. Maybe I should have done more

research before I started this but that wasn't the worst of it.

 

While the beginning hours gave time for the reader to settle in and get familiar

with most characters while exploring the setting in great detail. If not for that i'd

probably have dropped it. In chapter 3 it took its first nose dive. It reminded me of when

I tried to watch Elfen Lied and then suddenly things get super gory like with cut-off body parts.

I know this game warns the player about disturbing content

when booting it up but I didn't expect it to be like that.

Gonna say I can stomach some violence now, I didn't even mind what happened to Shinji

in the second heaven's feel movie but Tsukihime takes everything to another level.

Now this wasn't actually what bothered me, I can get past the violence and gore

what I didn't like was the dragged out battles and infodumps. There was almost an hour 

of vampire lore for dummies moment nvm the fight against the guy itself. 💀💀💀

Which was just so drawn out and felt like some stuff from dragon ball like it

kept going and going.  You know what's funny about the early infodumping? not even

Shiki understood all of it so I guess I could relate to his single working braincell.

Okay you beat this vampire guy but here comes shota saber and dumps his church lore

right before the chapter ends while I was already tired from everything beforehand

and that is just an example of how this game does things especially in Ciel's route.

Like in Arc's route Shiki would just sleep but in Ciel's he fucking wakes up and goes to read

which leads to a convenient infodump and thinking about it just makes me hysteric.😂

It was important later but god damn this game is so messy...

 

Despite that there was some hilarity amidst it all to be found, not on the same level as MahoYo

but I generally did like most Shiki and Arqueid scenes despite the former being a dick.

That's putting it nicely, like Shiki can be sensible but more often than not he's just an idiot.

Like he doesn't need to be a Shirou, that's not the point I have to try really hard to find

good points about Shiki and when I think he's okay the guy ruins it yet again. SIGH.

Yea fuck you Shiki.

Unfortunately due to Arqueid and/or Ciel being the way she is the writer tends to get away with a lot

because it doesn't matter how much they gets hurt. If Shiki was a LI in an otome game

he's a failure of a man. Sorry but imma roast this guy like Aoko would.

--- 

System wise it is pretty much a straight-forward VN with some choices that could

lead to a bad end of which there are 21 in total. There's a hint corner as well

so you pretty much won't need a guide if you follow the advice.

The flowchart was good but you couldn't use it to quickly get bad ends

as there would be no choices so best advice I can give is manually save a lot

especially at the start of a chapter. So if you get hit with a delayed bad end

you can easily get back to somewhere to fix that.

 

There's only has two routes Arcueid and Ciel, the latter is second play only

so basically you will have to play it twice but Ciel's route felt more like it was some

alternative route going deeper.  Also I thought I was tripping but i'm pretty sure some

early scenes ch5/6 stayed the same with some slight differences here or there because

you were with Ciel instead of Arc. There was definitely some copypasta because

there  were numerous occasions where I saw dialogue I knew I read before but couldn't

skip cuz the scene was a tad different which is nothing unusual it just got on my nerves in

Ciel's extra end since they also would love to show the same scene prior

from another perspective which changed nothing.😑

 

Also I didn't really play this game till I was sure I have atleast two hours I could

spend on it as I don't like leaving the scenario hanging in some awkward spot

like in the middle of a dump or epic fight scene and this game had a few of those.

Chapter length was quite inconsistent, Arc's route was relatively short overall but

it got  got worse in Ciel's route due to being full of infodumps and just longer in general.

Ciel's ch13/14 took me three sesssions to get through it was insanely long...

Glad I took this screenshot while playing cuz this shot was not in the gallery.

 

TL;DR: Tsukihime was a solid urban fantasy with high production values

but if you can't stand strong violence,gore, vampire themes, horror and a lot of infodumping

I don't recommend it. I loved some of the characters and the setting was interesting

but it was simply too long for its own good. Plus some of the material at times

just did not make me feel good, so while I kept in mind what I liked

that honestly won't matter if the material just makes me uncomfortable.

This is also one of the few VN's where I didn't like the protagonist much which didn't help.

Half of it was due to the Roa BS but even then he only turns out OK thanks to one of the girls.

