#nobody cares but im posting anyway!

[carrionbeast]

Carrion Top 10 Game of the Year list

10 -Star Ocean The Second Story R - Full Disclosure, I'm still in the first couple of hours of this but it's really, really good. Just beautiful to look at too. If I could spend more time with it, it would have been higher than 10. 9 - Dave the Diver - Fun and chill but gets a little rinse and repeat after a while. 8 - Theatrhythm: Final Bar Line - Nostalgia Generating Machine. I miss the touch controls of the 3DS versions though. Not enough FFXIV music. 7 - Fire Emblem: Engage - Stupendously fun combat, but I missed the social aspects of Three Houses. Still got Lesbian Married though. 6 - Disgaea 7 - Classic, refined Disgaea. Way better than 6 by miles but not as good as 5. Super cute story though. 5 - Baldur's Gate 3 - LOOK I REALLY LIKE IT BUT MY COMPUTER COULDN'T REALLY RUN IT AND THEN I GOT A NEW ONE BUT WORK WAS BUSY. I'll play it. I know it's good. 4 - The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - I started playing it and emerged from a fugue state about 200 hours later with no idea what happened. Wonderful. 3 - Slay the Princess - So weirdly comforting and distressing at once. 10/10 would be a big bird again. 2 - Dredge - Once they introduced the thing to turn off monster damage, it became way more chill for me and thus way more fun. I get to just sit back, fish and go mad from the revelation of what I've done. 1 - Octopath Traveller 2 - I put 100 hours into this game and I still wasn't ready for it to be over.

(Honorable mentions to FFXIV's Endwalker patch cycle, during which I openly wept a lot and Monster Hunter World which I was finally able to play thanks to a mod that let me have a Monster buddy to hang out with ala the Stories series)

[medicalunprofessional]

never change, man !

[julijbee]

girlbossing too close to the sun.

[vigilskeep]

what’s getting to me (yeah i’m still awake) is how inherently fucked up it is that like. a while back, early in the game, i was going on about how it was ironic that in a game about regret i seemed to be playing a character thoroughly incapable of guilt and remorse. someone who is so locked in on wilful optimism and pragmatism that regret is entirely out of their wheelhouse; they genuinely believed everyone just does what they have to do and acts according to their nature, so there’s no use in looking back or expecting different, and all you can do is move forward. the idea that sol did not simply learn to regret and to question themself as a natural character arc, but that solas was actively engineering pressure towards regret so they could take his place in a fade prison? that they had a survival mechanism going and his active intention the entire time was to break it? that in order to do so, he had them spending months confiding in and relying on a fake of the only person they had ever fully trusted? what the fuck

[loveipromiseimnotinsane]

Just to throw this out there

[cozylittleartblog]

idk if I've said it before, but your portrayals of both Rouxls and Queen are among my favorites, and the way they are when you combine the two is the sole thing that got me to say "yes" to queenkaard. When I first saw it in the game and it started catching on as a ship, I was like "nooo I hc him as gay," but then after seeing your stuff I was like "oh nvm I totally see this now."

i think hearing "i didn't see this ship before, but after your art i understand it and/or even ship it myself" is one of the nicest compliments i get, because it makes me feel like i'm representing something meaningful and sweet about a pairing and having people understand what i think is so great and captivating about them. i've gotten a couple asks like this and sometimes i forget to respond but i always really appreciate them :) thank you very much

[oceanwithouthermoon]

imo everyone who insists that saikis life was perfect and he was a spoiled brat complaining about nothing are just purposefully ignoring and misinterpreting the whole manga simply because they like other characters better and want to make up scenarios to make their fav seem like a precious little victim in every situation

its hard to explain but i see it happen a lot with specifically people who have dedicated accounts for other characters and constantly misattribute every issue to "saikis such a baby, my character has it way worse!" "saiki hurt my babys feelings once so i hate him!" "saikis such a spoiled brat, my baby has a way shittier life and never complains about it!" "saiki hurt my poor precious fav once so hes an abusive monster!"

and said "shittier life" that they "never complain" about is either the persons headcanons (literally made up) or... the character DOES complain about it and the person takes those words at FACE VALUE but ignores everything else, including things that actually HAPPEN right in front of our eyes

