Nesmontou
2024
This review contains spoilers
(spoilers for DD1 too)
This game is so fucking weird
DD1 was a diamond in the rough but the fun as fuck gameplay, ESPECIALLY of the 4 archer classes, and the massive variety of bosses (admittedly thanks to Dark Arisen, but even the base DD1 was more solid in that regard than DD2) and solid dungeons carried it hard
But it had extremely obvious areas of improvement, notably the story which actually even had pretty interesting lore in the postgame, and the characters were kinda shit
And guess what DD2's story and characters are EVEN WORSE!!!
I honestly can't even tell you what happened in this game's story, DD1 had some memorable moments in its main quest like the entire expedition to hunt the griffon is genuinely incredible, the cult was an antagonistic force that somewhat worked (DD2 has none of those???), and the king and his death were genuinely good moments, and the Grigori fight was fucking awesome (the DD2 dragon is so bad lmao), here there is NOTHING
My female Simple pawn voice 5 has way more personality than all the characters in this game. Pawns do have more character here which is great (aside from one thing), though the simplification of inclinations isn't
Character creation is definitely better and I feel like armors overall look better too, people complain about simplification with removing stuff like gloves but I think I made my character and pawn look better than in DD1. It's also really good that they got rid of the "stats you get at level-ups depend on your class" bullshit
I actually had hope for a bit because of the unmoored world, i genuinely popped off at that scene cause it looked like the elaboration on the seneschal storyline of DD1 I dreamed of, and while I do think that sorta-postgame is cool, it's way too short, is too little too late, didn't make me care about the characters, locking the map out is still kinda fucking stupid, and it ends on a massive whimper with a scripted fight. The worm dragon fight in elven woods was cool at least
And it does feel like the game is kinda fucking easy, enemies do no damage and getting ganked by multiple goblins with insane hitstun is a much bigger threat than any boss (except the Dullahan which is JACKED for some reason, this guy is actually super cool to fight). The poor chimera got gutted so hard from its DD1 version where you could destroy the individual body parts. Removing the zoom-in on whenever bosses become vulnerable with pawns saying an amazing line for each boss "It's fallen, now, ATTACK!" "THE GOAT IS SILENCED!" is really weird given how fucking awesome that was, and DD2 Imminent Triumph is MUCH worse I mean listen to that shit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTNfuztCMgM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNaV-rEo67Y
the new song that plays in the same contexts (Reversal of Fate) is pretty cool though. But in general the soundtrack is super generic, which sucks when you're a DD1 sequel
Quest design in this game is also really bad, they really just make you run around a ton around the massive world with often no fast travel and nothing interesting happening on the way. Ferrystones being so expensive and in 1 per shop until refresh is a terrible, TERRIBLE decision and makes you run around for no reason far too much, I spent a massive portion of my playtime on this boring traversal
But the worst problem by far, remember how I mentioned the 4 archer classes in DD1? None of the classes in DD2 even compare to that. These 4 with the dagger and bow/magic bow combo (and sword/bow for Assassin was really cool too) are some of the most fun action rpg gameplay out there and none of the DD2 classes have that kind of versatility. Even Sorcerer is worse, throwing out the support spells was definitely a good decision to still give Mage something to do, but they also have less offensive spells, especially the incredibly fun tier 3 ice spears and thunder dome, no status ailment spells and holy might as well not exist and dark doesn't, lightning feels useless, and they are hurt BADLY by the 4 skill slots, why are they so much less versatile too? At least Warrior is much better in DD2 lol. Magick Archer is pretty easily the most fun class in DD2 but I still vastly prefer the DD1 version that had some magic dagger skills. Mystic Spearhand has super underwheming damage against big enemies and Trickster is the most boring shit ever made LMAO did they think anyone would want to play this
Physical bows were especially gutted, equipping explosive arrows midboss in DD1 and destroying it felt amazing and even made inventory management deeper cause they were heavy as fuck, here explosive arrows are tied to a skill wtf
Dungeons are also really disappointing, they definitely sacrificed quality for quantity and it's a huge shame. If we go back to the DD1 main plot, there was this one moment where you explore catacombs and encounter the cult leader at the end who turns his goons into zombies, those catacombs are an infinitely better dungeon than anything in DD2 and that encounter, even though it's really not that great, is more memorable than practically everything in DD2's plot
Anyway yeah DD1 still unfortunately clears and it really sucks to say this. If a Dark Arisen style expansion came out it probably wouldn't fix a lot of the problems. Instead of a polish or fully realized DD1 it feels like a repeat that created new mistakes and made good parts much worse, it's a massive step back. Shit thinking about it I'm way more dissapointed than I initially thought
also the microtransactions literally do not matter stop being dumb
This game is so fucking weird
DD1 was a diamond in the rough but the fun as fuck gameplay, ESPECIALLY of the 4 archer classes, and the massive variety of bosses (admittedly thanks to Dark Arisen, but even the base DD1 was more solid in that regard than DD2) and solid dungeons carried it hard
But it had extremely obvious areas of improvement, notably the story which actually even had pretty interesting lore in the postgame, and the characters were kinda shit
And guess what DD2's story and characters are EVEN WORSE!!!