Looking back at MahoYo, this VN didn't have as good as a scene direction except for fight scenes

and the art/cg varied greatly in quality. While MahoYo would put characters to the side or use

half a sprite, Tsukihime still did this but mostly I was looking at full sprites or zoomed in sprites.

In the average scenes more often than not I thought it would be better with text boxes

than text over busy backgrounds.  Much like FF7 remake it ends up being longer than

the original some of it could be in a good way but 60 hours for only 2 routes?

while the original was 40h average with all routes? yea they padded this one out.

By the time it was over it felt like a relief... cuz at times it seemed like to never end.

Though if you like Nasu's work and don't mind the above or my complaints then sure

Tsukihime might be another cake for you to dig into! but it may not be for everyone

so don't feel bad if you cannot get into this game, there's an audience but its not for all.

To me however Tsukihime a piece of blue glass moon is a FINE dumpster fire. A solid 6.3/10

its just a classic that I personally, while I tried just couldn't enjoy as much.

More rambles after the jump but there's not much to write about honestly.

I did try to write out my thoughts about both routes, so if you don't

want spoiles just stop reading here. I probably wrote too much but this

game also had a whole lot of stuff to unpack so it kind of checks out.

 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

God Eater Resurrection - review

May as well share the best box art the game ever had...

Genre: action RPG.

Developer/publisher: Bamco.

Platform: PS4.
Official Site: N/A.

Release date: 29-10-2015.

 

Remembering I once played GE2 on vita I decided to get GE2RB on sale

which comes with a remaster of the original game. Its got updated models

 and difficulty rank 11-13 with an extra story and challenges but that's about it.

Oh yea scythes from RB are ported over as well but tbh they don't fit well.

It also doesn't feature the JPN audio for some inane reason. Like its an anime game

I can't fathom why they didn't include the OG audio.

Anyway 10 years ago I did play god eater 2 vanilla, I remember finishing it

and being obsessed with Julius but most of it didn't stuck in my memory at all.

 

Pro's 

- Stellar cast of characters.

- Story is OK but kinda barebones.

- Great soundtrack, this game had some good tracks.

 

Con's

- Bullet editing is nice and all but how about a proper tutorial?

- Blatant padding, especially in the burst segment of the game.

- No japanese audio, for it being an anime type of game bamco should feel bad.

 

Oh honey, you're the only one I really think about.

Story... well it is off to a fairly slow start? you start out as a rookie and slowly end up

fighting against different types of aragami the dangerous monsters

that roam around the world who forced mankind into hiding

and setup a specialized force aka fenrir to deal with them.

God eater and GE burst were also segmented games so rank 1-6 are OG and 7-10 are burst.

There's also 11-13 for yet another arc... but honestly I was about done with the game at that point.

Most of the fun scenes were in the first part of the game aka 1-6.

 I don't got much positive things to say about 7-10 part of storyline as it was rather dragged

out filled with random story missions with a bunch of side characters that added very little

to the ongoing problem. Almost everything was told through mission text which wasn't interesting.

Like oh Kanon might be sad but it wasn't really important...  It did nothing to padd out the game.

To make it worse there were not even cutscenes with them and if they did, only then did the

story progress. Maybe if there were scenes with the backstagers I'd be more invested but it

seems they had a shoestring budget. When it gets to the point again I'd say it was good

but yea a lot of the burst arc was pretty boring and some things

were never really explained either. Life just goes on. 

 

Basically this whole game.

Moving on, while playing through the game pretty much felt like a mission based RPG game with

a silent protagonist who's name apparently is Yuu kannagi but you can name him/her anything.

I named him Crow Armbrust because I am not very original.

The main characters of the game would definitely be Alisa, Soma as well as Lindou but we don't

talk about him much, no instead we spend time wondering wtf happened to him

while doing missions and watching drama unfold that relates to him among others.

Kouta or Sakuya would be the orbiters, important but on the supportive side.

There's also Kanon and a few others but they're like the outer senshi

and just exist to protect mankind another day.

