The moment I downloaded Wonderful Everyday, I realized that I’ve made a terrible mistake, as alongside the game’s installation folder there was a file that redirected to a website called “Fap for Fun”. Despite trying to deny its very essence, Subarashiki Hibi always felt like an erotic game first, and a drama story second. The themes that it tries to tackle such as lack of proper treatment and respect to mental illnesses, cult mentality and its propagation, and ironically, porn addiction, are hidden beneath a total of disheartening 17 explicit h-scenes, that are most of the time directly tied to the story, instead of “bonus scenes” that you can turn on and off in the menu.

The story is filled with moments that start off tackling a properly interesting theme or topic and then proceed to take a complete 180, becoming just another harmless predictable scene that vomits cliché hentai tropes. The appeal of subahibi comes from the fact that there are some genuinely great and creative segments of storytelling that could only ever be experienced in a visual novel format, but those precious moments are deep within a sea of ecchi mediocrity. You might be asking yourself, “how worth is this dive?”, and to properly answer that, and also why such a specific eroge gathered a cult following as a fourth eye opening provocative narrative, we first have to talk about how VN’s tend to implement this type of adult content (If you are sensitive to topics such as these, please sit this one out).

Lewdness has always been associated with visual novels, no matter where you look at it. Whether we’re judging possibly the first one ever released, or some other “classics” such as sex, and it’s perfectly named sequel, sex 2, and many other games mostly for the pc-98, these titles found a lot of success predominantly aiming towards a lonely straight male demographic. The inclusion of either full on explicit h-scenes or elements from dating sims, sometimes even both, was to be fully expected in this media’s infancy. Stories during this period sometimes avoided this topic altogether, however, that was a gamble not everyone decided to take, as the mere inclusion of some sexual content would likely increase for sure the number of people who would want to give your novel a shot. After some years, a weird symbiotic relation started to develop, as a lot of independent novels from the early 00’s tried to hook the viewer with promises of showing NSFW material, but made them keep wanting to read until the very end, due to the proper story that it was telling.

Tsukihime, for example, would not only work, but also be massively improved without every single despicable fetishized rape scene or dialogue mention. It’s very telling that in the 2021 remake of the novel, the studio behind it decided to pretend that all h-scenes didn’t happen and adapted the script to it, essentially turning the story into a proper cohesive shonen that doesn’t perform mental gymnastics to justify rape whenever possible, solidifying it as the definitive way to experience the novel. In a less extreme case, we can also take a glance at Higurashi, who early on put a lot of emphasis in long fetishized sequences that replicated staples from ecchi stories, but gradually stopped being as frequent, as the narrative started to find its footing, besides some occasional nods in bad taste from Ryukishi07. What makes Higurashi’s case interesting, is the fact that it’s the opposite approach from Subarashiki Hibi: The ecchi scenes contradicted one of the game’s themes about child protection, while in Wonderful Everyday, you'd see even more scenes depending in how essential to the theme the chapter was.

Through the years, visual novels started to gradually become more and more respected as a media in no small part due to works such as the previous ones mentioned. By slowly being freed from its private horny jail, a wave of new stories started being developed for other demographics, like straight women or non horny men, eventually attracting the attention of people outside of Japan. The late 00’s were marked by some novels being developed, translated, and appreciated by foreigners, which even saw some works from previous years such as Saya no Uta, Umineko and Fate/Stay Night gathering a considerable late cult-like following as classics.

Despite all that however, Subahibi opted to tackle themes strictly tied to pornography, and it still became relatively famous around the newer circle of VN’s that westerners appreciated. Direct comparisons to the infamous 'Boku no Pico' anime can be made, as both weren't the first nor best ones to tackle niche erotic themes in a media mostly seen at the time outside of Japan as "something for kids". Both of them ended up gathering attention due to the timing and difficulty of access to other products of the same medium during their respectable releases.

Written primarily aimed towards a straight male demographic and with the premise of showing gratuitous NSFW material, it has a completely pointless first chapter that lasts around 4 hours and is solely made as a symbiotic hook. After reading the novel to its full extent and revisiting the beginning chapter, I hoped to find a new meaning to what exactly happened, but it just left me feeling very disappointed. A pattern that you'll see from the novel that plays an important role in the chapter, is that there are plenty of useless name drops to a lot of other "intellectual media", that has little to do with the story. The only use for such is that it tries to show some validation to the reader to what they are reading, as in pretending it's an actual respectable story that just so happens to have a generic and forgettable anime art style.