I honestly can't even tell you what happened in this game's story, DD1 had some memorable moments in its main quest like the entire expedition to hunt the griffon is genuinely incredible, the cult was an antagonistic force that somewhat worked (DD2 has none of those???), and the king and his death were genuinely good moments, and the Grigori fight was fucking awesome (the DD2 dragon is so bad lmao), here there is NOTHING
My female Simple pawn voice 5 has way more personality than all the characters in this game. Pawns do have more character here which is great (aside from one thing), though the simplification of inclinations isn't
Character creation is definitely better and I feel like armors overall look better too, people complain about simplification with removing stuff like gloves but I think I made my character and pawn look better than in DD1. It's also really good that they got rid of the "stats you get at level-ups depend on your class" bullshit
I actually had hope for a bit because of the unmoored world, i genuinely popped off at that scene cause it looked like the elaboration on the seneschal storyline of DD1 I dreamed of, and while I do think that sorta-postgame is cool, it's way too short, is too little too late, didn't make me care about the characters, locking the map out is still kinda fucking stupid, and it ends on a massive whimper with a scripted fight. The worm dragon fight in elven woods was cool at least
And it does feel like the game is kinda fucking easy, enemies do no damage and getting ganked by multiple goblins with insane hitstun is a much bigger threat than any boss (except the Dullahan which is JACKED for some reason, this guy is actually super cool to fight). The poor chimera got gutted so hard from its DD1 version where you could destroy the individual body parts. Removing the zoom-in on whenever bosses become vulnerable with pawns saying an amazing line for each boss "It's fallen, now, ATTACK!" "THE GOAT IS SILENCED!" is really weird given how fucking awesome that was, and DD2 Imminent Triumph is MUCH worse I mean listen to that shit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTNfuztCMgM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNaV-rEo67Y
the new song that plays in the same contexts (Reversal of Fate) is pretty cool though. But in general the soundtrack is super generic, which sucks when you're a DD1 sequel
Quest design in this game is also really bad, they really just make you run around a ton around the massive world with often no fast travel and nothing interesting happening on the way. Ferrystones being so expensive and in 1 per shop until refresh is a terrible, TERRIBLE decision and makes you run around for no reason far too much, I spent a massive portion of my playtime on this boring traversal
But the worst problem by far, remember how I mentioned the 4 archer classes in DD1? None of the classes in DD2 even compare to that. These 4 with the dagger and bow/magic bow combo (and sword/bow for Assassin was really cool too) are some of the most fun action rpg gameplay out there and none of the DD2 classes have that kind of versatility. Even Sorcerer is worse, throwing out the support spells was definitely a good decision to still give Mage something to do, but they also have less offensive spells, especially the incredibly fun tier 3 ice spears and thunder dome, no status ailment spells and holy might as well not exist and dark doesn't, lightning feels useless, and they are hurt BADLY by the 4 skill slots, why are they so much less versatile too? At least Warrior is much better in DD2 lol. Magick Archer is pretty easily the most fun class in DD2 but I still vastly prefer the DD1 version that had some magic dagger skills. Mystic Spearhand has super underwheming damage against big enemies and Trickster is the most boring shit ever made LMAO did they think anyone would want to play this
Physical bows were especially gutted, equipping explosive arrows midboss in DD1 and destroying it felt amazing and even made inventory management deeper cause they were heavy as fuck, here explosive arrows are tied to a skill wtf
Dungeons are also really disappointing, they definitely sacrificed quality for quantity and it's a huge shame. If we go back to the DD1 main plot, there was this one moment where you explore catacombs and encounter the cult leader at the end who turns his goons into zombies, those catacombs are an infinitely better dungeon than anything in DD2 and that encounter, even though it's really not that great, is more memorable than practically everything in DD2's plot
Anyway yeah DD1 still unfortunately clears and it really sucks to say this. If a Dark Arisen style expansion came out it probably wouldn't fix a lot of the problems. Instead of a polish or fully realized DD1 it feels like a repeat that created new mistakes and made good parts much worse, it's a massive step back. Shit thinking about it I'm way more dissapointed than I initially thought
