Eclipsed
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Posts posted by Eclipsed
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Finished Collar X Malice, no energy to do a lengthy write-up on every route.
7/10 for decent-good, most hero routes leave much to be desired..
They all have their own personal issues and morals that'll need to be solved along with the X-Day Incidents and corresponding peeps, but I ultimately was always left unsatisfied.
Classic case of expecting too much. After you finish all hero routes you can finally do Yanagi's route which is considered the true route. Things like confronting the Mastermind behind Adonis, learning Ichika's and Yanagi's troubled past, the morale dilemma of justice vs. corruption and Ichika's vital role in X-Day...these were all extremely hyped up plot points for me that were finally going to be explored in depth, but they simply failed to deliver. It was just underwhelming. Nothing WOW-worthy
True end is a standard golden end where everyone's problem is solved, the big bad defeated, and the canon couple profess their love happily ever after style
I actually liked the bad ending, where ...
SpoilerA major plotpoint / moral dilemma that Ichika faces throughout the VN is how Adonis picked her because the big bad determined that she was a 'sympathizer' for them: someone who could understand their goals and ambitions and ultimately join their side to carry out X-Day
Only 1/5 routes has a bad end where she actually does this, but it's glossed over and not expanded upon
Spoiler
The true route also glosses over this for a bad ending: in the final encounter the big bad will slaughter all the heroes in the VN, utterly breaking Ichika so she finally joins Adonis
Spoiler
But again, alas there is no elaboration other than leaving it to your own imagination..
Those bad ends were wow-worthy. If the writers actually made a fleshed out narrative for these ends I would've given this VN a 9/10.
I hear the fandisk actually has an epilogue for the true route bad end, but what are the odds I'll ever get to read it huh
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Ok, my next Otome is a tossup between:
Bad Apple Wars- Heroine awakens in NEVAEH Academy, a school for those whose souls were left behind after death.
7 Scarlet- Heroine looking for long lost brother joins Okunezato Supernatural Club to investigate the town's legends
Period Cube- Heroine is transferred into a Fantasy RPG world called Arcadia as she is looking for her long lost brother, wait didn't i just say something similar
Hmm -
Suitable for males: if in anyway the gender disconnect is what made you think playing otomes is 'appalling' (being a female protagonist + romancing males + the males look 'gay') then yeah I guess you should probably avoid. It doesn't bother me though.
Other than that the story is usually decent enough to keep me interested.
I just like playing a female protagonist
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Okay, so I tried to read Muv-Luv on my Vita, and gave up. I just can't do HS SoL anymore
no way am I going to slog through extra and unlimited just to get to the alternate goodies
So instead I'm finally tackling my mountain of otomes:Spoiler
Collar x Malice is the one I picked. It's another otome by the Otomate/IdeaFactory/DesignFactory/Aksys combo who made Code:Realize and others.
Simple premise, the heroine-protagonist is one cutie (first name) Ichika Hoshino who lives in city of Japan called Shinjuku which has been under terrorist attack by an organization known as Adonis who have been committing publicized mass murders on alleged corrupt people. After each crime they have been counting down the number of months until "X-Day", a day where they will supposedly enact a scheme so grand, so legendary it will purge Japan of all evil and enable an of era of 'Rebirth'. Damned cults.Shinjuku has been quarantined from the rest of Japan as a result of the murders. So that civilians could protect themselves, the Swords and Firearms law prohibiting anyone from carrying weapons was repealed in Shinjuku. Great idea right, fight fire with fire.
Police reputation is at an all time low, with the public losing faith in their ability to stop the terrorism coupled with Adonis's heavily publicized murders claiming injustice and corruption.Ichika is a rookie police officer, working for SRCPO (Special Regions Crime Prevention Office?) which has been formed in response to the 'X-Day Incidents' to gather intel from the public. Yes, this cutie is a police officer:
She looks waaay too badass for her own good in this CG, because she's actually pretty pathetic LOL. It's not like she's one of those shy types or anything, she has an average, normal personality for the most part.
She's just not really a fighter. Will be damsel-in-distressed quite a few times in the VN. Literally one scene early on is just her accidentally bumping shoulders with a thug and then they gang up on her so the male hero has to step in and save her.
And even though she's a police officer working for a fancy sounding SRCPO they're actually more like a hotline for complaints division rather than a crime busting division.Spoiler
TL;DR there's a lot to be desired if you came into this VN expecting badassery female protagonist and legit crime busting narratives. You'll mostly slog around in the dark, always one step behind.
More synopsis backstory, in the prologue Ichika and her supervisor go onsite to a distress all and then Ichika gets ambushed and gets a poison collar placed on her by Adonis. Collar x Malice yeee.
Adonis is able to spy on her via the collar, and they tell her to solve the mystery and truth behind the X-Day Incidents. They claim she was chosen because she is a sympathizer for them and that she'll have a very important part in the days to come. The collar is unremovable, and any attempts to get the police involved will result in her death. So she'll eventually meet and seek help from the heroes of this story, most of them being ex-cops who are investigating the X-Day Incidents for personal reasons.