This is your warning for spoilers now, if you’re still thinking about giving this one a shot, please do keep in mind that it’s somewhat long and tackles frail topics without proper respect.

The second chapter thankfully denies the eroge counterpart and goes for a more eerie atmosphere, showing the ascension of the typical nerd loser, Mamiya Takuji, as an actual God among men. This was a very surprising yet welcome change, and in hindsight I appreciate this chapter more, as it could have been the start of something great, however, it also has some of the shallowness the early chapter had, but in a different way. I didn’t care for the opening chapter at all but I always understood why they were acting in such a one dimensional porn-like way, meaning that even if the scene was just an excuse to show a panty shot, it would still make some sense narrative-wise. In the second one however, Yuki, the protagonist once again, and everyone else involved, acted in a way that felt like their actions were randomized. It mostly makes sense in the hours to come after the “twist” but that doesn’t help the fact that it’s just another 4 hours of infodump done wrong as Yuki only opts to delve deep in the subject of the underground forum and not answer some other key areas. Essential plot points such as Mamiya’s family, or the twins suddenly acting aggressive towards him, or pretty much everything relating to Zakuro, who was the most important part of the opening chapter, are put under a pretentious rug called "Don't think about it too much".

It’s really interesting seeing how she reaches to some logical conclusions while reading, but it’s similar to a game of Clue, where you’ll discover what happened and feel good about it, but in the end you were so unattached to the characters that you just accept Colonel Mustard probably just wanted to use that knife in the Hall. Things aren’t better for Mamiya’s side, as the only real segment of him showing some faint semblance of distinctive personality was in one of the most embarrassing written scenes I have ever seen in any visual novel.

Takuji’s pitiful speech, his spotlight moment, is one that can only truly be impressive for those that, to put it nicely, like to mention quotes or name drop philosophers without knowing what they stood for, which should say something about the shallowness of most VN’s as the scene is hailed as a sort of “redpill”. His discourse is plagued with small problems, but one of the most fundamental ones is that death became suppressed dogma in modern society, which doesn’t make sense if you also argue that philosophy fundamentally changed it’s key areas with time, and that religion is a type of philosophy, which is true by definition but doesn't give room for your point. If you are confused, it's like arguing how old movies embraced nationalism as a fundamental part of their stories and then argue that there is a conspiracy nowadays to have movies not embracing this pillar, without realizing that it was something related to the time period instead of the media, while also agreeing that movies changed fundamentally with time which leads to the development of a direct counter culture.

When called out by Yuki, who makes a flimsy and flawed argument for someone that reads Kant, about how he sees human lives, Takuji argues that it’s not charlatanism because “the only thing that matters is that he is right in the end”. All that was missing from this scene was a Big Bang Theory laugh track to finish it off: the amazing manifest that ends with the argument “I’m the chad and you’re soyjack”. The point of the scene, as pointed out by a friend, is to display that Takuji is wrong, as he even hits a girl in the class and talks about how people attribute others as being crazy when they don’t understand, which internally forced the author into writing others as the dumbest human beings possible, even making the history teacher respond to Mamiya with “I don’t know” when asked what part of what he said was wrong. In retrospect I partially agree with my friend’s take, but I think the framing and the fact that he was shown to posses godlike powers makes me think that they wanted to sneak in some truths in his arguments to justify him being in the wrong by just making him unnecessarily aggressive and rude, like how Marvel wrote Black Panther’s villain, Killmonger, in the 2018 movie.

Third chapter is all about Takuji’s point of view, which makes the second chapter nearly useless and redundant, as his point of view is far more interesting and makes Yuki’s actions feel more humane as she doesn’t seem like your typical dumb yet top notch detective. This is THE CHAPTER for h-scenes, featuring a lot of gratuitous sexual violence that are handled very poorly, hitting nearly every slot in the kink bingo: rape, feminization, bdsm, more rape, futanari, public humiliation, more rape again, torture, dismemberment, and of course, even more rape. The unlikely underdog story from rape victim to serial rapist is just flat out disrespectful and ends up helping me prove my point that there isn’t a single piece of media that benefited from flat out showing rape scenes instead of making them simply implied. After enduring an entire sequence in which Takuji is abused in every way possible, and knowing what happened in the previous chapter, and how he treated Zakuro to this games most gratuitous sex scene ever, all that I could think was how he would do everything the same if he was in their places but much worse, to which latter parts of the VN proved me right. I hope everyone will agree with me on this one when I say this is the most ill-mannered way to write a story on the subject.