also the microtransactions literally do not matter stop being dumb
Frontier has more stuff going for it than the first and second games, notably its really good dungeons, but this game is REALLY slow. The first problem you'll notice is probably the harvesting animation, this legit takes something like 4 seconds, what the fuck? Extend that to an entire line of crops squares, which I think is like 24*3, and that's 5 minutes of straight harvesting, and that's not counting walking between them or maybe I'm wrong and it's even longer. You better have those harvesting monsters, and they don't become efficient instantly
Another time-waster that's tangentially linked to dungeons is that you have to prepare energy restoring items and potions for them. And you can't automate that unlike crops, and it takes an ungodly amount of time to make this stuff, you'll be sitting in front of the mixer making ice creams and you're gonna like it. This and the insane amount of time it takes to raise your forge levels are things that took until RF4 to fix, at least RF3 was like RF1/2 and didn't have the dumb timing minigame
And of course we gotta talk about Runeys lmao. It'd be fine honestly if it worked like it does in any PC management game where you just clicked on one area, you'd select move to another and that was that, but having you go manually physically collect them (which means looking for them in the area too) and moving them to another area, all while you don't have access to the map since this is in a separate location and you have to go 2 stories in a building to see it, all that's a perfect formula for a mechanic no one wants to bother with. People advise cheating it out of the game and yeah, please do that, it's awful
And that's all a big shame because really, the dungeons are definitely good, trekking in there feels great, they did a super good job on the atmosphere and I really like that they're so long and you have to go there a bunch of times to manage to clear them, but they're held back massively by what's around them. Oh and yeah, having a character hidden in one of the dungeons is cool in concept, but the fact that you have to get her to friendship 1 to progress the plot is really fucked, the only clue the game gives you is Raguna going "yeah I promise to visit you :)" and you're somehow supposed to guess this means this a plot wall and you have to bury her in gifts, I was stuck for a stupidly long time because of that
And a reason for that is that unfortunately, characters repeat lines. A LOT. Big problem in the first 3 games, there is not a lot of dialogue at all, characters only have like 5 lines they repeat, and that didn't make me want to go say hi to Iris in her dungeon. This game had a few character events but they require insanely high friendship levels and these raise so slowly (except for Iris thankfully), this and the repeat lines really don't make you want to go talk to them everyday and go through the effort of making gifts
I played this all without cheats, but if you could simultaneously remove Runeys, get friendship and forge levels to raise faster and be able to just put 99 ice creams to restore energy in your inventory whenever so you don't have to bother crafting them, this could honestly be a super great experience. It's pretty frustrating that it's ultimately so held back by these few, really big problems
Also the final boss is awesome
Another time-waster that's tangentially linked to dungeons is that you have to prepare energy restoring items and potions for them. And you can't automate that unlike crops, and it takes an ungodly amount of time to make this stuff, you'll be sitting in front of the mixer making ice creams and you're gonna like it. This and the insane amount of time it takes to raise your forge levels are things that took until RF4 to fix, at least RF3 was like RF1/2 and didn't have the dumb timing minigame
And of course we gotta talk about Runeys lmao. It'd be fine honestly if it worked like it does in any PC management game where you just clicked on one area, you'd select move to another and that was that, but having you go manually physically collect them (which means looking for them in the area too) and moving them to another area, all while you don't have access to the map since this is in a separate location and you have to go 2 stories in a building to see it, all that's a perfect formula for a mechanic no one wants to bother with. People advise cheating it out of the game and yeah, please do that, it's awful
And that's all a big shame because really, the dungeons are definitely good, trekking in there feels great, they did a super good job on the atmosphere and I really like that they're so long and you have to go there a bunch of times to manage to clear them, but they're held back massively by what's around them. Oh and yeah, having a character hidden in one of the dungeons is cool in concept, but the fact that you have to get her to friendship 1 to progress the plot is really fucked, the only clue the game gives you is Raguna going "yeah I promise to visit you :)" and you're somehow supposed to guess this means this a plot wall and you have to bury her in gifts, I was stuck for a stupidly long time because of that
