Another cozy, queer friendly visual novel? It's that NomNomNami dev again isn't it!!!! Seriously, this dev always got such lovely hits and ways to express their characters that just tickles yourself in a way that makes the characters feel real in such a short amount of time. You mix that together with alternate endings, proper character interactions, and multiple games within the same universe and it really makes for some fun world building that kinda domino effects into her other games.

I don't think Syrup and the Ultimate Sweet is Nomnomnami best work, but with the larger cast of characters, multiple endings you can get; certainly gives the story enough breathing room to start making these characters endearing to you. While there isn't much path straying in this visual novel, the interactions are consistently different when you make certain choices. On top of that, the game is absolutely just filled with fluffy, gumball vibes of music and sound effects that really help yourself immerse in the soft vibes the game sets itself.

Syrup and the Ultimate Sweet is a great start for anyone touching the NomNomNami gaming universe, and for those that have already touched some of their games it makes for a familiar welcome home that sticks around a bit longer than usual. While I don't think there is much here to keep everyone entertained, Syrup and the Ultimate Sweet ironically also being short and sweet sorta of work for itself. Match that together with a built in ending finder, and it's charming characters probably means you'll be getting your full dosage of Syrup from this game. Any game that compels you to 100% in such an entrancing way is great in my book.

Plushy Pixel certainly seems to have had more time invested on her then a few other characters boards, but she is still pretty lackluster overall. Her boards are rather interesting tho, just not really up to the level of Latex Usagi or Kitty Lock, which again, are just kinda neat over the usual bit. While her boards are pretty free and loose, the fact she has a bunch of enemies to capture and control, mixed together with a few neat visuals would kinda put her levels on the top of a relevantly bottom set of the DLC levels. It's really not saying much as again there is very little personality or charm to be had here. Qix gameplay can be fun and addictive, but sadly this streamers boards still don't cut it.

I can't express enough how the DLC description makes the girl sound way more interesting than she actually is. Evelyn certainly looks like a boss lady, but she has next to nothing in terms of personality or charm that usual pin up bosses do. On top of that, she doesn't really have good poses or pictures. I know I consistently say this about Celebrities Hacked DLC, but it only feels AI generated. There is very little soul or personality when it comes to the pictures and it heavily relies on it's Qix gameplay. You add that with some rather mediocre boards, and we get some pretty bad content. The biggest problems with Evelyn's boards is the rng of the canon type enemies she has along with the enemy placement. While her first two levels weren't particularly hard, the 3rd level kept catching me off guard with how their canons worked. They didn't seem to run on a proper timer and sorta de-sync after a few shots, making predicting them rather annoy over difficult. It's clear the game wasn't tested well, and these levels in particular needed that.

Noir Petal's boards seem to feature a new mechanic that makes for part of the board that is cleared to no longer be safe. Aside from that it's the usual affair of having to avoid enemies, and capture parts of the board that you don't have yet. While her being last in line for the levels to pick from she doesn't seem to have much difficult when it comes to her boards, and I argue they are some of the easiest out of the whole game, DLC included. Aside from that, her pictures are particularly one note, and probably the worst of the bunch as far as I've seen.

First DLC of the bunch that really felt like it played around with it's board's presentation. The posing of Kitty Lock is also good despite the fact she looks like an off brand Tifa from Final Fantasy 7. First real set of levels that seem to have actual effort and a vision for this game. It also introduces or at least reuses a new type of enemy that follows you around which takes out a lot of the usual guess work that Celebrities Hacked seems to have a problem with. Honestly, if it just fixed itself up a bit, maybe added a story, I could see this being a good set of levels.

If you are having trouble unlocking the trophy Supernova this DLC makes it the easiest to accomplish it. On top of that, The LatexUsagi pack also adds interesting boards that have enemies that bomb you. It's not the hardest to avoid, but it does make upkeep of your territories a priority now. Overall I think this is probably the best of the DLC so far. Not really to say that the DLC is all that great, but it does something new, and at least Bunny girls are still good, even tho it still feels fairly generic.