[eikichi-supremacy]

can i step on the soap box for a second or wtv just hear me out .. the thing about kuwabara is like.

he looks to yusuke like pretty much nobody else. yusuke's a unique protagonist in that he's well. shitty!! he's shitty and if you asked anyone pre-series they'd call him no good or a loser. If people weren't hating on him they were scared of him. There were a few exceptions to this like his mom, Keiko, and takenaka ofc. But kuwabara is the most interesting to me because he hasn't known yusuke as long as the first two and doesn't have that sense of duty to a student a teacher would. he is unique because he saw yusuke, someone feared and despised and saw something worth working towards

There's no sense of responsibility over him no long established relationship but. Begrudging respect. Awe. He put yusuke of all people on a pedestal and I don't think anyone else had done that. Saw yusuke as a worthy goal. Kuwabara was the first to see worth there in that sense. Obviously there were other people but Kuwabara was only privy to some of the shittiest parts of yusuke and still somehow came out thinking he's fucking great

Idk it's dumb like obviously yeah kuwabara's whole thing is that he elevates yusuke in his mind vs pretty much everyone else just seeing him as a shit stain but

Thinking about how this affects yusuke and his actions. Kuwabara isn't Keiko or Atsuko his attention and concern and care can't be explained away by "I've known you forever" because he hasn't yet. Kuwabara isn't sticking around for a yusuke that used to be kinder or wtv he's here for the yusuke that broke his ribs with a grin on his face.

And then ofc he realizes "kuwabara is good" during chapter 7. And if kuwabara is good and he sees me as someone worthwhile then that must mean he thinks...I'm good. What do you do with that when you've been told you're bad not just by everyone around you but by the prince of the underworld. The spirit world apparently sees how everyone's lives pan out and they couldn't fathom yusuke trying to save a child but I feel like kuwabara wouldn't have been surprised in the least. Because yusuke is a good guy

And it's crazy to me because how did he know. What did he see during those 156 fights with yusuke that made him chase after him that made him see worth when everyone else saw nothing. What made him cry and grieve and say you're supposed to be here for me. It couldn't have just been strength that made him do all that. He saw smth even spirit world wasn't prepared for and he didn't have years of knowing yusuke for him to see it he just knew.

But yeah back to yusuke the way that must've made him crazy all you ever did was beat this mf up! You barely remembered his name some days you didn't know anything about him because all you did was lay him flat but here he is crying over you angry that you left him behind. All that admiration how does one who hates themself cope bro.

Yusuke realizing who kuwabara is as a person when he was a ghost is just so. It's crazy cos he's seeing in real time that kuwabara isn't some jackass who only cares about fighting there are worthwhile qualities there admirable qualities a kindness that yusuke never bothered looking for. And yet. For some reason this guy is tagging along with you following your lead. He becomes friends with you like that's a thing someone like kuwabara should want. And it doesn't go away in fact it seems to get bigger the more time you spend together. God. me when I can't see the good in me but I know you're good and you can

Tldr; one of the most compelling aspects to the kuwameshi dynamic (ship or not) to me is that kuwabara is this noble, honorable guy and the coolest person in the world to him is the local menace and loser yusuke

[solmelo]

Another Paul is dead post from me

(idk why I love PID lore sm)

My entry for @zankie21's dtiys on Instagram. I'm more likely gonna lose or get unnoticed anyway so I'll just post my art here before I sleep 🥱

[jasperandhenryslovechild]

urges to post about my genloss oc and do a completely impulsive rebrand of this blog just to yap about genloss

[nozescaramelizadas]

Question to everyone but especially US Americans: do you guys have a problem with love?

watching TV shows it seems like two people are essentially a couple. they're kissing, they're fucking, they care about each other, they go on dates, etc. But they never say "I love you", they never officialize a relationship, they never put a ring on their fingers - unless they're literally getting married, which kinda seems to come out of nowhere to me, like they're missing important steps in the relationship? First you establish how you feel ("I love you"), then you start Officially Dating (being each other's boyfriend/girlfriend/partner), have a ring on their fingers, *then* it's appropriate to ask if they wanna marry you (and subsequently get married).

