Eclipsed

Aight I was holding off on this for the longest time ever because I'm a judgmental prick and didn't really like the art style, heh, but it's time to start

You know you got addicted to a story when you finish it within a week clocking in 30-35 hours, I don't think I've read any VN this year got me hooked this much. Robotics;Notes also clocked me about 30-35 hours, but took me a solid MONTH each entry to finish because I just read for a couple hours a day etc. And with 13 Sentinels I would boot it up and then BAM 8 hours passed already it's like huh where'd the time go. As is with tradition, starting off with favorite BGM, this time it's definitely gonna go to the main menu music, lol. You know how sometimes a VN has a great title theme so you could spend some time just chilling while listening to it? Throughout 13 Sentinels you can switch between 3 main menu/modes: the story mode, the codex with all the key terminologies and lore, and battle mode with the real time strategy tower defense gameplay. Each menu will come with its own rendition of the main theme and when you swap between them the music also changes seamlessly. It's some great stuff. More modern games need to have seamless changing multiple versions of themes tbh. 0:00 Codex version. 1:12 main menu version. 2:19 battle version. Battle is my fav, it always feels good hearing this track as you prepare your teams for combat. Story: 9/10. Celebration of Sci-Fi. You want giant robots? Alien invasions? Futuristic technology? Artificial Intelligence? Time travel? You name it. This game's got it all. The plot can get OVERWHELMINGLY CONFUSING to follow at times, since the story is told through the eyes of 13 protagonists, in anachronic order, in multiple time periods, with plenty of flashback/dream sequences and scientific jargon littered throughout, but somehow the writers were able to structure it in a way that keeps you thirsting for more as every scene always reveals something new about the characters and the world and as soon as you think you have a good understanding of the overall picture, BAM you get hit with another plot twist/revelation. The basic premise of 13 high school students and their giant robot Sentinels vs the Reapers to save the world is still there, but it's honestly only 10% of the story and the other 90% is understanding every protagonist's situation and figuring out what the hell is going on. There are so many revelations for the characters and the plot that I don't think there was ever a single grand HOLY SHIT moment akin to Ever17's True End, ultimately there's just a bunch of hory-shis that make you go "Ooo that was a nice reveal" and they all add up to make an overall fascinating story. And thankfully, there is an (actually helpful!) ingame codex that lists character information (and updates as you learn more information), important terminologies and lore, and even has an event viewer for every protagonist that organizes the scenes in chronological order should you want to review the story. Presentation: 9/10. Presentation for me includes art and music/sound, and everything Vanillaware did for this title was superb. The watercolor 2.5D artstyle was always gorgeous and captivating to look at, the sound design was fantastic making the world feel vibrant, music was surreal when it needed to be and epic when duty called, and the VAs did a splendid job portraying their characters. Best girl is (first) Iori Fuyusaka (last), why do you think my first post was littered with her. Side note: every protagonist has a certain area on their body that is the "activation switch" to call upon their Sentinel, and of course Vanillaware made Iori's switch on her thigh so that's why she's posed like that in the screenie above. Not that I'm complaining. Random character pulling a gun on another character montage, this cast is quite trigger happy and it's hilarious how often they will whip out a gun on each other: I hope they're able to port this to Switch+PC one day. I used to care about console exclusivity (lol) but 13 Sentinels is legit a story where I just want to tell everybody I see to go read it E: Also realized I didn't mention the word mystery at all in this post lel. Mystery is a HUGE part of this story.

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. It's made by Vanillaware, who were the makers of the 2(.5)D side scrolling action RPGs like Odinsphere, Dragon's Crown on the PSVITA. Which, sue me, have been on my Vita backlog for years now. Unfortunately there's only a PS4 version out atm for Aegis, yay exclusives, would've liked a Switch version plx. And holy crap, this is one of them hidden gems. This thing was released in Sep 22 this year, and already has an average 4.9 stars with over 400 ratings on Amazon (and Amazon reviews are notorious for slamming VNs for "not being a real game" etc. smh). Even VNDB averages a whopping 8.95 with only 126 votes. It's on sale on Amazon physical NA for 30 bucks. 13 protagonists whose stories all intertwine in an epic Sci-Fi mecha time traveling world ending saga. It's not a traditional VN with static sprites and backgrounds; I'd say it's more of an interactive adventure visual novel. IADVN or something. Dialogue will be displayed over the character rather than a dedicated textbox at the bottom middle, though thankfully there is still a backlog you can refer to anytime. Presentation is supreme, you can control your current protagonist in a vivid 2.5D environment: there will be cars driving and pedestrians walking in the background when you're in the city, trees/branches will be swaying from the wind, characters all have fluid, expressive animations even when idle. The world feels alive. Then you think about the most recent VN where you have static sprites and empty backgrounds and it's like man, this is the future! Yes, the world is threatened by Mass Effect 3 Reaper wannabes and it's up to the 13 protagonists who are able to control their own personal mecha robot "Sentinels" to defend the universe across multiple time periods and yes I made it sound cheesy, but seriously the presentation of this game is top notch and gets you hooked right away. The story plays episodic, there will be 13 protagonists with their own shenanigans and the story progresses by shifting protagonists and perspectives until all of their paths eventually overlap. Every character has their own goals and motivations, relations and revelations, and every time you think you answer some questions, you get a new bundle of them in your face! There's a real time SRPG gameplay element that's thrown in to compliment the adventure novel aspect. It's almost universally agreed upon that it's definitely on the weaker end of the enjoyment spectrum, but it'd be pretty hard for the 2.5D to show epic battles between the 13 Sentinels and the Reapers, and we need some gameplay to appeal to the masses so I guess that's that.

THAT IS THE CHOICE OF STEINS;GATE! I think what holds R;N back is that it's the entry where the writers start trying to tie the whole SciADV series together, so R;N doesn't have as much standalone oomph like C;C or S;G did. Kept having to refer to the good ol' times and how badass prior protagonists are. But I get what they're trying to do. It'll be interesting to see what future titles have in store in the ongoing battle against the C of 3 times 10^2. I would've preferred that they did new scientific standalone titles with occasional references to the past like they've been doing, but it looks like they're gonna all in go for a mega ongoing saga that adds to the cast. Guess we'll see what happens in Anonymous;Code one day. R;N was decent overall. But again, lack of standalone oomph. There were a lot of interesting story/character concepts presented in both entries that went absolutely no where, writers couldn't commit what the hell they wanted to do. AIri felt criminally underused despite playing such a key role during the Kimijima Ko report hunt saga then she just becomes a demoted-to-onii-chan-spamming-extra, though her DaSH route was rather enjoyable with the 'what if she was in her 20s' scenario. Jun's karate thing never develops despite it being 90% of her screentime and instead they just settle for her finally gaining some self confidence. I don't think Frau ever even got closure regarding the reason she came to Tanegashima, and her DaSH route offered nothing to her character and was mostly just for BL service. Idk, majority of the characters just feel like "why are they even here"? but the VN still tries to paint everyone as having this unbreakable bond with each other. Slomo and Fastforward were cool character concepts but nope didn't do jack with them either. Akiho x Kaito was done well at least. It was pretty much the only thing that I was interested in reading about for DaSH. I loved the whole "we were inseparable childhood friends all the way through high school, then in the 6months between R;N and R;NDaSH, somehow everything's awkward now between us, wtf happened?!" plot point. Sometimes that's just how life works.