Penelope's boards are rather samey with the based games Valquiria and LavEnder, nothing special beyond it's 3rd stage of having laser enemies with only one side making them actually interesting to capture. Penelope herself just looks like a generic white woman that works at a bar, so nothing really sold here if you've played Harvest Moon with Karen in it.

Buying this DLC separately is not worth it, but as an extra in a bundle, it's fine, they're not bad levels, just rather redundant and should have been in the base game to began with. Considering Celebrities Hacked tho, this is likely the case for all it's DLC. As DLC, it's the definition of nickel and diming at it's finest.

It's a Qix type game which means that you have to fill in spaces to control the broad, and manage your enemies in a way that benefits you. As someone that is new to these types of games I absolutely had a blast, but that's only due to how little exposure I have to the Qix type genre. On reflection, I found that I just had more fun with something like Gal Panic, and it's mainly due to how this game was made.

Celebrities Hacked feels like a rather uninspired, somewhat AI generated game that doesn't do much to impress or balance itself to be fun. Often I had to restart levels or died due to randomized enemy placement, and little equipment to actually deal with it. It wasn't so much I was doing runs to get better, but rather I was doing runs to get a good run going. Across the whole 6 levels, and 2 girls this game offers without any DLC, I mostly had fun on the first girl due to easier level design. Once you hit the 3rd level, it becomes apparent that a lot of timed star requirements are just there to extend gameplay over actually being that do able. Add that together with some jarring music choices, no story what so ever, and some rather abysmal drawings of girls and really we don't get anything enjoyable aside from the Qix gameplay.

On a pure gameplay level, Celebrities Hacked does make some interesting choices with it's Qix board design, but it's the enemy placement and randomizing that makes it rather difficult with no sense of balance. Add random power ups that, while helpful, active on the spot and can sometimes mean death for picking it up really just adds to the problems rather than helping balance the gameplay. If you are really thirsting for Qix gameplay and find this game on sale or otherwise, it might be worth it? Otherwise I just suggest looking else.

A Year of Springs is bunch of visual novels in the soft story telling that I have come to know npckc for. It doesn't deal too much in drama, and lets it's cast be supportive and open with each other in a way that can sometimes feel unrealistic to my generation. That being said, I do feel these games have a place properly in the future as more people want to look into their own sexuality and find more positive works of discovering yourself.

The game also has a neat little unlock feature for leading into the next game, and a gallery mode to see all the cute pictures you acquire through out your playthroughs. As well, there is an epilogue that shows the cast of characters a little after everything is resolved, and while I hope we get more of them, it's nice to see them being sweet to each other one last time. If you're looking for a comfy game for your gays, this trilogy hits the spot.

The best of the bunch of the "A Year of Springs trilogy"! It captures the exact moment that someone realizes they are not exactly how society dictates them to be, and does it in such a natural way that it almost feels like it actually happened.

As usual, the game is absolutely a soft vibe with the returning cast of Manami, Haru, and Erika all coming together and just interacting with each other. The game follows a bit after the last game, Last Day of Spring, and sorta fills the gap through out it's own story. Eventually, Erika makes an off handed remark to Manami, and Manami starts questioning her sexuality. Through this process Manami can ask for help from her friends, and eventually is outright told to look into it through the internet. Rightly, this whole ordeal is a self discovery story, and what it can mean to their current relationship and friendships. If not for the outright positivity and bright cast of characters I can absolutely seeing this going south fast, but the way they all help support each other is delightful and tugs at your heartstrings.

Spring Leaves No Flowers just feels like a honest look into what finding out about your own sexuality is, and with the way each game has sorta of made way for each characters understanding and established relationship in this current game makes this a wonderful ending to the series that works well.

Last Day of Spring is about a friend simply trying to enjoy her newest friends birthday, and the struggles that comes with it. What starts off as a rather wholesome plan to get together turns into a lesson of empathy and understanding the struggles of trans folk.