But it seems like it's quite normal to be acting like they're together for months or years, never defining anything with words, and it's CLEAR that they both love each other. and then suddenly one day they're like "i can't imagine my life without you (I've noticed they often don't even say "I love you" at this fucking point???? but sometimes they do), will you marry me?" and finally offering a fucking ring.

like. is it just a dumb TV show thing? or is it normal irl as well, to simply not have a logical progression, and just assume the other person loves you back without ever having them say that to you or you to them, in order to ask them to marry you? idk

in my country it's very normal to be like "casually dating" someone (exclusively! bc it's different if you're both just "seeing people") like these TV shows show, for a while (usually 1-3 months, seldom more than 6 bc that would be considered leading someone on), until you both decide you have strong feelings for each other and want to officialize a relationship. at which point it's expected you'll both start wearing rings (simple bands, often silver, on the right hand) to show your commitment. at this point, you have already said I Love You to each other - if you spend 6 months with someone and those words haven't been said yet, either you're both just hanging out with no intention of getting in a relationship ever, or someone's being led on.

like I'm just confused. I've seen this happen in a bunch of different shows. the participants are all grown adults, so it's not like they're teenagers fumbling their first love (hey, it happens to the best of us). it's shown like the normal thing. what the fuck sometimes they're even cohabiting, how do you live with someone you kiss and fuck and love without telling them you love them??? mindblowing

please tell me it's just a TV show thing. thank you

[skrunksthatwunk]

idk if i've discussed it before (i have certainly THOUGHT about it) but someone on my kuwa suffering ep 89 comp mentioned it and i just had to go off about it like. ok. sensui tells yusuke something along the lines of "you heard itsuki" when itsuki's inside the uraotoko, implying that not only can sensui hear those inside the uraotoko, but that he expects yusuke to be able to as well. which means that yusuke Almost Certainly Heard And Kind Of Ignored kuwabara's prolonged mental breakdown and wailing about how much he needs yusuke to live etc. which. guHHH i hate him yusuke you ass but also listen.

the only acknowledgement yusuke gives to this (if any) is when he says something like "sensui you're sooo fucking cooked this plan's going perfectly (my friends are going to get strong and kill you when i die)." he's trash talking to sensui, ignoring the others because, i think, he doesn't want to acknowledge what he's doing to them.

yusuke is explicitly recreating the experience he had with kuwabara's "death" at the hands of toguro, complete with the announcement of intent (and power) to kill, the inability to impede the threat in any way (barring a power-breakthrough), and the target in some way racing towards/volunteering for their death. yusuke learns through doing, and through tough love-style approaches. it's only effective if it hurts. watching kuwabara die like that was devastating to yusuke, but it sure as hell fucking worked. he beat toguro because of that maneuver. so even if he has to (re-)traumatize his friends in the process, this method will make his friends stronger, and he feels confident in that. but he never had to live with the consequences of kuwabara's death, not really. that's something hiei makes clear before they enter the cave as well, that there are no fake-outs ready to make him or anyone else stronger. the only deaths here will be real. the only power gained will come at a high, permanent cost. hiei's warning is an attempt to keep everyone alive, to keep yusuke from being stupid. and then yusuke decides to take that fatality into his own hands, but it's kind of his friends who would pay the price. he's going to make them live through the days, months, years without him, the actual permanency of loss (assuming they survive for that long), something he never experienced with kuwabara (a new facet of that traumatic scenario), AND he's escaping the emotional fallout of this choice through death. he doesn't have to see them mourn, won't get yelled at, won't watch them fail to move on. he's tapping out and choosing to believe they'll be fine.

but i think he feels guilty. just a little. i mean, yusuke couldn't even believe that people cared about him enough to want him alive in episode one. he's staked everything on his friends, which means he still kind of... doesn't value his own life, at least not compared to theirs. but he believes his friends love him and want him around, and we know that because he has to, or else he wouldn't make a plan that depends entirely on that love. he is actively leveraging the care he doesn't think he deserves, trying to hurt them in a way he is intimately familiar with (only worse), for.... what, exactly?

this is kind of my sticking point tbh. i don't think the answer is... super clear, but let's start with what it's not.

