#urban fall out gacha

[bleachbleachbleach]

A Collection of Joe Shinigami Who Definitely Exist

It is currently some godforsaken hour in ORD and my connecting flight does not leave for another three hours, I've crossed into the twilight zone, and I only feel mentally and physically capable of two things: composing a ranking of every airport I have ever been to, or listing "actual people I've experienced in the last 36 hours that would make for excellent Joe Shinigami."

I don't think the airport ranking would be that interesting, because most airports are "idk? 2/5 due to their being an airport," so:

Joe Shinigami who has, over the centuries, composed a definitive ranking of senkaimon he has experienced, despite the fact that aside from the gate facade they all open into very literally the exact same liminal space (but is liminal space ever the same? oOoOoO)

Married Couple Joe Shinigami who operate two identically named tea shops on two parallel streets separated by only a couple of blocks, and routinely call each other and send customers between the two, creating their own strange parallel universe/temporal-spatial wormhole in the Seireitei's commercial district

Joe Shinigami standing on an urban doorstep describing supernatural encounters to each other, until one affects a comic sitcom voice and says "but it's nothin' compared to comin' home to the missus!" (I feel like these are probably bottom-ranked 4th Division goons that Unohana has sent off on "fieldwork" in the vein of Af-san.)

Joe Shinigami who has comprehensive knowledge of all the points multipliers and Gold/Silver/Platinum/secret Titanium membership clubs that comprise the complicated world of the Gotei's Hollow bounty system. (Seriously, I had dinner the other night with a guy who had comprehensive knowledge for American credit card and hotel rewards programs. It sounded like Pokemon and he talked, with a straight face, about working his way toward lifetime Platinum status with some hotel chain because "all you needed to do" was spend 500 nights in one of their hotel properties over the course of X years, without falling below a certain threshold Y annually or failing to re-up in consecutive years. It sounded like gacha for hotels.)

Joe Shinigami who runs a tea shop and partners with farmers in whatever Rukongai's equivalent of Taiwan is (in my version of Rukongai, I guess this is somewhere in East Rukongai, but not the part of it that either line of the East Rukongai Soul Train runs through). She refers to both tea masters and Gotei captains/VCs as "weird creatures" and has strong opinions about Rukongai farmers' cooking, specifically because if you don't like the dish one night and there are leftovers, they just serve the same thing the next night--literally the same thing, and they don't believe in refrigeration out there, so it's taken on a flavor. But this matters substantially more to a shinigami than it does to a soul in bumfuck Rukongai, because only one of these entities needs to eat it.

This is getting away from Joe Shinigami profiles, but re: Taiwanese Tea Joe Shinigami, the way she talked about tea reminded me very much of how I think some people would talk about reiatsu, and I feel like Reiatsu Appreciation Class at the Academy takes the form of the instructor having a selection of upperclassmen assistants wrap/infuse their reiatsu into cups of water, because pairing it with the water makes it easier to externalize/conceptualize and ultimately practice evaluating and eventually manipulating, in terms of reiryoku/reiatsu fluid dynamics, and in terms of the ways reiatsu (like tea) can change the experiential properties of the water, making it feel more "slippery," or dry, or move differently in the mouth, etc.

[matt-lifesage]

Matt’s 2023 Visual Novel Tier List

Another year, another tier list/countdown of all the visual novels I read!

(two-thousand words of inconsistently distributed visual novel rambling below the cut)

Honorable Mentions:

I read a couple mobile game stories via youtube videos that are worth talking about but don't really belong on this list. Anyway, I’m slowly on-again off-again catching up to Arknights (almost halfway through it all the last time I checked), and it's been solid, my personal favorite story being Guide Ahead. But the real honor goes to FGO’s Lostbelt 6. A triumph from Kinoko Nasu and the folks over at Type-Moon. One of the best high fantasy epic novels I've ever read, hidden away three hundred hours into a gacha game for extra emphasis. A genuine highlight of the franchise, and if it was eligible for my own list where I make all the rules (hey, wait a minute...), it would be somewhere in S-Tier.

D-Tier

The Humbling of a Holy Maiden

Kicked off this year with some nukige. I’ve been meaning to check out more of the genre to have proper expectations and to know what I’m actually talking about if the subject ever came up (also checked out more of the genre for the obvious reason, but shush!). Frankly, not a good start.

Our tagline is basically, “What if the degrading corruption arc of the holy maiden archetype was consensual?” Nothing groundbreaking but still potentially enjoyable. Shame this game’s execution couldn’t muster even middling entertainment. Between erotic scenes, the game repeats the same meandering attempt at a philosophical conversation between the flatly written leads, who both never feel like even they can take what they’re saying seriously. It wouldn’t be too bad if it happened once or twice, but it’s *every* conversation. They did this a dozen times. Even in a visual novel as short as this, it was mind-numbing. Unfortunately, the erotic scenes aren’t much of a relief. I didn’t share the priorities/kinks of the creators, and even if I did, I would probably find the sex a samey and dull representation of them. This game was a chore to sit through. I don’t recommend.

Also, the heroine’s ‘slutty’ design looks like two clashing sets of lingerie worn on top of each other, and it’s wildly distracting.

Coffee Talk

I’m noticing an annual trend of me reading VNs that assume I have a far more positive connotation with coffee shops than I actually do.

So… I don’t want to make too many comparisons to a certain cyberpunk bartender simulator, especially when those opinions would be based on six-years-removed, nostalgically-charged fond memories of a game I desperately need to reexperience. I went into this Coffee Talk acknowledging it's a pastiche but willing to accept its own identity and terms so I could give it a fair shot and hopefully enjoy myself.