Sadly I found the burst part of the game to be mind numbingly boring, sure we get

a hint at someone but other than that it was just aragami slaying business as usual.

Relatable.

 

As this only has eng dub, I say it was okay but it reminds me I prefer JPN voices

as ENG onces often seem like they try too hard. VA's I liked a lot would be voicing

characters like Tsubaki followed by her brother Lindou's. Kouta was annoying, Paylor

was still somewhat fitting for a nerd type of guy who spends too much time in the lab.

Kouta.... his character was okay tho its just his VA tries too hard and just sounds obnoxious.

I picked male MC voice 12 and I am just indifferent about it, don't like or hate it.

Alisa VA was okay... but Sakuya too but I have heard way too many times elsewhere...

and not in the fun seiyuu kind of way, i'm sorry they tried there best.

I didn't like Ren's eng voice though it sounds like someone trying really hard

to sound younger that its almost nails on chalkboard. Even Shio sounded better.

I loved Soma's eng VA though! more often than not his tone of voice hits just right

with the dialogue. His voice really carried his emotion and when he's pissed he really is.

Well he certainly doesn't minch his words.

 

Moving on to the gameplay part I guess?

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if people dropped this game, whether it was due to the slow

start of the story with boring missions to go along with or the difficult to get a grasp

on gameplay system. Looking at the PSN trophies they get to rare very quick, most people

don't even seem to get to difficulty 3. They probably already played it on PSP

and were like nah not doing this shit again or just gave up.

Personally the gameplay got better once I realized its better to hit it once or twice

than do a whole whombo combo on an aragami. Still the enemies are very aggressive

and just playing a little would tire me out quickly so I only played in short bursts.

Atleast some of the dialogue was funny.

Later missions had 2 to 3 boss aragami's in the same mission...

so if they were meeting up too early I had to restart the whole mission

since things would just get too chaotic. Sometimes I'd get lucky and one

would mind their own business but there were definitely a few tough missions

like a charged borg and a quadriga just to name some cursed combinations.

Also two Yaksha's and a Ravana in part 3 made me take a break from this game.

 

Random NPC has hilarious dialogue for no reason...

Anyway I think I could only enjoy this game by playing it in short bursts

the way the story is presented its easy to remember what happened too

but scenes were never that long, due to this originally being a psp game.

Its literally decided to be whipped out for 30+ minutes and then stop

my longer sessions were about 2 hours but by that point i'd get tired.

 

Obligatory group pose.

  Overall this game seems fun but it gets repetitive quickly.

I was actually bored of it by chapter/difficulty 9 and it dragged a lot as well.

It has a stellar cast of characters and great music but that's about it.

The story is basic and feels flat, people shit on the anime but it can't

be any better if the source material wasn't much either.

The OG GE story(1-6) was IMO decent but burst just felt like an extension filled out

with blatant padding cuz if you get to the point it wouldn't even last 2-4 hours.

I'd recommend this game to those that like hunting/survival games and don't mind grinding

the same monsters over and over, whether its for material or the story itself.

 6.5/10

Yea its 6.5 because of the characters really...

Only thing God Eater Resurrection did was make me a Soma fan. Easily best boi.

More ramblings after the jump but i've pretty much said all there's to say.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fuyuzono Sacrifice - review

Genre: VN.

Developer/publisher: Otomate.
Platform: Switch.
Official Site: https://www.otomate.jp/fuyuzono/

VNDB: https://vndb.org/v49601

Release date: 26-2-2025.

 

I honestly wasn't sure whether or not I was going to get this but two weeks before

release I thought on it, the regular edition cover art was nice and I kinda

liked the setting of it? sadly I noticed the price was steep and it really

seems otome games or new games in general have become luxury products.

I sure was nervous buying it at such a steep price, still I liked the setting

and heroines outlook of wanting to decide her own destiny, so I bought it.

 

Pro's

- Great cast of characters.

- Each route has unique ways to solve the key problem in good or tragic ways.

- Lot's of sweet/cute scenes with the LI.

-  Beautiful artwork.

Con's

- Short and doesn't have much substance.

-  Can be a bit cliche or cheesy.

- The final LI has barely any presence outside his own route.