yusuke is not doing this because it is the most practical way to save all of humanity; that would be the mafukan, which he stopped. it could be a gamble to save all of his friends? the mafukan strategy would guarantee koenma's death/eternal imprisonment, whereas this strategy gambles all of humanity on the chance that his friends come out of the Easy Break Oven strong enough to avert the end of the world. if the sacrifice of even one friend is completely intolerable, perhaps he'd accept those slim odds and their steep consequences. yusuke tends to take risks like that, especially when he's got fight-induced tunnel vision. he doesn't think things through too much; his schemes are usually dependent on surprising his enemy enough to oneshot them. truthfully, i think this is the closest we'll get to an answer, and it's a more conventional one for this kind of story. but there is another layer i haven't been able to get from my mind.

i think yusuke is gifting each of his friends an honorable warrior's death.

so, in case it needs saying, yusuke, kuwabara, kurama, and hiei all (at least once, if not several times) exhibit a desire to die in combat in a way they deem noble to give their lives purpose (usually by self-sacrifice, but sometimes by another metric of honor, like hiei's duel with shigure and his desire to die in mutual defeat against an evenly matched opponent; or even kurama's decision to fight shigure in his human form, displaying a sort of passive suicidality via placing being true to himself in this (somewhat symbolic/inconsequential) way over survival). they need to make their lives count for something, because they feel guilty for being alive (kurama and hiei feel guilty for their past actions (hiei's is most evident in his distance from yukina, though that's not its primary reason), hiei, kuwabara, and yusuke have all been ostracized and made to feel like burdens on/unwanted by their caregivers and general society; all four of them have felt profound isolation even from their loved ones (yusuke and hiei are rather obvious; kurama can never tell his mother about the majority of his life nor what she truly means to him in the context of it; and kuwabara is separated from his peers for his spiritual awareness and his "stupidity" (plus his parents aren't around? and he is Desperate to define manhood/manliness through a broader pop cultural one which includes the warrior sacrifice thing bc he has no male role models BUT that's for another post) (i will admit kuwa's the most tenuous one here irt isolation)). they want to die for a cause so badly it's actually physically painful to me. it is passive suicidality, and they define their lives and identities by their relation to, engagement with, and skill at doing violence, etc. they live to die by the sword. anyway. nobody talks about it but i think it's very important to understanding what yusuke's doing here.

because i think he knows that about himself and his friends. they're kindred spirits. at the very least he knows this about kuwabara, who literally made a speech about this before diving into toguro's fingers In The Event That He Is Recreating Explicitly. he is dying nobly like they all want to on the chance that they'll get to break out and fight sensui rather than dying without even getting to take a swing. it's about his pride and theirs. but i don't think yusuke necessarily believes they'll win. he knows better than anyone how strong sensui is, and how wide the gap is between sensui and team urameshi. his stated position that humanity is doomed and that he doesn't care about its fate is, i think, not completely genuine, but if we take it at face value, he's not killing himself so that his friends can survive the end of the world. something's going to come around and kill them eventually. he's doing it so they can survive long enough to fight sensui. he needs them (specifically kuwabara) to be strong enough to free themselves to begin round two. but he's given up on their side winning, on humanity surviving, on his own victory---why should he think his friends are capable of winning? this could be another case of yusuke's fight-blinders. it could be another gamble, more blind faith put in his friends. but honestly it reads more to me that yusuke's giving them a chance to die together on the battlefield. them winning would be great, but it's not his goal. it's a pipe dream.

he knows he's going to be killed. they're probably going to be killed, too. but to make it so they last a little longer against sensui, to make the odds a little more even, so they are killed not like livestock, but like worthy fighters, he'd die a little faster. it's the best kind of death someone like them can have; and he'll deprive himself of it just to make their ends a little sweeter. even if the road to that is far more bitter.

but it's not like yusuke's friends know what he's thinking or agree to it, and he can't exactly make his case for it in the moment. he's making that choice for them. whatever his intentions, whatever odds he thinks they have of beating sensui, he's kind of sealing all of their fates. so how the hell is he supposed to acknowledge kuwabara screaming at him not to die, trying desperately to express what yusuke means to him in what could be their final moments together? this plan is going to hurt his friends terribly. it is already doing so, and he can hear it. his choices to stop koenma from using the mafukan and to die for his friends' strength are both selfish in some way, no matter how you read the scene. if yusuke comforts kuwabara, he might not get strong enough. if he twists the knife, well... how could he forgive himself? and either way by responding he would have to face them all and say yes, i'm doing this regardless of your feelings (with the intention of hurting you). so i think he does what he often does. he avoids it. he lets that emotion glance off him and his bravado and his one-liners so he doesn't have to deal with the fact that he's hurting people, that he's scared and guilty and unsure of himself. that he's about to die again, about to put kuwabara through the grief he saw at his wake again, only worse; about to put his quieter friends through something similar.

yusuke is confronted with the responsibility one has to the people who care for them, and he runs from it in an attempt to give them some small peace. just like when he died before and thought hey, at least my mom and keiko won't be burdened by me anymore. because the only thing he can really do for them is die.

