rambles of a manga/game enthusiast

hi this is where i ramble about games and manga i read profile picture done by @kanonondayo

[yuzupia]

I've been playing a few more short games now and then, and Forbidden Solitaire was one of them! This was a game that I thought the aesthetic of and idea looked quite unique so I was pretty excited to pick it up and try. It wasn't too long of a game, around 4 hours or so, and I enjoyed it a lot!

My favourite part of the game is probably how perfectly they nailed that 90s aesthetic of retro games. Everything from the way the game booted up, the retro esque FMVs, the environments, music, UI, you could easily convince someone this was a real game from that time period. I think they did an absolutely stellar job at nailing it, and I also really liked the real recordings they used too! The story was simple and straightforward but in a good way. I think the actors did a really good job conveying everything, and their deliveries were fantastic!

I also really liked them including a behind the scenes document, I thought it was pretty nifty! There were some interesting tidbits that I thought were interesting to learn about, like how they had to make all the videos gifs to play in the solitaire engine they used.

Now, if I had to levy some complaints, and I acknowledge this is likely a combination of a skill and personal issue, but I found that some of the solitaire levels tended to be a littttle too variant for me to like, and there was probably a few too many solitaire levels for me personally.

I found that the frequency of solitaire levels a bit too much, especially when it felt like there was a level for essentially every action. I would've preferred it personally if they had kept the solitaire sections for the more "intensive" actions instead of just "oh you walked down the hall". Granted, given that the game and one of the studio's whole thing is based on solitaire, I think it's understandable but this is just a me thing. It does sound funny that I would like there to be less game in my game, but given that I like VNs, it's probably not too surprising.

Overall I found the actual game part to be usually fair, except for some enemies that I felt required you to have a combo setup (aka they had high armor). I found those enemies to be a little tedious to fight, especially when you had to make sure you had ways to either pierce their armor or build up a long combo chain to do any damage at all. The upgrades and joker system was pretty good though.

With all that said, I did really like the game! I think the length was the perfect length, if it went any longer I likely would've been a bit more tired of it. I'm not the biggest solitaire guy but I enjoyed what I played in this one at least!

[yuzupia]

I felt like I had to take a break after Fantasy Maiden Wars (going through NG+!) and picked up Resident Evil Requiem since it was on sale a bit ago. Going into this game I was… hesitant? Full disclosure, I wouldn't call myself the biggest RE fan but I've played and finished 1-6 (played both remake and original of 2 and 4), so I know a bit of the series. I didn't play 7/8 because I've seen multiple playthroughs of it and didn't find myself thaat interested in them. So I'm not a true fan, but I do like some of them (4 and 4 remake being my favourite probably, though I also really like 2 og and remake and 3 og).

With that being said, I played 9 because my friend said it was good and I also liked Leon and it looked kind of fun so here I am! Something else to note is that I am absolutely and positively a very easily scared person. Like, get startled easily, spooked easily, constantly paranoid, the whole works. I still enjoy some scary things despite this (I've finished silent hill 1-3, and I do like some horror movies!), but most of the time I need some friends watching me which they were gracious enough to do so. Though I'm sure them watching me get scared all the time was funny for them too.

And this game was definitely spooky. Grace's segments were way better than I expected them to be, both in terms of gameplay as well as atmosphere. There was a constant sense of dread and pressure and I especially really liked how the zombies functioned. The routines and understanding how the enemies worked to get around them was really well done, and I liked how the changes were subtle (patrols shifting) to keep you on your toes but not be so unfair at the same time. Resource management was pretty good too since it felt like you had to balance between using your crafting materials for saves (which I was so desperate to do constantly) and making ammo/useful weapons.

I was also actually a big fan of Grace's character. I feel like this is probably a point of discussion that I have succeeded in avoiding any and all discourse about, but I thought Capcom did a really good job of making Grace be just well, a girl. My favourite moments were when I would scream/swear and Grace would do the same basically right after. I felt in tune with her and her anxiety going through the game.

The segment with her in the basement was especially tense. One of my favourite moments is during the fight with Marie there's a hole in the ceiling. I remember talking out loud to my friends (to help myself) about how I know they put it there to trick you into thinking that she would come out of there, only for her to come out somewhere later. And of course, she did. I felt both vindicated but I was still scared because I'm terrified easily lol.

Now the other crazy thing is, I also actually really enjoyed Leon's segments too! I found the gunplay and the waves of enemies to be quite enjoyable, and they offered a nice reprieve from the crazy tense Grace segments of the game. The repairable axe was fun, I liked how (most of) the guns felt, and doing all the melee actions and axe stuff was a blast.

I really enjoyed the return to Racoon City, the return of the set pieces and exploring the areas was actually quite cool. I thought the levels and enemy placements were well done too where they didn't feel crazy, but at the same time I was never on an overabundance of ammo. Admittedly if I probably used the parry more I would've saved more and kept the melee stuff going I probably would've been doing better.

The boss fights were fun, and I'm glad they leaned back into some of the campiness, without being too dumb about it.

However, where the segments do fall a little short for me is that while they definitely improved some aspects from RE4make, I think overall as a pure combat/gameplay perspective RE4make was more fun. The amount of weapons and the simplicity of the upgrades weren't as exciting for me, and the inventory space was pretty much never an issue for me. I have to admit that some of my favourite parts of RE4 was managing my inventory as I was going along so I was a little disappointed that I didn't have to do so in Leon's segments here (though I had to do it a lot in Grace's).

The HUNK fight also felt… a little too nostalgia baity? for me to enjoy. It felt a little strange and out of place, and it felt more like they just wanted another Krauser fight from RE4 but it didn't feel as slick or fun for me.

Also overall the story of the game was well, about what I expected from an RE game. It wasn't as terrible as I expected but it was also a little crazy with how it felt like they tried to wrap up as much as possible. When I learned about the Spencer redemption I thought it would be way more insane, but this felt a little more reasonable. The whole Elpis thing was pretty funny though with how everyone thought it was some crazy shit despite it being a hope thing.

Again, that being said, I did really enjoy my time with the game. It was better than what I expected, and I ended up liking Grace a lot more than I expected too. I do hope to be able to play outbreak with my friends one day though!

[yuzupia]

I bought Fantasy Maiden Wars without really knowing what I was getting into haha, I liked SRPGs and I liked Touhou so I figured hey, this will be a fun game to pick up right?

Well approximately 120 hours later and 7 months after the fact, I can definitively say yes, it was a fun game to pick up. And I'm only done one route. And I haven't done the post game epilogue chapters yet.

This is a very, very, very, packed game. I'm not a Touhou expert by any means, having only played some of the shmups and other fan games (though I've read a lot of the manga and enjoy a lot of yuri ships) so I wasn't familiar with the original version of the game which to my understanding was actually four games. And the content absolutely matches. Not only are there a plethora of maps and units, there's also an EXTREMELY large OST (more expensive than the game I might add, and for good reason since there's like 234 songs), there's also a lot of story, dialogue, and some very impressive animations. I was honestly shocked by how much there was in the game.

The gameplay itself was also more complex than I expected, though I confess that I played on hard and while I wouldn't say I ignored all the mechanics, I definitely got away with being a little lax on some things. When I checked the steam guide and saw all the different modifiers showing how damage was calculated I thought damn. Had I played on lunatic I might've had to take more care but playing on hard I was mostly content with just playing my favourite characters and pairing them together (by ship of course).