There's waaay too many X-Day Incidents that you'll get lost really really fast when they infodump you on cases that happened months ago that supposedly link to today's case and all the suspects and motives. It's pretty overwhelming:Spoiler
Luckily it looks like the VN is structured so that each of the male hero's route will cover specific X-Day Incidents and so you'll get a piece by piece revelation experience until you finally make it to the true route where everything will be revealed (hopefully.).
The heroes:
Ugly bunch aren't they
The fine dude with the white hair is (first name) Kei Okazaki. I think the writers wanted you to experience his route first, because jesus they slam him in your face the most in the common route once he's introduced. Kei is a member of SP, Special Police, who protect VIPs with their life at all costs. He was apparently tasked with keeping an eye on the other four heroes who have banded together to freelance investigate X-Day and Ardonis.
Kei's route is like the Kotori route of Rewrite, you get glimpses of the big bad and plot going on but are left mostly in the dark the entire time, and by the end of it you get some bittersweetness between the couple and nothing plotwise really answered.SpoilerKei is portrayed as this aloof easygoing somewhat ditzy nice guy with sleeper overpowered combat prowess
Originally tasked with keeping an eye on the other four dudes, his curiosity is piqued when Ichika starts associating with them due to her desire to solve the X-Day Incidents along with wanting to remove the Adonis collar.
The four dudes tell her to be wary of Kei, but Kei is just too nice and really really pushy and would walk her home under the guise of being her bodyguard. She would eventually warm up to him pretty easily.
Bitch pls, I'm a badass cop, I don't need no hero bodyguard!!
Eventually while tagging along her as she is investigating the July-August incidents a scuffle happens between Ichika and a suspected Adonis member who sees Ichika's collar and freaks out. Kei intervenes and Ichika thanks him, but having heard the Adonis's outcry, Kei's personality instantly turns ice cold and lost any sign of his prior very friendly and supportive demeanor. He's an SP after all, an elite cop, and he was now face to face with the realization that Ichika could be an Adonis spy. It's a very tense standoff
The collar speaks up: "Ichika is valuable to both Adonis and the police. She is a good person. If you don't want her to have a pointless death, keep quiet." Kei reluctantly obliges and keeps her collar a secret from his SP superiors.
The two eventually bond some more: he buys her flowers, they watch horror movies together, some cute stuff in the midst of all this chaos.
I'M B-B-B-BADASS FEMALE COP! I CAN HANDLE SCARY MOVIES!
The main drama between these two happens when all of Kei's "I want to protect you with my life" talk towards Ichika turns out to be an entitled self righteous "I want my death to have meaning" shtick. SP are tasked with protecting VIPs at the cost of their life. Kei had a partner who died protecting him 2 years ago and told him to find a death that had meaning. That kind of crap.It'll take Ichika a bit of tsun tsun and avoiding/not talking to Kei before they finally confront each other and make amends. Kei wanted to die while protecting Ichika, someone he loves. A noble cause. But he erred in that he was going about it completely wrong by looking to die ASAP. No you fking idiot, you're supposed to find a way to protect Ichika AND yourself so that you can both live out your lives until you one day die together of old age.
Spoiler
Smh Kei you baka.
More spicy romance:
The bad ending for this route is pretty good thematically with all the emphasize it had on these two protecting each other,Kei'll fail to protect Ichika, and the resulting screenshot is pretty self explanatory.
Don't cry don't cry don't cry don't cry-
But of course we need our happy ends,
Spoiler
Ok, time to continue reading. -
Jacopo's actually a really decent / likeable guy in Requiem of Innocence, it makes no sense how he utterly fks up so bad in Fata Morgana other than the writers just demanded it. Kind of like how evil characters are evil for the sake of being evil, 'cept Jacopo ended up being a dumbass for the sake of being a dumbass
Still slogging through, but uhhhhhhh i think i'm gonna take a break right here
~~
But yeah, the very long term conclusion b/w Jacopo and Morgana has to be the most tragic thing I've ever witnessed
SpoilerRequiem of Innocence:
~CENTURIES OF TORMENT AND DESPAIR LATER~
RIP JACOPO.
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Gonna slowly slog my way through FataMorgana: Requiem of Innocence
I'm a major Jacopo hater but so far he's doing decent
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Fata Morgana. i have saves dating from 2016
finally finished it yesterday though.
Koisuru natsu no last resort, though its mainly rip for sol moeges in general for me, ive outgrown them
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OK, i finished fata morgana, the 'ill never finish it' meme that's been going on for years is finallly over
It's a 9-10/10 VN honestly
A simply fantastic tale about tragedy, betrayal, vengeance, and a touch of romance spanning across centuries and generations
The narrative starts off episodic, with an amnesiac protagonist witnessing the memories and tragedies of the various inhabitants of a cursed mansion over multiple time periods under the guidance of the enigmatic Maid, in order to eventually witness their own tragedy in an attempt to find out who they really are. Every story has its own characters, each facing their own conflicts and trials before inevitably succumbing to tragedy.