With that being said, I kinda hated this.

Its characters and drama range from enjoyable to mildly unfortunate, mostly nothing too interesting but nothing too egregious either--with Freya, the most frequently appearing character, being our infuriating exception.

The game touches on some mature themes and topics, but more often than not, Coffee Talk’s hokey one-for-one urban fantastical allegories are weighty in the same way that inflatable dumbbells are *technically* weights. The game is so obsessed with these close metaphors that the setting fails to feel remotely believable. And because real-life identities or struggles are recast with the likes of vampires and orcs, it falls into many of the common and frustrating insensitivities of the genre.

Shout out to the art team, though. The game’s presentation is top-notch.

C-Tier

Cute Demon Crashers [reread]

I read this like eight or so years back when it first came out and wanted to see if it held up, so I slapped it on one random night and went through it all again.

Didn’t really have a good time. I’m not the target audience for this. Comfy vanilla might as well be the name of the game, and it’s very, VERY, targeted to an audience looking specifically for that. Full power to them. I can’t complain because it’s literally free. I just didn’t expect to be so immediately bored by it, even if it’s not really doing anything wrong.

Who is the Red Queen?

A quick read with some good stuff, but it didn’t stick around in my head for long after reading it. It feels weird to complain about a free indie game created by people more skilled than myself, but a chunk of the art didn’t sell the Wonderland aesthetic for me. It was fine, but I might have preferred it if it was just a text game so my imagination would interpret the world as even more ethereal and dreamlike in a way generic fantasy backgrounds didn't reflect.

If you're specifically looking for a free-to-play Alice in Wonderland-themed Yuri visual novel, it's a good one. Maybe give it a try.

Coffee Talk Episode 2

Ever read the sequel just to be a more informed hater?

In all fairness, this was a big improvement on the first game. The sequel starts with some basic world-building. There's still obvious parallels in play, but there is a little work to paint this as a separate world this time where similar issues arose, something the first game barely even tried. It doesn’t always work, but it does try, which makes it less open for me to interpret uncharitably.

A second improvement is new mechanics. I don’t think the first game fully earned its last-minute twist, but Episode 2's additional gameplay verbs, plus more significant story deviations to incentivize replay and trial-and-error, does a better job at selling the fiction that the barista has an actual effect in the characters' lives.

Finally, the characters and drama were overall improvements. It's more interesting, less cliche, and there’s a stronger thematic core to tie the desperate arcs together. The highs are higher, and the lows aren’t as low.

That said, while the execution was improved, it never escaped the same foundational approaches as the first game. The urban fantasy allegories are better, but it's still hit or miss. There's still the ever-prevalent issue of halfway through a lovely scene with likable characters discussing their interesting drama, all characters involved will turn to the camera and start speaking in the unnatural cadence of a monologue in an afterschool special. Today's very important topic: Social media harassment! Garth Marenghi would be proud. However, even that element is much better handled than the first game which literally had a character smugly declaring all of this was a one-for-one allegory to our world, JUST IN CASE YOU DIDN'T GET IT.

After my distaste for the first game, I was pleasantly surprised by the sequel. It avoids the grating mistakes of Episode 1, but it's still too sanctimonious and I'll never vibe with its brand of gentrified twee.

Sweet Home ~H na Onee-san wa Suki Desu ka?~

Our final nukige of the list is Sweet Home. No, not the 1989 video game. No, not the movie that was based on. Not the webcomic either. (Gosh, there’s a lot of media sharing this title, huh?) 

If bland 'self-insert'-kun moving back in with his stepmom and having braindead sexy times with her roommates (plus some stepcest thrown in for spice) sounds like something you’d enjoy, then this one’s pretty a’ight. Mileage will vary if smut intended for the heterosexual male audience is even palatable to you. The game’s a quantity-over-quality situation, so you'll get plenty of it in this package for better or for worse. It got on my radar 'cause I dig how its artist, Kiriyama Taichi, drew ladies. I like their product. Probably wouldn’t have liked the game if a worse artist had been in charge--just to give you a taste of how shallow my enjoyment was lol. Consider any other game they were the artist for somewhere down in my TBR somewhere.

Ironically, for a game that’s whole fantasy is fucking (slightly) older ladies, my favorite route was the same-aged tsundere, probably because ‘childhood friend who's been repressing feels’ has more angst to it than 'new roommate wanted to see my dick.' After three of those routes, a crumb of drama might as well be a whole cake.

I couldn’t recommend paying full price. I think the asking price is too steep for this. Wait for a sale like I did.

The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog

I’m not a Sonic fan, so despite this being incredibly charming and well done, it didn't have any staying power in my mind. Still good fun, though. It’s rare for "joke" games to be quality, and even if I'm not the target audience, the passion was infectious enough to still enjoy it.

B-Tier

You and Me and Her

This was a solid and fun metafiction experience. Faux fourth wall breaking isn’t my preference (besides, it was already perfected in the 1971 seminal literary classic The Monster at the End of This Book), I respond better to the flavor of metafiction you’ll find in Umineko or Alan Wake, but for what You and Me and Her was going for, it's pretty well-executed. Spoilers, but having a spiteful rivalry with a fictional character is a blast.

While I had a good time, I thought You and Me and Her missed an opportunity to expand its commentary outside the scope of a fourth-wall-breaking “what-if.” Several times through my playthrough, the game felt like it was on the verge of using its premise to explore amatonormativity and heteronormatity, but it never really did, and I was left twiddling my thumbs, feeling like I was unfairly expecting too much.