Not going to lie, this might be the weaker story of the bunch, but only for the fact that we aren't exactly doing much here. The majority of the time we are planning a party, and when we finally get to the party the game is almost over. It's basically a story to hand hold people into the struggles of being trans, and while I don't think that's a bad thing, I do wish we got a little more time and interaction with Erika and Haru. All the characters are absolutely charming and cute, but it doesn't exactly translate when they are texting on the phone. The story honestly just needed a little more interaction, but beyond that I do think it properly hits the beats it needs to in order to work as a connected story with the other games it's attached too. Honestly, it just needed a little more story is all.

Erika may not be the best protag of the Springs crew, but all 3 of them are absolutely friend shaped and feel like a proper friend group trying to help support each other and make life suck less. The music is cutesy, the character design is charming, and the backgrounds are simple yet sweet. If you enjoyed One Night, Hot Springs, you'll have a good time here, but aside from a positive outlook and LGBT friendly vibes, I don't see much here to make people interested. This game is enough for me though, and I really did enjoy seeing more of this friends hanging out.

While I certainly like the concept of Pikmin Blooms' mission statement of making the world prettier by planting more flowers on a virtual map, ultimately it just doesn't offer much excitement past the initial impression. Having played through the game for a bit and reaching level 16 I can safely say that I did all there is to actually do in Pikmin Bloom. Sure, I haven't completed a lot of the collections nor have I improved my walking all that much, but the game doesn't really try to reward you for doing those extra things.

You don't really get new items, interact with other players, or do any pikmin stuff really. A lot of this is kinda feed thru it's use of micro-transactions, and the game's consistent ability to hinder the player from getting more of anything. The mixture of not being able to acquire more things on top of the fact that you're doing a recycled game play loop means that getting bored of this game happens fast and suddenly. You get more pikmin so you can fight more mushrooms, you fight those mushrooms to get more saplings, you use those saplings to get more flowers, you then plant those flowers while you get your steps in to get more pikmin; rinse and repeat. There is no fun treasures to collect, no faster way to earn coins to unlock cosmic items, and no engaging combat. I get this is suppose to be a set it and forget it type of game, but that setting really makes me want to forget to play it.

Pikmin Bloom by all accounts is just an excuse to walk more, that doesn't really do much excitement when it comes to making you want to walk. The game has some interesting ideas and management systems, but they are all bogged down by mirco transactions and minimum design. If you like Pikmin, the game is certainly fun for a week and will get you walking a bit, but for the most part you be better off with Pokemon GO when it comes to an AR game on your phone. If this game gets an update to make the game more interesting I might hop back in at full force. For now tho? I'm glad I played it, and I'm kinda done with it.

It's certainly a neat and novel idea to bring all the stars from the Simple series in one place and have them fight each other, but it really is just that. Like most games in the simple series, they have interesting ideas that feel like they could be fleshed out more. Either due to lower budgets, time constraints, or simply exhausting the idea itself; most simple series games just petered out because they are meant to be a low concept game. All Star Fighters tho? Kinda really had something here that I wish the devs went a little more out for.

Crossovers kinda just hit, and the fact that I recognize some of these characters from my limited knowledge of the Simple series shows that it could have gotten better traction. Instead what I got was a bare bones fighter that both feels too difficult to pull off moves, and too easy to win fights. I'm not sure if I should be thankful or sadden by the fact I blazed thru this game, but for all it's worth there really isn't much here anyway.

All-Star Fighters had like 4 to 5 stages with some of the stages being recycled throughout the arcade run, mild amount of music was played and recycled, and next to nothing else when it comes to extra presentation. Most cutscenes are just walls of text mixed with the 3D models on each side, and the ending was just a scroll blurb of what happens. I'm not trying to be so harsh on what effectively is a low budget indie fighter, but all of it kinda amounted to just boring combat. While I was able to button mash my way to victory the fact that I couldn't even pull off a super nor was I impressed enough by a computer to do so that it really just sums up the experience. Like most simple series games, All-Star Fighters is a neat novelty and nothing else.