So to get that part out of the way first, I found that the gameplay was fun, though quite different from the usual kinds of SRPGs that I play, not that I play many. But usually I find myself more concerned with the map/terrain and how to position units. In FMW, I found that positioning units wasn't as important, in the sense that because most units could well fly, there wasn't the usual same kind of map restrictions you would find in other SRPGs. To me it felt like the tactics aspect was replaced more with understanding how to build units and how to use the skills effectively to counter the units deployed against you. Also to be fully clear, I've never played a Super Robot Wars game before which is what this gameplay is based off to my understanding.

Moving units around the map, selecting attacks, picking your defensive options, and balancing your resources combined with the skills (spirits) is where the strategy aspect comes in and I found it to be relatively simple on that front. And by that I mean on the surface it's pretty straightforward. You use the skills that make sure you hit, make sure you don't get hit, sometimes use the skills to do extra damage or get around the enemy defense, etc. The complexities and creativity comes from how you build units and there's a plethora of ways to do that in terms of skills you unlock for them as well as just in general how you pair units together (once that gets unlocked).

Generally speaking I'm not usually into that aspect of strategy, usually preferring it when builds are simple and straightforward and my on the map decision making is what mattered. But I am a simple man, and because I liked a lot of the characters, I actually found it quite fun. Finding pairs that worked together (cough cough all my ships) and figuring out how to use the units in conjunction was fun to do! Seeing damage number go up was also quite satisfying, and whenever I had a big turn it always felt suuuuper good.

Bosses when using spellcards also forced me to modify the way I used my units which I thought was cool (or frustrating depending on the spellcard lol). True in tone with Touhou, a lot of the spell cards were very pretty to look at even if some of them made me go "oh shit".

Now, gameplay mechanics aside, where I found the game REALLY shined and the reason why I kept playing and playing was I really really adored all the love the developers poured into the game. There's a LOT of content even just from the gameplay, whether it being the characters using their spell cards as attacks, or all the animations they have. Seriously, I was shocked by how many animations there were since there was one for each attack. And bosses had their own animations too! A lot of them were a blast to watch and enjoy, and I confess that a significant portion of my gameplay time was probably just from watching the attack animations.

But even more than that, there were so many battle lines! There were generic ones of course, but often times characters would have unique battle lines against bosses both before you start combat , to also the actual attack line they say before they used their attack. It's a very small detail, literally one or two lines, but when you consider how many characters there are, I was amazed by the amount of effort that was put in.

Also! For a yuri shipper like myself, there were lines between pairs of characters too! Even more than that, when you paired up units, there were pair names which I thought was a really nice touch. It adds nothing to the gameplay, but it added a lot to how much I enjoyed seeing the different combination of units and what pair names the developers gave them.

So considering how many lines of dialogue there are over how long the game is over how many battles over how many characters, I really respect the effort the developers went to.

And yet, there's more! In addition to all those little details, there's a lot of bigger details with the very detailed glossary and character entries too. It's jampacked with a lot of notes and lore, both in setting and official Touhou setting, and as someone who wasn't the biggest expert on Touhou lore past some of my favourite characters, I found it really interesting and felt like I learned a lot about the series.

Even MORE than that, each SONG they made has a little entry talking about the original song, the inspirations, and just general little tidbits. And again, for 234 songs that's insane! I loved reading the notes they added for the songs and I thought it was really neat they did that. There's a clear show of passion from everyone involved with the game and I absolutely loved that about it.

Plus, I haven't even talked about the actual story and writing. It's a relatively straightforward story that goes through the events of some of the earlier Touhou windows games, while referencing the old PC98 games as well. Having only played through 6-10, it was cool to see the events unfold with a bit of an original twist. They did a good job at connecting the events of the incidents more seamless and I liked the original bits they added.

The original incident central to the game also felt very Touhou-esque which I thought was great. I liked the new characters they added and thought they were pretty charming and fun. Their designs were cute and most importantly, the way they interacted with the main cast was really fun to read.

Speaking of, to me where the games writing shined the most is all the character interactions. I loved, loved, loved when the characters were talking with each other. So many scenes were fun, or even touching, and I think it's a testament to how much the writers really liked the setting and characters that they were able to do so much.

In particular, and partial recency bias here, but a lot of the later chapters were really well written. The Yukari and Yuyuko dynamic I really loved how they did it in the game, and the chapter with the Primsriver sisters I confess almost made me cry.

I can go on and pick out little scenes and dialogues that I really enjoyed or found heartwarming (one last little shoutout to Dai and the rest of the fairy gang, I thought that scene was fantastic too) but there's honestly just so many. I found myself loving these characters even more.

While the story by the writers own admission is a bit cheesy and cliched at times, it serves as a good reminder that cliches aren't inherently bad. It's always about execution. And my ass certainly jumped for joy the entire last four hours I spent on the final level because of how hyped I got. Spoilers but when the entire cast comes in together to talk about the trials they went through to get here, AND a new orchestral version of the title theme plays, AND everyone gets super powered up, how can I not get hyped???? I loved the music note as well saying how they played the normal title theme throughout each arc literally just for this moment, and it was absolutely 10000000% worth it.

Thank you Sanbondo for making an incredible game jampacked with love. This is easily one of my favourite Touhou fan games that I've played, and I'm looking forward to doing the post game content and the NG+ stuff on the other route as well.

[yuzupia]

The Silver Case was definitely one of the visual novels (games?) of all time that I've read. It's not my first suda51 game, nor is it my first entry in this connected universe (that I now learned of) as I played and finished Killer7 first. This was definitely an extremely unique experience and I'm glad I got to be able to read through it.

Just from a general perspective, the controls are without a doubt extremely clunky. But I actually found that it added quite a bit to the atmosphere of the game, the way you move through areas and the way the environments are designed give that sort of claustrophobic feeling. This is definitely felt the most in the earlier parts of the game where you're in the forest and exploring babylon, the limited and stiff controls add a lot. Coming from Killer7, it's interesting to see how the two sort of compare in this aspect as Killer7 also had extremely awkward controls too (in my opinion).

Of course, where the visual novel truly shines is the writing. For lack of a better term, it's an extremely unique experience. This could be a testament to the localizers as well because in a lot of ways its hard for me to describe how the writing feels. It's like… somehow through all the insanity and ridiculousness of what's being said on screen, it somehow makes coherent sense in its own crazy twisted way. That's probably the best way I can describe how playing through a Suda51 game makes me feel. There's crazy moments like when Sumio talks about "yes, I can SMELL him" that are like "??? Suda what the FUCK are you talking about" only to then go "wait, he's deaf so that could've explained how his sense of smell was enhanced". Of course that could be crazy talk but it's stuff like that that makes Suda games so fun to go through for me.

The only part of the game as a whole that kind of took me out of it was case 2, spectrum where it felt like it was kinda… misplaced? While I understood the idea of it for the themes of the game (Koichi's purity and how despite his purity, it caused an accident to happen), it definitely felt weirdly paced and out of nowhere especially with the intro case and case 1.

My favourite case of the game though is probably case 3, Parade. It's where (from what I remember at least) the whole "Kill the past" theme really starts coming up with Sumio, and I really liked the whole structure and framing of the case too. The tie back to the fairytale analogy that Sumio makes at the beginning in addition to the tragedy that follows and the actions the Mikumo boys had to do was really good in my opinion. The presentation also really shrines, with the whole chapter being in black and white until the very end where color returns. I think you can even make a point about how the case is presented as black and white, until you learn all the facts (once you learn the history of the Zaibatsu), and only then when you go to confront Sumio and have all the facts in hand can you see the case in a new light that isn't just black and white.