R;N is pretty much linear, so the only time you'll have to repeat content is to make the choices to lock yourself into a heroine "route" (which can all be done from literally a single save point) The heroine "routes" branch off from the main route

Ehehehehe that's a legit 37 hours 37 minutes and 37 seconds playtime, though i waited for a minute or two for the timer to reach those 37 seconds Let's start off with my favorite R;N track: Definitely a tune that I felt gave R;N its own identity, especially when it starts ramping up past the 1:00 mark. Hrmmm, mixed feelings about this one. Robotics;Notes is definitely on the "it's good, but kinda lacking if you compare it to Chaos;Child & Steins;Gate", as much as I shouldn't compare this to its siblings, and I agree with VNDB's R;N getting 7.5 average versus C;C's 8.0+ and S;G's 9.0+ average ratings. I think it has to do with the overall atmosphere/tone: we kind of have grown to expect the science adv series to be this mature, plot conspiracy heavy pseudoscience funtimes with quirky characters, and Robot;Notes is MOSTLY that, but ultimately they made R;N to be the more LIGHTHEARTED entry in the series, and lighthearted doesn't really work well when you're trying to write about world ending conspiracies and whatnot. Don't get me wrong, things will get dark come lategame, but they never really get TOO dark/bleak like they do in S;G and C;C. It kind of feels restrained, held back, like they went for PG-13 instead of R. Which is mainly due to the Robotics High School Club setting, and Akiho being the main heroine and having the classic genki/optimistic/passionate template. Would've been nice if they tried to give her some heroic BSODs to overcome, but nahhh she's too strong for that Power of friendship will trump over all! Honestly felt like power rangers good vs evil levels of cheesiness sometimes. Exacerbated by Akiho's love of the ingame fictional anime about robot justice called Gunvarrel that she will constantly blabber about in your face. The good vs evil black and whiteness come lategame is so cheesy that I even felt like the big baddies of the science ADV were a bunch of chumps and not intimidating anymore, despite them coming up with technically an even grander more dire conspiracy this time around, yet they were for sure HELLA intimidating with their antics in S;G. How the mighty have fallen.. Still overall an enjoyable VN. I usually can grow to love all the characters and these guys are no exception, though they are indeed a very quirky bunch and sometimes you just go "how the heck did these guys all end up together". But yeah 90% of the plot is literally just Kaito YOLO following Akiho's immature unpractical shenanigans for robots (can literally rename the VN "Akiho's Robotics Adventures") with some bits of conspiracy unravelling scattered throughout eventually culminating into we'll-beat-the-baddies-and-save-the-world-power-of-friendship-style! It's a bit hilarious because come lategame you can actually have Kaito be like "yo sorry Aki, I've been following you and your shenanigans all this time, but now I'm tired of it all bb cya" and get a badend. One thing I'll have to reiterate that I believe R;N does extremely well is having the ingame tweeting system that you can look up on a daily basis to get character reactions to daily events. They even went above and beyond and you can unlock certain very familiar names to follow and get their reactions to events, something I'm sure fans can appreciate: ~~~ Also, started Robotics;Notes DaSH. Hmmm, having a sequel with a set-insameuniverse-prequel character as one of the main characters? I don't know if that's a clever way of writing or if it's just a "let's ride off of the popularity of a prior work!" but I guess we shall see... Btw, I see why you prefer 2D over 3D now, Daru. You look absolutely terrible with a 3D sprite. Revert back to 2D pls.

Hoh... didn't feel like I slogged through 20 hours on this VN so far, actually feels like < 10, I swear, my playtime is probably inflated because I'd get sidetracked and leave my Switch idling with the VN running or something. idk. But I refuse to believe it's been that long..!! I'm assuming Nae's route is kind of like a common route ending type of route, because that ended WAAAY too abruptly lol I was legit confused and had the biggest "that's it??" ever when I saw the credits rolling. Plotwise it still feels like I'm only ~50% through the common route, I mean I only had 3/7 Kimijima Reports and there was still a whopping 6 months to go until the Robot Expo that Kaito and friends were preparing for, but then Kaito all of a sudden gets the hots for Nae (I don't blame him, she really grew up fine lol), yada yada oo la la, gg ez, rollcredits. That being said I have no idea what triggers routes and whatnot, so guess I'll have to do some research.. Hope it's nothing too complicated like Steins;gate's systematic text message responses. God help me if it's based on TWIPO replies or something. E: fk me, they are. How the hell do devs actually expect people to find their way blind through routes in all honesty..

WTFMUX THIS GAL IS IN THIS VN????????????????????? I MEAN IT'S BEEN LIKE 6 YEARS SINCE I'VE READ STEINS;GATE BUT WE ALL REMEMBER THIS GAL FOR ONE THING AND ONE THING ONLY: (MASSIVE S;G SPOILERS):

Slowly slogging through Robotics;Notes, took me literally like a week just to do Phase 1 lol. I'm a huge slacker sorrz Thoughts/First Impressions: The 3D sprites + animations take some time to get used to. It's kind of like when you first red Steins;gate and it might've taken you some time to get used to the watercolory artstyle. Doesn't help that the N.Switch has some anti-aliasing issues compared to all the other versions (rip). But it eventually grows on you/you get used to it. ...I already miss YU-NO soundtracks. Stuff from the 1990s just had more identity and flavor. Everything in Robotics;Notes so far is forgetful generic elevator-tier sounding. Story takes a bit to take off, then again I'm barely starting Phase 2 so I'm probably speaking waaay too soon. I think it's the general overall premise/initial hook. Steins;Gate's premise was time travel. Intriguing. Chaos;Child was murder mystery supernatural. Interesting. Robotic;Notes? High school robot competitions. The main heroine Akiho is the genki-hardheaded-charge-towards-your-dreams-full-speed-ahead type but she just wants to do too much/has pretty unrealistic goals. Then we have the protagonist Kaito who doesn't help either with him being 100% disinterested in the Robotics Club (and being quite vocal about it too). He's more into his online pvp game KILL-BALLAD, where he ranks #5 in Japan. He sticks with Akiho though because they're childhood friends/the two need to watch over each other because of their Fast Forward and Slo-mo handicaps. On the plus side, the duo do have excellent dynamics and so far its a pleasure to see them interact with each other. One of the great things about the Sci-ADV series is their continuity: R;N literally gives you a glimpse of 1.048596 in the opening, and you'll get a famous one liner about eyes pretty early on. Lovely callbacks, though I hope R;N can hold its own and not overly rely on the glory of its earlier siblings. ~~ Since it's ROBOTICS;notes-> Robotics-> technology, the devs got a bit more creative with the level of technological interactivity in the world you can have via Kaito's PhoneDroid/smartphone. Whereas in S;G you were limited to receiving and replying to texts only when the narrative demanded it, in R;N there is a barebones Twitter replica called Twipo that adds a hearty amount of flavor to the entirety of the cast/plot/setting via the characters twipping about their lives and ongoing events day by day, and Kaito can even reply to a handful of those twips. It's one of the things R;N does well and it makes the world feel alive: Slight character reveal spoiler (though you learn their identity within a couple hours of meeting them so it's not too bad of a spoiler):