On that note, however, about a month after playing this game, I read the manhwa Surviving Romance--a very different exploration of the romance genre via different mediums. But it gave me that subtle yet poignant commentary I felt was lacking from You and Me and Her, so I’m using this spot to recommend that comic. It’s super solid. Go track down and read it. It’d be up in A-Tier if I kept track of and ranked the comics I read.

It gets so lonely here

A really well-done yandere horror experience. It has pretty art, tightly written, and does some fun things with its narrative structure. If you want a solid, free-to-play, and spooky yuri VN, I highly recommend this one. Go download it.

I think this game might have ranked higher during a different year, but the cut-off between A-Tier and B-Tier had to go somewhere.

A-Tier

The Radio Wave Bureau

A short, super cool interactive fiction about fixing your computer. We’re at the point with some of these where I don’t have much to say other than “go read it,” but this game is short enough it’s hard to talk about in a way that doesn’t speak for itself. It's like twenty minutes long. I really dug it. Go play it.

Milk outside a bag of milk outside a bag of milk

A beautiful and melancholic expansion for the first game. A character piece that elevates Milk and Milk 2 to 'must read' status. It’s difficult to rank which one I prefer since both enhance each other via contrast. While I adore this game’s detailed introspection, if I had to pick a favorite, it would have to be the simplicity of--

Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk

It's another read that's only around twenty minutes long, but no other VNs have ever grabbed me by the throat with their premise alone. Both these games are incredible and vulnerable slice-of-life works. Put them on your TBR.

S-Tier

Tsukihime -A piece of blue glass moon-

I made like a hundred posts about it. What else can I say?

Arcueid’s route on its own was the best VN experience I had this year. List over. That goes at the top beyond the next two entries. Sorry, not sorry. It was a beautiful, perfected reboot of the story. I loved everything about it. It made me fall in love with Shiki and Arcueid all over again. If we count the false start back in college when I didn’t get halfway through the original VN, the two times I’ve read Tsukihime all the way through, plus the twice I’ve read the manga adaptation, this was the SIXTH time I experienced this particular story. And I cried at the end. It’s that good.

Now, if I love that route as much as I do, why, you may ask, is this entry only third place? ‘Cause Remake is only half of a remake, and it really does feel like it. Not only do we not have Far Side yet, but there’s also a whole Tsukihime-worth of new stuff, half of which hasn’t been paid off yet either, so there’s a pervasive incompleteness that isn’t really a flaw with the game, but will bug me until we get the next part. Also, I wasn’t as blown away by Ciel’s route as other fans were. It turns out it becomes more obvious that I don't relate to Shiki in Ciel’s route nearly as much as I did to him in Arcueid's once you take what was basically the last four hours of the original and expand it to an almost forty-hour new story. Still love it, btw, but it’s only a 'Really really good OMG go read it' story, instead of a modern magnum opus from Nasu (what a disappointment, am I right? lol)

Anyway, this game is a triumph that met my overhyped expectations. I can’t wait to see what Nasu and the gang have planned for in -The other side of red garden-.

The House in Fata Morgana

Welp, that’s just special, innit. Michel and Giselle have planted themselves among some of my favorite leads of all time. The entire cast is strong across all the incarnations of the house. While the first act is still good, once the narrative behind the anthology format is revealed and the whole context comes into play, it becomes a fantastic tragic romance and a beautiful rumination on evil. It almost gets a bit sanctimonious near the end, but it doesn't fall into obvious narrative pitfalls. Considering the premise of the final act, it's appropriate, so I'll give it a pass.

Yet another classic that meets the hype.

WE KNOW THE DEVIL [reread]

On a technicality, this was the best magical girl VN I read all year too.

The top three VNs were neck-and-neck for the ranking, but I gotta give it to this one. It's short, but I think on every level of intent and execution, this game's incredible. A beautiful aesthetic. A creative and haunting choice/route system. Vibes for days. There are no caveats to be found here. I can't think of anyone I wouldn't recommend this to. Read it. I'm not asking.

And that’s 2023! I’m going to try rereading Va-11 Hall-A in January now that Coffee Talk is fresh in my mind. Sometime after that, I’ll get back to 428--I feel really bad I left it hanging after the tutorial. As always, I hope to get through my downloaded backlog but I also plan on reading a few more Nitro+ games and my first AliceSoft title. Stay tuned!

[closetdreamsinsl]

Don´t talk, just walk with me...

Here we go:

Hair: .Princess Stuff. [Katharina Hair] [Ombre Set - Groupgift/Fee 88Ls]

Heels: N-core IDYLLA "Fatpack" [Free Groupgift/Fee 199Ls]

Dress: Seniha Orginals [Free Lucky Letter Gift 0L]

Necklace: Clef de Peau Outlet.Mia Necklace. [Free was at K9 Anniversary a Gift. 0Ls]

Coat: ISON - not free

Glasses: Pure Poison - Floria Sunglasses 

Dog: Foxes - Urban Fallout - Hound - White RARE [Gacha Item - not free]

-

Meshhead & Eyes: Genus

Skin & Makeup: 7Deadly Sins [Groupgift/Fee to join]

Makeup: 7Deadly Sins [Groupgift/Fee to join]

Body & Shape: Maitreya & my own ;)

[clarste]

listen-and-reflect replied to your post:

Um, just wondering, why aren't you around much...

… I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on Arknights. I’ve paid no attention to it whatsoever, but if it impresses you, I’m curious.

To boil it down to its component elements, I’d describe Arknights as “urban fantasy catgirl tower defense gacha.” If any of those words viscerally disgust you, there’s probably not much I can do to convince you otherwise, but personally that was enough to intrigue me. And what I found when I tried it surprised me in a good way. Honestly I’ve been struggling for like a month for how to talk about this, but for the purposes of this post I’ll boil it down to three major elements: Aesthetics, Worldbuilding, and Gameplay.