Eventually the protagonist does indeed witness their own tale, and the fun part begins when its revealed that every single major character from every story witnessed, despite being centuries apart, are all deeply intertwined in the glorious web of fate, all stemming from and revolving around a single focal point: an origin tragedy that predates them all and was so brutal it cursed these people and resulted in the creation of the cursed mansion and this endless cycle of despair and torment.
And so naturally it'll be up to the protagonist to save the day and it is a sight to behold. They are not without their share of baggage though, and witnessing their own personal story and the decisions they were able to commit to despite all the hardships they went through... was simply inspiring. One of the best protagonists in my VN career for sure.
Spoilersduh
Spoiler
Yup that's our boy Michel
The mystery behind the white haired girl is a decent one, I implore all new Fata Morgana readers to pay attention in particular to her interactions with the Maid throughout the episodic portions of the narrative, will make the midgame where you are finally learning about the protagonist more fun. There will be at least three plot twist revelations as to her identity and I got oof'ed in all of them cuz I'm ez.
Soundtrack phenomenal, at first can be hard to appreciate the more mature atmosphere and background vocals if you were more of a cutesy moe happy SoL type but once you do accept it these tracks augment the reading experience immensely. Many bgms eerily have the right amount of length and buildup that they are able to reach their high points just as the narrative does. idk if that made sense but you should see what i mean when you get to the many climaxes and plot revelations of the story and pay attention to the music
The Mutilated Body is probably hands down my favorite tragedy bgm ;-;;;
It starts picking up at 2:15 and i swear its what made me finally start tearing up at
EXTREME SPOILERSSpoilerDidier killing Michel
Fking sad as hell man. Michel getting killed by his own brother he idolized, and his telling himself he won't cry, only for the CG to show him crying in his final moments. Absolutely beautifully tragic ;-;;.
Misc. comment about the witch spoilersduh:
Spoiler
RIP Morgana, centuries of hatred spawned over a misunderstanding LEL.Not her fault though. Jacopo once again utterly fails at his "ill wait until X" day to do something only to end up being too late by one day RIPPP
I'm glad she chose to end the curse but not forgive Mell, Yukimase, and especially not choose to smile for Jacopo. It's a very fitting and natural end to their relationship.
White haired girl being Saint Morgana through me for a loop, i was sure she was just female-reincarnated Michel after Ch 5... but i overall liked the poetic nature of her being the one who ironically fulfilled Morgana's curse on everyone along with her basing her image off of Michel and finally with Michel finally having to own up to his archangel Michael namesake and bring her soul to salvation
Overall enjoyed the romance between Michel and Giselle, i like how they were playing off Door 4 being a ridiculously fairy tale romanticized version of their relationship, yet ultimately their relationship IS a fairy tale: Michel choosing death and allowing/forcing Giselle to live for centuries as the Maid waiting for his return, how romantic.
I'm guessing Morgana's final wish before she vanished was for the two to have a happy life together, wonderful. These two earned it ^^
~~
Ok, i'll have to check out a Requiem of Innocence since it's short and covers a pretty important segment regarding FataMorgana but lolwow i'm so behind
Then it's time for some MuvLuv, jesus i wonder how long it'll take me to get through this one
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Wow Fata Morgana is insanely good, totally deserved all the shilling
I'll do a proper misc. comments thingy later cuz busies but for now I'm ALMOST done (for realzies this time, I'm at the part where you learn the ultimate truth about the white haired girl but I gtg work so gg me ._.)
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Freddy the Barbarian! Wait for me! I'm gonna finish up Fata Morgana TONIGHT, then start MuvLuv trilogy on my Vita
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Sorry for hiatus, life doesn't want me to finish FataMorgana I guess
I'll get to it. Eventually. Maybe. It really is good, but
But hory shi look at my collection of otomes I just splurged on, these are all from dev Otomate who made Code Realize which was pretty fun and got me into the genre (naw it's cuz I has a things for female protags)
Oh, and Muv Luv. Finally, right?
- Mr Poltroon, BlackCatPrincess, 1P1A and 2 others
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On 7/8/2018 at 4:56 PM, Mr Poltroon said:
I will comment that I have noticed every otome protagonist seems to look the exact same somehow. I will ask Eclipsed to confirm, as I believe he has played some. @EclipsedI think I only played like Code;Realize and that's it, but yes, all otome protagonists look the same
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Aight, so, Fata Morgana round 3 after overwhelming majority vote in my recent 'what should i read next' thread
First off, my last attempt was apparently dated from February of last year, wow does time fly >.>Spoiler
I SWEAR I DON'T KNOW WHAT I DID IN BETWEEN THEN AND NOW, HONEST!