Ehehehehe I wonder why Robotics;Notes scored relatively poorly compared to Chaos;Child and Steins;Gate (130 votes avg 7.36 vs 1806 votes avg 8.39 and lol 8132 votes avg 9.02 respectively) I'd like to think it's just that most peeps who tried R;N were going off of the high from S;G and then got disappointed, or maybe it's the use of 3d sprites, which can look pretty jank: Worst case scenario it's cuz the plot actually is subpar, god I hope not. We shall see~

Aight, finished YU-NO. I actually only had 1-2 more hours of readtime when I made my prior post lol. Overall enjoyable. My failure to appreciate the final route as much as I could've was more due to my tendency to come into final routes waaay too overhyped. I blame Ever17. Ever since that VN I've always expected true routes to be mind blowing braingasm experiences so it can be very easy for me to bamboozle myself and end up disappointed. One of the things I liked the most was the jigsaw puzzle plot revelation format, where every heroine route focuses on a core mystery and you only get the complete picture once you've read everything. It's a great way to keep the reader hooked. Not gonna do too much of an indepth misc. thoughts, I'm kind of out of mental power atm sorryz (Spoilers): And that's that. Love reading VNs. Every time I finish one I get antsy because it's like, damn that was good, I wanna read another one like this, will the next VN i read even be as enjoyable? Then I pick a completely different genre and setting and then come to enjoy that and the cycle repeats. Question is... what shall the next VN be..? (and no, it's not gonna be AoKana, sorrz no pureblood high school SoL for me plx) *Looks at the date* Oh, I know!

I'm about midway, or maybe in the final stretch of Yu-No's lategame/true/final route, and wanted to drop some comments before I finish It basically pulls a Muv-Luv Unlimited, or Rewrite post common route/Terra route in terms of the story and pacing just flipping on its head And unfortunately it doesn't do it too well Main complaint being the pacing, the story events themselves are passable though definitely not what I was expecting. Pacing-wise it'll take you a solid 20-30 hours to read through a mere 3 days worth of events for 4-5 heroines. The final route in YU-NO? in just 4-5 hours you'll go through 4-6+ YEARS worth of events. It's jarring af. Characters like Illia, Kun-Kun, Amanda, even Celes, feel so insignificant since they're introduced so damn late into the VN and then only get like 30min - 2 hrs of screentime. The connection to these characters who are supposed to be really important just isn't there. And then you meet the G-M and it's like HOLY SHIT I MISSED YOU JFC I SPENT THE LAST 5 HRS 5 YEARS WITH STRANGERS WHO I DIDN'T CARE ABOUT The sad thing is even though I'm complaining that the pacing is bad because too much happens in too little readtime, I actually don't think padding the 4-6+ years of events to take like 10-15 hrs of readtime or something would've helped, because when you're this late into the game on the supposed final, all revealing route that extra padding to flesh out these characters would probably instead just make you feel like it's too dragged out lol.

Alright I'm apparently 69% of the way done with 2017 YU-NO Switch ver. , so I'll do a midway thoughts review thing. I went Mitsuki -> Mio -> Ayumi -> currently gonna start Kanna's route ^----- 69% It's been pretty fun so far. A bit "grindy" via the time travel/jewel save point mechanic because you'll have to frequently backtrack to recollect items that are needed to progress through whatever branch you are pursuing, because certain items are once-you-use-them-then-you-lose-them, even if you return to the past where you did not use that item yet, and so you have to return to the point where you actually got the item (did that make sense LOL) and then return to that branching point in order to see the other branch. And then there's also the HUGE vulnerability where you forget to replace a save point (whenever you use a jewel it returns to your inventory AKA that checkpoint is removed from the map and you have to set the checkpoint again if you want to return to that point again but its soooo easy to forget when you're skip-grinding through the VN). AKA you set checkpoint A, load it, checkpoint A is now gone. If you continue the story without setting checkpoint A again, which is very easy to do, then you literally locked yourself out and if you want to go back to checkpoint A then you'll have to start the VN from the beginning and grind back to that point. Very annoying especially when you just want to see the other branch on a lategame decision. One thing I like regarding the flow of the events though is how, uh, consistent? all the heroine routes are with each other. In other VNs with branching paths/multiple heroines it's very easy for the writers to just give whoever's not the main focus the vanish treatment, where in the back of your mind you're always wondering like, "Ok I'm currently flirting with girl A so they're obviously the focus, but I wonder how and what girls B/C/D/E are doing right now"... Well, technically, the vanish treatment still happens, but since all 4 of YU-NO's heroine routes take place over a very, very meager 3 DAYS the writers have the luxury of allowing the reader to keep tabs on what the other heroines are up to, even if you aren't on their particular route. And the vanish treatment is a bit justified because even If you're off flirting with the hot teacher Mitsuki trying to find out what's the deal with Ryuuzoji, you'll still get glimpses of tsundere classmate Mio doing her Triangle Mountain investigations, you'll still see gentle stepmother Ayumi getting shrekt HARD by her Geo Technics controversies, and more often then not you'll bump into enigmatic student transfer Kanna mysteriously appearing and disappearing during pivotal moments as if watching over Takuya. That being said, even though it's just 4 heroines over 3 days you may fall victim to the Time Travelers' Omniscient Burden, where you're burdened with knowing things Takuya technically shouldn't know because his own memories are reset every time you start over, and you can become overwhelmed with keeping track of what's going on/has happened/will happen/only happens in another timeline yada yada yada if you're not taking notes on the side or something lol. The remastered soundtrack is 9/10, very good stuff, idk, most of the BGMs just clicked with me. Very catchy and memorable and I found myself playing them in my head more often than I did any other VN that I've read this year. The heroines all have distinguishing themes appropriately titled after their names. I can't even remember any heroine themes of any VNs I've read in the past... Ok wait I just thought of one. Rewrite's Kotori's piano flower theme. Ok YU-NO's heroine themes have nothing on that tbh lmao, but the main point is that they were distinct and memorable to me and would bring a smile to my face to see Ayumi or Mio pop up on the screen with their accompanying theme. Dialogue/writing/translation feels subpar, it's still readable but there are times where my very limited Japanese familiarity can call out the translation freestyling. One example being Takuya audibly saying he knows a girl's "three sizes" and yet the dialogue instead said he knew her height. I'm like dafuq, is that a result of censorship??. Also sometimes he/she pronoun is mixed up, very confusing when it happens. H-scenes are reduced to Takuya and the heroine professing their love for each other, making out, and then blacking out to post-coitus-cuddle dialogue. I actually prefer it that way, I was never into H-scenes to begin with and would always skip through them. ~~ Ok I'll be honest, I ended up wanting to write this post because I just finished Ayumi's route. Mitsuki and Mio were aight, nothing too special to note. But Ayumi, man oh man Ayumi, there was just something about her that drew me in so I was heavily invested into her. Dare I say it was the whole pretty, gentle, caring stepmother and forbidden love concept LOL. Overall her route wasn't too special either, more infuriating if anything due to the worst scumbag of the earth ever that is Toyotomi, but that bad ending though! Misc. Thoughts/Spoilers! (Ayumi route)