And a reason for that is that unfortunately, characters repeat lines. A LOT. Big problem in the first 3 games, there is not a lot of dialogue at all, characters only have like 5 lines they repeat, and that didn't make me want to go say hi to Iris in her dungeon. This game had a few character events but they require insanely high friendship levels and these raise so slowly (except for Iris thankfully), this and the repeat lines really don't make you want to go talk to them everyday and go through the effort of making gifts
I played this all without cheats, but if you could simultaneously remove Runeys, get friendship and forge levels to raise faster and be able to just put 99 ice creams to restore energy in your inventory whenever so you don't have to bother crafting them, this could honestly be a super great experience. It's pretty frustrating that it's ultimately so held back by these few, really big problems
Also the final boss is awesome
This is really 2 steps forward and 3 steps back, the combat is much better than the first game's (weapons that aren't one-handed swords are good!) and characters are generally better even if they still have way too few lines they repeat, but the game has this godawful structure where basically nothing happens in the first part and you just have to grind the requirements to get to the second
And the thing is, I don't think the second part is really interesting either. It basically makes you explore 4 TERRIBLE season-themed dungeons, terrrible because unlike RF1's really interesting dungeon formula they just make you do a ton of dumb fetch quests inside. The most egregious is probably in the summer dungeon where you have to grow a whole field of pineapples, this takes 18 days by the way. 18 fucking days of back-and-forth in the dungeon what the hell
And the thing is, I don't think the second part is really interesting either. It basically makes you explore 4 TERRIBLE season-themed dungeons, terrrible because unlike RF1's really interesting dungeon formula they just make you do a ton of dumb fetch quests inside. The most egregious is probably in the summer dungeon where you have to grow a whole field of pineapples, this takes 18 days by the way. 18 fucking days of back-and-forth in the dungeon what the hell
It's very obvious that this was the first game in the formula and that they didn't really have much of an idea how to design this
But even then, how does this game make you wait for winter to enter dungeon 5. Like seriously this is so obviously a terrible idea I don't know how it got through. Dungeons 6 and 7 also have this really bad room in both of them where you have to fully grow a crop in them lmao, have fun going back and forth in the dungeon for days instead of exploring further. It's obvious they did this because they wanted to implement the farm part further but it backfired hard
You also can't forge until you upgrade your house, which takes a crazy amount of grinding for the necessary wood. The best strategy for this is to not clean up your field on purpose to let garbage pile up in it even though the game tells you to keep it clean (cleaning it all is even the requirement to marry Mist!). And if you used the dungeon 5 winter wait time to grind this out (not like there's anything else to do) and forge weapons and especially armor with what you have available at this point, it turns the 4 remaining dungeons into complete jokes. And that's a shame because something I will give this game is it had a really interesting dungeon formula, basically scouting out all of it and then destroying all the monster spawners in the same run. It even has an upgradable sleeping bag so you can sleep in the dungeon to do that, but it's never necessary even when the game isn't a joke. Thet said, the combat is really barebones and one-handed swords are pretty much the only viable weapon type (due to shields, every defense point matters a ton) but hey
Characters have way, way too few lines that they repeat every time you talk to them, which makes it pretty hard to really care about them and go through the effort of raising friendship sadly, that was a big problem in this game, 2 and Frontier
With all that said I still do have respect for what this game started and experimented, but it's hard to really recommend it unless you want to experience every game in the series
But even then, how does this game make you wait for winter to enter dungeon 5. Like seriously this is so obviously a terrible idea I don't know how it got through. Dungeons 6 and 7 also have this really bad room in both of them where you have to fully grow a crop in them lmao, have fun going back and forth in the dungeon for days instead of exploring further. It's obvious they did this because they wanted to implement the farm part further but it backfired hard