Chapter 4 is all about an abuse victim who starts seeing visions of God telling her to kill herself as revenge, to which the game shows that it was the right thing to do in later chapters. No further comments.

Jabberwocky onwards, is when the story finally compensates for you enduring the hot steamy garbage from before. It’s a chapter about Mamiya’s most hated bully, Yuuki Tomosane, the only actually good character in the story. Tomosane’s chapter is fascinating, it pulls the rug and explains the twist that he and Yuki were personalities developed by Takuji, they all lived in the same house, and the twins didn’t actually exist as individuals. The framing is also top notch, making you know what risks he’s taking even if you think you know how it’s going to end. Mind blowing after mind blowing scene shows a new perspective I didn’t thought was possible from the story, which made this chapter, excluding the massively homophobic comments, a blast to read. The sequel chapters, Which Dreamed It and Jabberwocky 2, are also really welcome additions to the story, although not as jaw dropping, that expand the narrative in meaningful ways that have the unfortunate consequence of making Mamiya’s torturous life feel “justified”.

2 / 3 of Subahibi is dedicated for making the reader as tortured as the girls in the story, which tries to make up for the last 1 / 3 which gives the feeling that you’ve conquered the narrative, taking a stance against what was stablished early on. That’s a really interesting concept, however, it was one that was done better in a novel that you might have heard about: The House in Fata Morgana. Written in a way that’s more mature, gracious, and made to scare easily impressionable VN fans, it deals with dark themes as well, but with a proper respect for the situation in which the characters find themselves in. The also really competent sequel, A Requiem for Innocence, talks about similar themes from Subahibi which are it’s main justification for shoving garbage eroge topes, having the characters live in a brothel and dealing with an oppressive threat that haunts their frail psychology. Their themes are obviously not comparable on a 1 to 1 basis, however even if it's lowest points, one shows the other that you don’t have to treat every female character as pawns that merely exist to fuck when a male character so desires.

Main point is, what Wonderful Everyday does well, is done better in other visual novels, and what it does wrong, could only be done poorly here. Unless you really like the sensation of scavenging through hours of garbage to find gold that doesn't shine as bright as others given for free, maybe this one is not for you. If you still really want to know how this mess feels, I guess there’s no saving, since the premise is interesting nonetheless.

There is an undeniable value in early 10’s VN culture with Subahibi that made it stand out, however its vile and disrespectful approach to sensitive topics were a problem even when it launched, and it gets more outdated by the year as visual novels get more sophisticated, denying its origins as a media that started with a game in which you undress a minor for fun, and starting to develop more on the lines of being an interactive story. After multiple warnings by different people telling me to stop reading it, I endured through the end of Subarashiki Hibi hoping to find something that was clearly never meant to be there, as alongside the game’s installation folder there was a file that redirected to a website called “Fap for Fun”.

this game thinly layers the plot and side content from the original yakuza on ps2 over top of yakuza 0 and the results are... somewhat mixed to say the least. at the end of the day its still a yakuza game, and there's a lot of fun to be had here, but the content here is so similar to 0 in many ways that it feels like a much lesser entry in comparison, especially if you're playing this one right after y0 as is recommended (though I ended up playing this one first).

rather impressively, the story is nearly one-to-one with the original game, with the cutscenes from the original being recreated frame for frame in the new FMV engine. this is an early yakuza story and it is certainly rough around the edges. the first two yakuza games are structured much more like feature films than the later games much to their detriment, as the length of the game spreads the plot rather thin. as someone who had not played y0, this game spends a lot of time building up a rather large roster of characters with a rather cursory explanation of how they are all related. considering how many deaths there are in the game (a series staple), it feels like many of them were introduced simply to add an emotional moment to a scene, regardless of whether the character was ever properly fleshed out, which most of the characters are not. coupled with a poorly executed twist, this remains one of the weaker stories in the franchise. however, the game has the benefit of crafting many yakuza hallmarks from scratch, including date's role as police liaison, the florist of sai's use as an eternal deus ex machina, and characters fighting in the coliseum in exchange for information. considering that these were created from wholecloth rather than leaned upon as a crutch in later games, I find them much more novel here. it helps that nishikiyama is absolutely one of the better villains in the franchise, especially with the addition of new scenes in kiwami to flesh him out.