First of all the Aesthetics. Might as well start with a picture or three:

For the record, yes, 90% of the characters in this game are women, and there’s no explanation for that, that’s just how it is. I am 100% fine with that because I am a Touhou fan. Anyway, what I want to draw attention to is the way these women are portrayed. IE: they are posed/costumed to be seen as “cool” and while they certainly aren’t unattractive, it isn’t in a horny way that emphasizes their breasts or butts or anything. It’s not a perfect “practical clothing only,” I mean high heels aren’t great for fighting and there are other characters who show more skin, but the philosophy carries through in all the official art: these are cool, capable women who are never once reduced to sex objects for the male gaze. I respect that.

Also you don’t get to marry any of them which is a huge plus in my book.

It’s hard to say any more on that without moving on to the Worldbuilding. Basically, the world of Arknights is both blessed and cursed with a magical rock called Originium which is the source of all their problems. First of all it’s a miraculous power source, the resource that fuels the engine of modern society. Not only that but it can be used as a medium to cast actual magic spells (which is of course a well-studied phenomenon that’s treated as a science). On the other hand, its very presence warps the environment, causing large-scale city-destroying natural disasters on a regular basis. And more importantly for the conceit of the narrative, it can get in your blood, eventually causing an incurable disease called Oripathy which involves your body slowing turning into crystal from the inside out. Basically magic rock cancer. Later stages of it involve visible “crystal lesions” growing on the skin, but even internal growths can have serious medical problems. This is sometimes shown in character designs too:

This is important to the worldbuilding because “The Infected” are a major source of discrimination and political unrest. Oripathy is only mildly contagious (you’re more likely to get it from mishandling the rocks directly), but the stigma of it is such that anyone with Oripathy is immediately quarantined, exiled, or worse. Both the player characters and their enemies are generally Infected, with the “good guys” (scare quotes intended) being a medical institute that takes in patients to treat the symptoms and vaguely hoping for a cure someday, while the “bad guys” are revolutionaries violently overthrowing the society that treats them as subhuman. There are analogies you could make to HIV, leprosy, or heck even current events with COVID-19.

Anyway, I say all this so I can turn to the in-game character profiles and how they’re structured. Specifically, they’re all medical reports written by the doctors of your institute (who are themselves playable characters who are Medics in-game):

(Incidentally everyone uses codenames in this game). Anyway, my point is that these are not neutral, objective “word-of-god” profiles, these are the facts as they appear to some particular person in-universe. In Touhou terms, these are written by Akyuu: some clinical facts mixed in with rumors and speculation. And I absolutely love that.

More than that though, we get this amazing invention:

Why yes, that is an in-game chart of all the characters’ relationships, grouped by people who belong to the same organization, that fills in as you play. And yes, raising trust with characters by using them does fill in the names of people close to them who you haven’t met yet, as well as new connections to unknown people. Who is friends with Croissant?! I must know!

Er... Anyway, I think having this chart in-game is quite frankly a genius move on the part of the developers, since it gets you immediately invested in seeing how the characters are connected. But wait, there’s more! When you pull a dupe from the gacha, you get a little token that can be used to upgrade a character slightly, pretty normal. But even these little tokens have tiny bits of story on them!

These are the items that are important to these characters, and they can change the way you see them. Every little thing in this game has story attached to it! It’s incredible! And they actually tell stories with these things. There’s one in particular that fascinates me (and others), but unfortunately I have exactly 0 of the characters involved so I’ll have to pull quotes from the wiki.

There are three characters from a faction called Rhine Lab: Ifirit, Saria, and Silence. The details are pretty vague, but basically Ifrit is an Infected child with incredible Originium channeling powers who’s been experimented on, and Saria and Silence are two doctors who were involved in those experiments but had a falling out after an experiment gone wrong. But how does the game tell you this? Well, lots of ways. Saria’s profile is the most explicit:

The relationship between Lady Saria and Rhine Lab is very complicated. Though all Rhine Lab Operators who work with Rhodes Island show some amount of respect for Lady Saria, Rhine Lab's Medic Operator, Silence, shows nothing but hatred for her. At the same time, Lady Saria appears unsurprised by Silence's feelings toward her. Whenever Lady Saria attempts to talk with Caster Operator Ifrit, Silence gets in the way. According to available information, the animosity between Saria and Silence stems from an experiment at Rhine Lab led by Silence. The experiment was an unfortunate failure. Lady Saria acted alone in suppressing the experimental materials that had gone out of control. Similarly, because of this experiment's mishaps, Lady Saria left Rhine Lab. It is not known why she chose to cooperate with Rhodes Island after leaving Rhine Lab.

But then you have Ifrit and Silence’s tokens:

A long novel telling a legendary story. It is badly burned and you can only barely make out the words.

A patterned feather decoration. This ineloquent researcher from Liberi shows her sincerity by gifting her own feathers.

But oh gee, guess who are wearing feather tokens in the designs?  (it’s Ifrit and Saria)

Also here’s Silence just so you aren’t left wondering what she looks like:

Anyway, the point is that the writers know how to throw tiny bits of characterization and hints of an untold story into literally everything in this game, and that is exactly what I live for.

Oh yeah, there’s also Gameplay.

Game’s pretty fun:

I enjoy it as a game too.

