#aka me creating a point and click mystery world in my brain and putting my ocs into it JLKFDSLK

[fruifruit]

imagine being thirteen and a new werewolf. now imagine you dont know that last part.

[troofless]

Under-appreciated light novels recommendation list, ranked in terms of PLEASE READ, to ehh, I’ll just put it in anyway:

Legend of Sun Knight (Completed Translation+Series): Set in a world of knights and magic, this series is golden comedy because the MC literally carries the plot. He’s smart, snarky and sleazy… but in a good way. I wrote about it here, but this series is for people who love comedy and political-castle-intrigue-level manipulation. ANYWAY PLEASE READ IT IT’S UP THERE ON MY TOP TEN BOOKS TO READ. No anime or manga translation. WHY.

Rakuin no Monshou (Completed Translation): For people who love the switching-the-royal-prince-with-a-body-double trope, political manoeuvring, military tactics, having the main character travel to different countries and exploring their governing system, and major character growth. No ecchi scenes, mentions of sex and rape (if any) are not elaborated on. Love between the MC and the female lead is more of a stranger to mutual respect to love, but since the female lead is literally 14-15 (they’re engaged to foster peace between two countries and not some lolicon thing), there are literally 0 sexy/blushy blushy/kissing/intimacy scenes between them. In the story their relationship feels less like a lovey dovey couple and more like the relationship between two generals that trust each other. This doesn’t have an anime or manga series after it. Why.

Only Sense Online (Ongoing Translation, Ongoing Series): Unlike the recent isekai and trapped-in-an-online-game-and-if-you-die-in-the-game-you-die-for-realsies trends that are going around right now, this is just a game where the MC has fun playing a normal VRMMO and makes new friends in it. …In fact, the MC isn’t an otaku or a game maniac, his sister and childhood friend are the ones crazy about levelling up and doing all the main subjugation-monster quests and everything, he’s more of the chill type who’d rather hang back and craft stuff to sell in his shop. He likes doing things at his own pace and learning how to craft new things in his own time. Instead of battling monsters and levelling up, he’s more likely to be seen harvesting items and mining rocks. Oh, and also at the start of the game he mis-clicked and is stuck in a female avatar, and combined with his mothering, take-care-of-everyone personality, everyone treats him like like a ‘nanny’ and is in awe of his ‘moe-ness’, even though he keeps insisting he’s a guy. One of the story’s underlying message is that different people have different ways of enjoying the same game, be it doing quests in a party, creating items to support players, roleplaying, and even PKing, and that’s okay because that’s what a game is for. No angst or permanent character deaths (it is a game after all), tis for warming your heart with the sheer sunny goodness that is the MC. No ecchi. Has an ongoing manga series, but no anime.

Hidan no Aria (Ongoing Translation, Completed Series): MC goes to a 'military’ school that trains students to be armed detectives, or as they say, ‘Butei’ (Busou Tantei). Think mercenaries. Female MC is a OP genius and major tsundere, only out-shadowed by our MC. MC considers himself weak, and because of his genes, his innate OP powers is only triggered when a certain condition is met: aka when he is sexually aroused. (Insert sexy times.) In this mode he doesn’t get flashy superpowers or anything (at least, by the world’s standard) — all it does it accelerate his brain’s thought process, but it gets so OP to the point where can deflect bullets with his own bullets and slice bullets in two with his knife. OP God Mode. This trigger also turns him into a major flirt and gigolo that can’t say no to a girl, which caused him to actively seek to avoid situations where he is in close contact with girls to prevent being triggered. Has a ‘harem’ of girls if you wanna call it that way, but even though the story is halfway translated as of now, it’s obvious he’s fallen for the main female lead. You’d only want to read this story to find out the next BS thing the MC does when he’s triggered, and it can only get higher and higher. Seriously, the moment where he catches a bullet in his teeth (way later in the story) gives you the best feeling ever. To put it in the Female MC’s words: "How about that rating, Kinji? Being classed by the world as a dangerous character who fights non-humans? Tell me how do you like that?” And his words: "–I’m a senior high school student. My grades are slightly below average, and I attend a violent school.”, and his monologue: [At least that was what I want to be. Honestly…] Had a 2011 anime and ongoing manga series, as well as a Yuri spinoff series (as per the usual anime law decreeing that all spinoffs have to have Yuri plot in them, see Soul Eater and Fate Prisma).

Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu (Completed Translation + Series): Idiots doing idiotic things in school. Interesting battle system, with loads of comedy. Loads. Of. Comedy. No ecchi scenes. Had an two-season anime series in 2010 and 2011, and a manga series.

