fear not there aren't any spoilers here !

tsukihime remake is a weird visual novel. on one hand, it's a partial remake of a beloved and massively influential 2000's eroge but on the other, it's an opportunity and milestone for type moon to show how far they've gone since then. it's been almost 21 years since the original release and times have changed, the vn market isn't as strong as it once was and type moon has grown from the small doujin soft it once was to one of the most recognizable names in the visual novel scene. the two at the front of it all have changed quite considerably since then as well, reflected in takeuchi's different art style and a more experienced nasu at the helm of delivering a new experience for both longtime tsuki fans and newcomers, and the result of these efforts? tsukihime ~a piece of blue glass moon~ is a pretty solid rendition of the first two routes of the visual novel that while reminiscent of the original's impact ultimately suffers from being a partial release.

that's not to say the detriments of a partial release outweigh the benefits, however. nasu's writing here does a great job at replicating the prose of the original which while clumsy at times made sure to land its more emotional character moments when it needed to. writing for the most part here is a joy to read with some genuinely beautifully written passages supplemented by the great production value of the vn as a whole. the only real gripes i have here with the story are that while i think the moments where it's 1:1 are pretty good but when it's not... it's a mixed bag. unfortunately, i went into this expecting a large majority of the new content to be the meat of the experience when after finishing, i'd probably say it's the weaker part . the remake is contentious in that some story changes rub me the wrong way and some of them are just for lack of a better word, kinda lame! the vn really suffers from trying to do more stuff with arc and especially ciel in trying to make the original experiences longer and packed with more interesting things but it feels like it's trying hard to do crazy stuff like the far side routes but they feel lame in comparison because of how much they have to hold back in order to save it for those routes. overall, arc's route is still pretty fun save for some story gripes and ciel's route while being a lot of new stuff i appreciate given how similar her route was in the original to arc's also has the new stuff syndrome in which it feels fanfic tier at its worst. also, the new cast for the most part are pretty good and fun characters but i won't spoil why they are good... just trust me!

the music is also a mixed bag because the reimagining of some of the tracks are really good (yes, that iconic tsuki track is really good) and then there's just some tracks that are like " this will be tsukihime remake in 2021 " tier youtube EPIC instrumental remake style treatment which is kind of a shame since the original is really minimalistic at time to strengthen the effect of it and here it's a little jarring because of it not really representative of the energy of the scene that's playing.

at the end of the day, tsukihime remake is sort of a mixed bag but not something i'd dare call unenjoyable. at it's core it's tsukihime with all its imperfections reinterpreted through a more experienced lens. it's an enjoyable experience albeit a flawed one as well. overall, i think it's a pretty good experience regardless of some of my complaints because ultimately i didn't really run into anything that made me upset or even slightly annoyed. i'm greatly looking forward to the second part to come out since the new sacchin route sounds hype and far side is really where it's at for me personally! also this game ran really well on my switch unlike emiya cooking (formally known as "the tsukihime remake killer") so that's pretty awesome. anyways, all in all, i give this a "noel is literally me"/10!

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Fire Shark at its surface seems like a typical shmup from the late 80s. You got your WW2-esque military presentation that was common at the time, intensified with a kicking soundtrack and nice visuals to wrap around its straightforward core gameplay of piloting a biplane that goes down in one hit, but with the ability to collect various powerups and speed boosts to even the odds against the enemy forces.

If you're playing either the localized or home console Mega Drive release, then that is what you mostly get, a fun little shmup with a decent variety of enemies and stages with just a dash of jank that was to be expected of hardware limitations at the time.

What makes Fire Shark special however is its original Japanese arcade release from March 1987, named with the more energetic title 'Same! Same! Same!' which translates to 'Shark! Shark! Shark!'.

(Moving forward as well, I'll refer to the game as Same x3 to differentiate it from the Mega Drive and localized release Fire Shark).