Second off, Fata Morgana really is good stuff; the shilling that happened when it came out is all justified, and I just need to stop being a slacker and finish this already because IT'S GOOD STUFF!@###INdoCTriNaTEdSHILLI was making decent progress today too, but unfortunately i'm FORCED to take a break from reading and type out this mini-first-impression-review thing because the climax of the Second Door kind of broke me
(!HO1!!W C!OU!LD T!HE!!Y D!O T!HAT T!1O P!OL1L1Y OMFGGGG;----;
~~
Fata Morgana's basic premise is you wake up as some amnesiac dude in some eerie mansion and are greeted by The Maid who claims you are the current Master of the mansion (which is apparently cursed and leads to unfortunate fates for all of its inhabitants, gg). She is surprised that you are amnesiac, and so she invites you to experience the history of the mansion in order to unlock your true memories or something.This leads to an episodic flashback narrative, where you view prior-residents-of-the-mansion's lives and events that lead to their imminent demise. Due to the episodic nature, it can take a bit to fully immerse yourself with each story arc since it has to develop these new characters and settings, but once you finally are committed and things are looking up, BAM the inevitable tragedy strikes and it's off to the next arc : )
The arcs themselves cover themes on the more mature-dark tragedy spectrum, with the First Door featuring one sided incest and the Second Door focusing on being a human vs. being a monster. The characters in these arcs will all try very desperately to find some sort of middle ground they can be at peace with regarding these conflicts, and they do seem to find some solace once a certain mysterious reoccurring, red eyed, white haired, pale but beautiful woman comes into the picture, but unfortunately this light at the end of the tunnel also happens to be a double edged sword primed to place that final nail in the coffin..
Spoiler
"Hii, once I show up in your story, it's ggez"
Speaking of final nail in the coffins, Fata Morgana's climaxes are superb. You have all the right elements: dark themes/conflicts, messed up characters, a cursed mansion that ruins the lives of all its inhabitants...you KNOW shit's going to go down in these arcs, it's just a matter of when and how the characters will break. And man when they inevitably do, even though you knew it was coming, Fata Morgana manages to execute these climaxes in ways that maintain the "OH SHIT" shock factor and ultimately leave you with a satisfying(?) tragedy.
Artwork is okay, takes some time to get used to the goth style or w.e if you're like me who's more used to and prefers the current day moege style #yesihavebadtastestoobadSoundtrack/BGM is great. I really like the BGMs during peaceful/tranquil moments when they occur, they really give a nice moment of reprieve from the perpetual ticking doomsday atmosphere of Fatamorgana. BGMs during horrific revelation moments were also on point in capturing the essence of the situation. The vocals were a good idea.
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As for the specific moment in Second Door that made me Alt-F4 and take a break, it was this(spoilerz obviously):Spoiler
So fking tragic ;--;; omfg
As a previous lighthearted slice of life moege lover, I'm HORRENDOUSLY weak to tragedies like this
I haven't teared up buckets like this since, idk, Kara no Shoujo or something ;---;
OK, I FEEL BETTER NOW, TIME TO SOLDIER ON, THIS WAS JUST THE FIRST TWO DOORS I CAN'T EVEN IMAGINE WHAT'S NE-
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update: Third DoorUnbelievably frustrating to slog through, manipulative plotlines are always disgusting to read especially when you have an utter moron like Jacop getting completely suckered for the entirety of it, jesus this guy was soooo hopelessly bad, it's pathetic because how he treated the wife was terribad even before the manipulation BS so i just couldn't accept the end game "i just wanted y'all to be happy"
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I'm waiting for New Nintendo Switch XL
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Hey guys, it's summer time, so it's time to finally fulfill my 1 VN per year quota (though i've technically read like 6+ VNs just a few months ago via Ace Attorney spamming
)
I haven't been keeping up with the VN scene though so I have no idea what's considered good eatin's nowadays
Poll lists some of my backlogs that i never got around to but feel free to suggest others, especially any good ones that released over the past year! I do know though that I've officially grown out of highschooly-slice-of-lifey-friendship-with-cute-grills type VNs so don't suggest those; I tried to slog through Koisuru Natsu no Last Resort earlier this year and i died epicly
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Yeah I've become elitist enough now that I find playing Multi-Lives frustrating at times, goddamn people just suck >< you either get a DCer or a scrub who can't survive EX for crap and tries to do 27* Guren no Yumiya. For a while it was actually better for me to play solo because getting C/B in Veteran actually gave less rewards than A/S solo i think. Even playing in Regular rooms is preferable because you could at least hardcarry if you had one deadweight
Anyways fast forward to me getting the new 4* Aya card (btw Aya's best girl because pink and I love her low-key self centered antics like searching herself up or taking selfies <3) and the ability to play in Master rooms is a godsend, you'll still run into an idiot every now and then but for the most part you can get consistent A/S clears with how OP people's teams are along with them being better at the game in general
I'm gonna aim for top 100 for the current event pls
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8 hours ago, Palas said:
Hey at least I don't disconnect ᵐʸ ᵖʰᵒᶰᵉ ˢᵗᶦᶫᶫ ᶫᵃᵍˢ ᵗʰᵒ
They just need to let people download all songs / game content beforehand so that there aren't any people who have to download on the spot for a song they haven't unlocked / played yet, when i started i was one of those sad last-to-load peeps for a good while but now I'm pretty much insta-100% once people lock in
2 hours ago, MoeKyun said:Oh my
Have you meet a type of player who "auto dc if it's the song that I don't like"?