[ephemeralityonline]

The Last American Hero in Liminal Spaces (1/1/21; A review of the James Ferraro bootleg "Deleted Schemes")

James Ferraro is an American artist with a heavy emphasis on both "American" and "artist." His work often invokes the feeling of all things fake and uncanny in current American capitalism. Whether it be the movie set desert of Speed or the faux leather sheen of God of London, Ferraro is always trying to capture the essence of certain scenes in a post-Google world. However, it is impossible to properly convey his artistry in just one project. Ferraro is simultaneously self-parodying while staying deadly serious about the subject matter. He insists none of his work is ironic and all of it comes from a genuine place which is surprisingly believable. To say his work is purely satirical would take away from a lot of the nuance in some of the music. While tracks like "Trapped in a Hummer" and "Fidget Spinners (The Anthem)" have an obvious tongue-in-cheek nature to them, they don't feel cynical or holier-than-thou. Purely from a sonic standpoint, there's no denying James' range as a musician. With everything hypnagogic-pop/rock to RnB to ambient to rap, sometimes blending all of these genres together, he is able to maintain his signature style. Through the use of this compilation, the listener is able to not only see the blindingly joyful beauty in "☺ Earth Jump" but the vacant nightmare that is "God of London" as well. Despite "TV Lobotomy" being a lo-fi rock track and "Xerces Blau" being an ambient soundscape, they both contain a distinct elegiac quality about them. The shocking thing is that despite the compilation being mostly experimental music, there are some legitimately catchy and well-written moments all throughout, begging to be discovered in this almost nine-hour experience. In an old interview, Ferraro said this "Far Side Virtual mainly designates a space in society, or a mode of behaving. All of these things operating in synchronicity: like ringtones, flat-screens, theater, cuisine, fashion, sushi. I don't want to call it 'virtual reality,' so I call it Far Side Virtual. If you really want to understand Far Side, first off, listen to Debussy, and secondly, go into a frozen yogurt shop. Afterwards, go into an Apple store and just fool around, hang out in there. Afterwards, go to Starbucks and get a gift card. They have a book there on the history of Starbucks—buy this book and go home. If you do all these things you'll understand what Far Side Virtual is — because people kind of live in it already." While this quote was specifically about Far Side Virtual, I feel that it can apply to all of his work in the way he evokes emotions. There's a consistently post-ironic and contemporary feeling that makes a connection better than most traditional music. With each section, there is a unique style that falls under the aforementioned post-ironic digital ennui. The greasy cathode TV advertising fresh KFC (Brainteaser). A sleazy gas station selling dick pills and sex toys (Xerox Kamikaze). Plastic jungle props in a kids museum (Urban Avatar). A gun store in a cheap GTA clone (100% Rain). Some creep hanging at a nightclub when almost everyone has left (Trapped in a Hummer). The view of a chilled NYC skyline from all glass office (Imported Snow). A commercial for a cheesy RnB album during a national tragedy (Coked Sentinel). Copaganda in a beloved sci-fi film (Hollywood Pretender). Gacha games stealing your data (Pollution Techniques). Second Life avatars reaching nirvana (First World Decay Systems). While these are all my own personal interpretations of what the different sections evoke, the soundscapes (and in some cases lyrics) were potent enough for me to come up with such specific imagery. This is the first review I've done without a score. I usually think ratings are a good way to summarize your enjoyment of something into a symbol that is immediately recognizable but this project is so nebulous that by rating it, some of the magic will disappear for me. I can tell you my favorite sections were Imported Snow and Urban Avatar but I plead that you try a little bit everything.

I highly recommend this compilation whether you're already a fan of Ferraro's work or trying to get into him for the first time. Words can't describe some of the emotions in this compilation, listen to it.

Originally posted on my RYM account.

[nissakii]

"You can be a hero!" - The Strongest Hero BNHA Game Review

We’re so used to watching our favorite characters fight their battles and anime as we cheer them on relentlessly. We are always on the sidelines and hope they succeed in their endeavors, but we are never in the stories ourselves.

That has now changed with the new mobile game that came out recently based on the popular anime Boku no Hero Academia by Kohei Horiskoshi.

Welcome to: Boku no Hero Academia - The Strongest Hero.

Today, a week after the global release of the game, having played a little and explored some of its features, we will dive into what the game brings to the table, the mechanics of it and what you can expect!

Makii and I worked together on this, especially since we are both fans of BNHA and love to delve deep into these kinds of reviews.

So to start off, this game has had its global release on the 19th of May 2021 and was published by Sony Pictures Television for the US and by A PLUS JAPAN for the EU already on the 18th of the same month.

Many people have pre-registered for the game release beforehand in hopes of snagging rewards, and only quickly enough the first million downloads were established in a matter of days. No wonder at all, since BNHA is one of the most popular new generation anime. There is a huge fan base surrounding it who are eager to play the game.

Before the global release was initiated, it was released by the chinese studio Xin Yuan on December 3rd 2020, which resulted in many people using VPNs and emulators to experience the charm of ‘The Strongest Hero’. No wonder the game downloads skyrocketed when it was released globally in english (more languages such as german and french coming soon), it was recorded that the players had problems getting into overloaded servers, but those problems were quickly managed.

If you have no idea what the anime or manga of BNHA is about but are still interested, let me give you a quick synopsis.

In a world where 80% of the population are born with mutant abilities called “Quirks”, the job of the superhero became more than just a fantasy in comics. Now, the police are second rate as everyone looks up to the heroes who support and save the world.

Izuku Midoriya, also known by his nickname ‘Deku’, is one of the few Quirkless humans but still admires hero-work like nobody else.

Until one day the tables turn and he ends up with his own new power, now ready to go to renowned U.A. highschool for heroes to become what he always wanted to be: someone who saved lives with a smile on his face.

Now in this game, you are the one who steps into the shoes of a young aspiring hero who wants to climb up the ladder of success and defeat all villains in your way while protecting your people.