Arcades were putting pressure on developers to create games that would keep the credits coming, which of course translates to designing games with nearly unfair difficulty balance and other kinds of bullshit. This resulted in Same x3's developer Toaplan ditching their intended balanced difficulty and having the arcade release start at a later loop which meant everything is amplified and harder by default.

Now it's easy to dismiss this game as well of just being another game during an era where games were designed with high difficulty to compensate for their usually short runtime. But Same x3 just somehow manages to strike a balance between complete bullshit and genuine challenge and ends up creating a strangely compelling game.

To start things off, Same x3's original arcade release uses a checkpoint system, whereupon death you're reset into an earlier part of the stage and with all your powerups and speed boosts stripped out, similar to other shmups like Gradius and R-Type. This of course makes recovery a challenge, and a large potential of chain deaths can immediately end runs. Even if you use a credit to continue, you're still faced with the same dilemma of being put into a bad checkpoint where it's just frustrating to climb back up from.

If that wasn't scary enough, powerups and speed boosts are all deliberately programmed to move randomly, inviting you to potential scenarios where you can collide head-on with a stray bullet.

The game even limits the amount of bullets that can come out from your ship, whether you're using autofire or tapping like a maniac. What this means is if you go over the maximum shot limit, you'll create gaps between your curtain of bullets that will create blind spots that enemies can potentially slip through and survive long enough to hit a surprise bullet at you point blank.

Then you also have large hitboxes, where it feels like your entire plane's sprite is vulnerable to any sort of projectile, on top of that, your bombs don't even give you the luxury of invincibility periods, on top of having a delay before they explode.

Enemy bullets are also notoriously fast despite their low density. If that wasn't evil enough, enemies as well can fire at you even before or after they appear from the screen. Expect to get sniped by a tank that just left the screen a few frames ago.

All this with 10 stages to boot, which can easily take upwards of 40 minutes in total for just a single loop clear. Finally, if you die, you don't even die immediately, as your plane goes up in flames first as you flail around and at least try to shoot down the same enemy that shot you down first, which while it gives you an opportunity for one last revenge hit, also rubs in your own mistake.

Despite all of this sounding like a recipe for just pure frustration, there's still a lot of the core gameplay mechanics that make Same x3 shine and still have a completely routable game that can be finished under a single life.

Bombs may not give invincibility, but they are powerful and will clear everything on the screen and some even above it. This encourages deliberate and strategic bombing in advance for certain parts of the stages to minimize risk for the player. Balancing this part however is that bombs in stock create a large multiplier for the player's score, and more score means more lives which means further chances of clearing the game. The player is then given a choice whether to stockpile bombs and take the risk for more lives later or spend their bombs and try to wing it towards the next stage.

You also have a few powerups to pick and choose from. The one you want to avoid is the awful green powerup that gives you a green linear shot (which is also completely common and stays onscreen the longest). The ones you want to stick to is the default blue wide spread shot and the red flamethrower shot that fires a consistent linear line and more power-upped versions provide side options that widely moves left and right (which is the only rapid-fire shot in the game you can hold without the tapping rapidly or using autofire). The latter two have their specific uses, and players who optimize their routes may try to deliberately switch between the two depending on the stage and part of the stage.

Despite the sheer brutality of the game, each stage is designed in a distinct and varied manner, with enemies having unique formations and patterns either on the ground or in the air, which creates interesting and memorable parts that not only complements the game's charm but helps in memorizing routes and strategies better due to how well defined they are. Stages also take place in different environments which are appreciated in giving personality even more throughout its large 10-stage set.

The game gets more thrilling and enjoyable as you get further with full powerups, as one mistake can mean a large setback in not only retreating to an earlier part of a stage but also recovering from your powerful state. This then extends to the satisfaction of completing the game even with continues, as the checkpoint system still provides a genuine point of difficulty that you can't credit feed yourself out from.

