2025 in review

I guess its that time of the year again to do one of those posts that covers

what I played this year along with some mini summaries of them!  

 

Forgot the jump break so here it is.💀 

Neon Clash Echoes of the Lost - Review

Awww yea! a Yakuza otome game.

 Genre: VN.

Developer/publisher: Amulit/Voltage.

Platform: Switch.
Official Site: https://products.voltage.co.jp/neonclash/

VNDB: https://vndb.org/v47769

Release date: 11-12-2025

 

Got this on a whim because its theme is three kingdoms and I got nostalgic.

Seeing how there were yakuza/mafia themes and me recently going through

the yakuza series did influence my decision somewhat.

Instead of ancient china its a futuristic setting.  I thought I grew out of my

three kingdoms phase which kinda died but this kinda renewed my spirit, even if

I have some grievances with this title it was exciting to play through. 

 

Disclaimer: This is purely my own opinion and it could be different from yours

this is not meant to be some kind of all-truth, just an opinion that came from playing this.

If you don't like what you're reading then close the tab, move on and just idk play it yourself. 

 

 

Pro's

- Interesting and engaging plot.

- Diverse cast of characters.

- Eye-catching artworks.

- Great soundtrack.

- Character epilogues are a satisfying conclusion. 

 

Grey Area

- Awkward sounding names.

- Plot focused, can be a bit light on romance but it doesn't forget its an otome. 

 

Con's.

- Font for text was imho not great on switch lite*.

- One bad end contained NTR; its in chapter 2 so use a guide if you want to avoid it(or get it). 

 

---

Neon Clash is a modern take of the classic three kingdoms story.

Its not afraid to bring fantasy and science into the mix.

I did think some things could be explained better but it is what it is 

It was fairly dark, there's violence & splatter but I didn't think it went too far. 

Although I do think it covered a relatively small part of RotK

and it mostly focused on Dong Zhuo being a pain in the neck

and butting heads with Mun aka Cao Cao.

I know from playing similar games that the story goes farther than this

but the story of Neon Clash took its inspiration from the beginnings.

This wasn't a work that could be happy all the time, it was quite grim at times

but even so there was light at the end of tunnel.

---

 The heroine Liu Kroa was cool but also a hot mess, she tried her best and lived in the moment.

She's proactive and had spunk. I liked her friend Meimei as well, they had good chemistry.

Kroa starts out as not wanting to be too involved, though only a matter of time

untill she was. The state of the world they live in was not pretty.

I actually really liked how everyone part of her group became her family.

A lot of shit happens and she does have some self-doubt or think she's not good enough...

but I think its only normal because she is responsible for the people in her group.

At times it was painful to see Kroa realize this but she did try to be better.

She is based on Lui Bei whom... also made a lot of mistakes and this is

woven into her character. Lot's of times I was thinking well that was stupid

but its not like the counterpart made the best of decisions.

Due this I can't be too hard on the writing because they really used RoTK as a basis.

---

 

- The Artstyle was eye-catching and mostly consistent in terms of sprite & CG's.

The background art was also good, it had a nice urban chinese feel! The UI was stylish as well. 

- I bought the japanese version but it had english text! sadly the text was rather tiny

so maybe that is why the english version was delayed? there were some typo's but they

looked like errors anyone could make, they weren't constant. It read well enough

Had they given this one more thorough QA sweep the typo's would be gone.

I wondered why it was delayed but I figured it was either the font or the awkward names

I didn't really encounter any bugs throughout my playthrough. 

Also about the font, the text actually looks fine if I view screenshots of it on my PC

but on my switch lite its just... way too small. I don't think its optimized for it.

- Music fit the tone of the scenes, there were some good jams and I had no real complaints.

---

System

Standard stuff, you make choices over the course of the story

but you're graded at the end of a chapter which gives points.

Choices do matter because if your performance is poor, its straight up bad end in ch6.

With those points you can also buy mini episodes but they are entirely optional.

I didn't read any of the mini episodes as I progressed the main story, I was able

to buy everything from the shop when reaching the truth end.

The unlockable mini episodes were really short, fun random scenes.

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

 Overall this had some high production values, its pretty in line with most console otome's.

The story had me hooked quickly and it was engaging but romance wise... its lacking.

It wasn't a traditional otome game. Neon Clash has a linear plot with some bad ends

along the way. There are character endings but to view them you must clear the main story.

There wasn't much replay value but the game is pretty lengthy being over 45 hours long.