Alright friends I'm sorry, I couldn't get into Ao Kana, I know, I know, blasphemy, it's one of the more favored high school slice of lifes out there, but I'm just waaay passed my SoL honey moon phase lol. Absolutely loved the artwork, and coupled with the flying thematics/settings I just know it would've been one of my tops alongside all the others I've red in the past. I can probably get back into it some other time, but after going through MuvLuv / Al Somnium Files / Chaos;Child / Utawarerumono this year I'm still hungry for some more plot heavy shenanigans rather than mindless eye candy moe droolzie fests. That being said, I did get another VN for my Switch in addition to Ao Kana: YU-NO. Now I didn't really read the synopsis for it, so when I was slogging through the prologue for a good 2-3 hours I was like uh oh, but then BAM it's a VN that involves timetravel/multiuniverse YEEE thank the VN gods! ~~ You are protagonist (first) Takuya Arima (last), an "acts obnoxious and perverted" high school boy who is kind of in a slump and slacking with his life and studies after his father, a fairly renowned researcher/historian, goes missing for a month and is eventually presumed dead. Takuya now lives with just his stepmother Ayumi, a very gentle and caring woman who's only about 10 years older than Takuya. Cuz she was a student of Takuya's dad and they fell in love. Whew. Takuya is an obnoxious loudmouth, and 50% of his dialogue with any female character is plagued with early 2000s perverted protagonist humor; hopefully he'll grow out of it in some semblance of character development come later. He even pervs out on his stepmother Ayumi at times lol, but at least he's mindful about that: Yo dw Takuya, I won't judge, you're only looking because I'm making you, because I'm the one who wants to stare Yada yada yada, Takuya eventually gets a package delivered to him. The sender? His father! And inside is the deus ex machina of deus ex machinas, your very own time machine device! Now YU-NO came out in 1996, so it's the OG time travel/multiverse VN and I'm going to just enjoy it for what it is instead of trying to compare it with Steins;gate / Zero Escape and whatnot. So far I dig the concept, you know how VNs have flow charts and save points? These are seamlessly implemented as a natural feature of Takuya's time travel device so he can set a jewel (checkpoint) and jump between them at will, though he only has a limited amounted of jewels (checkpoints) to place. Basically you using this limited saving or loading feature is him using his time machine device, pretty meta for a VN made in 1996. The only drawback so far is that it doesn't seem like Takuya himself is aware of any jumps you're doing early on in the story, though I'm assuming come late game it'll probably be heavily integrated with the plot. The VN narratively plays like a point and click adventure, where you are given breaks in between dialogue to move to your next destination or examine your surroundings. Pretty neat feature, though I've already developed the habit of holding skip and clicking everything in the map and then glancing through backlogs, because there is a LOT of fluff / boring descriptions: Yuck, too much stuff to examine. Doesn't help that you can literally leave the room and come right back and then all the things you just greyed out (indicating that it was read content) will be white again (unread content). ~~ Naturally I'm playing the remastered Nintendo Switch version of YU-NO. It comes with remastered tracks (though you can change the BGM to the OG 8-bit sounding ones at any time, always nice to have that feature) and modern moe graphics, which I always love so that's a plus. I saw some comments about diehard purist fans going 'Ohh the old artstyle was better, the new one is lifeless'/ Well i say y'all needa get your eyes checked and get with the times, I bet there are even OLDER purists who would think black and white pixelated pre-1970s artstyle trumps the old 2000s janky artstyle lol. Yes, I had Takuya stare at her butt. For the longest time ever. Sue me ~~ Pretty interested to see what kind of story this VN will do

Wow, it's an end of an era. I actually played soooo many VNs on my Vita, ranging from the thrilling Danganronpas and Zero Escapes to sci-fi shenanigans Steins;gates and Chaos;Child's to fantasy funtimes like Ar Nosurge and Utawarerumono trilogy, even Muv Luv, and a whole crapton of Otomes. All on a "dead" device that is the Vita: ....But now it's time to Switch it up Yup I finally caved and got a Nintendo Switch. Originally wanted to wait for a New Nintendo Switch Pro XL or something, but they came out with the fking Lite instead. Pretty excited~