omg yeahhh. i ended up spamming solos when i was mass clearing easy/normal versions of songs cuz people kept dodging ><. worst experience for me was, once the dodger leaves, you get in the SAME room with them again and then they dodge again ._. B> dodge penalties
less dodgers in the veteran room so far though. though i've mostly been choosing the 'fun' songs like tear drops, silhouette, ready steady go, moon pride..
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This here's probably my worst multi-live so far, got a dcer AND a scrub who thought they could do the EX but then fails miserably, dragging us all to the D line. Cherry on top, look how close we were to at least a C.
SLAP THOSE PEOPLE PLS. friend request needs to be changed to BLACKLIST
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I'm watching the BanG Dream anime now too, really interesting to see how the Poppin' Party girls got to meet each other.
On Episode 4. Kasumi, Arisa and Rimi all act as expected, Saya though was unexpected with how nonchalant she is and how Kasumi is waay closer atm with Arisa and Rimi despite meeting Saya first
And Tae somehow got totally gimped for these first episodes, barely any screentime whatsoever compared to the others so im guessing the later episodes will center around her if not then the writers need to get shot because tae is bae
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14 hours ago, Kiriririri said:Play deresute pls
I think i tried but couldnt get into it because I'm an EN scrub and too lazy to look up translated menus
9 hours ago, Palas said:Ran, Aya and Maya are my Lords and Saviors
I'm absolutely terrible at rhythm games but htis game alone managed to get me grinding through horrible fever fails
SO YOU'RE THAT ONE PRICK THAT, WHEN ALL FOUR OTHER PEOPLE GET THEIR CUT-IN CGs SAYING THEY ARE READY FOR THE FEVER TIMES AND WE'RE ALL PUMPED UP BUT THEN THERE'S THIS ONE NOB WE'RE WAITING FOR FINGERS CROSSED BUT THEN THAT NOB NEVER MAKES IT AND THEN WE SEE THEIR SPRITE HAS THE TWIST OF SHAME AND IT'S LIKE GODDAMIT THERE GOES THE A-RANK CLEAR
58 minutes ago, Narcosis said:I really need to stop checking on this thread, before I commit to another monstrosity.
jOiN ussSS
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https://bang-dream-gbp-en.bushiroad.com/
Ok so I kind of regret being a LoveLive! School Idol Festival loyalist and not hopping on the banDwagon for the EN version of BanG Dream! Girls Band Party (Bandori)
But wow I finally started it this week and it's really fun. Bandori is a mobile rhythm game revolving around 5 girl bands each with 5 members. So that's 25 names to remember, 25 potential waifus, 25 idk glhf.
Actually let me see if I can type them all out now:
- Poppin' Party: Kasumi, Alisa, Rimi, Saya, Tae
- Afterglow: Ran, Moca, Tsumigi, Tomoe, Himari
- Pastel Palettes: Aya, Eve, Maya, Chisato, Hina,
- Roselia: Yukina, Sayo, Rinko, Ako, Lisa
- Hello Happy World: Kokoro, Mitsuki, Kanon, Kaoru, Hagumi
I swear i didn't look any of them up (jk maybe like two or three ._.)
The first couple of hours is a bit overwhelming since you are familiarizing yourself with the game interface, mechanics, and the characters but there's plenty of Main Story and Band Story scenes along with (hundreds?) of small talk conversations between members on the world map to flesh out these characters. There's actually so much story I ended up just skipping through them all for now just so i can get the rewards and continue playing
Rhythm gameplay is great and very satisfying; it's easy to get into yet challenging to master. Despite being a LLSIF veteran I got smacked by even the Hard songs starting out. But now I can manage to beat songs up to 25* EX, though Full Comboing them is a different story, and unfortunately 26* is a slow suicide, and 27*+ hahahaa insta-death
Most of the songs are catchy and they even have cover songs, I was like
when I saw they had Little Busters!
Multi-Live is genius, you are encouraged to play with others due to the increased rewards, and whoever in general devised the ingame resources is deviously brilliant because unlike LLSIF where G does absolute shit, this game has plenty of various materials via s/m/l power/pure/cool/happy shards that you can only gain by playing Lives and are necessary to purchase boosts to your team stat and more importantly, to promote one of your girls to their idolized version. TL;DR the incentives to play in this game are nicely thought out. Want to idolize that ultra rare 4* Wonderland Kanon card? You'll have to farm up shards, and you'll want to play with others because you'll get more shards in doing so. Win-win.