[skateisawesome]

at what point is an intro post necessary?

OH WELL HERE IT IS!

my name is skate, im a minor, im a girl, i use she/her pronouns and i have no idea what im doing!!

im in my last year of highschool so im a very busy girl and i will complain about school

some fun facts about me are: i play 5 instruments and sing, i like reading, my favourite season is winter, i speak a fair amount of french and italian and i can crochet.

my music taste includes: taylor swift, harry styles, hozier, lana del rey, one direction, that band honey, mitski, muse, deftones, ed sheeran, jack hartman and many others (also i love to talk about music btw)

im also mentally ill so just prepare yourself for that!

most of my posts are about my life i guess but i love the whole osemanverse (mostly solitaire) and will post about it. i am in a phase of watching random movies at the moment so expect some of that too.

my asks are open and i love answering literally anything and if you ask a question ill probably fall in love with you or smth

my tags are 'skate has words' for my writing 'skate answers' for answering asks and 'skate rants!' for rants obviouslyyyy

also my messages are open and, yes, i am extremely awkward, i would LOVE to be friends !! i need to add that i am very unwell sometimes for long periods of time and will sometimes just not respond to messages. i am sorry but ill get there eventually.

if youre gonna be mean to pretty much anyone i dont really want you here. just dont be an asshole guys.

anyway have a good day !! :)

[sasaranurude]

I'm a loser who both spends too much time playing gacha games and loves to hear myself talk, so here's another game review style post, this time covering my first day playing Break My Case. This time I'm not even being a little hater! I'm a lover! I'm cringe! I'm free! I love you Coly! I love you ikemen gacha games!!!!!!!

Break My Case is a new puzzle-music-adventure mobile game from Coly, the developers behind Mahoutsukai no Yakusoku and On Air. More relevant to BMC/BreMai is their game Stand My Heroes, with which it shares a writer, some gameplay elements, and of course a naming convention. Coly has developed a bit of a cult following for their unique status in the Japanese mobile gaming world: they're a company that was founded by women and hires women to make games for women. They put a lot of soul into their games. From the start, BMC is no different!

"Could you have pulled a clean version of this image from the internet so it didn't have all the game junk" no. it's my tumblr and you get my screenshots.

I (with help from friends) overviewed the initial Break My Case announcement back when it dropped. You can read that here! I said in that post that I thought a "dark rhythm game" would be a really cool direction for the game… and that's more or less what we got! GO ME!!!!!

First: the game's presentation is fantastic. Super slick graphical design and just amazing atmosphere. The sound design of this game is incredible. Genuinely. Really, really, good. All the music is amazing—I'm not knowledgeable enough to say anything other than "IT SLAPS!", but it totally does slap. The illustrations for the cards are all wonderfully atmospheric in and of themselves, and are just a delight to look at on the homescreen with its chill background music. Even just navigating menus is a sleek, seamless experience. The live2d is well-done, although it clashes a tad with the art style for a bit of an uncanny look at times. 

The atmosphere! The atmospheeeeeeere!!!

Of course, the draw to this game is the characters and story, so let's jump into that. I'll admit right now that I read the story through a machine translation—I have aaaalmost enough Japanese knowledge to fill in the gaps, especially since the story is fully voiced, but I'm definitely not getting the full nuance of the story that someone fluent in Japanese is going to get. THAT SAID, after completing the prologue, I was definitely intrigued enough that I want to continue slogging through the MTL just to read more! There's a great setup, centered around the bar Aporia and its three modes—a daytime cafe, a nighttime members-only bar, and, secretly, a "fixer" service who'll help anyone with any problem. Our main character, a woman who was just forced to quit her job at a corrupt company, gets hired to replace Aporia's eccentric owner while he goes on a who-knows-how-long vacation. The owner also has the role of "tail"—as in, the tail a lizard sheds to avoid being eaten. If anything in the fixer service goes wrong, it's the owner who takes the fall and the blame. This hasn't come to mean much in practice yet in the (quite short) prologue, but it's a fascinating setup. The story promises to touch on themes of the threads that weave our lives together, how small meetings can lead to massive life changes, and whether any human being is truly replaceable, even in our modern corporate world where people are treated like cogs in a machine. According to a staff interview, there are a handful of references to Stand My Heroes in BreMai, but the games' settings aren't otherwise closely linked.