And so my Utawarerumono marathon finally comes to an end. 30 hours for the first game, 30 hours for Mask of Deception (MoD), and 45 hours for Mask of Truth (MoT). I didn't write up a review thingy after Mask of Deception because it kind of ended on a cliffhanger; a bit of a shame cuz I thought I could get a full story via MoD and then another full story via MoT but they both together make one big story. Considering Mask of Truth released only a year after Deception I guess they simply ran out of time and so they pushed out Deception first and then went straight back to the dev room to finish up the rest via Truth. Favorite MoD BGM: A nice surreal nostalgic reflective theme ~~ I'm probably part of the small demographic that got to binge this entire series in one go instead of reading the original and then waiting a decade for the sequels. So whereas the original Utawarerumono started you off as this amnesiac protagonist that wakes up in the arms of a beautiful nice girl-next-door type with animal-like ears and a tail whom he gropes out of curiosity, the sequel Utawarerumono Mask of Deception instead starts you off as this amnesiac protagonist that wakes up in the arms of a beautiful girl next door type with animal-like ears and a tail whom he gropes out of curiosity. Yup, you red that right. It's the same exact setup! Why hello there, Eruru- I MEAN UHH, WHO ARE YOU?! The main heroine this time around is named Kuon. She's a well meaning girl who contrasts herself from the passive obedient nice girl-next-door Eruru by being the clever strong independent type. She just happened to be on a solo self identifying carpe diem journey around the world when she happened upon the unconscious protagonist and decided to become his caretaker. And she's quite the looker indeed. After exchanging some pleasantries, Kuon decides to give the protagonist a name: Haku. Hoh... Haku, as in Hakuowlo from the first game?! Naturally the first thing on my mind is whether this Haku is some reincarnation of the first Haku(owlo) and Kuon is some reincarnation of Eruru. Kind of like The Legend of Zelda, where you have multiple generations of Link and Zelda across multiple generations/timelines. That'd be cool, right? This VN however does a good job of just dangling the carrot, teasing you and never really getting around to confirming or denying your suspicions. You even meet a major character named Oshtor, and his appearance just screams a Hakuowlo ripoff complete with the mask and all and you're just like EYYY THERE'S NO WAY THAT THERE IS NO CONNECTION BETWEEN THESE GUYS LIKE WTF C'MON NOW. Hakuowlo Haku Oshtor Q: Which one of these three is the main character? A: They're the same person I jest. But it totally bugs me that no characters ever say "Hey Haku, you look like this one guy Hakuowlo that I knew from a long time ago". Not even Kuon, and she was the one who gives Haku his name AND Hakuowlo's trademark steel fan weapon. Hell, no one even goes "Hey Haku, you look like Oshtor", and these two will get plenty of screentime together. It's one of those audience-character red herring disjoints that will forever plague your mind as you read this. It's kind of like how Ash Ketchum and friends are always oblivious to Team Rocket's disguises when it should be an obvious as fuh thing to notice and exclaim about. Haku's a good protagonist. I didn't realize it at the time, but Hakuowlo was actually super, like SUPER bland. He was too idk, capable and perfect? Since he was thrust into a ruler/leadership position quite early on he always had to be serious and couldn't really afford to banter and goof around. His inner monologues would be dull and to the point. Haku instead gets the easygoing/laidback/lazy but dependable-when-it-matters persona, and his inner commentary is much more flavorful. He'll whine, complain, have snarky remarks, and oftentimes push Kuon's buttons just enough for her to want to wrap her tail around his head and CRUSH. In general the writing and dialogue in this VN flows much more nicely than its predecessor (though that could be the result of translation, or my attention span got better, who knows). Characters: 8.5/10 Characters make or break a VN. Why the heck would I care about what's going on in the story if I don't care about the characters? Not gonna lie though, it did take me a bit to warm up to the new cast of heroines but man by the time I was reading Mask of Truth I was super fond and invested in all of them. Haku is great for his modern day protagonist revision and Kuon is the poster girl so she's obvious best girl, amplified onehundred fold when you finally learn just who she really is and consequently just want to give her a big ol' hug. Atuy is your local ditzy girl who calls everyone "-han" and has a bloodthirsty battle side; Nekone is the younger genius sister type that finds everything that the protagonist does stupid and scolds him accordingly; Nosuri is the well meaning airheaded robinhood justice thief type, Rulutieh is the nice softspoken girl that loves supporting everyone by cooking (lol how stereotypical), Anju is the spoiled bratty princess with Munechika as her strict honorable guardian. Then you get Saraana and Uruuru and while they're a bit overbearing with the absolute servitude with sexual implications towards Haku you learn to appreciate them too. The male cast is slightly underwhelming outside of the prodigy Oshtor and while they all have their bro moments with Haku none of them really stood out too much. It's always funny when you take a step back and think about how a cast this crazy ends up banding together. Story: (MoD)- 7.5/10. Mask of Deception is sort of like the Muv-Luv before Muv-Luv Alternate: the calm before the storm. It devotes itself entirely to establishing its new cast and setting. After Kuon declares herself Haku's guardian, he decides to accompany her on her journey and the two will eventually settle upon the land of Yamato and then spend practically all of the VN's some 30 hrs in its Imperial Capital and dealing with its shenanigans and adding more heroines to the harem. Yamato is practically a utopia: the land is massive and flourishing and there is a benevolent ruler called the Mikado who is loved by all and recognized as a literal God for his mystical feats. He has 8 trusted generals dubbed "The Eight Pillar Generals" and two army commanders dubbed the "Imperial Guard of the Left (and Right)", and they'll all be relevant to the story at one point or another. Most of the VN is structured as slice of life; the first 20 hours you'll spend meeting new friends and allies and getting to know them while learning more and more about the land and its customs. It really gives an overall grand and satisfying feel to the land of Yamato. To keep things interesting, there are even nods to the first game's events/lore and plenty of foreshadow-candy opportunities regarding Haku and Kuon's backgrounds. Unfortunately, the peaceful tranquil days aren't fated to last forever, and Haku will be inevitably forced to make an irreversible decision, and- CLIFFHANGER LOLOL GO READ MASK OF TRUTH NOOB!! (MoT)- 9/10 Shit hit the fan, whoop-dee-doo. No more fun and games sadface. Can't really talk much because it's a big spoiler on the ending of MoD, but Mask of Truth is basically a 30 hour war campaign. Sounds boring at a glance, I know, but like I said, if you care about the characters you'll hopefully get a massive buff in caring about the story. Each location you visit during your conquest will actually be a hometown of one of the heroines and so you'll get to bond more with that particular heroine and see their family (many of whom were only briefly mentioned in MoD, and are prominent characters such as being one of the Eight Pillar Generals). The writers made sure to prepare them sweet sweet ethos to get you to care about these locations (unlike the first game where you could care less that some random named village got utterly decimated). Although, I can definitely see some readers finding the war campaign a chore/boring, especially if they never got around to liking Anju. Which I don't blame them if they didn't, the girl really didn't offer much in the likeable department. Overall though it was just great to see the camaraderie and struggles of the cast I grew to become so fond of during this conflict. The REAL fun though happens after the war. I thought the VN was gonna end after the war so I was pleasantly surprised that it kept going. You get another hearty 10-15 hours to finally get some much needed Haku+Kuon alone time and fully explore their backgrounds and also revisit and tie up any loose ends from pivotal events/lore from the FIRST game. And it does so so, so, beautifully. *Tear* Art/Music: 8/10. Art is modern moe, always love that stuff. Music is nothing special since the remastered first game included tracks from all three games so I heard nothing new. Gameplay: 8/10 I said I didn't like SRPGs but they really improved the look and feel for the SRPG gameplay that it was actually decently fun. The first game was horrifically limited, you can only mostly attack or heal units one space away, unit had only one combo attack string, etc, very outdated and played poorly. MoD and MoT gave units multiple combo attack strings to fit variety of situations/positions and your heals are AoE instead of only healing one panel etc. Not gonna do a longwinded misc. thoughts/comments, there are TOO MANY feelsgood/bad moments across the 100 hours I spent on this trilogy (70 for MoD/MoT), but man it was all totally worth just for this (ULTIMATE SPOILERS): P.S. Kuon is best girl by a huge mile, but I cannot for the love of god believe she is voiced by the same VA as grumpy scientist Mio from Chaos;Child. Like wtf man.