Are you stoked now? Let’s find out more!

The Game:

Advertised as an action MMO-RPG, The Strongest Hero brings not only one but multiple different player modes that you can enjoy alone or with friends online!

Firstly, it’s an immersive story-telling game that lets you relive the actual plot of the anime Boku no Hero Academia so spoiler alert for the ones who haven’t watched it yet, this game will be dealing with the Deku’s story throughout it all.

It starts off with the first episode of the anime, showing us recaps and recreations of the anime but in the game-animation with small bits of interaction to refresh our memory on the fateful incidents that made Deku a true hero. With this retelling of the story, avid watchers of the anime can enjoy everything again from a new perspective, and new people with no knowledge of BNHA can still enjoy the game just as much.

It was even mentioned that the story campaign will be dealing with the contents of season one to three so far, with more already in planning.

So the developers made sure that the game is not only catered to its original fanbase, but to everybody out there!

Now with Deku as the first person you play as, we fast forward to Izuku who is more advanced in his skill set, as he already uses his original ‘shoot-style’ and One for All Full Cowling. You’re now a provisional Hero who just got his license, working for your own agency and completing missions all around town, meaning there is a little skip between the beginning of the game and where you actually start in Honei City.

The open-world is huge and leaves all sorts of possibilities to explore as you not only defeat villains, but also talk to the citizens and maybe even collect trash to fulfill your duty as a hero. Not only Deku is at your disposal, but currently a lot of other class 1-A students will soon fall into your hands! As Toshinori was released as a hero in the last update on May 26th we can assume that there are more to come.

Game modes:

Single player: As previously mentioned, the game will immediately lead you through the single player story campaign, as you try to keep the city safe and sound by defeating villains and completing missions.

There are next to the main-story missions the daily missions in which you ensure the city’s prosperity to get more rewards daily.

With this mode you can play with a multitude of skills and combos and the handling on the phone is very pleasant. With a left joystick on the touchscreen and skill buttons on the right you can activate the swift and powerful attacks that we already know from the anime.

There are also multiple things to do as a single-player as you can collect your daily supplies in several missions which you will need for training your hero, enhancing your gear and more limited to 20 runs for each supply with several difficulties.

Hero trials, commissions and even more features are all available despite being alone keeping you busy for a while, as some don’t even need stamina to fulfill since stamina limits the player in the missions they can do.

And if that is all too much action you can simply explore the city on your own and search for special items on your way.

This is extremely interesting for the ones who like to play at their own pace and alone to enjoy a mix of story-telling and hack n slash combat.

PvP: Contrary to the first mode, if you’re more interested in actually playing against others, ‘The Strongest Hero’ won’t disappoint in its Player vs. Player mode.

Even here we have multiple ways to play, as the Arena takes on a more classic 1 vs 1 feel in which you can defeat other players similar to other fighting-games, or the Super Co-Op battle which allows you to play 3 vs 3.

Soon we will also know what the mysterious War Zone Co-Op entails, as that feature is still to be launched.

Other Co-Op features are also the Agency assessment, the joint operation and Emergency.

Emergency shows us more of the work of a hero, in which you suddenly trigger an event that is of urgent matter and has to be completed with a team of other players quickly. Time runs out, and it is all about the true work of a hero where you have to act quick!

There is truly something for everyone in here

Not just an MMO:

Truly, this game is a lot more than just an MMO, even though its open-world is a huge part of it all.

To get your preferred heroes and play them, the game has a gacha system in place for you to pull for your luck!

Deku is in the player’s repertoire from the start, and his skill-set is very dynamic and swift with less damage but a lot more speed. His comments are just as loud as in the anime, and if that doesn’t give you any satisfaction do not worry! Every hero has his own fighting style and can be explored by playing the missions in which you will quickly deploy Denki Kaminari and Kirishima Eijiro.

The game differs between three types of heroes: Speed, Power and Technical as the three examples Deku, Kirishima and Denki already represent each respectively.

There is also knowledge that there will be Pro-heroes and even some villain characters in the mix.

The skills range extremely from heavy handed to swift or long to short range attacks. Just as varied as the fighting style is, we have beautiful animations that display the Quirks and many possibilities to use them.

Done with all the fighting? Look at the adorable dorm feature in which you can earn more stamina and organize a dorm room for your heroes. You can even make their chibi-versions run around in that room and catch a break from all the hero work.

Although the story might pester you with it’s orange glowing button in the upper right corner, you can just ignore everything and explore the gorgeously crafted open world environment(in most cases).

Yes, you can even walk up buildings!

Of course there is an autofinding feature to briskly get you to where your missions lead you, but if you so desire you can look at the urban starting world and walk around.

Since everyone else will have Deku as their first hero as well, it is incredibly amusing to see all the other Deku's running about.

The starting setting is true to the anime and shows us urban and modern Japan, with a strong hint of technological advancement.

The preset graphics on SD will give you the ability to walk around smoothly, but if your phone can take it, I urge you to at least try to up the graphics to a better resolution. The scenery is truly mesmerizing, and the art style as well as the visual effects have a huge appeal.

It’s even nicer to look at for the ones who haven’t seen enough of the BNHA universe in the anime, because now there are an abundance of regions to explore and the developers have made sure to give us a lot of eye candy.

“You” can be a Hero!:

After all this technical talk, why should you play this game?

First of all, from what I have witnessed as an excited anime watcher and manga reader, the story is catered to include the player.

It’s a lot more different than just watching Deku go through the world, you are actually responsible for how the mission turns out. It’s exhilarating to see characters from the anime like Kamui Woods and Mt.Lady talk to you and ask for help, as they are characters we didn’t see all that much in the anime. It gives the impression to be needed and included which is a great asset!