 

 

Art was gorgeous, I loved the fantasy look and soft colours.

Seiyuu seems to be a mix of ones I know and then some I am not familiar with.

Music was pretty fitting but nothing wowed me, I liked the theme that played on the main menu

and the OP song was good too, definitely stuff i'd let play when I boot the game up.

 

Story well I am just gonna say I had 0 expectations, my first impression was that its

rather basic, the heroine had only a short amount of time before it would be her

doomsday aka the day she was going to be wed to the god of winter.

The story itself was easy to follow, there was not a lot of infodumping and it flowed well.

The worldbuilding itself was solid and have no complaints on it.

The LI were interesting so it was still fun to see what was gonna happen or learn more about them.

The prologue and common route are short and to the point...

Fuyuzono definitely won't take you eight common chapters to get to a route!

Oscar's route started out comfy but I couldn't help but feel a little sense of dread

over the heroine's upcoming fate as the bride of the god of winter. 

 

Something I absolutely loved was at times there was a  change in POV enabling you

to see things from the perspective of the love interest. The heroine had no sprite in

the bottom left but she did appear on screen if there was a perspective change which was nice.

The pacing was okay, it wasn't that slow I was getting bored, still this was also not

a long game either. I'd say its perfect if you're tired of longer games.

 

The game seems to encourage multiple playthrough's since I keep getting extensions

of the very first scene in the game the more routes I completed which was a nice touch.

 

Characters

Oscar... I liked him a lot but I think that's pretty much because of his personality.

His route was pretty much focused on his character but didn't touch upon all plot threads

because that was sacrificed for the romance. I thought Oscar was pretty great

despite that and this man is willing to go very far if need be...

Elias route felt like it was good for introduction due to him explaining a lot

about the legends surrounding the gods. It wasn't too focused on romance

but it did take babysteps towards that so it wasn't bad. While it was also focused

on his character, I think they over did it with the angst in some part near the end.😓 

Still I think Elias needs an honorable mention because he also was a stellar supportive character!

Dylan was an amusing character, if I had to recommend one route from the game

to anyone it would probably be him. That's mostly because the relationship

started from zero instead of already being friends.😄

Besides there's definitely an audience for guys like Dylan...

Regis was quite likable, but his situation was more complicated than I'd thought

and this game has some really dark undertones that tend to get glossed over.

Like we can see some of it in Dylan's route but in his own that isn't part of the main issue.

For a poster boy he wasn't too bad but romance wise it felt kind of similar to Elias

where they went from acquantance to friends to lovers but with Regis... it was

very obvious he liked Laeticia from the start. I guess its okay not everyone

has to be so curt like Dylan or the friendly guy everybody knows like Oscar.

Regis route also felt like it was the main one and the rest didn't quite compare.

Hiver probably stood for hibernation because he just doesn't exist outside of his own route.

Regis hinted at him but did so in a way that made me full of dread... and I almost 

skipped out on doing his route, but I persisted for the sake of the conclusion. I liked his story

but yea I couldn't fully get into the route of a character that crawled from under a rock.

 

I guess Fuyuzono Sacrifice was solid, depending on what you come here for.😅 The name

of the game suggest tragedy but the synopsis hinted at seize your own destiny kind of thing.

So it could be a miss if you come here for the former, for me the best ends were satisfying

however there are tragic ends and they can be kind of sad, atleast I thought Oscar's was.

I don't recommend this game if you hate cliche's and cheesy stuff or you have high standards

and want to be blown away by stellar writing cuz while its solid I wouldn't say it was stellar.

I think this game is best for those who have very little experience with the otome genre

and/or don't mind any of the above and just want a short&sweet otome game.

---

Personally I didn't have much in the way of expectations nor did it absolutely blow me away

but it was a pleasant experience. I loved the medieval-ish fantasy setting, I didn't think it

was ever that deep in terms of plot, it had the basics down to a T

but due to the short length isn't able to explore its own setting fully.