I'm sure a lot of people also really liked the setting which is quite interesting but for me it will always be about the themes and characters. In addition to the theme about killing the past, there was also the theme around purity and the pursuit of perfection. Case 2 brings it up first but it's really made clear when they reveal the purpose and motive behind the 24 wards as well as the shelter children project, how the government was essentially "pruning" the bad apples and attempting to raise only good ones. These actions are what leads to the events of the Silver Case, and the horrible tragedies that unfold as well. The act of pursuing that pureness causes tragedy, and even when they produce what they consider "pure" (kamui and ayame), those "pure" things were also terrible disasters.

There's also the conversation between Tokio and the bartender (my homie) about how imperfection is needed for humans. I liked that conversation a lot.

Of course there's some other themes that were brought up, one that I found particularly funny/interesting was how they placed a heavy emphasis on how they had to execute Kamui in the right way. He was a crime virus that spread through the media, which I think anyone in the modern age can recognize as true. Even the whole intro scene to that transmitter with the interviews about people's beliefs in Kamui is still relevant today. Could even argue that light from death note was just a Kamui rip off…

I'm also a fan of the general killing the past so that you can move on to your own future. Tokio going "fuck off" to the ghosts was sick and I aspire to have that energy.

There's a lot more to talk about but all in all, I really had a good time with the Silver Case. It was a crazy ride, and it makes me want to play the other games in the series (as well as replaying Killer7 now). Great time, would go on Suda51's wild ride again.

[yuzupia]

I know I made a post about this prior but I still remember the feeling of seeing the mangaka for Maid-San wa Taberu Dake post about how there was an announcement coming up, and the feeling of dread as to whether it was announcing it was ending soon (chapters were coming out rather infrequently at the time) or if maybe the fifth volume would be announced. Instead, against all my expectations, an anime was announced! I was incredibly surprised, and of course overjoyed at seeing one of my favourite manga adapted into an anime!

Well, the time has come, and the first episode had an advanced airing! I am very, very, pleased to say that it is practically everything that I could have hoped it was.

Now, all this being said, this is not some "blow your mind away" show, but it's just a very comfy show to watch with good food, as well as a cute cast of characters. I've loved the manga since I first read it a few years ago (it's been a while) and as is obvious by my blog's banner, Suzume is one of my favourite characters! She's incredibly cute and endearing, and as a fellow food lover, I love seeing her eat things!

My biggest fear with the anime was that the quality wouldn't be great, and while it's not the highest budget production, I was very pleased with how faithful it is to the source material! I loved being able to go "hey I know that line/panel from the manga!" which there were many, many, many times. Here's just a few examples of the manga vs the anime!

Anyways, I'm really happy with what we got and I hope they continue this level for the rest of the season!

[yuzupia]

My first impressions when I saw Skate Story was woah, this looks like a really cool game. I recently got the chance to play it and my impression has remained as, woah, that was a really cool game.

I think anyone's first impression when seeing the game is how stylish and interesting the setting is. You're a skateboarder in hell, eating moons for your soul. That, is a baller premise and definitely encouraged me to pick up the game. The second impression upon booting up the game is how fantastic the music is. Skating through hell to the OST is great and really adds to the game. Who would've thought that a chill soundtrack would fit so well with hell?

Skating in this game also feels really, really good. Granted, I'm not a skate game enthusiast (having really only played some of the tony hawk games) so I can't compare it to many others, but it feels fun to slide around in and tricks are satisfying to perform. The controls for performing tricks is simple but there's a lot of variation you can do which is fun to figure out. I liked that you technically have all your tricks from the start and that tutorials only really teach you the controls. It was fun for me to think "wait how did I do that?" and mash around a bunch haha.

My favourite gameplay segments are when you're skating through all the halls and teleporting from one part to the next. The music combined with the fast changing levels is really fun and made it just a joy to go through.

I do have a few other gameplay critiques though. Mainly, the tricks/combos while fun, feels like there was room to add more. By the end of the game I kind of eventually settled into doing the same combos and the arenas while let you do some cool grinds, I think it would've been really cool to have some larger ramps to let you get more air and add some more tricks like holds. Also, some boss fights felt a little too… unvaried and I think it would be more fun if bosses had more gimmicks.

Another complaint I had with the presentation may be a personal eye issue, but I noticed that sometimes the subtitles were incredibly hard to read because they overlayed white with another white light. That's more of a minor one, but I think just adding a little background could help make it legible.

All in all though, really cool game, and really cool experience. I think some of the story themes went over my head since I was too busy on focusing on skateboarding, but I loved the areas and general design!

[yuzupia]

I found Card Shark off a friend's recommendation, though I later learned that they didn't actually finish the game or even play it that much. So recommendation is probably a big stretch, rather they just posted it and I saw it and it looked interesting!

The main premise of the game is about cheating with cards, which as a non card player in real life, it seemed pretty novel for a card game. The art style is also pretty unique and the presentation's really good so I picked it up as I usually do on sales and delayed playing it for a lengthy period of time.

Now, there's a few things that are… hm, I wouldn't necessarily call them turn offs, but for a large majority of the game, I think calling it a card game rather misleading. A good way to put it is that it is fundamentally a series of mario party styled minigames, at least for a large majority of the game.

What I mean by this is that the mechanics by which you cheat are mostly handled by quick time events and minigame styled "identify X and signal it with Y". Of course, it's pretty understandable considering the game is trying to translate sleight of hand tricks to controller.

That's not to say all the mechanics are like that, and some of them are actually quite complicated and involved. Especially near the end when you learn more advanced shuffling techniques and those are the techniques I would consider to be more in line with actual cheating that I think were cleverly implemented (though as to how "realistic" they are I couldn't comment).

However one thing that I found a bit of a letdown is that it never really "feels" like you're playing a card game. Sure, you're manipulating the cards while shuffling, dealing, playing your own cards, but you never actually see the cards played out outside a few small animations of players throwing down cards. Hell, I don't even know what game they were actually playing, they just vaguely refer to it as playing cards.

Now, I totally get the reasoning for why this is the case. Beyond the fact that the focus is just on cheating itself, there are some techniques where sure you can have an advantage from cheating but it doesn't necessarily guarantee you the win and it would be frustrating to pull off the cheating trick only for it to fail anyways. I felt like there was room for a bit more presentation regarding the actual card game themselves that would've made the end result of the cheating feel more rewarding.

What did surprise me the most though was I actually found the cast of characters to be quite charming and fun. The setting and story aren't overly complicated but they were interesting enough to keep me wanting to play until the end. The dialogue was witty too!

Anyways, overall I still had a really good time with the game! Other than wishing for a better presentation for the card games themselves, I found the translation of mechanics to be done pretty well considering the limitations and the story/setting/characters to be really good.

[yuzupia]

Cairn was a game I actually had discovered through steam's calendar recommendation which has a been a nifty tool in finding a bunch of nicher games that I otherwise would probably overlook. Though judging from sales and reviews I think Cairn was actually pretty popular, it just went under my radar.

The reason why I got interested in this game is that for some reason I found myself on a climbing game kick? Not that I would even call it that since the only other climbing game I played was Peaks of Yore, but I actually have really liked climbing in games in general. Mostly because I find it fun to reach new heights and looking down from high up (though I'm too scared to climb IRL).

Of course though, Cairn is a very, very, very, different kind of climbing game. Peaks of Yore is almost like an arcade game with how you can zoom through maps but Cairn requires you to be a lot more cautious. That is also in addition to the survival mechanics which require you to also think about while embarking on climbs.

