2024
Not including gachas I've started in previous years or rereads/replays
(it'd be boring to have Project Sekai and Blue Archive at the top every year)
(it'd be boring to have Project Sekai and Blue Archive at the top every year)
12 Games
Due to a traumatizing experience with Slay the Spire where my lack of basic comprehension made me unable to understand what the hell I was doing, my aversion to deckbuilders is pretty strong but it was still impossible for me not to try Chrono Ark...
My interest in stories that play around with time one way or another can easily destroy any excuse I'd have to ignore a game since I'm attracted to them like moths are to flame.
Chrono Ark surpassed my expectations because the gameplay quickly hooked me: it's weirdly enjoyable to be forced to think about every decision for 10 minutes because victories feel that much more gratifying and the mechanics are very nicely linked to the narrative.
That led to me feeling more invested in the whole than I normally am in games that I solely tried out for their story: basic plot beats were enough to get me hyped as they were progressively getting expanded on with the scenes you unlock through every completed run.
Stakes always felt high at the end of every run thanks to the final boss being a non-negligible difficulty spike, I clearly felt like I had earned my sweet reading time... Even losing runs didn't feel that frustrating since it was easy to lose myself in deckbuilding shenanigans so I could try out different party members and have fun understanding and taking advantage of their unique mechanics.
Story-wise, the structure reminded me of 13 Sentinels at first so I was scared of seeing an accumulation of cool tropes making up a complicated story that felt mindblowing in an impressive way but ultimately hollow when thinking about it later but it's far from that. The story might be straightforward and not that spectacular but it felt meaningful, which is perfect for a narrative all about finding meaning in a world seemingly devoid of it.
My interest in stories that play around with time one way or another can easily destroy any excuse I'd have to ignore a game since I'm attracted to them like moths are to flame.
Chrono Ark surpassed my expectations because the gameplay quickly hooked me: it's weirdly enjoyable to be forced to think about every decision for 10 minutes because victories feel that much more gratifying and the mechanics are very nicely linked to the narrative.
That led to me feeling more invested in the whole than I normally am in games that I solely tried out for their story: basic plot beats were enough to get me hyped as they were progressively getting expanded on with the scenes you unlock through every completed run.
Stakes always felt high at the end of every run thanks to the final boss being a non-negligible difficulty spike, I clearly felt like I had earned my sweet reading time... Even losing runs didn't feel that frustrating since it was easy to lose myself in deckbuilding shenanigans so I could try out different party members and have fun understanding and taking advantage of their unique mechanics.
Story-wise, the structure reminded me of 13 Sentinels at first so I was scared of seeing an accumulation of cool tropes making up a complicated story that felt mindblowing in an impressive way but ultimately hollow when thinking about it later but it's far from that. The story might be straightforward and not that spectacular but it felt meaningful, which is perfect for a narrative all about finding meaning in a world seemingly devoid of it.
1
Aventurine... thank you for being my only glimmer of hope in this game.
Pretty touching character arc condensed in a few hours, the dialogue and introspection are easily at their best in this patch. 2.0 almost made me lose hope in the story so it was shocking to see 2.1 push away my negativity toward Penacony's narrative even if it wasn't for long...
Now that I have proof that the current Hoyoverse writers can come up with substantial character writing when they want to, I really hope this won't be an isolated occurrence.
Pretty touching character arc condensed in a few hours, the dialogue and introspection are easily at their best in this patch. 2.0 almost made me lose hope in the story so it was shocking to see 2.1 push away my negativity toward Penacony's narrative even if it wasn't for long...
Now that I have proof that the current Hoyoverse writers can come up with substantial character writing when they want to, I really hope this won't be an isolated occurrence.
5
Purple Software already let me down with Amatsutsumi, a visual novel with a relatively intriguing premise and promising prologue that completely and utterly let me down without having anything to show for the pain I inflicted on myself by reading through all of it.
There's no way I'd easily trust them to release something good after experiencing that thing, but I was naive enough to give Criminal Border a try regardless and.. I have to admit I'm pleasantly surprised.