Rough translation in alt text. The Aporia manager Ai may be the most mysterious, intimidating character, but he also beefs with a parrot the first time you meet him, so...

All the characters are staff at Aporia with various unique roles and background. The prologue just gives you a little bit of each of them, but everyone does show up, and they all have interesting dynamics with each other already. Ai, the stern manager, has some history with the MC that he refuses to divulge, and goes so far as to force psychologist Riku to agree to not look into it. The range of relationships among the staff run the gamut from the calm and mature friendship between fortune teller Kiho and art teacher Kyoya, to the unfaltering dedication of Yu to his ex-mafioso savior Tomose, to the ridiculous Takeru and Soyogu who spend their first appearance waking up after having gotten black-out drunk together the night before. My favorite dynamic of all so far is that of Kou and Mao—Kou is a playboy who insists he's not a playboy, and is introduced evading a woman by… asking the icy Mao to pretend to be his boyfriend so that she thinks he's taken and gay and leaves him alone. Which Mao exasperatedly agrees to, telling Kou that he's used up his allotment for this month which ohmygod how often does Kou do this. Kou if you're asking this guy to pretend to be your gay lover so often he gives you a monthly limit I think you might just have to admit you want him to actually be your gay lover, Kou, oh my god— 

Rough TL in alt text. Kou is letting the implication do all the heavy lifting here. He technically never said he was dating Mao. Technically. 

On to the gameplay. There's gameplay! Unique gameplay! Good unique gameplay! Oh my god, uncharted joseimuke territory! The main gameplay mode is a match-3 puzzle game with rhythm elements. As in other rhythm games, each song in the game is its own level, more or less. (Each character has two unique songs, and three songs shared with the other members of their unit.) You set up a team with cards you've collected from the gacha, which determine your power level and special skills. The "leader" of the team has to be the character whose level you've selected. The puzzle gameplay is a tile-swapping match 3—think bejeweled or candy crush—but the tiles you've matched are only cleared once a bar sliding across the screen hits them, clearing them in tune with the song. Everything cleared in a single swipe of the bar ups the combo counter. There's also a life system, where if the bar slides across the screen without clearing a single match, you lose a life… But the bar moves pretty slow. You're not likely to game over or even lose a single life any time soon. There are more difficult versions of the levels I've yet to unlock, so I'm sure the life meter becomes relevant then. There's also "auto" and "loop" features if you want to grind a level over and over for exp and items, but, of course, the computer can't score as high as you playing it yourself.

And, really, it's fun to play, so why would you want to!? The sound of matches clearing with the music is so satisfying and really makes you want to combo as high as possible. Once you've matched some tiles, you can't move them again, nor use them in a second match (eg, in a cross shape), so if you want to maximize your combo and make as many matches as possible with what's on the board, you have to think ahead about which matches you're going to make. The bar slowly crossing the screen adds a visual timed element that gives some urgency to putting all the matches together. It definitely feels like a game you can pick up an instinct for over time, which is super fun. 

All in all, a really solid, enjoyable little puzzle game. It would be fun to play even without the promise of anime boys. Stand My Heroes is also a match-3, for the record, which is what really cements the two games as being part of the same series.

Admittedly, the anime boy staring at you while you play musical candy crush is a little disconcerting.

The second gameplay mode is "Snap'n Spin", a… gameplay-lite mode that just puts chibi characters in random strange situations and lets you take pictures of them. The mode is explained to be a video game within the world of BreMai, so it's not even trying to be realistic or relevant to anything else in the game. Once you take your pokemon snaps of the boys, they get a fun little caption. You can save up to 40 pictures in your album. Other than being cute, the main way this mode interfaces with the rest of the game is that it's the primary way to unlock card stories for the cards you pulled in gacha. 