You may or may not need to play it twice depending on how well you did, if you do poorly

getting the true ending may be difficult which means the epilogues are out of reach. 

The bad ends were not great in number so its possible to avoid them.

If your aim is to see the character endings then I suggest you use a guide. 

We need disguises.

Its clear to me that they focused on telling a story without the need to branch out

and focus on individual characters before delving into the truth route. I suppose with a setting

like this it was hard to romance anyone to begin with so the LI's either felt like they were

close friends or colleagues. There simply wasn't any time for it. I thought Hiyok's chapter was sad 

and I almost gave up hope of there being any romance but it wasn't completely hopeless. 

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

I loved the character interactions and there was a decent dose of humor. 

There were some aspects that I couldn't quite take seriously😅

but they knew when to joke around and be dead serious. 

The naming sense could be better though, its easy to find some

counterparts but others were more difficult to figure out. Like I am not entirely sure

who Ji or Wenyu was but I figured the latter was Zhang Liao because he bounced around. 

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

 TL;DR 

 I did enjoy playing through Neon Clash and recommend it to anyone

who like story driven visual novel with a strong protagonist. 

The story and characters were pretty good but... if you come here for romance

it could be a little disappointing due to how story-driven it is.

I wasn't completely sold on the otome game aspect of this game due to its structure

but the character endings were really nice to close it off with! I lost hope for proper

romance during the main story but I felt like I was rewarded when I did Gante's epilogue.

In the main story I enjoyed what little crumbs there were but it was just too little, I got

annoyed at the heroine's evasiveness. 😔 Some scene's made me d'aww but that's about it.

It was still exciting to play through but yea... with the structure of the game you do

sorta romance everyone during the main story to the point Kroa has a harem.😂

But then I remembered this...💀 

It is kinda nice to be free from having to sit through 5 routes to get the full story

so all in all I didn't regret playing it because it was an interesting work.

I know there are VN's where there's a big common route and then really short

individual stuff... but this game skips the replay it 4+ times part so I think

there is a plus side to the game being linear because its not really fun to skip

half the game. Neon clash solves this issue I had with some older games.

8.5/10

The only real downsides for me were some pacing issues and the font!

often I had to take breaks because it takes too much effort to read it like that.

After clearing the game I kinda wanted an ending for Rin and Yulong... but they have none!😞

 

Character rambles after the jump but they're just some thoughts of them because

there aren't really any routes. I'll share some of my fav CG too.

There's not many spoilers but if you want none uh just stop reading I guess? 

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

Yakuza: Like A Dragon 7 - review

Like a WHAT?!

Genre: RPG.

Developer/publisher: Sega.

Platform: PS4/5 etc.
Official Site:N/A.

Release date: 09-9-2021

 

Not sure what to play next I decided to get started on this game

that has been sitting in my backlog for like half a year! 

 

 The game is still set in the same old Kamuro-cho because where else?

or rather you start there but the majority takes place in Yokohama.  

This time we got an all new protagonist Kasuga Ichiban! It didn't seem like

I had to have played the previous games but it was nice to catch some references.

For most of the game it felt like its own story, but some things may have more impact

if you know who some familiar faces later in the game are. 

 

Pro's

- Fun cast of characters.

- Plenty of side content you can do at your own pace. 

 

Grey area

- Story is interesting but it is also messy. 

 

Con's

- Pacing issues, difficulty spikes.

- Confusing plot. 

 

--- 

At first it felt like I saw this somewhere before like the beginning of Yakuza 1

i'm not sure which was more dramatic though but I can definitely see a call back. 

Much like Kiryu, Ichiban also had to spend time in jail but much longer.💀💀💀 

The fun actually starts when Ichibum gets out of jail, he got a bit too excited

and hasn't quite gotten the memo yet. They messed up his hair so he's stuck

looking like he's been struck by lightning. Ichi also felt like he was a bit delusional

and very insisted on doing stuff his way even tho he had someone trying to look out for him.

Oh no... anyway it was quite entertaining to follow Ichiban get his bearings but things

went down the rabbit hole and I thought parts of the plot were confusing.

Was wondering what was up with him and some even say he was a Schizo...........

it certainly would explain things but I think he was just hard-headed.

No one seemed to mind his quirks which was hilarious.

 

Ichiban in a box.

 Storywise I wasn't really sure where any of it was going really. 

It went from Yakuza drama to being homies with the hobo's

to trying to find a job but that is just the tip of the iceberg

as its all down the rabbit hole from there which was just more drama...