Going back to the game's presentation, it really looks good for a game of its time, where despite its typical military aesthetics, the background and enemy designs look good with an attractive color palette that manages to pop, alongside some nice animated effects for surfaces such as water. There are even cute little sprites of people whenever you land at hangers at the end of the stage. All of this is coupled with some of Toaplan's catchiest tunes.

Overall it does feel like a testament to the developer's core design that despite its deliberate frustrating difficulty, it still manages to put out one hell of a shmup that's unique with its own kind of challenge.

I can't easily recommend Same x3 to everyone, as it is a real test of patience and dedication, but to those who seek a humbling and interesting experience, it's worth at least a bit of your time just so you can experience the crazy allure of it all yourself.

Definitely not perfect but it's still pretty damn good.

I'm not really sure how I should really describe the story and how it compares to the first game's but I still very much liked the story here. The slight continuity that LJ and Yakuza share were nice little nods that just kinda say, "yea that shit in Yakuza 7 happened."

When it comes to gameplay it's also mostly all improved either by quite a bit or just marginally. It's nice to see that they got rid of the consistent 95% speed that just happens in Judgment's combat while also improving the combat a decent bit. Don't worry about rushing to put thousands of skill points into combo speed upgrades as they don't exist anymore. The base combo speed is already solid. Crane actually feels like a decent style to use now and I think that's all I need to say about combat. Snake style was cool but I didnt really bother with it too much besides parrying so I could get the anti-knockdown buff.

The game doesn't have too many side cases with only 42 of them but instead you get the school story shit with it's own overarching plot. The school story stuff was decent but most of the minigames tied to them were whatever. They were a decent little distraction and a nice way to make a bunch of sp over time. I think had I not done the school story stuff, I wouldn't have at least a 3rd of the skills that I unlocked.

Still has some of that minigame reuse but the tailing doesn't last nearly as long and none of them are anywhere near as bad as tailing Higashi close to the end of Judgment, chase sequences are also slightly less jank. The stealth minigame was boring as shit and the less said about that the better. The faux-Uncharted climbing sections also weren't as bad as I was expecting, they're typically only a minute or two long and there aren't too many of them, you'd think they get progressively longer considering 3 of the upgrades are for increasing your grip meter but Im sure that shit was probably put in for people who are physically disabled and actually need a bit more time to do inputs.

Overall a nice improvement over Judgment.

"I know a lot of gamers out there don't have much patience". This line was as true in 2007 as it is now. With that in mind, it's easy to see why The Last Guardian is a pretty divisive game. Doesn't help that the game's lack of polish makes it kinda hard to tell what's intentional and what isn't, at least at first.

To anyone that played ICO, the parallels in The Last Guardian are obvious. In ICO you're in the position of power, taking care of a defenseless girl, in TLG you're actually the small one and have to rely on a huge bird dog thing for pretty much anything, bar some choice moments. While not really original, this dynamic is rare enough to feel different, and the game makes sure to always involve both the player and Trico (hugebirddogthing) at the same time. For people who stick with the game, this is very effective: eventually you'll feel some sort of bond with Trico, considering you went through so many puzzles/platforming sessions with it, making the narrative moments much more earned than they usually are in games of this type.

Trico itself is the main point of contention with The Last Guardian. Instead of what other developers would've done, and probably would've been more immediately functional, TLG aims to make Trico and the experience of bonding with it as realistic as possible: you don't press a button to make it do something, as much as you suggest it does something. You'll point where to go, tell it to jump or break something, and see how Trico reacts to it. This requires patience especially early on, as Trico won't react much to your commands and its animations will be much longer for everything. This is where I think people are mistaken when they say that Trico has faulty AI: they see that their command isn't getting an immediate response, and so they try different things or keep telling it to look at something, when the game did in fact read the command, it's just that Trico itself has to process what's going on. The trick is all in observing the creature, how it moves, how it reacts. I'm not sure how much trickery there is to Trico, but it really did seem like its AI was improving, or at least understanding the commands better, as the creature itself got faster at responding and by the end of the game even mostly understood by itself where to go. What's really impressive is how second nature this becomes eventually, you don't even notice that you're waiting a few seconds every time Trico has to jump, and you figure out when Trico is in the process of doing something or waiting for a command. If Trico were just a big item like in something like Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom (raise your hand if you're one of the 5 people that played that) the game wouldn't resonate nearly as much, for better or worse.

