#Also this is just the japan release

[sasaranurude]

Okay. I've been playing Tokyo Debunker today, since the release happened to catch me on a day when all I'd planned to do was write fanfiction. I just finished reading the game story prologue (it was longer than expected!), so here's a review type post. If you're reading this post not having seen a single thing about this game: it's a story-based joseimuke gacha mobile game that just released globally today. It's about a girl who suddenly finds herself attending a magic school and mingling with elite, superhuman students known as ghouls. If you look in the tumblr tag for the game you'll see what appears to be a completely different game from 2019 or so: they retooled it completely midway through development, changing just about everything about it due to "escalating competition within the gaming industry."

I'll talk about how this looks like a blatant twst clone at the end.

Starting with the positive: The story is charming. I enjoyed it thoroughly the entire time and am excited to read more. The mix between visual novel segments and motion comics was really nice--it broke things up and added a lot of oomph to the action or atmospheric scenes that visual novels generally lack. I like the art in the comic parts a lot. the live2d in the visual novel parts is... passable. Tone-wise, I think the story was a little bit all over the place and would like to see more of the horror that it opened on, but I didn't mind the comedic direction it went in either. The translation is completely seamless. The characters so far all have unique voices and are just super fun and cute. Of the ones who've had larger roles in the story so far, there's not a single one I dislike. It's all fully voiced in Japanese and the acting is solid. (I don't recognize any voices, and can't seem to find any seiyuu credits, so it seems they're not big names, but they deliver nonetheless.) Kaito in particular I found I was laughing at his lines a ton, both the voicing and the writing.

He's looking for a girlfriend btw. Spreading the word.

The problem is like. The gameplay is the worst dark-pattern microtransaction-riddled bullshit I've ever seen. Hundred passive timers going at all times. Fifty different item-currencies. Trying to get you to spend absurd amounts of real world money at every turn. There's like five different indicators that take you to various real-money shop items that I don't know how to dismiss the indicator, I guess you just have to spend money, wtaf. Bajillion different interlocking systems mean you have zero sense of relative value of all the different item-currencies. I did over the course of the day get enough diamonds for one ten-pull, which I haven't used yet. Buying enough diamonds for a ten-pull costs a bit under $60 (presumably USD, but there's a chance the interface is automatically making that CAD for me--not gonna spend the money to check lmfao), with an SSR rate of 1%. BULLSHIIIIIT.

There's like a goddamn thousand-word essay explaining the dozen different types of character upgrades and equippables and equippables for the equippables!! Bad! Bad game design! That's just overcomplicating bullshit to trick people into thinking they're doing something other than clicking button to make number go up! That is not gameplay!

In terms of the actual gameplay, there is none. The battle system is full auto. There might be teambuilding, but from what I've seen so far, most of that consists of hoping you pull good cards from gacha and then clicking button to make number go up. There's occasional rhythm segments but there's no original music, it's just remixes of public domain classical music lmao. I'd describe the rhythm gameplay as "at least more engaging than twisted wonderland's," which is not a high bar

At least there's a cat in the rhythm bit.

And like, ok, I gotta remark on how derivative it is. Like I mentioned in my post earlier, this game is unabashedly aping twisted wonderland's setting and aesthetic. (That said, most of the stuff it steals from twst is magic school stuff that twst also basically stole from Harry Potter, so...?) However, it isn't exactly like twst: in this one, the characters say fuck a lot and bleed all over the place and do violence. Basically, the tone is a fair bit more adult than twst's kid-friendly vibe. (Not, like, adult adult, and I probably wouldn't even call it dark--it's still rated Teen lol. Just more adult than twst.)

Rather than just being students at magic school, the ghouls also go out into the mundane world to go on missions where they fight and investigate monsters and cryptids. Honestly, the magic school setting feels pretty tacked-on. The things that are enjoyable about this would've been just as enjoyable in about any other setting--you can tell this whole aspect was a late trend-chasing addition, lmao. So, yeah, it's blatantly copying twst to try to steal some players, but... Eh, I found myself not caring that much. Someone more (or less) into twst than me may find it grating.

Character-wise, eh, sure, yeah, they're a bit derivative in that aspect too, but it's a joseimuke game, the characters are always derivative. Thus far the writing & execution has been solid enough that I didn't care if they were tropey. If I were to compare it to something else, I'd say the relationship between the protagonist and the ghouls feels more like that of the sage and wizards in mahoyaku than anything from twst. There's some mystery in exactly what "ghouls" are and their place in this world that has me intrigued and wanting to know more about this setting and how each of the characters feels about it. I have a bad habit of getting my hopes up for stories that put big ideas on the table and then being disappointed when they don't follow through in a way that lives up to my expectations, though.