Atleast some of it was entertaining, except ''the talk'' in ch10. (I'm tired...)

Then due to pausing the story to get better gear and immersing myself in some side content

I forgot half of the plot so it was like wait this game has a story?!💀💀💀

Now everyone in Yokohama will know Ichiban confections has the best rice crackers ever.

 Uh yea I guess I should go meet with the Omi now huh? about what again?!

That's it... that is my LAD7 experience.

From then on I was able to follow the plot better maybe cuz there wasn't much distractions. 

---

 

Also its no longer a brawler and it just plays like an turn-based RPG now.

 I didn't have much problems with the genre switch as it felt comfy. I don't really feel

like mentioning the gameplay as its just turn based with a job system

to change the characters classes(which I barely did) because it was a hassle.

 The only ones I changed was Saeko(to Idol) and Adachi(to enforcer). 

The battle system is a homage to dragon quest because the protagonist likes that game

I guess sega did a handshake with square enix to keep the names and other references intact.

I played on normal and it seems you're locked to that but I didn't have much

of a problem throughout the game, I could clearly tell when I had to upgrade

and get my shit in order which happened only twice in ch9 and ch12.

I hated this dungeon as it didn't seem to end but those enemies were funny.

 You also raise Ichi's stats(intellect,confidence style etc)like its some persona game

but you don't actually have any social links with NPC's. Raising Ichi's stats usually 

come from choices during substories,skills or the vocational school.

You can deepen your bond with your party members as well by fighting,eating or triggering

 party talk skits but often they'd reach a point they got locked so you had to chat at the bar

to raise it further, these events varied whether they were interesting but most were nice.

 

This game's balance is odd though, early on its rather easy. I got by with the joke weapons

from that one store for a long time along with some light crafting but I had to

upgrade everything in ch9/12 which made things more bearable.

 Unfortunately the upgrades were expensive and the only way to solve that is to do some

optional activities to get more money and the best way to do that is the management minigame.

I got kind of bored of it by rank 21 but I ended up finishing the whole thing anyways. 

 

The length? 50-60ish hours. My ingame save said 55ish but for some reason PSN

inflated this number by 10. Okay whatever maybe it counted me idling but the game didn't. 

Much like Yakuza 5, LAD7 also has a long finale so you gotta make sure you can play

for almost 3 hours because once you enter the final dungeon you can't save.

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

I recognize that place from lost judgment and I don't like it.

I know RGG recycles a lot but they do it in a clever way and I did enjoy exploring

Yokohama a little more in this game than in Lost Judgment.

The game was also permanently discounted after Y8 came out so its now 20$

with it dropping to 10$ on sales but this price is perfect for the contents you get.

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

 

The TL;DR of it would be that I think it was a fun game! but the story

was a bit all over the place? I didn't hate it or anything, at the end of the day its OK.

Honestly I liked the characters, interactions and substories much more than the overall plot. 

 I really struggled to follow some of it till it was straight up explained but even then

it still somehow failed to follow up on one thing in the ending, it made me angry. 

I think the switch from brawler to RPG was refreshing and it still

had the fun things I liked from past Yakuza games such as substories.

Ichiban wasn't constantly getting scammed like Kiryu did in Yakuza 1 in some of them

Ichi is actually helping others out of them. So I couldn't see him as a lvl1 dumbass

but there were some moments here or there cuz he can embarrass himself.😅

It took me a few games for Kiryu to grow on me but Ichiban did it in one game.

Hero missions were boring and repetitive and Ichiban's reaction is similar to mine when I think of it.

The only downsides are the somewhat confusing plot and some pacing issues.
I just think had they paced this game properly I wouldn't have to go out of my way

to get upgrades. They could have implemented dungeons better because chapter 8 was way

too short and to find myself slightly walled by combat the next chapter does not feel good.

It doesn't even get better because the enemy lvls increase like wildfire and I am like hold up?! 

There weren't really any big dungeons besides two so the rest of the game felt like yakuza 1-6

but turnbased. The best way to level ended up being the arena btw can you believe it?

I mean you can revisit the underground dungeons to grind but it was so out of the way

it wasn't even on my mind not even side quests/substories took you back there.💀

 Despite grievances I recommend it to anyone that is interested in an RPG

with an older cast and doesn't mind doing side contents. 

7.7/10

 

More ramblings after the jump, maybe some light spoilers but nothing too heavy

hench why most of the rambles are behind here.