Theyre finally here

I'm on a roll with VN's this year must be cuz of the pandemic and all the staying at home So I managed to finish the Utawarerumono - Prelude to the Fallen. It's the 2020 remake/remaster of the original 2002's Utawarerumono. Clocked in about 32hours, more VNs need to incorporate a play time with your save file smh. First off, I'll post my favorite BGM from it so I can be all nostalgic while I type this out: (OK, this BGM is a bit misleading because this track totally sounds waaay too tragic- this VN is actually pretty lighthearted throughout LOL- but the few times something sad/tragic happens and this music plays I always loved it). I read Chaos;Child before this, which was a modern high school SoL/pseudoscience adventure. Utawarerumono is a medieval light fantasy adventure featuring animal people and was originally written in 2002. Big contrast The protagonist is a nameless amnesiac guy (go figure) who wakes up in a rural village called Yamayura. He was apparently found gravely injured and slowly nursed back to health by a local villager cutie by the name of Eruru- the main heroine of the story. She's the typical nice girl next door supportive caring type with good mannerisms but can also throw the occasional jealous fit. And she also has fluffy ears. And a fluffy tail. Which the protagonist gropes after pondering if they were real or not (they're real by the way). Anyways before the protag can question this any more its revealed he also has an unconventional feature of his own: an unremovable mask which further adds to his mystery: Whoop dee doo, nameless amnesiac protagonist with a unremovable mask further obscuring his identity. And I still don't know what animal the folk from this VN are based off of. Squirrel? Fox? Lemur? Protag then is introduced to Eruru's younger sister, Aruru, and their grandmother Tuskur, the chief of the village who welcomes him with open arms and grants him the same name she gave her late son: Hakuowlo. Haku would spend the next few weeks recovering and mingling with the villagers. He's a capable protagonist: he teaches them how to properly cultivate their land to grow crops, and even how to forge iron to trade and bolster their economy. None of the villagers were knowledgeable in these aspects at all. Gives you some good brainstorm candy for just who Haku is or where he could be from for him to know these things (you'll probably be wrong lol). Eventually the peaceful slice of life days will come to an abrupt end and the VN will shift to a warring nations adventure narrative and throw in some SRPG gameplay. There's about 30-40 SRPG levels/battles that you'll play through in the entirety of the 20-30 hours it takes for you to read through this VN: There are many friends and enemies, love and betrayal, ups and downs, happy and sad moments to be had as you expand your empire. The story is linear but in between battles you are given a bit of freedom in which slice of life events you want to read (none are missable, thank god, because you'll eventually exhaust them anyway so feel free to pick whatever order you want). There's also a glossary to help with all the fantasy terminologies like the different races, locations, religions, etc... Definitely helpful. The total overall narrative is effectively 15% peaceful village slice of life, 75% warring nations conflict + the slice of life in between battles, and 10% Hakuowlo revelations. Story: 7/10 It's a solid medieval adventure light fantasy thing. Some of the conflicts between nations were meh and probably could've been cut imo but ultimately they do help expand the world and lore. Slice of life moments were pretty good. End game revelations about Haku are pretty cool, nothing meta or mind blowing. Characters: 7/10 They're all extremely one dimensional, I mean c'mon its 2002 whattaya expect heh, but they're all given their own little story arcs and were likeable nonetheless. Particularly fond of Eruru & Aruru, they're the poster girls ofc they'd win. Oboro was a total bro, they totally pulled off the 'starts off a complete prick and then becomes your right hand man' pretty well for him. Hakuowlo himself was entirely capable and leader material, no complaints. Art: 7/10 Pretty good looking despite 2002. Idk if they improved or just used the original assets. Music: 6/10 (original), 8/10 remake. The remake version I played offered two BGM settings: original: offering only the original Uwatarerumono tracks, and remake: offering the original + sequel tracks. Original is pretty lacking, I would change the settings back and forth just to see what the original played on certain scenes and yeah it's pretty limited. Remake would change tracks in the middle of scenes based on what was happening whereas original would use that one track for the entirety of the scene. Gameplay/SRPG: 6/10 I'm just not a fan of SRPGs, lel. But it was aight. Overall 7/10 enjoyable VN. I may watch the 24 episode Utawarerumono 2006 anime, I heard it's what many people would do before reading the next entry back then since it was the only translated version of the first entry at the time, but I'm ready for Mask of Deception! Pretty interested in seeing what they'll do with the narrative, there's literally 13 years between the release of the first and second VNs. So the writers were like, oh yeah, y'all remember that VN we made a decade ago? Let's make a SEQUEL! Misc Thoughts/Comments (SPOILERS)!!

I've been looking for another VN series that I can binge on my Vita. I did Muv Luv earlier this year, a handful of otomes (still have like 6 more in my backlog) and recently did Chaos;Child And it looks like I'll settle on Utawarerumono. They apparently released the (translated) second and third Uta games Mask of Deception and Mask of Truth a few years ago but barely released the first game retitled Prelude to the Fallen this year, lucky me