What isn't a point of contention, at least from where I'm standing, is how unpolished the game is. There's some framerate issues, some visual glitches, some really bizarre physics engine flubs, but what I really can't excuse is how bad the camera is. It generally does a good enough job as the game is pretty slow, but in platforming and generally more action-y sequences it has a really hard time tracking what's going on. Which can be made even worse by the fact that the game's collision detection isn't great, especially when it comes to recognizing ledges to grab. I died in perfectly normal platforming sequences more often than I'd like to mention because the boy just doesn't feel like grabbing onto a platform.

Despite all my reservations built up over years of word of mouth, I think The Last Guardian is a worthy sequel to ICO. I can't say everyone who liked ICO will enjoy TLG, as it's not nearly as immediate and requires a lot more time to soak it in, but I would recommend it to anyone who wants something a bit different out of their videogames. Now if you'll excuse me I have to wait for Trico to take a dump for the trophy

A rail shooter about little red riding hood and some ninja going on a zombie killing spree trying to find the cause of the zombie outbreak in fairytale land. What a weird premise for a game made by an unknown Spanish studio. Only reason why I was ever interested in this game is because I saw a random video on it almost a decade ago and just remembered I have this on my flash cart.

For starters the controls in my opinion suck. You move left and ride on the D-pad and it feels like there's severe input lag. Sometimes I'll move to where I pushed to and sometimes I'll just stop as if it thought I pushed only once. You can move to one of the 7 tiles on the bottom screen automatically by taping the space with the stylus but that involves you to stop shooting and click the spot and then resume, it feels unnatural for me to do this in a game like this. Switching weapons feels unnatural too since you have to click the weapon icon that is across the touch screen from your regular shot. It might not sound bad but in action when you have to constantly stop what you're doing to click another weapon as your character just stands there and then having to tap the touch screen again to shoot causes too many moments of being hit. It's a strange omission to not include one of the trigger buttons as weapon switching. The game also suffers from frequent drops in the frame rate when there are more than four enemies on the bottom screen.

I will admit though. I did not have fun playing the regular stages due to enemy placement and the controls but the boss fights are pretty cool. Each one is unique with their attacks and probably the most fun I got out of the game.

I wouldn't recommend this game but for someone who's interested in playing a random game you can find on the DS; have at it.

I just finished this game so it's not really a review and moreso just my thoughts coming off of it. This is probably gonna read pretty disjointed as my thoughts are just bouncing around.

Beat it in about 13 hours although I did start to rush a bit for the last few hours. I wouldn't say it's worth the 60 bucks but if you can get it on discount for sub-$40 later down the line(which you definitely can cause Arkane games always go on sale) then give it a go. Also Arkane game so expect some of that eurojank.

Generally alright:
Gunplay was serviceable but not really anything great, at least they made the pump shotty and what was essentially an elephant gun satisfying to use.
I enjoyed seeing that the trinkets actually ended up being pretty straightforward with most of them actually being useful upgrades, there were maybe only 6-7 trinkets(counting both player and weapon trinkets) that I had never considered using. The weapon modifiers were also good too, I actually ended up almost never using the special guns cause I found guns with modifiers that were actually useful(suppressed smg, pump shotty shoots twice before needing a pump)
I didnt actually utilize half the abilities given and just teleported around but it was nice to see that you could freely use those abilities without worry of having to play more conservatively for the sake of maintaining power considering the energy for them regenerates without need of consumables.
This is one of those games that gives you a real nice sense of growing power that isn't an rpg.