You also control your limbs one by one, which is an interesting way to sort of mimic climbing? No idea how realistic it is (in terms of the actual climbing) but it definitely prevents some of the crazy stuff I could do in Peaks of Yore.

What was cool about it is that how it felt like the developers put a lot of emphasis on making the climbing aspects feel natural. And by that I mean the auto limb selection made you feel like even though you weren't "climbing" that much, you actually ended up climbing a lot. It's an almost zen like experience planning out your climbing path and executing it. The survival mechanics I felt were also never so intrusive that it felt like I had to really struggle with them, except for the very end of the game.

Now, there were some things I had complaints about with the climbing aspects. It boils down to a few things, namely how placing limbs worked. You are encouraged to find cracks/holds/good spots to rest your limbs on which makes sense. But due to the camera angles, this was sometimes incredibly annoying when Aava would block the view. Sometimes the limb also wouldn't grab the hold/crack I expect it to grab which would cause me to have to try to constantly place it in the right spot.

This is in combination with sometimes it felt like the weight distribution system felt very off. There were many locations where I felt that I had a strong hold, legs on a crack, arms on a crack, sufficiently spread out, but the character would shake and eventually drop. I could only assume that one of the cracks that I had thought was stable was not. This was rather rare though, I found that for the most part the game does a good job indicating when you were in a stable/unstable position (combined with common sense).

There were also a few animation bugs where Aava's legs would freak out and clip into the wall, which fine, given the freeform structure of climbing I could accept. What was annoying though was sometimes when you think you were above a flat stable surface and decided to jump off, Aava would just leap off the entire cliff. This happened a few times, which was frustrating to lose progress due to something that felt like should not have happened. I found that the auto climb for ledge system also sometimes didn't function, leading me to have to practically spider climb onto the flat surface before Aava would detect that yes, I am on a flat surface she can stand on.

But overall, the gameplay was good. It was fun, strangely addicting, and smooth. The story I thought was… good? I would hesitate to say bad, but there were also aspects of it that I didn't enjoy.

For starters, I think the themes of the game were very good. I thought they did a good job showing the struggles/pursuit of someone who wanted to focus whole heartedly on their one goal, in this case, Aava with climbing the mountain. I liked how you're not exactly supposed to like her, she dismisses the people who supported her and she really is just focused on accomplishing her one goal. She ignores her sponsors, her girlfriend, and she pursues her goal relentlessly. Despite the infrequent dialogue, they did a good job conveying that with how she progresses through the mountain.

Where I did find some annoyances was how the game would sometimes force you into cutscenes and interrupt the flow of climbs. At the start I thought they did a good job with messages playing on the climbot allowing you to progress while listening. But later on, they start forcing you into these cutscenes that really took me out of the climbing flow. I wish the conversations were better integrated so that it didn't require a full blown cutscene instead.

Spoilers for the ending ahead!

I also felt the ending was a little bit of a miss for me. The climb into the stars is "cool", but I would've much preferred a more bittersweet ending. An ending where Aava just quietly lies there would've in my opinion, played better into the themes of how she focused so much on her goal that was ultimately meaningless. Nobody will know that she made it, and only she will know for her own self satisfaction.

Anyways, that's all to say I did like this game. I have some complaints with the delivery of the story, but I think the story as a whole was good and I liked the gameplay. It was relaxing, fun, and despite being different from Peaks of Yore, I had a lot of time exploring the mountain. Also the freelook review of your path was really cool!

[yuzupia]

Caligula Effect Overdose was a game that a friend generously gifted to me and really liked. I'll admit that initially I was a little skeptical because I heard the game wasn't exactly great, but I learned that was mostly in reference to the gameplay itself. Seeing that the publisher was Furyu… well having played Crystar/Crymachina I guess I could say I wasn't too surprised. But, overall I actually enjoyed my time with the game, though with a few major caveats.

First, to get the bad out of the way, yes, the gameplay was… Let's just say that it's been a while since I played a game with what felt like the potential to be extremely cool. I really, REALLY, liked the idea of the gameplay system. You get to plan out your turns, visualize cool combos, and see them execute? Sounds really cool!

Unfortunately, that wasn't exactly the case. There's a couple of glaring flaws with the combat system. The very first thing that became apparent is that after you plan out your turn, you enter a downtime that can sometimes be excruciatingly long. It doesn't start out too bad, but when you realize that it can be upwards of like 5 seconds, it adds up and is extremely frustrating to deal with.

The other problem is that to balance the fact that in theory you can just juggle the enemy forever is that they added the concept of missing. What's the problem with missing? Well, if you miss, then the rest of your combo is basically guaranteed to do nothing. Missing is also increasingly frustrating as the higher level enemies are, the easier it is to miss and do effectively nothing on your turn.

Enemies can also guard which force you to use a guard break move or also just sit there waiting for the guard to go down. Counter moves are a cool idea if it wasn't for the fact that I previously mentioned, you can just miss and end up doing nothing.

This is also compounded by the fact that there is a LOT of enemies. Thankfully you can dodge them by walking around them, but doing so makes you lose exp. The other problem is that the enemy variety barely changes throughout the game. So for majority of the game you are facing effectively just a few different types of enemies. Some dungeons were also INCREDIBLY painful to navigate, namely one in particular that was just a maze of long narrow corridors that had many enemies you were forced to fight.

It's a shame because almost everything else I think is really, really cool about the game's gameplay system. Encounters start with enemies where they are, there's no transition or anything. The way you plan out moves is displayed in the top right in a timeline similar to a music sheet fitting the themes of the game. And perhaps my favourite part, the song that plays in the dungeon plays an instrumental version until you enter combat in which case a vocal version seamlessly plays. That's really cool! It is just a shame that the actual experience of doing combat is unfortunately not very fun!

Though then again, the real highlight of the game is the characters. My perspective if from the Overdose version which includes the Musician route, which in my opinion is pretty crucial to a lot of the characters. Playing without that route is… interesting to me to say the least lol. A lot of the characters feel like they would lose their depth and I think without it I would've had a much lesser opinion on the game over all.

Now that being said, the story itself is relatively straightforward. It's a standard escapism plot and I think from the getgo of the game it's pretty clear to see what direction the game is heading to.

What makes it interesting are the characters. I particularly liked that the main cast of characters are quite mysterious at first, and that throughout the game and their episodes you slowly start to figure out their true identities. It makes a lot of sense since they initially entered Mobius to avoid reality, so they wouldn't be forthright about it anyways.

The most surprising thing to me about the cast of characters though (beyond some of their true identities) is how openly… hostile/terrible they are. And by that, I mean from a moral standpoint. In the second dungeon of the game Mifue throws so many fat insults some of them I haven't even heard of before. And I've been on the internet for a while now. I was honestly taken aback by how rapid fire she was and how unapologetic she was.

Of course, learning about her trauma explains where that hatred comes from. What I was actually more worried about was that the game seemed to take a fairly negative stance towards Sweet-P, in a way that was not only just fatphobic but transphobic as well lol. But playing through Sweet-P's character episodes, I was surprised to see how the game approached the topic of being overweight and general body image. It was a lot more than I expected given that start.

In fact, most of the Musicians I found to be quite charming and interesting. The main cast on the other hand I could argue are a lot "worse" as people lol. Some of their traumas and pasts are interesting and relatable, but I found the Musicians and their reasons for trying to stay in Mobius to be more understandable.