other than that... it's just yakuza 0, restrained to kamurocho only. the minigame list has also been axed from yakuza 0, with many of the notable unique minigames being removed with no replacements. other than the now-ancient bowling/batting cages/billiards/darts/gambling/karaoke games, the pocket circuit returns with a new (and less charming) story involving the grown-up children from the original. the terrible catfight betting game from y0 has been nicely reformatted as the sega self-parody mesuking arcade game, with collectible cards and custom builds being added for your fighters and no more mashing. hanging out with hostesses is also back, and the two girls are rather charming, even if that mode is really not my cup of tea. substories here mainly draw from the original, with a couple new ones sprinkled in both to clarify story points as well as provide some spice that the older substories lack. they aren't bad by any means, but they often seem rather brief, with a couple here and there being virtually just a cutscene without anything backing it up. overall the game feels uncomfortably bare, and desperately in need of unique minigames or side content to provide an identity beyond "yakuza 1 using assets from 0."

kiryu also retains his multiple styles from yakuza 0, which I dislike here as I did there. unlike that game, your dragon of dojima style is now on offer throughout the entire game... with the caveat that it must be built from the ground up through komaki's training and majima everywhere. majima everywhere serves as the combat sidestory in this game, and while it's much more unique than victory road or honest living association, it also gets old quickly and is riddled with other issues. majima constantly roams the city much like mr. shakedown in yakuza 0, and defeating him will fill up a gauge to a maximum rank SSS. he will also occasionally confront you at random, sometimes jumping from above or attacking you from open manholes. while he use different styles from y0 depending on the fight, these boss battles get old quickly, and can be rather dangerous before you have enough equipment/moves to deal with him. in between ranks, you will get invitations to play minigames with him or meet him for certain events to advance the gauge. while this is neat in theory, the system can conflict with substories and cause majima to not spawn, or send you multiple emails with different events that can be confusing without realizing that they must be done in a certain order. it wouldn't be much of an issue if getting to max rank did not take a ridiculous number of fights, even with how easy tiger drop renders many of them. fans of majima in y0 may appreciate his costumes taken from that game or the many other references he makes to it, but the fanservice isn't enough to salvage the rather tedious system. it's also worth noting that leveling this up is highly recommended, as this is the most difficult game in the franchise from what I have played. the balancing seems very off compared to previous entries, and getting tiger drop through komaki at the very least before the endgame is the best way to deal with very frustrating boss battles.

in favor of this game, I can't say much other than that it is yakuza, and fans of yakuza games will still get a kick out of this entry no matter what. it pales in comparison to many of the others, but it's such an important stepping stone that fans will need to play it, whether they want to get it over with as quickly as possible or not. people looking to start the series should start with yakuza 0, but kiwami is a decent stepping stone on the way to future games. it's still a good game at its heart, even if the budget and time were very obviously lower than for other entries.

the characters and story are still fantastic (especially factoring in how little the presentation of everything was changed from the original game) but god this is miserable sometimes.

this game is half or less (even accounting for fucking around with side content) the length of 0 but the fatigue that set in during and is still lingering afterwards is so much more severe this go around. you could say that a lot of flaws come from the game being a remake of a 2005 game but the most damning issues for me were new elements.

i just can't fathom the thought process behind decisions like the Kiwami heat moves/healing boss states, Majima Everywhere having like 5 minutes of engaging content and then just never stopping, or so on. the original game might be clunkier with gameplay but i wouldn't be surprised if i like it more because at least it's brief and to the point about everything comparably.

in hindsight i can see why i finished this and then fell off with progressing the series for so long that i restarted with 0 when i got back to it. going to move onto 2 to avoid having a repeat of this situation, i've had enough of this one.

VIDEOGAMES ARE BETTER THAN ART

IT'S NOT KINO, THIS IS LUDO

THE ART GIVES YOU DEPRESSION, VIDEOGAMES GIVES YOU POWER. DETERMINATION. USE THAT POTENTIAL TO BE BETTER.

"I hope you carry this power with you" OF COURSE YOU WILL, CARRY ON PAL.

yeh i liked this game.

Left my ass cooked and crooked. Easy to let complaints of the rigidity of RPGmaker ATB combat and exploration fall to the wayside when the game's narrative doesn't miss a beat. OFF has a lot of unique ideas, and it tells them confidently with fantastic dialogue, surreal environments and an all around sense of style. For a game that paddles in the abstract so obscenely, the conclusion still manages to expertly close the book and leave the player with exactly what they need. Thanks for the stone in the gut.