I've played so much I'm in top 1000 for the current Runaway Rabbits event, gg
- Narcosis, mitchhamilton and Gibberish
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Finally playing some Fire Emblem: Awakening because ever since Super Smash Bros. Melee from 15 years ago I always wondered who the hell Marth was and what that weird music was that would sometimes play in place of the standard Hyrule Temple map music
And then now there's Smash 4 with like six Fire Emblem characters in it
Then I learn that there's like 10+ games and Awakening is chronologically like 2000 years ahead of Marth's time but oh wells
The tactical turn based RPG gameplay is aight, I'm not really too elitist about it though so I'm playing on Normal albeit staying true to Classic mode so I can have the genuine FE experience of having to force reset whenever I stupidly put Lissa one square too close to enemy aggro range trying to heal someone and she gets insta-mauled
And I'm going Female Robin with pink hair ftw
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Finished Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright
It was good overall, I tend to like medieval fantasy settings, and Phoenix utilizing his desk slamming prowess as a baker was outright hilarious and it was nice to have the Maya from the good ol' days
Puzzles were whatevers, they were about as good as some random mobile app you'd play to pass the time. Didn't know who the hell Professor Layton was prior to this but he was a cool guy, a bit too cool though in that he often overshadows Phoenix and makes him look like a total novice
The overarching mystery regarding the lore of Labyrinthia and the Great Witch Bezella was good enough to keep me interested, though when it came down facing the reality and unraveling the truth behind it all it was kind of disappointing if not super underwhelming
But the entire setting did make for some fun witch trials. I particularly liked the whole mob mentality / having multiple witnesses testifying together, it made cross examinations much more hectic and fun. The stakes were extremely high too, I mean you usually don't see or hear about the fate of the Guilty parties in Ace Attorney but here you get to see the results immediately ><
P.S. I think this game came out before Dual Destinies but apparently Professor Layton is a follower of Professor Means
Spoiler
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Gonna take a break from this stuff now. It's nice to be late to a series, almost 20 years of games in the making defeated in a mere month. Pce outSpoiler"You didn't play Investigations"
SRRY I DONT HAVE A DS FOR INVESTIGATIONS AND DUN FEEL LIKE EMULATORS AND IM BURNT OUT
- Mr Poltroon and TexasDice
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Ya i had to stop playing cuz the site went down
First off, I take back my little rant about the badge, because apparently i never clicked on it. "My very important attorney badge" will suffice. +1
Regarding alternate ending, maybe there could've been at least one more prompt where Athena can second guess herself from committing to the bookcase, currently Edgeworth will attempt to stop her once you pick the 4th paragraph but it's already all over at that point. ie. It feels more like a baited ending, would've preferred something like:
Spoiler
Then Athena can be like, (What's he going on about...?)- Never mind him, full steam ahead!
- Maybe I should listen to what he has to say...
That way players will feel a bit more justified that they chose to let Athena end the trial prematurely rather than feeling like they got trapped into it when they were just blindly grasping at straws trying to explain things.
Kind of a moot point overall though since the alt. ending quickly rewinds back to where you left off and locks out the bookcase, but yeah
-5, I WAS BAITED TO THIS ENDING!@#
3rd Cross Examining. Ahaha, Perky is so quirky, and it's hilarious to think about what was going on through your mind when you had to sit down and think and write all of this... spiritually suggestive dialogue
+5
Really, Tiago? xDDDDDD
Luckily, I know how your game logics works now, so I was able to easily just *again* present a Profile to beat this section. Gawd you love Presenting Profiles as evidence don't you
+0
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4th Cross examine Perky = Peaky? This section I'll have to give you props for. It had an authentic Ace Attorney vibe to it, how a character shifts personality dramatically, the bgm switching to allegro, and the testimony is actually pretty solid only having one glaring weakness after a few presses (Though I kinda was stupid and tried to focus on something like, "the window was closed at the time so you couldn't have sent the key up" because I forgot that Vlad didn't have the key in the first place ._. +10P.S. Another wrong answer banter i liked, +5
Spoiler
LOLDW about me being on low health, i was purposely choosing wrong answers to get these banters
~~
Bat revelation: OOOOOOHHHH, the train of thought here was well executed! Why would they conceal that they dealt with bats, even when we were openly discussing birds? Could this revelation be the key to solving this case? WHAT IF.... THE MURDER WEAPON WAS THE BAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BOOM and you even have the Labyrinthia version of Telling the Truth playing during this, love it! +30Did I winned? I got the credits and The End but that little dialogue at the end is bothering me.. or was it just meant to be a "they really were vampires!" thing?