I liked all love interests a normal amount, they didn't do much to upset me

but Oscar was definitely my favourite, my apologies your highness.(Regis)

Its not as lengthy like trouble magia or an ero novel in disguise like honey vibes and while

there are bad ends they are not great in numbers. Romance wise there's not going to be

a lot of time to begin with due to plot elements but there's enough to build

a connection between characters... though its easy to say it could seem rushed.

At the very least it didn't overstay its welcome which was a good thing.

Still I want to say otomate should've done better because it seems like they're in a hurry

and not taking their time. You know if this game had like one more chapter for every route

there probably would have been enough but instead we're left with

a snowflake that falls unto your hand and just melts away quickly.

7/10

My playorder: Oscar > Elias > Dylan > Regis > Hiver.

Only the last route is locked till you do all others, I might recommend Elias first due

to being good with introduction and it doesn't throw you into a whirlwind romance like Oscar.

Though if you care about the plot i'd save Regis for before the final route.

Play order I recommend:

Oscar / Elias / Dylan > Regis > Hiver. 

I don't think it matters too much who you pick with the first three so its pick your poison.

 

There's still some spoilers after the jump cuz I blabbed too much on hiver's part

and rambled some more about the characters while sharing some fav cg's.

So if you want to play this game best stop reading here!

 

Yakuza 6 the song of life - review

Time for the final episode of the Kiryu saga! but who was baby?

Genre: Brawler/adventure

Developer/publisher: Sega.
Platform: PS4.
Official Site: N/A.

Release date: 17-4-2018.

 

I actually hadn't intended to play this game so soon but because

Cafe Enchante was such a slow game I was itching for some action!

knowing that Y6 wasn't nearly as long as its predecessor also helped.

The game takes place after Yakuza 5 and we're also back to just having Kiryu as the protagonist!

honestly the real reason for going into this within 2 months of finishing Y5 was more or less

me wanting to move on and see Kiryu's tale to its conclusion while I still had investment. 

Pro's

- Decent and well-paced story that doesn't overstay its welcome.

- Great cast of characters lot's of fun interactions during the main story.

- Both main and substories are voiced fully.

Con's

- Combat felt weird, no heat actions for downed enemies? Meh.

- Too many substories are locked behind this or that. Also no substory finder.

- There was not nearly enough Majima.

Story wise it had me hooked from the start, I was surprised by how much directly

followed up on five, the opening scene was a bit random though like who was baby?

but record scratch *Freeze frame* how did we get into this situation happened.

The pacing was pretty good this time, I had an easier time following the plot and

each chapter felt like I learned a new piece of the puzzle which felt really good.

It pretty much felt like a proper crime drama that followed up on Y5's crappy ending.😅

I know RGG studios just sort of keeps writing but they really do manage to build something

from what they already have, they've proven that multiple times through this series.

 

Forgot the jump break so uh I generally enjoyed this game, more rambles after the jump!

2024 in review

 One of those post again where I go over what games I play during the year.

Fate/samurai remnant.

Aww yea its fate/staynight but in old japan!

 I think I generally liked playing through it but the endings were a dumpster fire

especially the 3rd one, the only route I liked was the snake one but idk it just

feels like it threw itself in the bin, there was a lot of optional dlc scenario's after launch

but I could not do them because the 3rd ending ruined the MC for me

so I just couldn't be arsed about some new side story that takes place mid game.

Ugh whatever I guess!

~

Lost Judgment.

WTF man...

Alright this was a trip and the themes were too heavy for my tastes.

I think the investigation part and maybe the story as well were a step down

from the first judgment, like it went on way too long and it didn't make me feel smart

looking around a scene! you also couldn't find kittens this time so that may be it as well.

At its core I don't think the story was bad just at times I was like yea maybe that guy

should just keep doing what he's been doing what a legend man. Kuwana bestest boi💕

Also if you dropped this game midway then I understand why.

~

 

Granblue Fantasy Relink.

Id was the best boy hands down.

 Almost forgot I played this which probably says a lot...

this is like an RPG with an established cast of a long running gacha game but honestly

I ended up liking some of the game original characters like mr fix-it dude and Id a lot more

than the main heroes. They also did very little to introduce them so if you hadn't watched

the first season of the anime or know them from the gacha then you'd be short out of luck

since they really expected the player to already be somewhat familiar with GBF.