Welp so much for September lol, I just binged the rest of Chaos;Child last night, meaning Hana's route, then Uki's route, then Nono's and finally the true route. It's a pretty good VN. Chaos;Child takes place 6 years after the key events of Chaos;Head's New Generation Madness killings and the Shibuya Earthquake, but focuses on a new cast, so an indirect sequel. The protagonist is an upgraded version of Chaos;Head's (first) Takumi Nishijou by the name of (first) Takuru Miyashiro: upgraded in that he's less of an extreme hikkikomori (shut in) who avoided social contact at all costs and was a stuttering mess if he did interact with people, and more of just a typical awkward high school boy with his own hard beliefs on him being a right-sider and everyone else a wrong-sider. A much more bearable protagonist if you ask me. Takuru is the president of his own newspaper club, with the members being his inseparable ditzy childhood friend Serika Onoe, his naggy but evercaring foster sister Nono Kurusu who's also the student council president and VP of the newspaper club (she's my best girl btw), Hana Kazuki the 'mute' gamer girl who only ever utters "Mmm" and mainly just plays her online ESO2 game in the newspaper clubroom, and Shinji Itou the male protagonist best friend support guy. Other characters include Hinae Arimura: a blonde twintail kouhai who acts very superficially friendly around her friends and Mio Kunosato, the "what if we take Steins;gate's Kurisu and make her completely unlikeable" cold hard facts scientist type. Takuru used to be a part of Dr. Sakuma Wataru's household: Sakuma is an easygoing doctor who owns his own Aoba Clinic and he adopted Takuru, Nono, and siblings Yui & Yuto Tachibana- orphans from the Shibuya Earthquake 6 years ago. The family eventually grew fairly tight-knit, always gathering for supper to exchange pleasantries about their days under a "keep no secrets from each other" policy. However, Takuru angrily moved out into his own trailer 6 months prior to the start of Chaos;Child after feeling betrayed when the secrets policy was violated against him by none other than Nono (resulting in him calling her Kurusu, her last name, from that point on. Ouch). As president of the newspaper club, Takuru has a thirst for chasing exotic cases he feels would shake the world. Fortunately for him, a new set of bizarre murders start occurring in Shibuya- and interestingly enough they are dated to occur on the same days as the ones that occurred during the New Generation Madness killings from Chaos;Head 6 years ago! Takuru easily gets hook-line-and-sinker'd and begins to obsess over investigating and solving the case, much to Nono's dismay. The first 6 chapters will meander between Takuru's everyday slice of life with his newspaper club shenanigans, his friends, and his adoptive family as the New Generation Madness Killings continue to make headlines all over Shibuya. Will Takuru be able to solve the case, or is he getting in way over his head?! Story: 8.5/10. Common route starts off slow with the slice of life and preparing for culture festival but once the term Gigalomaniac makes it onto the screen the story starts picking up. It involves a lot of pseudoscience/supernatural powers that can affect reality jargon and are channeled via Di-Swords (A.K.A. BIG F*CKING exotic supernatural swords) btw so it can feel a bit Chuuni at times. The concept of delusions was interesting. There are a fair amount of plot revelations that change the very nature of characters entirely that can add some "let me go back to this scene now that I know this" reread value. Overall enjoyable. Characters: 9/10. Takuru was nowhere near as unbearable as Takumi. Nono would probably be on my top 5 heroines if I did have a list. Idk, the student council president + nagging worrywart but legitimately caring older sister type was a complete and utter win for me. Hinae was the guilty pleasure. Hana and Uki were kind of like the filler heroines, but passable. Art: 9/10. Has that clean modern moe look. Particularly loved all of best girl Nono CGs. Some CGs can look a bit low quality though. Music: 8/10. They got some good tracks. The title theme World is pretty up there along with their other works like Steins;gate + (0). Visible Essence is the revelation theme and its quite badass when you do get it. !!!SPOILERS!!! MISC. THOUGHTS/COMMENTS (MAJOR MAJOR SPOILERS) Finally can rant about the juicy bits. Overall: 8.5/10. Legit did not think I would like this sci-fi adv VN as much due to how much I despised Chaos;Head. It was good enough that I actually want to reread Chaos;Head so I can catch up on all the story beats and whatnot, but ahh nvm. Will look forward to reading Robotics;Notes + DaSH when they do come out to EN on the Switch later this year. I'll watch the 6.5/10 MAL rated anime of Chaos;Child real quick because I like to see things animated even though they'll probably butcher it so bad since only lol12episodes for a 30-50+ hr VN. E: lol yeah, the anime is only enjoyable as a "let's watch a recap of Chaos;child" right after finishing the VN itself. So many disappointed people who were like I don't get it or it's a rushed mess (which it definitely was, but I obviously was able to keep up and just enjoy seeing everything animated)

Still slogging through Chaos;Head Child LOL LOOK HOW BAD MY SAVE TIME STAMPS ARE: So it's been a little more than a month and a half now that I've been casually reading through this? I've finished the common route, Hinae's route, and currently going through Hana's route, then will do Uki's then Nono's and finally the TRUE route. So ETA completion at this pace should be by September or something

I've been putting off Chaos;Child solely because I hated Chaos;Head with a fiery passion and thought it was a sequel but apparently they're not related at all story/character wise(just same setting) So time to check it out~