Chrome Shelled Regios (Completed Translation + Series): Main character is OP but gets debuffed at the very start, tries to restart his life as a normal person but realises that his innate talent for fighting doesn’t allow him to. Has many female love interests but at the end MC only chooses one. ‘Magic’ system works a little differently from conventional sources, nearing more to martial arts style, and telekinesis-telepathy combination rather than enchanting-spell type. What else can I say other than the MC controls a weapon made of thousands of infinitely thin and sharp wires that he uses to slice bugs (the main enemy) up with... which is so badass. (Though his main weapon is a sword.) No ecchi scenes. The sideplot about ‘fate’ and the history of the setting gets a little confusing though. This had an anime, but since the director died right before the 2009 anime ended it’s unlikely that a second season will come out. It does have a manga side plot series that is completed and a great accompaniment to the main light novel.

CubexCursedxCurious (Completed Translation + Series): MC lives in a house that is apparently so holy that cursed weapons journey there to get purified and lift their cursed. Oh yeah, and some cursed weapons can turn into people too (Soul Eater style?). Wielding the weapons will obviously give you great power, but it also has serious drawbacks, e.g. A sword cursed to be able to slice through anything, drawback is that their owner will be consumed by bloodlust and is compelled to draw blood with that sword (in other words, the old regular cursed sword rule). MC is of course immune to curses (and so he can wield that sword) because he was born in that holy place. Female lead is originally a torture device made of 32 different torture tools, including Iron Maiden, Guillotine, Pendulum, etc. Literally the first scene is the female lead found naked (since her real form is a mcfreaking cube I would not be surprised) in the MC’s kitchen looking for food to eat so let there be a representative of the subsequent ecchi scenes to be found. The cursed tool system is cool, anyway. MC doesn’t end up with anyone is particular. Plus point: Not all female characters introduced are in love with the male MC. Just three (3) girls. Also, the second light novel doesn’t feature the ‘second’ heroine’s backstory arc like a lot of light novels do... but instead a couple of a girl and a genderfluid character. Cool stuff. Had a 2011 anime and (very behind) manga series.

Other more well known ones:

Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku (Up to Date Translation, Ongoing Series): Think Battle Royale x Danganronpa x the Mahou Shoujo Trope. Lots of blood and death, so don’t bother if you don’t want to see your favourite character die/put through lots of angst and depression. Each Magical Girl has different superpowers and you’d only want to read it in hopes of seeing your favourite character live to the end/have a cool death scene/have cool action scenes in general. One of the underlying themes was that it’s not a given that powerful people will always win; the strong can be overthrown by the weak (I can think of at least two occasions), a person can win a killing game without any blood on their hands, and the magical government is pretty much corrupt. Had a recent 2016 anime series and a manga series.

Hyouka (Up to Date Translation and Series): Based on Agatha Christie stories, think mysteries but without any actual murder.

And then I’ll throw in a few English books to show that I have good taste in books:

Captive Prince by CS Pacat: Gayyyyy + lots of politics. THE ROMANCE THOUGH.... enemies to tentative friends to hostile ‘ah we’re supposed to be on opposing sides as enemies of each other’s nation’ to lovers YEAAHHHHHHH. Some parts are explicit, yeah.

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan: MC was dragged into a magical military academy in a magical land to be a child soldier, but instead of being typical Harry Potter he is snarky, sarcastic and actually raises valid questions like why the heck are they raising child soldiers??? Bisexual icon male MC who is also a pacifist I love him he must be protected

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein: War story narrated by a spy who was caught by enemy soldiers and forced to reveal her state secrets in the form of written narrative. Mystery and unreliable narrator time! If you can survive the first few draggy chapters and then a little more the reveal is SO. REWARDING. Female MC.

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett: I tried recommending this to my friend and sadly I realised that if you have no background knowledge on Christianity and what the apocalypse details you may not find this interesting. It’s a shame because it’s so funny. EDIT: I’m so glad it got a TV series??? That means more people will read the book, which is amazing, right??? 

The Sherwood Ring by Elizabeth Marie Pope: Female MC and the story of her ancestor’s romances (think short story-style but all connected together). Straight romance. Female MC.

Any book by Brandon Sanderson: Yes. Just… yes.