If there was one real miss of a character it would be Eiji in my opinion. His resolution feels the most… mediocre? In the sense that he kind of bows out of stage and there doesn't feel like proper resolution between him and the rest of the cast.

Overall, I found the characters to be charming and fun and definitely the main reason why I enjoyed this game. The gameplay was so, so, close to being something that could've been really cool but alas it falls a little short. I'm interested to see how Caligula 2 builds off of this, but that'll have to wait.

[yuzupia]

Recently I had a friend recommend AI Limit, which was a Chinese souls like with a pretty cute girl. It was on sale for pretty cheap so I decided to pick it up.

Now for a bit of background, I've played all the souls game including Bloodborne and Sekiro. I wouldn't exactly call myself a souls veteran, but I have played them all so I'm familiar with them though I haven't played that many souls likes. One that I did play however was Code Vein, which I thought was very very very average.

This game to me was a bit more interesting than Code Vein simply because I think the setting and NPCs were more fun to interact with. It helped that there was an actual main character, and questlines were similar to souls like progression where you interact with them in several locations before progressing. Now I will say that I found the questlines a lot more straightforward, which if you're familiar with souls questlines isn't that big of a surprise. For the most part there's not a lot of backtracking, and each bonfire equivalent is teleportable to so even if you need to go back it's not too difficult.

One thing that I thought was nice about the level design (at least early on) was that the maps felt pretty connected. In the sense that while there were some level transitions between the big areas, there was a nice use of shortcuts and "loops" that made the areas feel tighter and more connected. It was nice to see how different paths connected back to the beginning and it was something that I felt was usually lacking from other games in this genre. Additionally, exploration/path splits helped each area not feel very linear (again, with the exception of areas closer to the end of the game).

Now as is usually the case with souls likes, I feel like they all try to stand out in some way. AI Limit does a few different things that I found… interesting. The first is their "mana" equivalent. There is a bar that fills up the more you deal damage and reduces the more you take damage. This bar is a resource that you can use either for spells, or weapon art equivalents (special moves to each weapon), or the higher you keep it, the more damage your weapon does in general. There's also some other equipment that benefits from the sync rate (the level the bar is filled with).

I liked the idea of the system, though I found that I ended up opting to only use the bar for damage. The reason is that weapon arts usually drained a large portion of the bar for some amount of damage, and spells felt similar. Though granted, I didn't spec into this so I won't fault the game for that. That's just how I usually play these games. I did like how it at least let the player use their abilities because they could actually get it back.

But to me the most interesting decision they made is that normally in these games, there is a stamina meter. In AI limit, there is no stamina bar. This means you can freely attack/swing/dodge/run as many or as much as you want. I think the idea is to keep the player always on the move and not have to worry about a stamina resource, but I felt this was actually a detriment for a few reasons. It introduced a new kind of balancing issue with (I'll just borrow the term from souls) poise. If an enemy had no poise, there was no threat because you could just spam an attack without fear of them retaliating. Now, some enemies DID have poise, and it led to weird situations where I honestly never understood when an enemy actually broke poise or not. Bosses also had weird poise meters where it felt like sometimes I would be able to break it, other times not.

This was my biggest issue with the core of the game. Poise felt weirdly inconsistent, and the infinite stamina led to weird combos/situations where I could just freely wail on a boss until they died.

The other issue I had was that weapon variety was very very low. They had the idea to make each weapon unique with their unique weapon art, but the base movesets for a lot of them were very similar. R2s also didn't have proper follow ups, and while switching weapon attacks were cool, I found myself rarely ever needing to use them.

The parry system implementation I have similar gripes with most modern parry implementations. I'll say that it's nice that it feels like at least it's not a "win all" button, but it did feel like some bosses you pretty much had to parry in order to get a true punishable opening, most notably a lot of the other Bladers.

Now, this experience is HEAVILY contrasted with the fact that very recently I just finished an archipelago run of Dark Souls 1, which is my personal favourite souls game. For context, archipelago is sort of like a multiplayer randomizer where items are between other people's worlds. It's pretty fun and I've done a few runs with friends.

Playing through DS1 made me realize how much the sort of genre of souls likes has changed since its conception. It felt even more real coming from something like AI Limit and going straight to DS1 because there were a lot of times playing where I thought "oh right, not every enemy needs an instant reaction or you need to perfectly memorize the boss pattern". A lot of enemies in DS1 were slower, more deliberate, and the weapons also had a satisfying weight behind them too. Your attacks could be slower because bosses had longer openings and/or more telegraphed attacks.

Not to say that "oh I'm so good at souls" but it made me wonder how Dark Souls 1 really got that reputation of "this game is so hard!!!!". It's a punishing game for sure, but most of the game is in my opinion, rather balanced and fair. The later you go the harder some bosses get of course, and healing/attack windows are smaller, but even then bosses never felt like I had to instantly react and understand their moveset.

Of course, there are some exceptions. Bed of Chaos is still terrible, and Lost Izalith as a whole still sucks. But I loved the world design in DS1, I loved walking around and seeing all the different areas, I loved how interconnected each part felt, how you could see different parts of the world from other parts, (most) bosses felt fun to fight too!

Personally speaking, the increase in faster and faster bosses and more and more damaging bosses feels like it came from a need to meet customer expectations of "oh these games MUST be hard" but that's a whole other can of worms. This post was really just a way for me to say that DS1 is still near and dear to my heart, and that I think more recent souls (elden ring included) and other imitations fall flat in a lot of ways. Of course there's a lot I wish was in DS1, and I wish Lost Izalith was finished as well, but I really had a lot of fun playing DS1 again.

[yuzupia]

It's been a while huh? Well, that's because most of my efforts have been for finishing Mahou Shoujo no Mahou Saiban (魔法少女の魔法裁判, or Manosaba for short) and I really, really liked it! It's currently in JP or CN only at the moment but given its popularity online I would be surprised if it didn't get an EN localization at some point or the other.

Full disclosure, I read it in Japanese and my Japanese is definitely not the greatest. So I can't fully comment on prose or anything like that, but mostly just broad strokes lol. Additionally, there's pretty much no way for me to talk about the game without going into spoilers so that's your warning!

Going into Manosaba, I honestly wasn't exactly sure what I expected, other than knowing it was a death game, and that people really liked it. I have read Danganronpa and I'm sure this will be compared to it constantly by people, but I enjoyed this a lot more than Danganronpa.

The main reason why? Manosaba doesn't actually feel like a death game, rather, it's really a character story that has a death game backdrop. If there was one broad "critique" I have of Manosaba is that the mysteries and trials are all relatively straightforward, and sometimes not even in the sense that the mysteries themselves are simple, but in the sense that with the way the story structure is setup some things have to happen.

Death games to me usually feel like they have to have a lot of shock value, at least from the ones I've played and read. My "general" feel of them is that because the importance is on those kinds of story beats, a lot of the characters sort of end up feeling one dimensional, partially because in a story where characters are expected to die, it's hard to set up many complex characters. This is where I think Manosaba does a pretty good job.

The first case and initial introduction to the cast really makes it feel like one of those stories. Everyone has a very strong personality, the main character feels like one of those goodie two shoes, and the first trial has a brutish end accompanied by one of those crazy psycho moments from the perpetrator.

The second case though is quite different though, and the mystery itself isn't as much of the focus as much as its the characters and the struggles they go through. Despite seeing the trauma of the perpetrator from the first case, I think it's really from the second case onwards when the character stories start getting interesting. Miria's "trick" was a much more brutal reveal to me than the case itself, and it was a sucker punch.