Things Im iffy on:
The fact that this is an immersive sim works well with the timeloop stuff but its pretty obvious that the game ends up really only giving you one true solution by the end of game. It keeps it cohesive but ultimately repetitive and I can't see this game having much replayability besides playing the ending quest again to see the other endings.
The visionaries also end up being just a bit more than the average grunt with how it might take an extra point blank shotgun blast to off them and sometimes they have a special ability.
The dialogue can come off as pretty reddit depending on who you're talking to but I didn't really mind it and just chalked it up to the largely facetious tone the game has.

I wouldn't say I'm disappointed with this game like I've been with some other game releases I've played the past few years but I do wish there was just a bit more. I was loving it, until I got to the ending. It felt a little rushed and while I enjoyed the cheeky tone the ending I got had, I just feel that my time with the game was a tad too short. I beat the game practically the same day I got it, I can really only say that for resident evil games and those are actually meant to be replayed. Also if I didn't have work today I would've beat it on the 14th, I was really only like 20 minutes off from being able to say I beat it the exact same day.

I will say that the game's length helps with the rather repetitive nature of the game as it doesn't really feel like you're wasting too much time considering the game is less than 20 hours long.

Anyway, flawed but definitely enjoyable

Didn't really get the performance issues that other people got although I didnt touch raytracing cause fuck that dumb meme. Only real performance thing I have to note is that the game occasionally has that Far Cry 5 effect where you'll have 70-90 fps but it still kinda feels like 60ish. If you played FC5 on pc with decent enough specs you might know what Im talking about.

Afterword: If you actually are reading this at the time of writing I just realized I forgot to talk about the mp but Imma go out for a cig before I start writing that.

Anyway, the invasion shit was just ok. Seemed like an afterthought/last-minute gimmick they added so they could give the game a bit more of an identity as its own thing but I ended up playing single-player/friends only so I dont have to deal with that bullshit. The invasion thing just boils down to who can magdump or juke each other out better and by juke I mean be a Goddamned nuisance to the other player by blinking, strafe dodging, or double jumping all other the place. P2P connection so have fun rubberbanding cause you connected to some sorry bastard who probably took more than 7-8 hours installing a 30 gig game cause they live in Columbia, Missouri or anywhere else where you can't actually get good wifi.

The invasion mechanic is honestly more fun functioning as some ghetto ass coop where you connect to your buddy for a single segment of their loop and help them take out a target or potentially 2/3 and then let them kill you so they can get the extra 10k residuum and whatever gun/slab you were using.

honestly, i'm a little mixed in the wake of having just finished the entirety of saya no uta after a two-hour binge session that's length only grew more apparent as i drew closer to the end. fear not, there's no spoilers here but i'll say this. if you want to read saya no uta, go for it.

i don't think this vn is long enough to outstay its welcome and for the most part, i think saya no uta is pretty gripping at its best with some excellent pacing and fun character writing, yet at its worse, saya no uta is misery porn that insists upon itself at times but honestly, that shouldn't be a shock for most familiar with urobuchi's work. i genuinely enjoyed the opening segments but the story just resolves itself suddenly with a lot of the endings not necessarily feeling unfinished but rather left with a lot of ambiguity and not in the sense that you're left with more questions than answers to fill in the blanks with but just that you never really got the full picture in the first place. to put it simply the endings lack a lot of the impact the earlier segments have comparatively. i also kinda hate the mc but that's sorta the point so bravo to urobuchi for putting me on the same page for once.

i'll definitely say though i think the perspective switching in saya no uta is pretty nice. overall, the narration swapping povs frequently, really helps to break up the tension and it doesn't really detract from the focus of the narrative in any way where it would end up being detrimental to the pacing. the usage of fuminori as an unreliable narrator also makes for some great tonal dissonance which amps up the emotional impact of some scenes in particular. also hikaru midorikawa is in this vn so if that isn't reason enough to read it then i'm not sure what is... unless it's the music which is probably the best thing about this visual novel! i won't name any tracks in particular but they all greatly enhance the experience.