You also can't forge until you upgrade your house, which takes a crazy amount of grinding for the necessary wood. The best strategy for this is to not clean up your field on purpose to let garbage pile up in it even though the game tells you to keep it clean (cleaning it all is even the requirement to marry Mist!). And if you used the dungeon 5 winter wait time to grind this out (not like there's anything else to do) and forge weapons and especially armor with what you have available at this point, it turns the 4 remaining dungeons into complete jokes. And that's a shame because something I will give this game is it had a really interesting dungeon formula, basically scouting out all of it and then destroying all the monster spawners in the same run. It even has an upgradable sleeping bag so you can sleep in the dungeon to do that, but it's never necessary even when the game isn't a joke. Thet said, the combat is really barebones and one-handed swords are pretty much the only viable weapon type (due to shields, every defense point matters a ton) but hey
Characters have way, way too few lines that they repeat every time you talk to them, which makes it pretty hard to really care about them and go through the effort of raising friendship sadly, that was a big problem in this game, 2 and Frontier
With all that said I still do have respect for what this game started and experimented, but it's hard to really recommend it unless you want to experience every game in the series
Firefly is awesome
They cooked I never want to go back to the fucking Luofu ever again
They cooked I never want to go back to the fucking Luofu ever again
nice "nuanced character writing" you fucking dipshit now check this out
RELEASE THE SHARD !
TAKE THE GRENDEL !
RELEASE THE SHARD !
TAKE THE GRENDEL !
This review contains spoilers
I can't believe I'm about to write a positive review out of Genshin but here we are
There's probably a pretty big part of that positive impression that stems from the inevitable comparison with the previous chapters and how it clears them but this is still just good in its own rights
The biggest success is definitely the characters, they all have common interventions and play a role through the entire thing instead of having a dedicated arc and disappearing for the rest of the plot. Most of them get moments of vulnerability which does a lot to make you care: Lyney has that moment where he panics when Lynette and Freminet get caught, Freminet has the moment where you control him and he gets drugged diving (they made me care about Freminet wtf), Neuvi has his whole thing with rain, Navia has her whole story with her dad and what happens later with her 2 goons dying, and i dont even know where to begin with Furina. Seeing the Fatui not be assholes for once is great too, Childe having the worst week of his life over there bro did NOT catch a break this chapter
The trial gimmick is a ton of fun and just made me smile as someone who's played all the Ace Attorneys, they even nailed the awkward moments where you're randomly throwing the evidence cause you're not sure what they want you to do this really is the AA experience
There's much more work than usual in the way the no budget regular dialogue is depicted, especially in those trial segments, and they finally started to use CGs to show things happening without having to do one of their massive budget cutscenes, they started doing it in earlier events in Sumeru and it's cool that it naturally transitioned to main story stuff
And of course the biggest highlight is Furina holy shit she is so good this game doesn't deserve her. Or maybe it does if it continues being this good and this wasn't a fluke
The only problem is really that Act 3 was super poorly paced it drags for much longer than it should
With all that said, I still don't think I'd recommend someone to pick the game back up if they have to trudge through a ton of slop to get there LMAO. Like if they dropped the game in the Chasm or in Sumeru then yeah I'd say it's worth (Sumeru story is actually genuinely pretty cool, though carried pretty hard by Nahida, this is a very far cry from Fontaine where everyone is good), if they dropped in Inazuma it's a massive maybe, and if it's earlier hell no, or at least it'd be heavily dependant on if they'd enjoy other aspects of the game
But all of this has sparked my interest back into this game hard, it makes me sad how next to this I've started to care a lot less about Star Rail which did the opposite and had a pretty good second arc in Belobog (ok it's carried pretty hard by the final fight but still) and then dove right back into slop with the Luofu that place is so boring, at least we'll be gone from there the next patch so the next place could be better (EDIT: ok Penacony is cooking in the first update)