This gameplay mode is... cute? I guess? It being so disconnected from the style and aesthetics of the entire rest of the game felt weird. The chibis are adorable, so it has that going for it. And I do like some of the captions you get on the photos afterwards. My favorite were the scenes you catch of a character drinking, and then the caption reveals their current favorite drink. That's a delightful detail for a game set in a bar. Mostly, though, this mode left me wondering "why?" ...And I imagine the answer is something like "because merchandisable chibi characters are a requirement for joseimuke games." This mode could've been anything so long as these cute, starry little dudes were in it.

Urara here hated the drink and the caption revealed that, lately, his favorite thing is sparkling water. He's the youngest character in the cast, so I guess he hasn't grown into booze yet...

One last feature I want to mention is the jukebox. Like many games, BreMai has a music player that lets you listen to tracks from the game… But its music player is, genuinely, a fully-featured music player app with shuffle, repeat, lyric displays, and even background play that works when you're in another app or your phone is off. What! Wild! When I first learned a few days ago that BreMai had a built-in player for its BGM tracks, my first thought was "Well, what's stopping someone from downloading the game just to use the music player and never spending a cent on it? Wouldn't you rather have the songs on spotify so you at least get a pittance of ad revenue, in that case? It's more than nothing."

But having played the game now, I see what they did to prevent that, lol. You don't unlock the songs in the jukebox until you get an SS score on the song's level. Which, I mean, that's normal rhythm game stuff, of course. Can't fault that decision. But, as in other gacha rhythm games, your score in a level depends on the power of your team of cards, and the cards you get from the initial handful of pulls aren't gonna get you anywhere near an SS score without significant investment. So you're either buying in-game currency to buy upgrade items, more gacha pulls, or both. Of course, you can also put a bunch of time into grinding for upgrade items—they drop from levels. Gacha currency is harder to come by. So you're not getting songs in the player without actually playing the game lmfao. The character solo songs in particular (the ones with vocals rather than just instrumentals) also require you to build up rapport with that character—the game calls it "Nice". You build up Nice with them by playing their other songs and using their cards in levels. It takes 1000 Nice on a character to unlock their song. In my first day of playing, I was able to get one character to about 250 Nice, another to 200, and a handful more with a few points, so it builds at an okay pace. There's ways to pay to speed up the grinding for Nice and for upgrade items with things like level skip tickets. So, basically: you're not getting that music player to a useful state without investing either money or time, lmao. Is paying-or-grinding to get cool music you can listen to while not playing the game more "worth it" than the usual freemium game goals of better units, new in-game outfits, or prettier card illustrations? ...Honestly, maybe it is? It's novel, at least.

All gacha rhythm games have the same card select screen, don't they. These were my cards' levels after my first day of play, and you can see they didn't quite reach a suggested score of "A", much less the maximum "SS".

But I do want to stress, the monetization is, for the most part, pretty easy to ignore. Nothing in-your-face. The button to go to the shop screen is a different color, but it's not flashing with an eternal indicator, it's not popping up at every second, it's just sitting there alongside all the other menu buttons. The game isn't shoving timers in your face at all times—there's a stamina meter, which is mildly annoying, but you get ten plays when it's full, and if you're just playing casually you're probably not going to want to play the puzzle game over and over enough to fully deplete that. I know the bar is on the damn floor here but Tokyo Debunker seriously made me realize how bad it can be with mobile game monetization. BreMai is freemium, yeah, but as far as dark patterns go, it's not egregiously bad.

So, the verdict: if you're a joseimuke game fan and aren't afraid to play a game that probably won't get an English port and doesn't even have a fan translation yet (which I realize is already counting out 99.99% of people), definitely give this one a try. See if you like the gameplay—it really is worth trying—and do check out the story if you've got the ability. Or just look at the pretty anime boys. 

[silverislander]

i'm thiiiiis close to just blocking the whole j/v tag and/or the individual tags for both characters :)))

[thegreatyin]

the adventures of the neath's most annoying definitely-totally-a-bat-and-not-the-scoundrel-in-a-robe continue (cards. their name is mr cards. or so they insist.)

this time: coworker antics. tune in next week on dragon ball Z where we'll be killing all of them with hammers