And of course, the third case (which is my personal favourite) was a way way way bigger sucker punch. I think this was when I really started to like the VN, not only because I found Sherry and Hanna's dynamic really good, but case 3 with them was fantastic. Understanding everything from before the case occurs (Sherry's desperation to find a way out, the broom ride with Sherry and Hanna, the bad end between them, etc.) and at first not understanding why Sherry would kill Hanna, only to then realize the true tragedy of the case was really really well done. I am also definitely not biased because Sherry and Hanna is my favourite pairing.

I also liked the fourth case for how the ending is setup. I really liked how the case essentially turns against Ema and she ends up being marked as culprit, even accompanied with the usual puppet theatres that show a killer confessing their crimes. Though I felt the rest of the case was a little unmemorable.

The fifth case itself I felt was also a little rough from what I remember, until of course the ending.

I usually joke with my friends that "haha the real game starts here" and with Manosaba I had a sneaking suspicion that there was going to be a loop or some part 2 of some sorts (thanks CG gallery for showing how many CGs there are). The ending of the first half, essentially the prologue, was good. I especially liked the reveal with Yuki being the narrator, and while I'd have to reread to confirm, I think this corresponds to why we always see Ema's sprite (which is not always true in the second half, and also why the narration doesn't have ぼく). It's a really cool reveal imo, and the rewind transition into revealing the REAL (second) main character being Hiro was also well done. This combined with the title screen change really made it feel like a part two to a game (but also thank god that it wasn't sequel bait because I would've been pissed).

Now unfortunately, the second half of the game is where I have the most issues, primarily while I think the pacing from the first half of the game is really good, the second half has quite a few pacing issues. This is also where some aspects of it being a death game doesn't exactly work out in its favor.

That being said, I understand and in some ways I think this loop does a lot of cool things for it being a death game. Primarily, the characters that died earlier in the first half now have a chance to shine in this half. It allows for different character interactions, and with a new character perspective, the coolest part is how Hiro approaches the story differently from Ema.

Ema had three options in her trials which are usually pretty typical, support, point out a contradiction, ask for more info. But I love how Hiro can just straight up lie. I think it's a really cool aspect of her character that she's willing to lie to get to a conclusion, and it's interesting to see how other characters react to her lies. Her disdain for everyone (Ema especially) is really fun to read especially when contrasting with how Ema wanted to get along with everyone. One particular highlight for me is how she treats Reia who tries to help her. If Reia was only a character in the first half of the game, I would've thought her to be okay at best. But her sections in the second half of the game were really fun and made me really enjoy her scenes.

Ultimately the second half really did a good job at helping a lot of the more underdeveloped characters from the first half. I left liking most characters from the game, though I have just an okay opinion on one (sorry Alisa).

Unfortunately going back to the pacing problems, the big problem is that its very obvious that the writers knew that doing all the investigations again would be tedious (which they were right for). So instead of an investigation phase, Hiro gets locked up because she is voted as most suspicious and its a new mechanic introduced. Now, this is extremely funny because it happens for every case in the second half. Each case Hiro finds some way to be the most suspicious one and I found that really funny.

In addition to this, from a meta perspective we understand that cases will usually have the backstory of the murderer and sometimes victim revealed/talked about. This leads to well, some pretty easy guesses. There are no duplicate murderers, and by the last case there was only one character who didn't get their backstory revealed. So it was not very surprising that they were the murderer.

Again, I do think Manosaba is a character story first, not a death/mystery game so this didn't bother me too much, but it is an unfortunate side effect of what they were going for even if it was understandable.

This is ALSO combined with that I found two cases to be… okay at best, and honestly not that good. Cases 2-2 and 2-3 were rather lackluster both in setup and resolution, and while I enjoyed the character stuff, going through the trials felt more like a chore than anything. That being said, Case 2-1 was really good (margo bias), and Case 2-4 was also really good (Sherry Hanna bias, again.)

Case 2-5 was extremely good too, if only because I really liked how it felt like a "sum up" of all the cases you've gone through before. Exploring and pointing out every character's trauma was like a fun road trip (for us) down memory lane, and was kind of a nice way to remember what everyone had gone through. This combined with being able to use others' magic during the trial was a nice touch.

The last case of the game I felt was unfortunately just okay. There are fun moments and I do like everyone bonding to take down the big bad Yuki, but I felt that the case was a little too straightforward and while needed to serve as a proper conclusion for the story, I liked 2-5 much more.

Every other aspect of the game I thought was also really incredible. The art is FANTASTIC, and almost every CG is worth being a wallpaper (sorry I can't use the death of my favourite characters as wallpapers). This combined with the great character sprites and backgrounds made me really wish you could hide the text boxes in game!!! I don't know why you can't!!! I will be looking for the artbook though for sure.

The OST is fantastic too and I really liked how they used a mix of vocal and non vocal tracks. When vocals in the songs we listened to for so long kicked in near the end of the game, it was great. I also really liked how they switched between Ema's and Hiro's themes during the last trial where the perspective would swap, I thought it was a nice touch.

But honestly the part that REALLY blew me away was the VAs. I was shocked to hear that most of the VAs were relatively new, at least to voice acting. They did an outstanding job, and some lines were really enhanced by their performance. One group of lines in particular (yes it's Sherihan related) during case 2-4 when Sherry tells Hanna it's ok, it really killed me to hear Sherry's usually energetic voice be so lethargic and… sad. This is combined with the fact that we know that usually Sherry is not someone who necessarily "understands" human emotions, but seeing how much she cares for Hanna…

I don't think it's a surprise but my favourite characters from the visual novel are undoubtedly Sherry and Hanna. Their interactions are always so much fun and I loved their dynamic in both halves. I do love all of the cast though! It's incredibly hard for me to pick a top 5, but if I had to, I'd probably say Hiro, Miria, and then Reia.

This is all to say I really enjoyed my time with Manosaba. I have a bad feeling people are going to get the wrong impression of what kind of game it is, but I think it was a really fun journey with a great cast of characters. Now if you'll excuse me, it's time for me to go save and look at more fanart of Sherihan…

[yuzupia]

Peaks of Yore is a game that… I have… some feelings with.

To clarify, I really liked this game. Loved it in fact. I picked it up initially because honestly? I liked the idea of climbing. I was actually a bit disappointed with what Peak was because it was too… free form? Peaks of Yore was what I wanted in a climbing game, where you had to climb based on holds and steadily progress through a level.

It was relaxing and soothing! I enjoyed climbing the little hills as they steadily got bigger and bigger. The NPCs were fun and enjoyable and the little interactions were always great!

That is… at first. What was a relaxing game slowly turned into a very challenging game. At times I was definitely frustrated. But as a testament to the game's design, none of my frustrations were ever about buggy mechanics (with one slight exception) or things that felt designed to "haha got you!" in a malicious way. Every jump, hold, and peak always felt doable.

To me the greatest part of this game was how each time I conquered a difficult mountain, there was always another one after it that challenged me. And as a result, I never felt bored with the game. Of course to confess though I did drop the game after one particularly bad failure but I knew I'd come back, and come back I did. Finishing the game and especially the last climb was exhilarating. It is up there on one of the most satisfying feelings I've had when gaming, up there with my XCOM iron man runs.

Movement also feels great! Once you get a hang of the movement systems it feels like you can fly through maps. Learning how to conquer new peaks then coming back to old peaks and applying new movement tricks that you learned feels great. It's funny how easy every early climb feels once you climbed the later ones.