There's probably a pretty big part of that positive impression that stems from the inevitable comparison with the previous chapters and how it clears them but this is still just good in its own rights
The biggest success is definitely the characters, they all have common interventions and play a role through the entire thing instead of having a dedicated arc and disappearing for the rest of the plot. Most of them get moments of vulnerability which does a lot to make you care: Lyney has that moment where he panics when Lynette and Freminet get caught, Freminet has the moment where you control him and he gets drugged diving (they made me care about Freminet wtf), Neuvi has his whole thing with rain, Navia has her whole story with her dad and what happens later with her 2 goons dying, and i dont even know where to begin with Furina. Seeing the Fatui not be assholes for once is great too, Childe having the worst week of his life over there bro did NOT catch a break this chapter
The trial gimmick is a ton of fun and just made me smile as someone who's played all the Ace Attorneys, they even nailed the awkward moments where you're randomly throwing the evidence cause you're not sure what they want you to do this really is the AA experience
There's much more work than usual in the way the no budget regular dialogue is depicted, especially in those trial segments, and they finally started to use CGs to show things happening without having to do one of their massive budget cutscenes, they started doing it in earlier events in Sumeru and it's cool that it naturally transitioned to main story stuff
And of course the biggest highlight is Furina holy shit she is so good this game doesn't deserve her. Or maybe it does if it continues being this good and this wasn't a fluke
The only problem is really that Act 3 was super poorly paced it drags for much longer than it should
With all that said, I still don't think I'd recommend someone to pick the game back up if they have to trudge through a ton of slop to get there LMAO. Like if they dropped the game in the Chasm or in Sumeru then yeah I'd say it's worth (Sumeru story is actually genuinely pretty cool, though carried pretty hard by Nahida, this is a very far cry from Fontaine where everyone is good), if they dropped in Inazuma it's a massive maybe, and if it's earlier hell no, or at least it'd be heavily dependant on if they'd enjoy other aspects of the game
But all of this has sparked my interest back into this game hard, it makes me sad how next to this I've started to care a lot less about Star Rail which did the opposite and had a pretty good second arc in Belobog (ok it's carried pretty hard by the final fight but still) and then dove right back into slop with the Luofu that place is so boring, at least we'll be gone from there the next patch so the next place could be better (EDIT: ok Penacony is cooking in the first update)
5 minutes of screentime and Bernadette is already goated Resonative cannot come soon enough
This review contains spoilers
Really should've read this before Total Eclipse the entire fight part went insane
I think it'll stay with me more than Total Eclipse, but I definitely should revisit it at some point because really, the whole end part where Yui is stranded out of her TSF and has to creep around in a horroresque atmosphere is INSANELY good, this alone has made me a lot more attached to her
I think it'll stay with me more than Total Eclipse, but I definitely should revisit it at some point because really, the whole end part where Yui is stranded out of her TSF and has to creep around in a horroresque atmosphere is INSANELY good, this alone has made me a lot more attached to her
Yumemi is awesome
please play this, it's honestly really impressive just how effective this is at communicating everything it wants to do and at building its world for how short it is
please play this, it's honestly really impressive just how effective this is at communicating everything it wants to do and at building its world for how short it is
This review contains spoilers
Remember how the whole dubstep moles plotline was by far the weirdest thing about 3 Houses' story? What if we had a protagonist and their Sothis-like that were both obviously linked to them somehow, and then the game proceeds to not explain anything or do anything with it, instead just doing a lazy similar route thing except Dimitri's is significantly worse this time around, and everything proceeds in the safest and most boring way imaginable, along with endings that literally don't resolve anything? Also Edelgard and Claude's routes have the same final boss and Dimitri's just doesn't have one lmfao you just fight fucking Thales and Edelgard, 2 regular enemies. Ending is especially dumb here, Thales and every major moles member is dead and Edelgard is a zombie (Dimitri just leaves her there?????), and the game tells you "yeah the war isn't over" what the fuck? What can the empire even do????