The little scenarios for them that were there honestly didn't do much for me either.

I think Id's whole character is what saved this game from being a mediocre experience

it also doesn't help that to see the epilogue it turned into a grind simulator

of having to clean up mister fix-it dude's laundry list. After the story was over

all you could basically do was min-max gear and fight the same bosses to do just that.

Yea thanks but no thanks... I tend to play RPG's for the story and characters but this game

was so barebones of it that I barely remember anything except Id being best boy.

~

 

Matsurika no Kei tenmeiin iden.

 This was an otome game with some heavy chinese influences, I generally did enjoy it

and it had some great artwork, I suppose the heroine Naaya may not be for everyone

so if you prefer proactive MC's such as Lynette you could be disappointed by her.

I think Enrai was the bestest boi in the whole game... he's such an easy favorite.

Anyway most of the LI's were great as were their routes with exception

of Fey which was a disaster compared to most others. I'd prolly still recommend it

to those that like historic fantasy because that is what it did best.

This is one of the vn's that cares too much about its lore that it becomes a double edged sword.

 ~

 

Final Fanfiction VII Rebirth.

 Oh man was this a game that went on for too long than it was needed

like god so much side content thrown at you its so easy to get overwhelmed

if you actually wanted to progress the story which was kind of messy btw.

This game made me realize that optional content is all fine and dandy

but too much of it isn't good at all, some of the minigames also felt clunky like that

chocobo minigame in cosmo canyon omg its so not accessible to everyone.

The final straw that broke the camel's back was during the final fights where it would

say something like do you want to retry? and the option would be: this battle and current battle.

The latter was NOT the option you should take if you died in the very last fight.

The last battles were just poorly thought out and some of it doesn't even fit in with the original

it also makes you think they're gonna change things but ultimately go haha no.

Of course there will be a part 3 of the remakes but idk this left me thinking maybe not?

perhaps I can do without the remakes and just appreciate the original.

~

 

Kannagi no Mori.

 Matatabi's 3rd game! I never bought it on PS Vita so when I found out about

a switch version I felt like I had to get it now or regret it...

Well I don't think this otome game was too bad, it was pretty decent but it didn't excel

at anything, it had a decent story about loss and moving on to be found in here

so I will give Matatabi some points for it because it may just be their best game.

~

 

Yakuza Kiwami 2.

 This one was pretty good imo, it has likely some of the best substories as well.

The story did feel short if you weren't sidetracked by any of the usual side activities.

There was also romance in this game more than usual and the ending partially

doesn't make me want to touch another yakuza game because these guys will just keep writing

and Kiryu will go through hell and back again. Never you mind the ending he had for himself here.

The battle stuff was sadly kinda basic compared to zero and they got rid of stances 

so it just felt dumbed down but hey a real man's gotta be a little stupid aight?

~

 

2045, Tsukiyori.

EMT stands for Elle Maji Tenshi.

 I rarely play galge but this one caught my eye and it sure was interesting

and if I had to recommend it, it would only be because of Elle.

Not that the other heroines weren't good but they didn't even get proper kiss cg's

and for Shirabe her ending/epilogue felt weird like it didn't even have a final cg and idk

if it was because I played the console port but they definitely should have added one there. 

Yui on the other hand was just okay in comparison but yea if you weren't Elle

you didn't get the full heroine treatment and so I can only say do it for Elle

because it may have been the only route that was fully worth experiencing.

~

Utakata no Uchronia.

Probably the only guy I fancied a lot in uta-chro was this dumbass Tobari.

 I liked the setting but it just wasn't very interesting, so much flew over my head

and not every thread felt truly resolved by the time the routes were over

like they're betting on being able to release a FD or sequel or something.

The story was mostly SoL and a utopia that seems perfect, its like they

combined Code:Rea and Piofiore but with some yamato vibes.

There's also a pretty toxic love interest that I wish I never experienced.

Thankfully most LI's were good but the only one I really liked was Tobari.

Also a lot of conversations just felt dry and not much happened

that the most interesting route ended up being that toxic guy Yori. 😂💀

Also IDK if it was the level of japanese or most of the game was just boring.