Again though, I would be lying if I didn't curse the game or cursed the developers with each fall. Every time though it was something I did wrong. And each time I climbed back up and tried it again, it humbled me. When I failed at a jump multiple times I learned that sometimes I had to come at it in a different way.

Would I climb that last climb again? …No. At least not now. My poor hands and mind need the break. For reference, it took me somewhere between 3-4 hours to finish it in one sitting (of course including numerous falls).

[yuzupia]

Orb (or Chi) was a show that I had seen get quite popular, and the poster honestly drew me in. A friend had recommended it to me so I decided to give it a shot when I felt like I was in an anime mood, and I'm glad I did!

I've never had a strong interest in the stars, I've had a passing interest in them in the idea of thinking "oh wow how pretty!" but if you asked me to point out even the north star or any constellation, I couldn't tell you. At most I'd be able to say that looks like a star. So the subject matter wasn't something I'm necessarily passionate about, or at least, at first glance.

To me, the subject of astronomy and celestial objects was a vessel for the messages and the themes that the show (and presumably the manga though I haven't read it) is trying to portray. That's of course not to say the subject of the church and heliocentrism isn't important, but to me the more important aspect of the show are the themes of conviction and records.

The characters in Orb are great. All the different perspectives are fantastic and I particularly like that there is one consistent character across all arcs, and that being the antagonist, Nowak. He's not a good person, but his character is important to what I believe is the most central theme to the show, which already isn't subtle.

Conviction, and what it means to people. The turning point in every main character's arc is always when they go against their previous conviction, abandoning it. Jolenta talks about how conviction is a curse, and tells Draka to wander.

Every main character of each arc has their own convictions in some degree or form. Rafal was committed to the "easy" way in life, following what others say and saying what others wanted to hear. But his moment of growth is when he defies that conviction. He refuses to tell the court and the inquisitors where the research materials were. Had he adhered to his previous conviction in life, he would've offered them up, been forgiven, and continued an easy life as he had previously admired. But he didn't He refused. And in doing so, going as far as to even kill himself, he keeps the truth, heliocentrism, safe.

Oczy and Badeni have similar moments for their own convictions. Oczy was scared to look into the skies, for fear of the eyes that would judge him. His conviction was that the earth was doomed, and that the heavens were pure. His guilt and conviction kept him low to the ground, unable to see what was above. Until someone helps him, and he ultimately makes the choice to break his own conviction and finally look into the skies. This culminates in personally my favourite and what I think is the most beautiful scene in the show, when he looks up in the sky for Venus.

Badeni on the other hand's conviction is all about how he believed that only those worthy should be able to research, and that's why he was determined to be the sole person to complete heliocentrism, and if he didn't, then so be it. Yet, despite him saying all of this, he breaks his conviction and doesn't destroy the heliocentrism materials, additionally, he even uses unorthodox ways to preserve his research.

In doing so, both of them go against their previously set convictions for themselves. In return, they preserve something else, the theory of heliocentrism.

The next part has Draka with her own conviction. This is when the show is the most blunt about their themes. Her uncle tells her that she needs a conviction to survive, though ironically adhering to his convictions is what gets him killed. On the other hand, Draka is actually shown abandoning her convictions. She throws away her father's keepsakes, the keepsakes that remind her of her conviction to make money. Instead, she throws them away for the sake of something else, heliocentrism. Jolenta's legacy.

Another character that throws away their conviction is Schmidt. It's another extremely powerful scene, but early on in his talks with Draka, he talks about how he is convinced that there is a God. He refuses to go against God's wishes, and believes in God's will. That's why he uses a coin for some arguments, much to Draka's chagrin. This leads to another one of my favourite scenes in the show, where Draka decides to use this method to resolve an argument. The result goes against what Draka desires, but Schmidt as an individual, acts against God's 'fate'. He goes against his conviction to leave things to God, and takes charge of his own destiny.

I really love that scene both because of the callback, but because it also illustrates Schmidt's growth as a character.

The last arc of the show with Albert and the "Rafal" is interesting because while I don't believe that was actually Rafal (but rather they have the appearance/voice of Rafal), I think it was used to show another case of what happens when one's conviction goes too far. Had Rafal lived, it's possible he would've ended up like the "Rafal" we saw. Someone who was willing to go any length for their conviction (like Jolenta), becoming a murderer.

And in the end, Albert, someone who was willing to be curious, to wander, to doubt and not be stuck to preconceived notions was the person who inspired Copernicus and create the heliocentric model we know today. Tying back to the start of the show where the question is asked of what must be offered to discover the truth of the world was really good too.

Ultimately, I went into this show expecting a show that was about the stars and it to be really pretty (and hopefully have fun characters). But instead, I got a show that showed me the fears and dangers of sticking to convictions, and to learn how to accept new ones.

I may have gotten some details wrong here and there due to faulty memory, but I really did enjoy this show. A lot more than I expected. I was impressed by the story telling, the strong theming, and how much I found myself actually reflecting. Not to say this is true of all anime, but I usually watch anime to relax/unwind or while exercising, and this was definitely not a show that I could do that with lol. It compelled me to compile my thoughts even!

[yuzupia]

Feels like it's been a while since I finished a game lol, but I recently finished Majogami. I don't exactly remember when I added it to my wishlist, but I added it because the art style was really striking to me. The art reminded me of the Vanillaware game Muramasa, so I said sure why not. I bought it on release because I was currently playing through Fantasy Maiden Wars (fantastic touhou fangame by the way, but it's long and it's giving me XCOM ptsd) and wanted something a little more actiony.

And the art style is really great throughout! Some character designs I'm a little iffy on, but I really like the world designs, colours, it's very much like Madoka (and the ending closing curtain at the end of each stage really emphasizes that). Enemy designs are fun and they don't feel too repetitive either.

Gameplay wise I had a really good time exceeeeeept one boss fight in particular, mostly because there's a lot of downtime. It helps that combat is fairly straightforward and it doesn't get too complex or complicated, and instead the fun comes from the variety of enemy types and level design. The levels are fun to go through while not being too long or too short/complex, and on hard the difficulty feels fair (…except one fight/stage that went on extremely long). I also really appreciate that you can switch the difficulty down to easy to treasure hunt and leave the stage right away.

It's kind of crazy for me to think about how each stage isn't that long, and there's not even that many stages, but before I knew it, it took me like 15 hours to get through the game lol. It didn't feel like 15 hours, which is a good thing! I enjoyed my time with the game a lot and I think it's a testament to the game's level design and pacing that I can feel that way. It's fun to blast through levels, enemies and hits feel satisfying, boss fights are hard but learnable from, and overall just a great time.

The characters are also pretty fun and charming. I didn't think the story was necessarily standout, but for what the game was, I didn't think it needed to be. Shiroha and Shiori are a fun daughter/father duo and while a little cliche at times the story was fun! I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel anything by the end of the game.

For a game I bought on release, I think it was worth it and if you're interested in a 2d platformer/action game, it's a good pick!

[yuzupia]

I don't think I've talked about shows or movies before but today I recently finished Weapons which was a movie I had been interested in but only watched today. Admittedly a big part of that is that I knew the director was involved in WKUK which was a show with skits that I had liked a lot in the past haha. Is there something about comedy skit actors/writers becoming horror film directors?

Anyways, I had gone in with 0 understanding of what the movie was really about other than vaguely that the plot was about kids leaving mysteriously in the middle of the night. I knew it was also supposed to be a horror film and while it's a bit past Halloween surely this counts as me watching a scary film for that.