~~
Tl;DR Pretty enjoyable, it's a 7 or 8/10. All of the main characters are consistent and their dialogues and banter felt natural, the new characters had their own unique flair like Patrick's mindreading and Perky/Peaky's spiritual wackiness/spoiled bratness, the plot literally had a batty turnabout that was executed cleanly and felt really satisfying to figure out, only real complaints are the cross examines that required presenting a profile rather than evidence, but that's partly my own weakness because i had alot of trouble with the few AA games that went that route as well -
Aight I'll bite, since I've been playing nonstop Ace Attorney these past couple weeks (current on Prof. Layton vs Wright) but I'll take a slight detour since Tiag's pretty cool
I'll just point out some dialogues that i liked, nitpick them cross examinations, and other misc comments as a filthy elitist casual. Don't need to take any of my following bolded points system seriously
First off, wtf is this bland description for Athena's attorney's badge? Where's the "My spanking brand new attorney's badge!" or "Proof of my profession"??? all we have is a lame generic "one of my possessions" ?!?!#!!!@!!! (-10, where's the defense attorney pride!!)
I'm only up to the first Cross Examination, but the writing's not too shabby; Athena feels like Athena (+1 for having her be the lead defense attorney, she needs more luv), Nick not being able to make the trial because of staying up all night marathoning an 'old tv show' with Maya who's now sick from overeating burgers sounds just about right, and Edgeworth being visibly disgruntled that he approved of this particular vampiric charge because he was also probably too busy watching them Steel Samurais last night was funny. (+5, you got the characters down pretty good)
Only issue with the first cross examining is that it's somewhat tricky because the bulk of it is spent Press spamming to build the Court Record since Athena waltzed into this trial with absolutely no information whatsoever. Which is fair in terms of the plot, but now all of a sudden you have like 5 different pieces of evidence and it's like "I know we need to point out 'hey this guy can't be a vamp because...' but which evidence will contradict which statement to get that message across?!! #getgudson (-1, too much infodump pls)
I don't know if there's multiple solutions, but after a while I finally realized "Oh wait, you can present Profiles too." So you just present the Defendant's profile. There we go. But yeah I think something like the Autopsy report with the BLED OUT statement or some other combination should've also worked to pose the "He's not a vamp because he didn't drink blood!!!" contradiction #SaltythatIwasted5minutesSpammingEveryEvidenceWithEverystatementOnlyToThenRealizeTheAnswerWasPresentingDefendant'sProfile (-5, need a bit more flexibility in pointing out this contradiction with evidence instead of just profile)
2nd cross examining was pretty hefty. A bit of narrative pinpointing would've been nice on the "Is there anything that's suspicious?" part when attempting to forcibly move the trial forward because of the amount of tangents there are like that one dead end(?) 'is my client lying' bit, though I did really like the amount of effort put into some of these tangents xD
- ie. picking the Key you run into the tangent about whether it was possible for the key to be planted after body discovery (which, again, wth man, the answer is Presenting the Victim rather than Presenting the Body Discovery Report for the whole "the victim putting the chair against the door creating the locked room is why its impossible for someone to plant the key afterwards". That was a lame epiphany. +1 for Athena's reaction for picking the wrong answers though) (-30, same as above)
Spoiler
PLSSSS THIS ANSWER SOHOUDLVE WORKRED
-
THE BODY DISCOVERY REPORT IS OBVIOUSLY SUSPICIOUS, BECAUSE THIS PARAGRAPH'S MISSING A COMMA!!!! ,,,,, (+10, hilarious omg xD)
- NVM IT'S BECAUSE IT DIDN'T MENTION THE SMALL PARCHMENT THAT WAS FOUND AT THE SCENE!@#
- wtf tiago, you're already making us have to combine TWO pieces of evidence to progress?!@# Did the main games even do that? DIS TOO HART (+1)
Oh crap, we finally now have a pic of the room, now we have to examine it, pick out a suspicious spot, and maybe present evidence on why this spot is suspicious. Uhhh, I'll play some more sometime later. But it's a decent one, Tiago
P.S. Your penalty / wrong answer banters are S+ tier
(+40, yup, you got these characters down *thumbsup*)
Spoiler
+10
+20
+30
Edit: Ooops, I got the 'alternate' ending, godddamit i actually felt smart for doing the whole gust of wind thing, but now i wanna find the truth....
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AA Spirit of Justice is done
Really good, they improved virtually all aspects compared to Dual Destinies, the 3D sprites look better(?) and are custom animated more often ie. Trucy's sword swapping trick testimony,
They brought the back ability to Examine any locations for some much needed world depth and character banters (best one is Polly's newt vs Thena's gecko vs. Nick's lizard)
Divination Seances are fun, for once they implemented a new trial gimmick that I enjoyed. Divination Seance > Mood Matrix > Psyche Locks > Bracelet
Prosecutor Sahmahghandi-idk was pretty cool. I bit too overbearing at times with the Let it goes but I liked his graceful-in-defeat attitude, and he meshed very well with Ema. We haven't seen a good prosecutor/detective duo since Edgeworth/Gumshoe. Klavier/Ema was ew, Blackquill/Fulbright was atrocious.