Compared to Amatsutsumi, the premise was ridiculous (with the protagonist accidentally creating a shitty AMV that makes people aroused just by watching it, gotta justify the "ero" part of the VN), and the prologue almost killed my motivation to keep reading with how gross the protagonist's inner monologues were, but I stubbornly kept going... just to end up reading most of the episode in one sitting :')
The good thing with short visual novels is that they can't afford to waste your time, and Criminal Border knows very well that it needs to do the most out of its short length (5 hours). It didn't take me long to see the story's potential, and despite being very dismissive of the VN at first, I started seeing a glimmer of hope soon after.
I'm no stranger to ridiculous premises and pathetic protagonists.
Writers already managed to make me take these same premises very seriously to the point of actively imagining what they would imply if taken to their natural extremes. For a writer, protagonists like Itsuki are also easy to take advantage of; they can be repulsive at first, but starting from such depths give them a lot of room for growth, and in this case, the plot throwing him head first into the underbelly of society makes it easy to believe that this environment will force him to change for the better or the worse.
My main complaint would be about the romance in this episode being quite cheesy, but at the same time, it justified his newfound motivations well. Itsuki initially had nothing he cherished or cared for, but the people he got to know thanks to the accident that kickstarted the events of the visual novel, became his reason to try to live his life in a more meaningful way.
For something that is essentially just a prologue, I'm satisfied with what I read, and I'll be looking forward to the rest after that conclusion to the episode (it was both hype and worrying).
There's no way I'd easily trust them to release something good after experiencing that thing, but I was naive enough to give Criminal Border a try regardless and.. I have to admit I'm pleasantly surprised.
Compared to Amatsutsumi, the premise was ridiculous (with the protagonist accidentally creating a shitty AMV that makes people aroused just by watching it, gotta justify the "ero" part of the VN), and the prologue almost killed my motivation to keep reading with how gross the protagonist's inner monologues were, but I stubbornly kept going... just to end up reading most of the episode in one sitting :')
The good thing with short visual novels is that they can't afford to waste your time, and Criminal Border knows very well that it needs to do the most out of its short length (5 hours). It didn't take me long to see the story's potential, and despite being very dismissive of the VN at first, I started seeing a glimmer of hope soon after.
I'm no stranger to ridiculous premises and pathetic protagonists.
Writers already managed to make me take these same premises very seriously to the point of actively imagining what they would imply if taken to their natural extremes. For a writer, protagonists like Itsuki are also easy to take advantage of; they can be repulsive at first, but starting from such depths give them a lot of room for growth, and in this case, the plot throwing him head first into the underbelly of society makes it easy to believe that this environment will force him to change for the better or the worse.
My main complaint would be about the romance in this episode being quite cheesy, but at the same time, it justified his newfound motivations well. Itsuki initially had nothing he cherished or cared for, but the people he got to know thanks to the accident that kickstarted the events of the visual novel, became his reason to try to live his life in a more meaningful way.
For something that is essentially just a prologue, I'm satisfied with what I read, and I'll be looking forward to the rest after that conclusion to the episode (it was both hype and worrying).
6
It was nice to overcome some of the harder levels but I didn't feel like I was getting better at the game the more I played it.
The clunky and unreliable controls didn't help: getting through a level often felt like the result of luck. I just had retried the levels so many times that I ended up clearing them by accident without learning anything that would help me master the controls for later levels outside of the basics.
I won't come back to the game as much as it was funny to see Kiryu stuck in a monkey ball :(
The clunky and unreliable controls didn't help: getting through a level often felt like the result of luck. I just had retried the levels so many times that I ended up clearing them by accident without learning anything that would help me master the controls for later levels outside of the basics.
I won't come back to the game as much as it was funny to see Kiryu stuck in a monkey ball :(
10
farewell, star rail
the patch itself is fine, it's fairly inoffensive since the flaws didn't really surprise me, i just find myself more and more detached from the game now that i don't really have much interest/hope for it
i don't find much enjoyment in the gameplay or exploration anymore, i dont really have any reason to stick with it at this point
the patch itself is fine, it's fairly inoffensive since the flaws didn't really surprise me, i just find myself more and more detached from the game now that i don't really have much interest/hope for it
i don't find much enjoyment in the gameplay or exploration anymore, i dont really have any reason to stick with it at this point
11
probably dropping this ngl
12