Now I am a self proclaimed scaredy cat. I'm terrible with things scary and tend to get really anxious over things that jump at you which makes me horrible at horror games (though I did finish silent hill with some friends watching me). Horror movies I'm only slightly better at because at the very least I don't have to personally do anything. So when I say that I'm able to watch this movie without being scared, that's to say that I don't think it's that scary. But I will admit I had to cover my ears at times because I'm scared of loud noises, so take that as you will.

That's all to say that while Weapons is sort of marketed as a horror thriller, I don't think that should be the main focus. I actually found that a lot of the themes Weapons explores to be more interesting than the horror elements, which I guess is kind of the impetus for why I decided to make a blog post about the movie in the first place lol.

Before that though I do want to say there were quite a few scenes in Weapons that I actually found… comical in a dark humor sort of way. I think those who've seen the movie will know what I'm talking about.

But regardless, I think the interesting parts of the movie relate to the themes around addiction as well as… hm I don't know a good singular word to sum it up but I guess about protecting children? It feels like a fitting story to take place in America given a lot of events that occur in America. Spoilers inbound

Perhaps I'm a bit of sucker for stories involving kids in difficult situations, but I felt that Alex really was given the short end of the stick throughout the entire movie, whether it be being bullied in class or being forced to take care of his essentially hypnotized parents.

The most telling part of it is how little anyone is really able to help him. Even at the end of the movie, despite Justine and Archer being there, he's really the one who gets himself out of his own situation. The police weren't able to help, the school wasn't able to help, he was essentially forced to confront his own abusers and 'break' that spell.

I think there's a lot to be said about how adults (Justine is who I think of in this particular movie) like to think they're helping or trying to help, but ultimately are unable to do anything. It could be because they're selfish/thinking of themselves (Marcus), or because they're restricted by other powers (Justine with the school rules). The police (Paul) we see are also ultimately interested in their own benefit, and Justine even calls Paul out on it with regards to the case with the missing kids. I'm sure Paul was glad to 'help', but I think it's equally as likely he's just glad to find something to shift the focus away from his police brutality.

Also, I don't know how intentional this is but it really does feel like the police are quite useless lol. There's so much to be said about how poor their investigation is that it's almost comical that Gladys wasn't caught earlier. I don't take this as a nock against the movie, but rather I contribute it as part to the incompetency of the police in general portrayed in the film.

The addiction themes I'll confess I was only really able to see with the help of looking at other people's interpretations of the movie. I think viewing it through the lens of how everyone has their own addiction they're fighting/coping with makes some scenes particularly interesting, Marcus being one of them. I didn't make the connection his addiction was junk food until someone pointed that out lol.

There is also themes related to parasitism, and that imo ties in with the addiction/abuser themes. The scenes where the ant fungus is on television or in the class they're talking about tapeworms stand out.

Overall, the film was surprisingly deeper than I expected it to be. For those reasons alone I think the film was really good. As a horror film, it's not really scary, but as a film overall, I liked it.

Oh, one last thing that I thought about the ending. A lot of interpretations online seemed to speculate that the curse was still in effect after Gladys' death because of how much life force she's drained. I think this ties into themes surrounding kids' trauma and how they live it with long after the abuse happens, part of me (from a non thematic perspective) wonders if it has anything to do with Alex being the one to cast almost a "new" spell. At least in regards to the children still being affected. There are holes with that since some kids recover but something I was thinking about lol.

[yuzupia]

With a trip upcoming for me I've been playing through a bunch of shorter games I've picked up and one of those was Pseudoregalia! This was a game that's been on my radar for a while since I've heard good things about it, but I didn't pick it up initially because the art style was a little dreary. Not that's a bad thing or anything, but I am very much the type of person who likes more bright and cheerful environments.

The game is pretty short, though admittedly I didn't 100% the game (in terms of finding up all upgrades/doing all trials). Honestly, the movement and design reminded me a lot of Mario 64 lol.

To me where the game shines is the movement. It feels like a blast to learn how to move in the game, and once you do, going through environments feels awesome. Learning applications and combining different techniques to reach higher areas or previously unreachable areas feels great and is super exhilarating.

Unfortunately where I felt the game lacked was combat. There weren't that many different enemies and the combat itself was a little lackluster. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing since the highlight of the game is movement in the first place, but it did make some fights/encounters feel more like a chore.

One other problem I had is that movement feels awesome… when you have all the upgrades and options available. When you didn't, it didn't feel that fun to explore through the castle. Granted, this is more of a minor complaint, but it also felt like by the time you collected every upgrade, there wasn't actually that much left to do. There's also the usual complaint I have with cameras in these types of games, and I also felt that the wall kick movement option was a bit finicky with how it bounced against walls with momentum. Otherwise, I felt the movement was fantastic.

If this game got a sequel I'd love to explore a larger area with a focus on the platforming and movement aspects. Discovering and figuring out tricks to be able to optimize how I wanted to move felt really cool. But overall, for a 5 dollar game definitely worth the price of admission.

[yuzupia]

So I recently finished (and I have no shame in admitting that I copied this from steam) "1f y0u're a gh0st ca11 me here!" which is a really short VN with a pretty fun gameplay element. Normally I start these little posts off with how I discovered this small indie game but honestly, I have no idea how I discovered this one. I just remember picking it up on a sale but I don't remember why I wishlisted it, but regardless I'm glad I did!

It's really short and it basically follows our main character, Vanitas who is a ghost that starts a new job as a call center technician. At the call center, you're expected to route calls from new ghosts in the overworld to the relevant service, whether that's police, location, or medical. Due to the number of calls, you're often juggling multiple calls at the same time which leads to some really frantic gameplay moments of trying to read multiple conversations at once and figuring out the right places to direct them.

The gameplay is honestly… pretty fun haha. I liked the multitasking and because each gameplay segment wasn't too long, it never felt like a huge drain. I also appreciated it being relatively easy to backtrack/retry them so it wasn't a huge hassle even if I did mess up.

One downside technically speaking is that I felt the text speed was a little slow in English, I was clicking pretty constantly to advance dialogue and I think this is mainly in part due to how clicking only advances text to end of line, not end of sentence. So if a sentence was four lines, you'd have to click four times to get to the end of the sentence.

Now, beyond that though, what I really loved about the game were the characters and the art! There's really only five characters, and each of them is very distinct from one another. Their conversations and dynamics are fun, and I really appreciated the little "side" stories.

Vanitas, the main character I in particular liked her attitude towards work. Her being someone looking for a place she belongs after the incident and finding it was really endearing to me. That combined with her being a former maid. I'll admit my opinion of her went up after that (I'm a simple person, I like maids).

And Carpe also has a cute character arc with becoming more comfortable around everyone and her dreams/goals. What I really liked about Carpe was her cute sprites and her dynamic with Vanitas (For a short VN my mind went to many places… perhaps a fic is in order haha…).

Memento and Ars' dynamics were also really fun and I enjoyed both of them bickering and arguing with each other. I liked Ars' journey for innovation, as well as Memento's concerns about how her innovation might render her career pointless. Their arguments and the discussion around it felt pretty accurate to a lot of real world technologies and advancements.

Ultimately, if there was one "issue" I had with this VN, is that I felt it was too short! I loved the characters and would greatly LOVE more with them! As I'm writing this, I'm actually struggling to clear the hundred call run (my poor short term memory) because there is one little bit of dialogue locked behind it (got as close as 95 once). I'd really recommend this game, it's cheap, short, and a lot of fun and filled with cute and charming characters!