A total blast and nearly unparalleled friend simulator reminiscent of Little Busters but without the whole "ripping my heart out of my chest and stomping on it" part. Majikoi is consistently enjoyable the whole way through with a lovable cast of goofy characters and a very entertaining script. The translation could be a bit meme-y at times but the game's tone was already really silly so it never really took me out of the experience...except when they had the gall to do a "come to the dark side we have cookies" joke. The heroines were all great and had pretty compelling routes that were surprisingly fast-paced compared to other VNs. I also really appreciate the little side routes you can do with the male characters and a few side characters. Moro's in particular was the most hard-hitting route in the whole game. I would say most of the routes, while enjoyable, don't really end on a particularly impactful note. It's not like I'm playing Majikoi to bawl my eyes out but the potential was there after getting me so attached to the characters so it kind of feels like missed potential. One notable complaint I have is that, while it does lead to several entertaining interactions, the story has a tendency to lean too heavily on fight scenes despite a lack of effort to actually narrate the action in an interesting way.

Moro in a skirt > Mayucchi > PREMIUM TIME > Chika > Kokoro > Wanko > Mayo > Miyako > Momoyo > Chris
don't @ me

I remember playing this all the time with my dad growing up. Super nostalgic for me. All the planes move and handle differently, the guns sound and feel powerful, explosions have a satisfying crunch to them. Torpedo and dive bombing are fun, even if you can only do them in a couple of missions. Beating the game unlocks a slew of different European and Axis planes and an instant action mode that give it a ton of replayability.

More than that though, this game really nurtured my fascination with this part of history with it’s attention to period, between the different types of planes, ships, weapons, lots of them coming with text lines detailing their real world application, the different factors that went into war on the pacific front, translated into mission objectives, the pre-mission briefings, the voice acting and fuzzy radio chatter, the down to earth characters, the real world footage between missions that details the real events, even the menus presented in the style of wartime propaganda. It has this very grounded, thorough, authentic period feel to it that most WW2 games don’t have. I owe this game for educating me on the pacific front similar to the way Metal Gear Solid 3 and Peace Walker educated me on the Cold War.

Fuck the Catalina missions though.