Did I just mention Ema? She's baack, and ermergawd she's a legit forensics investigator kyaaaa!@#
Maya's back too, but oh my god it feels so weird that she's 28, older than Detective Skye, and even MORE weird that the English VA they chose is decently deep voiced (I kinda have her in my head at least 5 pitches higher, idk). She finally gets to show off the results of all her being MIA training by flawlessly spirit channeling, but l0l I'm surprised they didn't bother to voice that scene considering they took the time to voice Rayfa's Divination Seances. P.S. Why'd she have to channel that person though, oof gonna have nightmares
Rayfa's a great Ojou-tsuntsun, her mix of formal vocabulary into childish insults suits her 14 year old spoiled dutiful princess character perfectly. Barbed Head is also one of Nick's greatest aliases.
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Cases were in general more entertaining than Dual Destinites, maybe because the Accused are mostly people you know so it's more personal along with other factors like the DC Act increasing the stakesApollo finally gets a massive focus and info dump about his past, sometimes it makes me wonder if the writers thought of this stuff already when they made AA4 and AA5 or if they only started BSing this stuff once they made this game >.>
They did a relatively good job of making me care for Apollo's peeps this time around, man I'll never get over how badly they flopped with
SpoilerClay last game, jesus that guy was pure fodder and didn't justify pitting Apollo against Athena at all, just made Apollo look like a total temper tantruming scrub
Athena got the Dual Destinites Trucy Wright from-main-to-background-character treatment, I guess cuz her story kind of ended already but man Case 4 really felt like they shoehorned in it to say "Don't worry guys, we didn't forget about Athena!" better than nothing I guess.Case 5 was... super. I got flashback chills to Trials & Tribulation's Case 5 with how convoluted it was and how it would just spam plot twists back to back keeping you on the edge of your seat. Really fun. They need to nerf spirit channeling though pls, it's waaay too overpowered for these cases xD. One thing I will nitpick though was the first half, the Nick vs. Polly portion. Writers did an absolutely abysmal job setting that one up, and what should've been an iconic, epic showdown was instead just a big F*** YOU letdown
Ending was, I guess bittersweet? I'm glad Athena and Trucy objected to that decision instead of everyone unanimously agreeing, it fits how I felt
but 'tis for the best~
~~
All I got left is I guess some of the DLC episodes and maybe then I'll check out AA Investigations and that one spinoff PL vs. PW
RatingsSpoilerAA1 PW - 7
AA2 JfA - 6
AA3 T&T- 8
AA4 AJ - 6
AA5 DD - 7
AA6 SoJ - 8Favorite Cross Examine theme: Spirit of Justice > Dual Destinies > Phoenix Wright > Trials & Tribulation > Justice for All > Apollo Justice
SoJ & DD because modern and SoJ is catchier, PW because none of the future themes ever really reached the same level of ominousity, Apollo Justice is last because I hate Bracelet mechanic and it's basically the same tune
Best protagonist: Phoenix > Athena > Apollo. Nick was one of the cooler protagonists for me because I liked how he was able to separate his inner sarcastic nature from surfacing in his outward interactions, ie. whenever you play as Athena/Apollo you always see Phoenix as this calm, cool veteran lawyer you look up to, none of the sweating bullets and sneery comments. Athena was fun and Apollo was aight but the failed Nick successor.Best assistant/tag along: Maya > Rayfa > Trucy > Ema
Best detective: Ema because forensics and she's hawt > Gumshoe bro > Fulbright flop
Best prosecutor: Edgeworth > Godot > Sahmahgahlah > Blackquill > Franzisca / Manfred > Payne > Klavier. Based on their story & overall personality in court.
What are you playing?
in Visual Novel Talk
Posted
I've been slogging through Muv Luv on and off for the past few months
Still in Extra lol
But I've managed to finish Sumika, Meiya, and Chizuru's Extra routes
MuvLuv Extra is truly... Average. Which means it's probably boring af to seasoned readers who've seen all the cliche high school SoL shenanigans by now. Doesn't help that Muv Luv is technically 2003 so it has the older type of writing/humor/dialogue and outdated graphics with them lovely body proportions.
I found both Sumika and Meiya to be fairly annoying, it's the classic should I bang my lifelong airheaded clingy and naggy childhood friend who's been by my side through thick and thin since forever, or this enigmatic super-privileged-super-rich and lacking-in-normal-people-common-sense/mannerisms girl that popped out of nowhere who seems to have larger than life fate/destiny ties to me?
I did like the moral crisis Takeru faced when it came to choose time, the writers did a good job setting it up by making Takeru reflect on both girls via inner monologuing flashbacks reinforcing the whole "childhood friend vs destiny girl" dilemma.
Needless to say I banged Chizuru first (Jk about "banged", I'm playing the Vita version LOLOL). Anyway she's the class rep strict by the book hardhead who tries to shoulder everything by herself. And she looks damn good when she lets her hair down and takes off the glasses. Her drama was pretty eh, a lot of LEAVE ME ALONE, I CAN HANDLE IT!!! And Takeru being NO YOU CANT, LET ME HELP!!! But yeah, Chizuru's my best girl atm.
I really really don't feel like slogging through Miki and Kei's Extra routes, might just start Unlimited now...