Summers at Castle Auburn by Sharon Shinn: A bastard girl stays in the castle with her royal relatives for the summer. (If you’re wondering there is discrimination against her as a commoner but overall she is loved by her family there.) Somehow the only page I have bookmarked in this book is the part near the end where the MC commits royal crimes, and is slapped by the king, giving the reader no small amount of satisfaction. Fantasy-style with small amount of political intrigue, female MC is a apprentice hedgewitch so she knows herbal knowledge (which is a prominent part of the book when she uses it?). Anyway, please read.

A Posse of Princesses by Sherwood Smith: Female princess MC is invited to a large one week (?) party with the other country’s princes and princesses to celebrate this big county’s prince’s great birthday or smth. Some political intrigue and also great plot twist. At the end of it I got really invested in the romance between the side characters bc they were really well developed lol..

The Queen’s Thief Series by Megan Whalen Turner: The third book is my favourite book because I love the MC (Costis!!!!!), bless his innocent soul (COSTIS!!!!!!) caught up in the nefarious plots of the first book MC. Little romance and more of political plots.

Warriors by Erin Hunter: I had to include at least one joke book and this was it. Anyway this was the series I grew up reading, honestly the third series had the best MC in the blind, grumpy, no-nonsense healer who is so refreshingly different from a normal ‘hero archetype’ MC. (*whisper* You gotta talk about the furries, troof!) Oh. Oh yeah, they’re all cats.

[entergamingxp]

Gears Tactics review – brains and brawn join forces as the fight against the Locust goes turn-based • Eurogamer.net

Gears of War has always been built around its cover system, with almost 15 years experience when it comes to squeezing its muscled heroes behind bits of wall, or whatever’s at hand, as they exchange fire with their equally muscled, subterrestrial counterparts. Once slotted into place, it’s then been up to the player to figure out how to gain the upper hand, perhaps lobbing a grenade to push enemies out of cover, or rushing forward to take advantage of an exposed flank. When described in these sorts of terms, it makes sense that the Gears series would eventually dip its considerable toes into the world of turn-based strategy, but how well does it actually translate?

Gears Tactics review

Developer: Splash Damage/The Coalition

Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios

Platform: Reviewed on PC

Availability: Out April 28th on PC

Eager to answer that question for us, Tactics is very quick to reintroduce another Gears of War staple: executions. Things may be a little slower paced here, but look, you can still chainsaw people in half! Downing an enemy will occasionally see them drop to their knees, allowing one of your bulky lads to jog over and bash their head in with a pistol, or gut them with a bayonet. As a visual spectacle, I’m a little less excited about this than I might have been in 2006, but as a game mechanic, let me tell you, executions allow for some brilliant decision making. That’s a very odd sentence to have typed out. Let me explain.

In Gears Tactics, each soldier in your squad has a handful of action points to spend per turn, whether that’s through moving, taking shots or using abilities. Once everyone’s out of actions, the bad guys get their go. It’s standard stuff. Landing an execution, however, changes things. Once you’ve finished beating the poor Locust to death with their own limbs, your entire squad (aside from the one performing the execution) is rewarded with an additional action point. There are even times where you’ll be able to chain a string of executions together and essentially double the number of actions you were meant to take that turn. This alters the game in a pretty significant way.

For a start, it means that Tactics is able to pit you against many more enemies than you’d typically expect. The odds are often stacked against you, quite considerably, with the hopes that you can claw your way back into control with a few well-timed decapitations. The first time this really clicked into place for me was during an early mission in which my squad was surrounded by Wretches, a fairly weak enemy type that can prove deadly when encountered in large numbers. With his last available action, Sid Redburn (one of the game’s named heroes) managed to execute a nearby Drone and in doing so, gifted his squadmates a fresh round of actions. This allowed another soldier to revive a downed teammate, which proved crucial, as she was the one carrying the frag grenade that could deal with the Wretches before they descended upon my squad. What a hero!

The right execution at the right time can sometimes turn around even the most doomed situations and these moments are the game at its very best. If you’ve played Into The Breach (and you should, it’s superb) you’ll likely recognise this sensation, as you suddenly glimpse a way out of what seemed like the most impossible scenario just moments beforehand.

Aside from these Eureka-worthy executions, much of the Gears Tactics experience in combat borrows heavily from the Firaxis XCOM games. Your squad may enter the battlefield courtesy of an armoured car rather than a Skyranger, but the end result is a similar one. You’ll take and miss shots, you’ll use Overwatch (albeit this time with cones of vision!), you’ll complete objectives and race to evacuate before being overrun. There’s some fun reimagining of the Gears weapons and abilities (the bayonet charge remains a highlight, even here), but I do wish the enemy units had more to offer. Unlike XCOM, where every alien usually has a couple of different tricks up their sleeve, here, your opponents feel more limited.