At least slaughtering armies with Bernie is somewhat fun but i distinctly remember finishing every route and immediately thinking "wait this was kinda bad"
seriously wtf were they cooking with Arval
At least slaughtering armies with Bernie is somewhat fun but i distinctly remember finishing every route and immediately thinking "wait this was kinda bad"
seriously wtf were they cooking with Arval
Actually legitimately a waste of everyone's time, especially in hindsight since 3 did nothing with any of the stuff here
Story is a bunch of nothing, combat takes away everything that made XC1 gameplay tolerable, and Gael'GOAT really is the villain of all time
Story is a bunch of nothing, combat takes away everything that made XC1 gameplay tolerable, and Gael'GOAT really is the villain of all time
Oboro funny moments
honestly whenever plot happens it's kinda mid-to-okay, but the slice of life stuff is gold
honestly whenever plot happens it's kinda mid-to-okay, but the slice of life stuff is gold
This review contains spoilers
Photonflowers was mostly good with some stinkers, and this is pretty much the opposite, a lot of it kinda sucks but there's some good shit buried in
They REALLY liked their horny boobs in your face humor when writing Adoration and Resurrection holy shit, there is so much of this stuff, like 60% of Resurrection is just a succession of it. And just like Confessions in photonflowers, this solidified to me that the main trilogy really wasn't doing much of that, despite literally being games with H scenes
But both of them actually pick up a lot near their respective endings, Adoration lets us see what the war in Europe looks like, and the MC, Ilfriede and Luna are really likable. Resurrection has a great start, and a good finale with everything they tell around the brain, and Yuuko showing her resolve is awesome, even if the villain was pretty bad. Bit of a shame that it didn't actually talk much about what religion is like in the Alt world though, that's an interesting topic that it just decides to drop
The biggest part is Altered Fable, and I'm really iffy on it, it's mostly fun to read, but you have to make the comparison to Extra, and you realize this is pretty much just Extra but without the character development, the progressing relationships and of course the meaning Extra had in the trilogy's overall narrative. It's just some brainless fun shenanigans and that's it, and again, it IS fun, but it feels kind of underwhelming? Especially considering it also has this awesome and really touching small Christmas arc where you're in Kasumi's point of view, which is really great to see after Alternative, feels like more of it should've been this good. Btw her and Sumika absolutely carry the thing, seeing them be like sisters is absolutely adorable (that window CG where they're both here cures my soul), Meiya and Yuuhi are even more aggressive than Meiya was in Extra and I thought it got kinda weird/annoying pretty often
The beach section has this super complex web of events, and I think the godawful Munakata/Kazama one (you know the one if you've seen it) legit lowered my opinion of the whole thing lmao what even was that
And the fake endings are just really weird, I also would've had a better opinion for sure if the game didn't just pull a psych and made it fake. Also I like Chizuru and she got an awful event like wow
The overarching narrative they try to set up in this with the 24 references is really, REALLY bad, and it ends the game on a super sour note with that terrible final arc, and on bad harem antics with no resolution as no one actually wins
It's honestly better to pretend that whole overarching stuff doesn't exist and that the game just ends on your chosen heroine's final event. As much as I don't like them all that much in here, Meiya and especially, especially Yuuhi actually got really good final events. RIP Chizuru fans though
They REALLY liked their horny boobs in your face humor when writing Adoration and Resurrection holy shit, there is so much of this stuff, like 60% of Resurrection is just a succession of it. And just like Confessions in photonflowers, this solidified to me that the main trilogy really wasn't doing much of that, despite literally being games with H scenes
But both of them actually pick up a lot near their respective endings, Adoration lets us see what the war in Europe looks like, and the MC, Ilfriede and Luna are really likable. Resurrection has a great start, and a good finale with everything they tell around the brain, and Yuuko showing her resolve is awesome, even if the villain was pretty bad. Bit of a shame that it didn't actually talk much about what religion is like in the Alt world though, that's an interesting topic that it just decides to drop
The biggest part is Altered Fable, and I'm really iffy on it, it's mostly fun to read, but you have to make the comparison to Extra, and you realize this is pretty much just Extra but without the character development, the progressing relationships and of course the meaning Extra had in the trilogy's overall narrative. It's just some brainless fun shenanigans and that's it, and again, it IS fun, but it feels kind of underwhelming? Especially considering it also has this awesome and really touching small Christmas arc where you're in Kasumi's point of view, which is really great to see after Alternative, feels like more of it should've been this good. Btw her and Sumika absolutely carry the thing, seeing them be like sisters is absolutely adorable (that window CG where they're both here cures my soul), Meiya and Yuuhi are even more aggressive than Meiya was in Extra and I thought it got kinda weird/annoying pretty often