I'll probably get the sequel/FD just for Tobari and hoping to get more resolution

out of this game... or is that setting the bar too high?

13 sentinels aegis rim.

When I remember this game all I think about is Yakisoba pan guy.

 IDK this was such a mixed bag for me, I barely even remember half of the story now

that I look back on it. What I do remember was yakisoba pan guy as well as

that it was basically revelation upon revelation and that I could barely process

them before the next one happened. Other than that the characters were pretty fun

and some of them were shippable others not so much but the game did it anyway, oh well.

At the end of the day I could say that it was decent but just never that great due to some of the

way the story was presented to the player, at most it was kinda cool. Yea that's about it.

Akuyaku Reijou.

Pretty art but that's about it really...

 Oh no... idk why they even made this game other than to get people into the LN's?

Like it just wasn't as funny as Hamefura and it kinda ripped off from Taming the final boss.

Its basically just a straight adaptations from the LN with only 1 love interest aka seahorse and

the system is what broke the camel's back for me cuz this is like something from quinrose

like holding the skip button to skip? a clunky UI that could make you think it is a PC game.

No just no... not sure why there were even choices other than to get some extra scene

with a different character to spice things up that ultimately changes nothing.

I think had I gotten this for 15$ I wouldn't be so harse but anything above 30$ is a pass.

Will only recommend this game if its on a sale or are desperate for another otome game.

~

FFXIV Dawntrail.

Honestly I generally did enjoy it but it also has a lot to live up to

only just coming from the highs of both shadowbringers and endwalker.

I'm not sure if I will continue the trail this expansion set me on as I become more

and more fatigued with the general flow of things and some enemy designs

are also way too obvious as reskins. I used to praise them for being clever about it

but seeing first eden boss in the second to last dungeon just rubs me the wrong way.

Whenever I think about FFXIV I just feel so lost? that any other game sparks my interests more

maybe that is why I was able to set myself up to so many other games this year.

~

Mistonia no Kibou the lost delight.

I literally don't give a shit about anyone in this game except Lukas.

I think this game had an interesting premise but just can't pull off its story beats

consistently, its truth end just fell flat. When I think about it the only route I liked and

that actually executed the storybeats well enough was Lukas. I guess I am lucky he ended up

being my favorite guy too LMAO. Not to say other LI's sucked but it was just

all over the place. Only LI I hated was ASScot, he just got so much NOPE.

It was also short so just when the romance got good it was already the end and speaking

of endings I wish I never did the maze ends cuz I hated what happened in them.

~

 

Yakuza 3.

Oh god yes I love infodumps (no I do not...)

 Y3 was a little rough but it was still pretty okay in the end.

At the end of the day the orphanage stuff was pretty wholesome as well as

seeing Kiryu's character from a different angle but the game itself also just

shows its age that you wish it got a kiwami treatment but alas it only got remastered.

Combat was pretty bland and its also pretty much known as blockuza 3 due to

enemies blocking a lot and then the encounter rate was also pretty high. /shrug

Substories varied but... most didn't really grab me as much, just nice on the side

as you play through the main story. There's nothing memorable about most of them.

Maybe I am also a little burnt of going through Kiryu's saga which is why

I have decided to take a break from it for a little while. I really envy people who can like

just truck through series one after the other cuz I can't seem to do it except with breaks.

~

Trouble Magia.

 I wasn't initially going to get this game but I wanted to see if it was cliche as it seemed...

and was pleasantly surprised it turned out to be quite enjoyable to me

like it may seem like its been done before but it was still funny and interesting.

The art was not superb but it grew on me a lot, the routes were pretty character focused

and they were all worth doing since they dealt with the curse in different ways

while also tackling character specific problems. Only the last two routes focused on

the core issues which other glosses over...and I guess it was kind of long especially the last route.

This game may not look it but it was surprisingly good! and it never felt like it tried too hard

as Trouble Magia just embraced all of its cliche's and just rolled with it.😄

Japan also seems to love this game so that's good to see.

Kai no Kiseki.

I'll remember you.......................

