karm
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i have never played a game in my life
i have never played a game in my life
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This review contains spoilers
hoo, boy. spoilers for both aini and aitsf in this one.
my best guess is that uchikoshi wanted to have it both ways: a fresh game for newcomers, and the familiarity of aitsf for old hats. unfortunately for literally everyone, the way he incorporated aitsf sucks. i was actually going to rate this a lot lower before i played ryuki diverge and had a delicious palate cleanser of what aini could have been if it focused less on its connections with aitsf.
- somniums somehow feel both more fleshed out and underwhelming in this one--maybe because the actual info in them isn't as interesting? (i'm spitballing, i have much greater concerns with this game)
- the game is, like, fine until the last 5 hours or so, at which point it spirals into some mix of incoherence, bad faith, and aggressively retconning a lot of the things that made aitsf good, which brings me to ...
- mizuki/bibi just made me miserable. aitsf had such a lovely found family story surrounding mizuki, and it feels completely nonsensical to make her adopted and a clone. which brings me to ...
- what on earth is date even doing in this game
- the mask excuse is bad (i prefer saito!date, but The Mask Excuse Is Bad). the fact he loses his memory for 6 years again is bad. mizuki being robbed of her family AGAIN is bad--particularly because aini hardly touches on how horrific this should be for her.
there are so many more underbaked aspects of this game, but i feel like those problems actually stem from uchikoshi mistakenly focusing on the weak retcons of aitsf instead of the fresh material in aini. amame's motives are fine. diverge was incredibly exciting for me. ryuki has so, so much rich potential and connection to the themes of vigilante justice date already embodies in his arc from falco to date.
but for some reason, uchikoshi really wanted me to know mizuki had a sister.
my best guess is that uchikoshi wanted to have it both ways: a fresh game for newcomers, and the familiarity of aitsf for old hats. unfortunately for literally everyone, the way he incorporated aitsf sucks. i was actually going to rate this a lot lower before i played ryuki diverge and had a delicious palate cleanser of what aini could have been if it focused less on its connections with aitsf.
- somniums somehow feel both more fleshed out and underwhelming in this one--maybe because the actual info in them isn't as interesting? (i'm spitballing, i have much greater concerns with this game)
- the game is, like, fine until the last 5 hours or so, at which point it spirals into some mix of incoherence, bad faith, and aggressively retconning a lot of the things that made aitsf good, which brings me to ...
- mizuki/bibi just made me miserable. aitsf had such a lovely found family story surrounding mizuki, and it feels completely nonsensical to make her adopted and a clone. which brings me to ...
- what on earth is date even doing in this game
- the mask excuse is bad (i prefer saito!date, but The Mask Excuse Is Bad). the fact he loses his memory for 6 years again is bad. mizuki being robbed of her family AGAIN is bad--particularly because aini hardly touches on how horrific this should be for her.
there are so many more underbaked aspects of this game, but i feel like those problems actually stem from uchikoshi mistakenly focusing on the weak retcons of aitsf instead of the fresh material in aini. amame's motives are fine. diverge was incredibly exciting for me. ryuki has so, so much rich potential and connection to the themes of vigilante justice date already embodies in his arc from falco to date.
but for some reason, uchikoshi really wanted me to know mizuki had a sister.
not perfect, but an incredible game that reminds me of what it felt like when 'your choices matter' games first started being created. as a huge dragon age: origins fan, i say this game reminded me a lot of da:o in the best way possible. i eagerly look forward to my next playthrough and anticipate in full sincerity that it can and will be drastically different based on my choices.
my hangups are largely with some weak writing in the late game and some things that bother me about the actual system (initiative being a 1d4, some interesting pathing, etc).
i did finish the game on patch 5 & hotfix 15, so many of the bugs, unfinished content, and poor performance problems were fixed.
my hangups are largely with some weak writing in the late game and some things that bother me about the actual system (initiative being a 1d4, some interesting pathing, etc).
i did finish the game on patch 5 & hotfix 15, so many of the bugs, unfinished content, and poor performance problems were fixed.
we really were the fire emblem