A hero doesn’t stray away from any work, so yes you will have to pick up trash from time to time or just talk to people to assess situations! Still, there are a lot of cameos of other characters like Hatsume Mei who takes care of your support gear.

Second of all, there is a lot of freedom for you.

From all the different game modes and mechanics to the story and even the split up Co-Op modes, you will have a lot of possibilities to explore and find why you want to play the game.

One thing is for certain, the gameplay has something for everyone and gives adequate rewards to you for every mission or task you clear. Features get unlocked gradually through playing the story and leveling up, which keeps the player on their toes.

One mission quickly leads to another, and it seems there is no end to what you can do, especially in the beginning of the game.

Sadly, that is also one of the drawbacks I will have to mention.

Due to the immense freedom and possibilities, the game bombards you with a lot of information. As a first time player, it’s probably that you will get overwhelmed by the forceful approach of the tutorial, but after a while it definitely gets a lot better in my opinion.

My personal highlights are the gacha system as I love to collect and work to pull my favorite characters, the story as a fan of the franchise and the co-op because I love to play the game with friends. So far I haven’t had the ability to actually play with others, but from what I’ve seen it all has a lot of potential.

Even though we’re talking about a free-to-play game, since stamina is one of the necessities to play missions etc, it is very scarce and often drives one to want to buy it, which is why the game leans towards a pay-to-win game. Still, with a bit more patience and some hard work everything is playable for free.

All in all, I shall conclude that The Strongest Hero is an honest and great attempt at making an anime based game which held a lot of expectations from the fanbase.

The immersive factors are amazing, the animations are top tier and the possibilities seem endless. At the end of the day it’s a game that is playable regardless of how much time you have due to the auto-play-function in many features and can be enjoyed in your personal way.

I hope you enjoyed our take on reviewing the game and give it a shot! If you have played it already or are planning to, please leave your personal impressions in the comments!

What a Co-Op teatime! Hope to see you again!

SUUMASHU!!

-Nissa & Makii

[madpersonwithapen]

Tonight I Wanna Cry

Pairing: Erasermic

Summary: After Mic is outed as the traitor to UA, Shouta deals with the after math.

((I listen to a lot of music at work, and the song Tonight I Wanna Cry by Keith Urban popped up and this is what my brain did with it.))

It was the first time since Hizashi had been outed as the traitor that Shouta had stepped back inside their shared apartment. His shoes came off at the door, glass bottles clinking as they shifted around in the bag he’d brought in. He looked around the home he and his husband had built and ran a hand through his hair. This was going to hurt.

He stepped in and set the bag down on the counter. He shifted and pulled a glass out of the counter, then filled it with Ice and amber colored whiskey. He stepped out of the kitchen, spying the boxes Nemuri had dropped off for him earlier. He grabbed one of them and took it to the living room with him. He looked around, at shelves and pictures full of their life together. His eyes stinging as he took the first drink of the burning liquor.

Memories assaulted him as he zeroed in on pictures clustered on their wall. Hizashi had painstakingly clustered several of older pictures of them around his favorite from their wedding. He peered into the center, taking in the photo of them exchanging their rings. His hand moving to grip the ring he wore on a chain around his neck, a few tears falling from his eyes. He set the box down and took another long drink from his glass before setting it down as well. With shaking hands he carefully took each frame off the wall, his heart growing heavier and more tears falling.

When he had the pictures safely in the box he turned to the first bookshelf, full of little gifts they had bought each other over the years. He wiped his eyes and pushed his hair back before turning and draining the rest of his drink. He picked up a small cat gacha toy. He remembered Hizashi feeding coins into the machine till he got it for him, a shaky sigh left him and he set it down. He couldn’t do this right now, he went and filled his glass again. Taking another long drink as he was already feeling the buzz of it.

He shook his head and made his way to their shared room with his glass and the bottle. He drained his glass again, abandoning it on his bedside table. He took the bottle with him to their shared closet. He pulled down a wooden box full of things his husband had written for him over the years, love letters, a few songs, and a copy of his vows. He pulled out of of the letters reading through the familiar handwriting as tears poured freely down his face. He put it back in the box, taking another long burning drink from the bottle and setting the box on the bed. He then eyed the clothes in their closet, setting his sights on a leather jacket he remembered Hizashi wearing recently. He pulled it out of the closet and cradled it to his chest. He wiped his face with his own sleeve and inhaled the scent of his husband. A harsh sob shook his body and he sat on the bed, burying his face into the jacket, only pulling away to taking yet another drink from the bottle. He set the bottle on the bedside table, flopping his tired body onto Hizashi’s side of the bed.

His body shook with harsh sobbing, as he clung to the jacket. He knew he should feel some kind of anger at Hizashi for his betrayal, but, right now he just missed the man he loved.

[mistedfence]

shlooting and rpgs, Celestialvania

so, looter shooters (shlooters) and rpg leveling were recent thoughts of mine for this little celestialvania game i had, which drew influence from bl2, pokemon, and hld for gameplay base, but with a more jojo-stand esque usage of teams/abilities. 

i’ve started to realize that pokemon combines the two: what pops up in rng encounters is what you can level and customize via moveset. bl2 takes the (more or less) opposite approach, the rng loot that you can find have static stats and passives; what you level is yourself as a character. generally, through the game, you level your character just based on what seems appealing, in terms of overarching gameplay style or just down one of the three trees for that sick capstone, and if you happen to loot some good rarity gun that fits your skill tree at the moment, then awesome. it’s really only lategame, where you’re starting to get the legendaries and legit loot, that you might consider respeccing your build around specific guns, shields, class mods, grenades, etc. Ok wow, I need to punctuate because holy shit. 