 While I don't think this was a bad game since in many ways it delivered, it also was

more of the usual and I am getting tired of that. Rean and Kevin's routes were fun

and it was nice seeing certain characters again but Van's route was such a sleeper and I found

myself getting bored during it which isn't good since Van was like the majority of the game.

It picked up of course but it felt like most of the game was carried by the other characters

while you progress with Van. I'm probably not the only one experiencing series fatigue

but I am starting to really feel it with this one. However I accept this series just is the

way it is, sadly after kai and its messy end I am thinking of retiring.

~

 

Honey Vibes.

Thanks for fulfilling my fantasies of holding hands with Alhaitham while he reads a book!

 Ah... well I think this otome game was pretty fun but it also has aspects that make me go nah

and I definitely did not except this game to have so many bad ends. Its very much a character game

so you're bound to find a favorite amongst the cast, its just the plot isn't really its strong point.

The romance in most routes was pretty much the plot and the finale exists to actually focus 

on the story that the routes never really go into. My favorite characters were Alvin and Finn.

I don't think there's anyone I disliked, to my own surprise I ended up liking Mino

more than I thought but yea... Eno is the last guy I wanna think about.

~

Yakuza 4.

The yakuza FOUR.

 Y4 may have been one of my favorite yakuza games, I thought it was interesting

to play as different characters and stepping away from Kiryu for a bit.

I don't think the story was particularly strong but it wasn't awful, it also didn't overstay its welcome

and thus was just overall a fun game to me! I don't really have much to complain

about except maybe Saejima's segments or fighting Saito.

~

Yakuza 5.

 Hooboy, this game was much like Y4 except its twice as long because of padding itself out

at times it was so bad I forgot important storybeats to the point I cared more

about some bloke named Shinada than Kiryu whom the game started with.

Yea I kid you not Kiryu felt like a stranger in his own game, Y5 also had a lot of random

moments in between the storybeats which peaked and then dipped due to the horrid pacing.

Its worse if you actually try to enjoy side content because the story is very ambitious

and if I lingered too long like in Shinada's section a lot faded and the finale didn't help much.

Its all just revelation upon revelation leading to information overload that I became numb to it all...

That aside I can't hate the game because it was still pretty entertaining to play through it!

it still has the charm I know the series for but its just a tad too long for my tastes.

This is also the only time I will ever play these games back to back...

~

Infinity Nikki.

 For the most part I really enjoyed this game, its very chill and collecting stuff while exploring the gorgeous world for chests and whimstars alongside was fun.The storyline  was decent

but I didn't really enjoy having to craft the miracle outfit due to having to do faction

stuff, it felt very fillerly and I often couldn't proceed cuz I ran out of resin or bling to glow up outfits.

I had the rest of the items except bouldy's mats ready to go for a good while as those were

easy to find, sadly the medal part turned into a chore for me. Still I do think this was

a wonderful game, even if its a gacha game there were plenty of outfits to be found ingame

that could turn out pretty well. I wasn't here for the styling battles but I did enjoy

making some glam's for Nikki to wear at times so all in all it was a good game!

After crafting the wishful aurosa dress and finishing the story it has been very laidback

as I mostly just collect some mat's to craft Kilo's outfits and do my dailies.

Can't wait to see what this game will have to offer in the future!

~

As for next year, I will likely not play as many otome games and will instead just focus

on fandisk/sequel's of existing ones unless one really interested me or it is in english.

The same can be said for other games and such, if it interests me then I will buy it

but I won't be buying every game a company throws out there which leads me to my next point.

It has to deal with definite editions & me just being tired of being a beta-tester by playing on release.

Sure these definitive versions are great if you have yet to play the original but it just feels

like a kick in the gut for them releasing an updated version with more content

the OG release is never going to get. Knowing this I do not feel bad about getting

definitive editions after they pull that sort of stunt. Like for example Dragon Quest XI

which i've never played so games like Metaphor Refantazio will likely be bought on some sale.

TL;DR: I'll be focusing on my backlog and only buying new games that really interests me

so I can avoid most of the definite edition drama or have it affect me as little as possible.