so in the end, should you read saya no uta? while i'm personally mixed on how it all ended, i don't think it's my place to dissuade anyone from trying it solely because i found the opening and middle parts so captivating. all i'd say is to go into it with an open mind and you might be surprised by what you read! after all, this is pretty much a standard "beginner visual novel" so for that status alone it's probably worth warranting a look at it. "urobuchi watched kamen rider ryuki before making madoka"/10

p.s i also solved the "main mystery" of the visual novel within the opening minutes so if that doesn't say something about the amount of brainrot i have then i don't know what else does.

"This is not a story of heroes. Those who would aspire to be such have no place here."

Full Metal Daemon Muramasa is one of the most incredible visual novels you'll ever read. It's not just that it's aesthetically gorgeous, but it weaves a complex tale, dips beautifully within both the feudal aesthetic and hi-tech sci-fi thriller approach, and is written with such a poetic etherealness that when it wants to hit you with something eye-opening, it hits. Hard. Perhaps the most impressive thing about Full Metal Daemon Muramasa is how unwilling it is to hold its punches.

This visual novel depicts the full gamut of the worst of human impulses. While in theory it's a story about a a living soul forged into a set of armor, in practice, it's an exploration of the limits of human depravity. Framed in a very Musashi-like trip through a hyper fictionalized hybrid sci-fi feudal romp within the island nature of Yamato, you're going to get a view of bestial violence, innocence lost, incest, class warfare, blasphemy, obsession, xenophobia, and hatred. Characters are built up as hugely sympathetic, only for the narrative to tear them down in the most spectacular way possible. The story plays on many classic and familiar tropes, such as the romance or warmth that comes with exploring human relationships, and then subverts them them in their entirety. This game is dark, is the point. Beautifully dark, like the most powerful and deeply meditative humanist novels, but it nonetheless revels in exploring the bleakest sides of the human condition, and in doing so it represents an exquisite, elevated kind of tragedy.

There are moments where Full Metal Daemon Muramasa becomes very uncomfortable to witness, and a little like when I played Gunjou no Sora o Koete, I did need to put it down from time to time. This game is nowhere near as explicit or extreme as that one, but thematically it is, if anything, more demanding of the player. It's a little like how the real war stories of old are deeply uncomfortable to read, though it's certainly not of the extreme, overt violence of a Marquis de Sade novel. If you want to see how a visual novel could be elevated to something approaching "high art" or "peak fiction", you owe it to yourself to play Full Metal Daemon Muramasa.

Now despite having read this only halfway through via watching a playthrough on nicovideo.jp and giving up using google translate halfway into that and just looking at the cgs, I can safely say this is the best visual novel you'll ever read without a doubt. Ryukishi truly has created another masterpiece in a long line of amazing visual novels and I'm excited to see what Type Moon has in store for us in the future! FUCK SUBAHIBI / 10

also beans if you're reading this why don't you spend that time actually reading the visual novel :)

If you want a beat em up with over-the-top action, at blisteringly erratic speeds, rewarding combat once mastered and loads and LOADS of machismo..... Fuck it. Urban Reign, God Hand and Spike Out: Final Edition will do you fine. I'll even throw Yakuza 2 in there. That game can grow hairs from underneath the dual layered disc.

But if you pine for panty shots from women ages 16-25, J-rock with some SoundCloud mumbles mixed in there accompanied with combat with the complexity of your average Simple Series title (with characters just as complex), run, don't walk..... to a Sex therapist cuz that's the least punishing place I could think of for its core audience.

For real, it's a dumb lil brawler that's unapologetically pervy but loads of characters to play as and encourages replayablity. Not that I'd go back to any previous "missions" personally but I'm sure someone will. And hopefully that same someone refers to my piece of advice on paragraph 2 if they have the symptoms listed.