So, my final verdict: I kind of just hope someone uploads all the story segments right onto youtube so nobody has to deal with the dogshit predatory game to get the genuinely decent story lol. Give it a play just for the story if you have faith in your ability to resist dark patterns. Avoid at all costs if you know you're vulnerable to gacha, microtransactions, or timesinks.

[starfall-isle]

I hate limited availability I hate artificial scarcity I hatee it. Unfortunately I love items and objects

[witheredbouquet]

why did he do that....

(from the [TGS 2016] Persona 5 Seiyuu Talkshow)

[joycrispy]

Sometimes ADHD likes to throw you a curveball, and in my latest "I do not control the hyperfixation" development: I was suddenly possessed, at FOUR IN THE MORNING, to buy myself a tamagotchi out of literally nowhere, and now all I want to do is play with it and look at tamagotchi content.

...I also bought a second tamagotchi. Oops.

[hauntingofhouses]

blue eye samurai's themes of racial/cultural hybridity is so ingrained into its narrative that it's even prevalent in the way the story is told.

it's set in edo japan but the character design of its protagonist, mizu, is inspired by western cowboys like clint eastwood. cowboys are also its own subculture in a way in modern japan, as many japanese people today are nerds about westerns and the wild west the same way americans today are nerds about anime and japanese culture.

the story is steeped in historical and cultural setting of japan in the 1600s, full of nuances and details* to reflect that, yet its script is originally written and dubbed entirely in english, which is why the dialogue and speech and mannerisms match how americans talk and not how japanese people talk.

* in regards to the historical detail, i am ignoring the historical inaccuracies present in the show for the sake of this post because it's not entirely relevant. though i guess you could also say that it's a hollywood-ification of a foreign culture. but it's not like japanese cinema and media depicting other cultures are very faithful and accurate representations either.

even the medium and genre itself. it's an animated show based in japan with japanese characters, but it's not a japanese anime. its inspired by japanese films like lady snowblood, but also by american films inspired by japanese films, like kill bill.

like. it's japanese but it's also so intrinsically american. it's fascinating.

[tangerinefluff]

had a thought that if kagehina are 27/28 now, do they retire after Paris 2024 or just before LA 2028, or they will fight to make it to LA 2028..

[sonknuxadow]

apparently people are getting like . mad over people reading the shadow manga through unofficial means saying its disrespectful to the artist or whatever and like . i get wanting to respect and support artists but . you know most if not all of the people reading it through reposts are people who couldnt read it officially even if they wanted to right? and that the sonic manga done by this publisher never gets released outside japan anyway so this one probably wont be either? what else do you expect people who live in other countries to do if we want to read it .......????

[lokh]

oh my god. a manga where everyones actually wearing masks???

edit: NEVERMIND jumped the gun here it was just for one scene cos they were at a nail salon 😭

edit 2: hmm actually. depending on how recently this manga was drawn it could just be reflective of how not everyone wears masks. the customers are wearing masks in the salon but outside usually not but Sometimes. they are

edit 3: I WAS RIGHT??

[saturdaymournings]

i feel like you'd fuck with stardew valley do you fuck with stardew valley

ive actually never played stardew valley! i dont play games unless i can get them on one of my two consoles which are the 3ds and the playstation 2 lol

[baked-bread]

denuvo as an anti-piracy strategy is completely lost on me tbh. every time i go to buy a game and it has denuvo, it's automatically added to my list of do not buy/always pirate games. that's disgusting, i don’t want that shit on my pc. if the game gets cracked i will be playing that shit illegally. godspeed

[illdothehotvoice]

I didn’t realize trying to find the original price for the Pokemon Best Wishes DXF figures was going to be this hard but boy am I having fun

[sxnctxxry]

there should be a scientific reason why i get sick every time i get excited

[asilosmagdalena]

This email from when I had the Death Grips ticket in my cart but didn't check out yet....

Kyaaa! >_< Don't leave ^_^ Death Grips ^_^ Waiting! O_o :3c

[puppys-rhythm-heaven]

fever's localization is so baffling to me even beyond the european version just casually relocalizing everything because like. okay so micro-row 2's reading material in the japanese version of fever directly references sick beats.

as the wiki says itself this is removed in the international versions because the reference would be lost. but in spite of this-

LOVE RAP 2'S READING MATERIAL STILL DIRECTLY REFERENCES RAP MEN-

[oh-meow-swirls]

i hope that we get 1 for nintendo switch localized. then we get a 2 for nintendo switch released n then blasters for nintendo switch n then 3 for nintendo switch n then blasters 2 for nintendo switch n then-

[sonknuxadow]

one of these days theyre actually gonna announce something tomodachi life related i swear to god