Aokana is something I really enjoy overall but MAN does it drop the ball in some places.

Going over what I like first, common route was great. The SoL was on point rivaling that of Grisaia for me (high praise). The characters were also super fun, having great interactions and extremely good development in some cases. Also the FC matches were crazy good, ridiculously good at points. Aokana is so good at showing how badass this fictional sport can be and I love it for that.

My biggest problems mostly stem from the routes. I have no issue with Misaki route and thought that was fantastic overall so I'll ignore that but the other 3 have their own fair share of issues. Just a blanket statement across the routes is the romance is so fucking cringe. I never want to endure pillow talk between these mfs again and I ESPECIALLY never want to see two mfs being shy about a date after having some crazy ass sex literally the night before, like come on brah. On to individual problems, Mashiro's route was mostly just a victim of cringe romance, I really like her character aside from that and her development is phenomenal. Rika's route just sucks outside of like one part, I REALLY don't like her route and felt it didn't have to exist. And lastly I think Asuka's route is awesome when it comes to FC but Asuka as a character is very whatever.

Overall I still think Aokana was very good, it can just drag it's feet hard at points. Also if you've already read Aokana read Extra 2, that shit is PEAK and does so much justice to this VN

This is basically everything I wanted out of Aokana + so much more. Misaki was already fantastic in her route of the base game and this just brings her character to another level. How they handle everything pertaining to the spirit of competition was phenomenal. I don't consume much sports media but this has made me want to because oml it's so good. The cg quality is also a huge step up from the original and there are SO much banger vocal tracks here. And saving the best praise for last the FC matches go fucking insane, they were already great in OG but in here they're on an entirely different level, there was not one FC match here that didn't have me on the edge of my seat.

Even things I didn't care for much in the orignal I found myself adoring here, biggest example being the romance which I thought was cringe in the original, but here? That's some good shit. The SoL segments are also great which is nice considering I didn't care much for the SoL past common route in base game. It may sound like I'm shitting on the base game a LOT here but I still like that shit a lot, it's just that this is on an entirely different level of quality.

We stan Misaki

It's so fucked up that something with storytelling and visual presentation as phenomenal as this gets bogged down by whatever the fuck they were cooking with the entire Cannan plotline. I adore literally EVERYTHING else about this but man I cannot get behind most things pertaining to that, which is so fucked up with how hard literally everything else here goes. That isn't to say the entirety of this is ruined because of that tho, it's still incredibly good even with that and one of my favorite visual novels. Also the bad endings go insane, they're so fun.

Mario Sunshine is a game that crumbles under the pressure of being played normally, despite this, I cant bring myself to hate it even with all of its shortcomings (there are a lot). For one there are so many dogshit stages that I can't even attempt to name them all, if you've played this game you know what stages I'm talking about, they're very bad. Do the stages even work? No. Is this ok? No. Do I have fun playing them? Most of the time yeah. How? idk. Well ok surely the movement and shit must be great if I still like the game despite that. The answer to that? ehhhh it's good but a lot of the time jank as fuck. And that's the thing with Mario Sunshine, despite all of the bullshit this game is VERY fun to play, it ain't even ironic fun most of the time it's just genuine. How does it do this? I got no fuckin clue but lemme tell you when I'm playing this bullshit I am having the time of my LIFE. Throw some bullshit like the Chucksters at me and brother I'm still balling. This shit could kill my first born son and I'd high five it and give it a hearty "hell yeah". This truly just is a special lil game (half derogatory)

Sunset overdrive is a game that feels endearing with how shitty the dialogue is at points, like on one hand it's obviously very shitty, but it never gets to the level that borderlands does with ultra cringe dialogue that makes me want to kill myself. Depending on my mood I'm either like "hell yeah dude this is awesome I love my gigachad protagonist and the biggest group of betas for a supporting cast ever" or "holy fuck please shut the fuck up my ears are bleeding can you please stop talking for 3 seconds" and few games can match that perfect amount of cringe, for what it is I have incredible respect for this game for being to pull that off.

Going away from the dialogue the game itself is fun, exploration is super satisfying and the gunplay is fun enough. I don't like a lot of the weapons and NONE of them feel as good as Ratchet and Clank weapons but with how combat actually plays it works out. I like jumping on shit and grinding on literally anything it's a good time. Honestly my biggest problem is the side content and collectation aspects of this game kinda suck. Especially the side quests, they're really boring.

Basically the game itself is fun if you ignore side content. Dialogue is the perfect amount of cringe to at the very least be endearing. Good and short game to waste a few hours on