So I guess what I need to figure out going onwards is why exactly BL2′s system is so good. I think part of the reason is the need to constantly find new equipment as you rapidly outgrow it in harsher levels/environments, and there’s that sentimental point of finally replacing a reliable gear that carried you through a significant point of the game. I guess that’s really Pokemon’s strength, then, in that you’re supposed to become attached to specific Pokemon and never outgrow them, only deepen your bond as you level them to the last of the game’s content. We’re gonna ignore PVP connotations for now, because I don’t think a game with network connectivity or PvP is anywhere near what I’m able to do for game-making right now. So, loot shooting is kind of a different “badge” of devotion, of showcasing a rare as fuck loot that you can only get by farming untold hours, defeating shit hard bosses, or farming shit hard bosses. 

There’s also a reverse timeline of where the rng comes in. BL2′s is at the “end”, where either you get the drop or you don’t, and getting it marks the end of your struggle and the beginning of funtimes. Pokemon’s rng is at the very beginning, and is a lot less black and white with all the varieties of stats and their combinations affecting viability. Pokemon therefore has the problem where rng actually kinda fucks with the sentimentality they have going if you become the kind of person that catches tons of a Pokemon until you find one with the stats/nature you want. The most common solution to mitigating the bad feeling of having a bunch of captured nobodies seems to be sacrificing them towards your main a la Gachas (Love Live, Granblue Fantasy, Puzzles and Dragons), but that still just feels horrid (lol Pokemon Go).

So lets talk a short bit about my game idea, tentative name Celestialvania. (I came up with the idea after seeing a gorgeous two story wooden house at twilight (the dark, late, basically night, good kind) when out on a walk. It was actually hella close to my house, but I never noticed because it was so concealed by shrubbery and tall trees. Wanna say it had a Victorian style, but I’m pretty sure that’s wrong as shit, but idk what else to call it. Tall and woody with tall and thin 2nd story windows (really all i could see of the house) and a tall pointed roof.) Cosmic horror/occult naturey vibe. Context is a spaceship of sorts sailing to a distant location, but old and traveling enough to the point where it’s basically just a piece of Earth, suburban and foresty and all, with an artificial sky. Come some shenanigans, night permanently falls with the failure of the sky, and its up to you as some plucky racially and genderly ambiguous teen to band with your hot and queer and plucky and cheer squad to do shit, whether its meeting up in the Asian restaurant one’s parents own that’s conveniently the only store in the entire downtown that still has power, beaning monsters in the local forest, fighting a great beast / really tall trench-coated occult looking humanoid mf at the highschool football stadium, or realizing that the old local church is actually a really large elevator to the 2nd world under your own, where “stars” are just laid out in a flat grid and named as cartesian coordinates and they’re much more urban and casually high tech than you are. Also a sea that’s the cooling vat for the main power, but contamination of the sea with creatures that feed off this thermal and otheryadda power has lead to darkness and some shit developing in said darkness. Anyway the point is I thought of some damage types for rock paper scissors pokemony style, with planetary (default physical), gravitas, constellation, nebulous, solar, and nautical. The point is I want you to be able to assemble a “team”, like in Pokemon, but the combat is more like Hyper Light Drifter or dare I say it Dark Souls. While you still have an “active” team member like in Pokemon, the rest of the team still gives passives and gameplay affects to yourself. Hence “Jojo stands”.

The main issue I had earlier that I’m hoping to figure out, typing all this out now, is how to flesh out a design of capturing members for said team, as they’d be cosmic entities of varying creature-ness and cosmic type. Like as in, what would be the factors that’d be rng-ey. BL2 is rng in two factors, more or less: passive and stats. Rarity classifications/colors are basically just a tier system for this rng gear. BL2 stats are Damage, Accuracy, Fire Rate, Reload Speed, and Magazine Size. Oh I guess a 3rd factor is weapon brand, because each has special factors there too, from Torgue’s rocket ammo on assault rifles and shotguns to Jakobs lack of full automatic but fire rate limited only by manual trigger pull speed. I started thinking up type interactions, but that’s honestly probably another post because this one is getting long. Still wondering though if this answer will just come to me as I flesh out the interactions of the types more and more. It all feels like it can’t exist or begin development without other pieces already in place, but it feels like those pieces are relying on every other too.

But then I did raise a good point. Stats. What sort of stats does my game want? Shit, what stats does Hyper Light Drifter even have? Time to do some research. That’ll hopefully help a bit with my question of hitboxes. Dark Souls is sick because of how good the hitboxes are with swing timing and range in a 3D atmosphere. So many times, sick victories against enemies are pulled off by swinging and landing your hit while they’re also in the middle of a heavy ass swing. I’m not sure how to equate that in a top down pixel-ey game. I thought about “hard-coding” damage timing with animations of attacks, as well as actually just using 3D models but just stuck to a top-down view a bit like how 2D fighters like Dragonball Z Fighters and Guilty Gear Xrd do 3D. It might definitely be out of my scope for now though. Actually fuck that it very well might not be. Downloading a trial/buying permanent license of Gamemaker in a week, after apprenticeship deadline for Disney. Man, I gotta be working on my portfolio. Like, immediate one. I want to make this game work. I guess this is one new use for this blog, but random smarmy writings are always welcome. I just hope they come from a better place now, though we’ll really have to see if I can even reach my previous spot of self-authenticity to work on improving it while in a living environment with my parents. Feels like an excuse typing that out. Need to sleep and wake early and start fuckin animatinnng groaaar.