Finished Al Somnium Files Overall a pretty satisfactory murder mystery with plenty of pseudoscience thrown in to keep you from being able to *logically* deduce the truth behind the murders until they literally spit out the secret behind said pseudoscience at you some 80% of the way through the VN. It's definitely not like Danganronpa/Ace Attorney where you can figure out the culprit early on/throughout; you'll have to wait until nearly the end for this one to learn the truth. Still was very entertaining just going through the motions though. First off, I have this BGM playing on repeat as I type this. Glad Spike Chunsoft was able to come up with another catchy interrogation theme~ Let's get the introductions over with. In Al Somnium you play as (first name) Date Kaname, an amnesiac (go figure) police officer/detective/agent of Metropolitan Police Department's (MPD) secret elite Advanced Brain Investigation Squad (ABIS). The ABIS have access to a highly classified technology known as the PSYNC (PsychoSYNaptic Neurological Connection(?)) system, our main pseudoscience plot element machine that allows one individual designated as the PSYNCer to connect and neurologically dive into another individual's- the PSYNCee's-subconscious in order to find the secrets hidden within their "Somnia", or dream realm. So I thought this VN would have a pretty straightforward formula akin to, say, Danganronpa, which had a basic flow consisting of 1. Murder happens 2. Gather evidence 3. Solve the murder through class trials. Rinse repeat for 6 Chapters. Al Somnium would do the same: have a murder, gather evidence, then bust the perp through PSYNCs, rinse repeat right?! LOL NOPE!!! Instead what you basically get is a narrative where the once the first murder happens, you then go on a massive wild goose hunt chase only to always be a step behind and playing catch up wondering who the eff the killer is for nearly the entirety of the story. The further you go, the more bodies pile up, and instead of finding answers, you'll only pile on more and more questions. I'm making this sound like a bad thing, but I think it was actually pretty well done and effective at keeping you engaged purely on the WTF IS GOING ON, I NEED TO KNOW!@# aspect. Date is missing his left eye, which is instead replaced by an ABIS provided advanced artificial intelligence eye-ball dubbed Aiba (clever right?). Aiba serves as Date's main investigation partner/companion- she's the Navi or Midna to Link from the Zelda series. Really great partner character, I really love stories that are able to incorporate a partner for the main protagonist. Other characters include Mizuki (Date's tsundere 12yr old roomate living with him due to special circumstances); Iris Sagan (18yr old rising-in-fame net idol) and her mother Hitomi Sagan (raised Iris single); Ota (24yr old otaku/Iris fanboy), So (a shady gruff politician). A decent bunch. Minus So. Iris Sagan. Net idol. Best Girl fo' sho There is an accessible at all times Flowchart where you can return/jump to any point of the story at anytime. If you know Spike Chunsoft, you know the significance of these Flowcharts >.> Gameplay was satisfactory, although unfortunately was never able to achieve the same thrilling highs as Zero Escapes' escape rooms or Danganronpa's Class Trials imo. Throughout the entirety of the story you are given moments to cursor-point-and-click the backgrounds for extra scenic info/banter between characters. This ultimately degrades into a fluff/padding mechanic: you will never be able to miss key information that a certain Kara no Shoujo was infamous for (in that it locked you into a bad ending for missing something in one of the point and click investigation segments). So 80% of the time you will be clicking a chair in the background just to result in "this is a chair" description, but you'll find yourself checking everything anyway just so you can completionist grey out everything on the map and see all the character banters if any. Quite a chore. You can probably shorten your playthrough of this VN by half if you completely skip clicking everything. Interrogation scenes. They're honestly pretty barebones and lackluster interrogation scenes compared to the bombastic DR's Class Trials or Ace Attorney's back and forth Courtroom Trials since this VN doesn't revolve around this gameplay mechanic like those aforementioned do. They were fairly entertaining to playthrough though, mainly because of that catchy theme that plays during them (linked in the youtube vid above). But yeah I would've liked there to be more substance to them. PSYNC/ entering Somnia worlds: the flagship core gameplay mechanic of Al Somnium Files. This is the trumpcard method Date utilizes as an agent of ABIS to interrogate key persons of interest. By Psyncing with them and entering their subconscious (Psyncees are usually rendered unconscious/sedated beforehand), Date is able to visit their Somnia, an ethereal dream realm where the Psyncee is "the author, director, and actor of their play" (without any conscious control over it), and Date is the Psyncer "the audience witnessing this play". It's all very abstract- the VN shifts to a 3D free roam surreal environment where you can move around and perform tasks while in another person's mind with the goal of breaking through their Mental Locks to reveal their secrets buried deep within. Btw, did I mention that PSYNCs have a 360 sec (6min) time limit? Any further and the Psyncer risks having their mind/consciousness absorbed by the Psyncee completely. Walking around and performing Actions consumes Time, so Date is always racing against the clock. It's an artificial way to add difficulty to this gameplay, but you're never really punished too hard for failing since you can always reload and then skip to where you last left off. Unfortunately, even this flagship PSYNC mechanic left me feeling unsatisfied: while there are indeed some epic wow moments to be had, most of the time Somnia experiences are RNG/trial and error based; you cannot logically deduce what action would progress you deeper into someone's mind. What should I do with this fan? Blow on it? Kick it? Grab onto it? Whoops one choice was wrong. Whoops the second choice was wrong. Whoops the third choice is wrong. So the fan's not the answer, how about that random pot over there? Shit, out of time, gotta restart and try again. One of the lategame PSYNCs is ESPECIALLY guilty of this: After going through a fairly lengthy and confusing labyrinth to break through several Mental Locks and actually running fairly low on time by the end of it, the devs actually had the gall to slap you in the face and choose from (not really spoilers i guess?) To give credit where it's due though, here are some Somnia moments I enjoyed: (MASSIVE SPOILERS) Other random misc. comments/thoughts/moments: (ULTRAMASSIVE SPOILERS): Overall this VN is a solid 8/10. Engaging murder mystery plot that utilizes pseudoscience, fairly likeable characters, solid sound track, decent gameplay that has its moments. Didn't feel like ermergawd mindblown masterpiece, but was definitely a fun experience. Oppai-lady

I had the most randomest "Oh hey I wonder what Spike Chunsoft made over the past couple years, I was a real big fan of Danganronpa/Zero Escape" Not really feeling up for 'dungeon crawling rpg' so I skipped Zanki Zero But I splurged on Al Somnium Files, an adventure sci-fi murder mystery (?) https://vndb.org/v26532 Also randomly picked up the modern 2019 version of YU-NO even though they're just the publisher for that https://vndb.org/v1377

Muv Luv Alternative spoileryish The first few chapters are Unlimited-recap-but-I-know-teh-futures-and-am-more-mature-and-buff It was nice to see Takeru be considered a natural talent this time around rather than the wimpy holding everyone back loser he was in Unlimited Then 12-5 happens and it was kinda draggy but a good outlook on the world political dramas going on and Meiya's philosophies (Yuuhi's hawt btw) XM3 trials were nice, always liked how Takeru's Valgern-On expertise in Extra pays off for the TSFs Then the CHOMP happens and you're like whoa whoa WHOAAA HOLD UP!!!!! THAT DID NOT JUST HAPPEN!!! Really disappointed that Sumika and her diaries actually failed in Return to Extra, I mean Extra BEGAN with her diary excerpts, they're just so damn iconic, and then you get blasted with "Good morning Shirogane-kun" and you're like WHAT.THE. SOME CHILDHOOD FRIEND YOU ARE. Isumi's Valkyries... Despite being introduced pretty damn late in the trilogy I was still able to grow fairly attached to them. Michiru+Mitsuki+Haruka ranting about their love lives at first felt kind of out of place, it's like huh I know there's no way we're ever gonna get to see the people they're talking about, then you learn that Kimi ga Nozomu Eien / Rumbling Hearts exists and it's like dammit, y'all told me to read extra/unlimited so I could be attached to the main cast, but you forgot about these for the secondary cast!@#$#(Jk they're not even TLed sadface) 00Unit and Causality Conductor jargon was quite interesting, it's the meat of the Sci-Fi content comparable to other VNs involving time travel / multiverses. Topics concerning the BETAs behaviorals and objectives were always worthwhile to read. Military debriefing sections were cool but often difficult to keep up with; actual combat scenes were very well done. Would've liked some more Takeru x Sumika dialogue, it actually feels like they didn't get to interact that much all things considered. Mass Effect 2 Final suicide mission... If I red MLA back in 2006 I probably would've loved it, but now in 2020 overall it felt pretty meh and average to have an outcome like that. Or maybe at that point I was so battle hardened and so it didn't phase me. Or maybe I'm just still in denial to the reality that THAT is the ultimate fate of all of those beloved characters in this world. Superordinate encounter was a real climax-y moment, but writers fell short by having to wrap up the story at this point. I would've preferred this encounter being at like the halfway point and then having a whole half to explore the rest but oh well. Biggest whamline: "The superordinate will display the newest specimen designated for recycling as Soldier Class". Fking Christ the CHILLS I got. The final letter I got was from Class Rep, admittedly shedded some tears. Extra Alternate ending was some good feels. Overall this trilogy really does the whole "don't take peaceful everyday life for granted" theme justice. As much as Muv Luv Extra was super super basic, at the end of the day after going through the monster that is Alternative it just made me so nostalgic and really appreciative of the simpler times. 9/10