Compare the Sectoids of XCOM: Enemy Unknown with the Drones of Gears Tactics, for example. Both units can move, open fire and set up overwatch, but on top of this, XCOM’s Sectoids might use suppressive fire to pin one of your soldiers in place, or merge minds with another alien, improving their stats but also exposing them to further danger. They’re both units that you’ll encounter frequently throughout their respective campaigns, but one is quite a bit more interesting than the other. This comparison can be felt across many of the Gears Tactics enemies, unfortunately.

The exception to that rule comes with the boss fights at the end of each Act, in which you’re pitted against some of the more deadly monsters of the Gears universe. Brumaks and Corpsers, the big guns. These fights offer much more variety, with multiple attack types that’ll force you to keep moving your units and scramble to new cover as you chip away at an intimidatingly large health bar. Boss fights can work in the turn-based space, says Gears Tactics, and I’m inclined to agree.

Outside of the missions themselves, Gears does drift away from the XCOM formula more substantially, opting to do away with base building, research and the strategy layer all together. Your soldiers still level up and unlock new abilities, but their weapon and equipment upgrades are found in crates that you’ll need to pick up during missions, or earn as rewards for completing optional objectives. There are no microtransactions here, but these crates still carry with them the distinct feeling of loot boxes, even down to the opening animations.

Some of you may be delighted to hear that you won’t need to research new weapons or hire engineers to create them for your squad, but these colour-coded crates never feel like much of a replacement. Although I appreciated the added incentive they provided to take risks during the missions themselves, opening them and sorting through all of the various weapon attachments I’d unlocked afterwards tended to feel like a chore. I never felt any real ownership over what I found inside, I suppose that’s the real problem. These weren’t weapons or armour I’d set out to craft, it was just another scope or rifle barrel that I’d found in a loot box, seemingly at random.

The campaign is separated into story missions that need to be completed and side missions that you’re able to choose between. These side trips often present some of the more interesting setups, as they’ll come with their own modifiers like +100 per cent damage from Wretches, or increased movement range for your squad. You’re also limited by the fact that you can’t take the same team with you for every mission as sometimes they’ll need to rest, or you won’t have access to a certain character for narrative reasons. This means you’ll need to recruit enough units to flesh out a small roster and then switch between them as you go.

In theory, most of your soldiers should be the run-of-the-mill Gears who’ve been recruited along the way and as is now the norm in the world of turn-based tactics, you’re able to customise these men and women to your heart’s content, with different names, armour and colour schemes… only to see them die permanently should you put them in harm’s way.

But in practice, it’s the game’s hero units that always matter the most. They have to survive for your campaign to continue (forcing you to restart missions if they die), as they’re key to its storyline and you’ll usually be required to bring some of them with you on most missions. This means there’ll be at the very top of your priority list when it comes to which soldiers you’ll want to focus on leveling up and kitting out. In fact, given that I’d also received Augustus Cole (AKA The Cole Train) as a pre-order bonus, I rarely used more than one or two non-hero units in my squad at any one time, as I felt it’d be a waste of experience points to do so. I can’t help but wonder if I’d have had more fun managing my squad, mixing and matching the different classes, if there had been no ‘heroes’ whatsoever. At least it would have felt like a choice I was making.

As for the storyline itself, Gears Tactics is a prequel to the original Gears of War, set 12 years before anyone has decided to pull Marcus Fenix out of jail. Actually, I suppose he’s not in jail yet, is he? Lucky him! You’re tasked with hunting down a Locust scientist, “a monster who makes monsters”, and there’s some mystery to the politics surrounding this whole operation, but I found it all quite uninspired in the end. Your squad jumps between trust and distrust of one another with alarming frequency, with the end result being that none of it feels particularly genuine.

There are moments in which Tactics does manage to be the successful marriage between Gears of War and XCOM that you might have hoped for, but as a whole package, I’m not convinced it’s ever quite as good as that. I applaud it for experimenting with some brand new ideas, as well as providing another solid entry point into the turn-based strategy genre for those who’ve not been convinced in the past. But with the likes of Enemy Unknown and XCOM 2 having paved the way before this, Tactics had some big shoes to fill and not even Sid Redburn (who looks to be a size 16, at least) could quite manage it for me. But that execution mechanic! What a fantastic idea.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/04/gears-tactics-review-brains-and-brawn-join-forces-as-the-fight-against-the-locust-goes-turn-based-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=gears-tactics-review-brains-and-brawn-join-forces-as-the-fight-against-the-locust-goes-turn-based-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net