Recommended by turdl3 as part of this list.

BABA IS YOU

Back when I was in high school, my campus offered a Computer Science course as an elective of sorts, and I remember sitting in that classroom with six other kids while our teacher explained the basics of programming.

"Think of programming like a logic puzzle. You have a set of rules you always have to abide by, and you need to figure out a solution to each problem by working within those rules."

Obviously, this is a very reductive way of approaching the subject, but I bring it up because I recognize that same programming mindset is at the core of Baba is You. The game's main mechanic of moving Nouns, Operators and Properties around to change the logic of the world is basically a programming language in and of itself. The internal syntax logic remains consistent, and each level in Baba is You is always centered around working within the logic of a level to achieve the same goal of making some variation of X IS WIN. It's just up to you to figure out how.

BABA IS MOVE AND OPEN

Despite that simple goal, Baba is You is a very difficult game in practice. Baba is You is always introducing a new Modifier or Property to experiment with well into the endgame, making sure that every area is constantly reinventing the wheel in a way that ensures that the player retains that sense of wonder the game held from minute one. But even with this unrelenting avalanche of ideas and mechanics, Baba is You remains accessible through its incredibly free-form approach to progress. The branching path level structure always gives the player options to progress, with completed levels unlocking other levels in an immediate radius instead of a linear fashion. The player is only asked to complete a relatively small fraction of an area to have it marked as "complete", meaning that even if you are truly stumped, you only need to complete the bare minimum to see the game through. The final level is even unlocked once you complete about third of the game, meaning that at any time, you can stop and clear the game if you have the smarts. Baba is You may be rigid in its puzzle structure and logic, but it's sense of progression is anything but.

BABA IS LOVE

Above all else, Baba is You is delightful. It's adorable aesthetic and endless innovation kept me going long after the ending was waiting for me, and even though the game could potentially be beaten after an hour or so, I put off that final level until the very end just to see what other tricks Baba is You had up its sleeve. Even in the final areas, puzzles were still wowing me with their creativity and putting a smile on my face even as I slammed my head against a wall for hours on end trying to figure out the solution. Baba is You is a truly one of the most creative puzzle games in recent memory, and its clear how much passion was put into its creation by the people behind it, and it's a game I highly recommend if you love a good brainteaser.

for a game with a very obvious gimmick (push around blocks that constitute the high-level logic of the world) it really pulls no punches when it comes to actual level layouts. there are only so many stages where you make the walls intangible or control them yourself that really seem novel, and the game never rests on its laurels when it comes to utilizing cheap heat like this in the stages. every potential trick or shortcut or simple solution you could think of for a level has been ruthlessly excised thanks to the strict sokoban layout the game adheres to, and the potential for unforseen failure from accidentally pushing the "you" block out of the way or trapping a block in an unmovable spot or destroying an important object far outstrips any cute logic shenanigans in magnitude.

by the same token, the solutions themselves require a level of elasticity that I rarely encounter in puzzle games that makes successfully concocting a solution all the more rewarding. navigating both the explicit on-screen rules and the implicit requirements of the layout requires stacking so many disparate elements in your brain and jamming them together until everything finally aligns and you finally forsee the correct order of events to move forward. this gets even more complicated as the game moves into multiple moving characters at once, teleportation, the elusive empty and all blocks, and faux gravity. a good 70% of the game is totally optional, and it revels in that it can contort the premise so completely and utterly just as long as the average player can make it through enough levels to unlock the finale. I managed to complete 70 flat before tackling the finale and it felt like a worthwhile exploration of so many different mechanics and ideas, even if I couldn't approach many of the really brain-bending challenges.

if anything, the only real umbrage I can take with the design is how the lack of dialog or tutorialization makes certain game mechanics opaque. it doesn't really come down to a need for explanations per se, but rather that occasionally confusing mechanics are introduced without puzzles that illustrate exactly what makes them tick, which is an issue in a game where every facet and knock-on effect of a given logical construct will be needed at some point or another to solve a puzzle. if I stumble through the intro puzzle for a world, there's a good chance I'm going to struggle to apply my knowledge of it meaningfully when its required. still, the game encourages experimentation with its built-in rewind option that you'll struggle to find many instances where progress is truly detered as long as you're aptly trying every tool at your disposal.