The beach section has this super complex web of events, and I think the godawful Munakata/Kazama one (you know the one if you've seen it) legit lowered my opinion of the whole thing lmao what even was that
And the fake endings are just really weird, I also would've had a better opinion for sure if the game didn't just pull a psych and made it fake. Also I like Chizuru and she got an awful event like wow
The overarching narrative they try to set up in this with the 24 references is really, REALLY bad, and it ends the game on a super sour note with that terrible final arc, and on bad harem antics with no resolution as no one actually wins
It's honestly better to pretend that whole overarching stuff doesn't exist and that the game just ends on your chosen heroine's final event. As much as I don't like them all that much in here, Meiya and especially, especially Yuuhi actually got really good final events. RIP Chizuru fans though
This review contains spoilers
Collection of mostly good side stories
On the Extra side, the big Sumika epilogue and the small story are... alright, the Chizuru one is pretty endearing, the Tama one is actually really entertaining, and the Ayamine one is genuinely great. Meiya got 2 stories and holy shit did she get the short end of the stick, the first one is fun at the start when she's reading her book and then becomes pretty bad, and the second is awful
But the real meat is of course the Alternative side, and the first one you'll probably read is Atonement
and
holy
fuck
Yeah this is an actual 10/10 story, what else needs to be said, this is literally perfection how did they cook this well
I'm skipping to the 4th but Chicken Divers is also an easy 10/10, the atmosphere in this, as the protag contemplates the planet and his upcoming mission alone in a metal box to prepare for his orbital dive, which is probably the rawest concept in fiction, is absolutely incredible. This is like a condensed version of everything that's cool about Muv-Luv
After Atonement though, you'll probably play the really oddly placed Rain Dancers. This definitely isn't a bad story, but it's just okay? And since Confessions is very closely linked to Atonement, making most players play this in-between is really weird
And yeah Confessions. This is about half the game probably, and it actually could've been a 10/10, but it's got some really, really fucking weird scenes here and there, some real Angelica Cold Steel moments. This made me realize that the Muv-Luv main trilogy was actually surprisingly really light on all this shit, the awful Chizuru/Ayamine arc in Unlimited is probably the only time it really did that
But yeah, of course playing as Isumi GOAT Michiru is great, as is seeing her and Marimo's relationship. Marimo who is completely different from how we see her in Unlimited/Alternative, obviously as a consequence from Atonement's events
And it ends on Inheritance, a pretty decent story that lets us see Isumi's sisters and the consequences of Sadogashima on Akira. It's fine I guess
But yeah overall this is good, but with some stinkers
On the Extra side, the big Sumika epilogue and the small story are... alright, the Chizuru one is pretty endearing, the Tama one is actually really entertaining, and the Ayamine one is genuinely great. Meiya got 2 stories and holy shit did she get the short end of the stick, the first one is fun at the start when she's reading her book and then becomes pretty bad, and the second is awful
But the real meat is of course the Alternative side, and the first one you'll probably read is Atonement
and
holy
fuck
Yeah this is an actual 10/10 story, what else needs to be said, this is literally perfection how did they cook this well
I'm skipping to the 4th but Chicken Divers is also an easy 10/10, the atmosphere in this, as the protag contemplates the planet and his upcoming mission alone in a metal box to prepare for his orbital dive, which is probably the rawest concept in fiction, is absolutely incredible. This is like a condensed version of everything that's cool about Muv-Luv
After Atonement though, you'll probably play the really oddly placed Rain Dancers. This definitely isn't a bad story, but it's just okay? And since Confessions is very closely linked to Atonement, making most players play this in-between is really weird
And yeah Confessions. This is about half the game probably, and it actually could've been a 10/10, but it's got some really, really fucking weird scenes here and there, some real Angelica Cold Steel moments. This made me realize that the Muv-Luv main trilogy was actually surprisingly really light on all this shit, the awful Chizuru/Ayamine arc in Unlimited is probably the only time it really did that
But yeah, of course playing as Isumi GOAT Michiru is great, as is seeing her and Marimo's relationship. Marimo who is completely different from how we see her in Unlimited/Alternative, obviously as a consequence from Atonement's events
And it ends on Inheritance, a pretty decent story that lets us see Isumi's sisters and the consequences of Sadogashima on Akira. It's fine I guess
But yeah overall this is good, but with some stinkers