AEW Fight Forever has been one of my most anticipated games for quite some time and I'm glad to say that it was worth the wait. I don't know where all of these graphics dorks came from over the past few years that prioritise graphics over gameplay but ignore them and try this for yourself. For me this is the best wrestling gameplay since Fire Pro World released in 2017 and has been an absolute blast for the first 30 or so hours that I've put into this game. The art style also looks really cool in game and makes some of the not so good models look solid. What Yuke's really nailed is making each wrestler feel different from one another, something most wrestling games fail to do. There aren't that many match types to choose from here but the ones that are there are an absolute blast, with the Lights Out and Barbed Wire Deathmatch being the standouts. The amount of weapons available in the Lights Out match is utterly insane and I love that they gave this aspect of gameplay a lot of attention, I mean we finally got thumbtacks in a wrestling game for the first time in god knows how long. There are some weird omissions when it comes to match types, mainly the Steel Cage, which I'd hope is first priority for new match types in the future updates. There is also a lot of minigames to be found here which I didn't know I needed until I played them and I'm surprisingly looking forward to playing more as they are released in the DLC packs.

As for game modes there's just the one here, Road To Elite. This story mode is pretty fun, with 4 chapters each containing 3 different storylines with the outcomes depending on weather you win or lose. It's a pretty short mode that you can finish in about 2 hours which is fine but I'm hoping they release new variations of this mode with new storylines similar to Fire Pro with their Championship Road to keep the mode fresh. Jumping to my first negative and it's to do with winning championships as it's never mentioned again and doesn't play any role in the story going forward which is disappointing and was something I also complained about in WWE 2K22. There's also one particular match in here against Death Triangle that is one of the worst matches in the history of wrestling games, I seriously don’t know who thought that would be fun.

The Creation suite has been a big talking point since the games release and despite not expecting much from this area of the game, I was still let down by just how limited it is. This is something that is easily updateable and I would hope that's a main area of focus as there's really not a lot to go on. Despite CAW lacking, I actually think they did a good job with Arena and Entrance. Not having the ability to add logos is the real bummer but the stuff that is present does a decent enough job and I honestly don't know if there's anything wrong with create an entrance, it seems perfect to me with a plethora of music, titantrons, stage props, pyro, effects, even hand gestures, this aspect of the creation suite is stacked.

Overall this game is a big ball of potential and it all comes down to how Yuke's handle this game going forward. Here's a quick list of things I'd like to see through updates and DLC;
- Match Types (Steel Cage, Coffin Match, Dog Collar etc.)
- Port the Match Types from RTE to Exhibition (Multi Man variations,
Handicap, Gauntlet)
- Creation Suite (Hairstyles, Face and Body types, Body morphing, Clothing etc.)
- New Game Modes and RTE storylines
- Tweak pinfalls slightly
- NJPW & ROH DLC with Arenas, Wrestlers, Titles and RTE storylines
- Update the Young Bucks Theme
- New Titles (International, Updated Women's)
- New Attires weekly in the shop

Currently this game is really good and the gameplay is top tier, with a few updates and DLC of wrestlers to beef up this roster and we could be looking at an all-time great but again, this all comes down to Yuke's. We already know of the Stadium Stampede match coming to multiplayer which will add a lot of shelf life to the game and potentially attract a whole new audience. I'm really looking forward to seeing where this game is at in a few months' time so my rating will likely change depending on if this game gets the love it deserves or not.

Sidenote: I managed to be the 13th player in the world to get the platinum trophy and the 7th fastest achiever which is a huge accomplishment for me as a trophy hunter.

The 2020 indie game Hero Hours Contract fills a sort of broad "cozy" idea about magical girls existing under late stage capitalism. Magical girls have no trouble unionizing, characters spend time between missions building up social links, the levels work as sort of basic puzzle gameplay loop. The story's not particularly in-depth, with successes coming easy and the conflict being fairly effortless. Its a perfectly fine journey, just a bit easy wish fulfillment.

Life After Magic struck me with its similarities early on. Much like Hero Hours Contract, it focuses on magical girls in their 20s figuring out their lives both socially and financially. There's vague references to generic monsters of the past. Broad genre comedy. Things like that.

Its not particularly fair to make those comparisons, given how different they are beyond that.

Life After Magic centers primarily on retired magical girls. The journey is over. They've moved their separated ways. Lost connections, struggling to make rent. Life struggles. The game generally keeps a light tone, but there's a real sense of the weight of time. How these disparate personalities do try to maintain contact, but things just don't work out. Everyone has a complicated relationship with each other and how that dynamic plays out is always fascinating to unpack.

The two most interesting of the dating routes are ARA and KJ. ARA offers more than a little resentment to how Akiko the MC lead the Sentinels. She likes to think of herself as the Cool Big Sis of the group, but at this point the cast can only remember all the bickering she instigated. She can't play Big Sis to full grown adults. So, she outs herself as a magical girl. She goes corporate idol, figuring she can market herself and donate the proceeds to charity. Being a magical girl is too important for her to really let go of, but its that same desperation to be useful that ends up driving away the other Sentinels. Her friendship ending where she becomes a mentor to young idols is probably the best fate she can get after everything.

KJ was my favorite for a lot of reasons, many of them obvious. Formerly the "shy computer geek", KJ's got a lot of issues with their old identity. They've found enormous euphoria in a punk nb lifestyle, rocking tattoos and motorcycles and the whole she-bang. But it also builds this intense dysphoria when confronted with the magical girl life. Being a "magical girl" shoves them back in the closet, shoves them back into a gendered identity they want nothing to with. That's coupled with messy family drama, bouncing aimlessly between different jobs, and the general fear that the work for their identity will never be complete. KJ and ARA butt heads so frequently because their feelings fundamentally cannot work together. ARA needs her magical girl identity to feel a purpose. KJ needs to avoid that identity to feel like themselves. ARA strutting around as an idol adds this intense fear that KJ's past could get outed, while ARA sees KJ's aggression as a sign that she's not allowed to reinvent herself either. They have perhaps the most in common out of the team, but they have no possible route of reconciliation. Its a great character dynamic.

The broader story works well as a companion to this mini stories because it fits the game's themes. A purposeless former hero lashing out and struggling to find new connects in the adult world. Relying on the corrupt modern institutions they've surrounded themselves with rather than employing their powers for positive means. The powers can't do much against the wider problems of the universe. You just have to sit and stew in what to make of your own circumstances and hope for the best.

Neat little thing.

Adorable art, lovely music, charming writing, and overall a very comfy lil picross vn about witches. Only takes about an hour to play, strong recommendation from me!!

An actual criticism about the game: there's a point where it starts to talk about privilege and how it changes what peoples lives are but then shies away from actually saying anything in favor of being Cute™ and Wholesome™ which is a bit disappointing. Like, I dunno, maybe I shouldn't expect a small vn like this to have Big Things to say about life like that but also maybe don't invoke it if you're going to immediately step back from it, y'know.