I tried so hard with this game but in the end it just pisses me off more than anything. Huniepop 1 was a cute game and was over before I had a chance to get bored of the gameplay, so I was looking forward to this game!

Man oh man...The gameplay in this feels so RNG based at times that it feels like I'm just hitting a slot machine! Huniepop 1 was like this at times but never so offensively, it feels like you're always getting fucked over in some way by this game. It's not horrible or anything but it's super mediocre. Baggage, while cute in concept, can be really fucking annoying more often than not, and hinders my experience rather than helps it. This is Huniepop man I'm not here to tryhard I'm here to chill out, match 3, and see some boobs.

The characters though...I hate like 90% of the cast, most of them are really fucking annoying or weird and are just insufferable to talk to. One thing I do like is the double date system allows for some interactions between characters, which Huniepop 1 had very few of, so that was kinda cute I guess. But when the characters are THIS annoying I don't really care to see them interact at all! Shoutout to Lailani for being the only new character I actually liked, she's super cute.

Not even the porn is good. The artstyle is way worse than the first game.

So I'm sitting here 70% of the way done with the game and it hits me, I hate the gameplay, I hate the characters, I even hate the porn, why am I playing this?

And so, I'm not.

I think it's neat. Went in expecting a fun cliched anime story, and that's pretty much what I got, but with some unexpected extras. If we talk about how this integrates real world social themes vs Persona, this is obviously going to Persona, but that's not really what TX is trying to be from my perspective. It's basically urban fantasy LN style Cold Steel 1 and does a pretty good job at that. The world building is fairly in-depth and leaves room for series potential, and as per usual Falcom has crafted a great NPC cast—they're not going to blow you away with their arcs, but I found it pretty rewarding talking to them all and seeing how they were affected by story events, along with Falcom's crazy dedication to giving like 100+ NPCs a crapton of dialogue and personality in most of their modern games.

Graphically it's a slightly upgraded CS1/2. I personally find those some of the worst looking Falcom games (though not quite Ys Seven level), so it still leaves a lot to be desired. Morimiya is a cool city with a nice personality, and it's interesting seeing Falcom do this kind of Trails-lite world building in the real world. The main and side casts are quite good with fun, likable characters. I do like the narrative structure of focusing roughly on one party member per chapter, though it has the usual weakness of said character getting minimal focus for the rest of the game. My favourite was Shio because he's cool and has one of the better arcs. I also am probably the only one who finds the concept of ShioKou more interesting than Kou's other candidates—sadly their chemistry is barely capitalised on after chapter 5.

Speaking of which, it's nice to see this game take a step back from the galge zone. In part because I have no interest, but primarily because I think Falcom are horrid at writing player romance options. There is a very clear canon romance in the form of Shiori, and it's a pretty well developed romance that I don't have complaints with. Asuka and to a lesser extent Rion exist as well, but their teases are minor in comparison.

The story itself mostly drags its feet with padding, taking forever to get to the point for a self-contained story, but once it actually goes somewhere it gets really interesting with some wild twists and turns. It could probably benefit from stronger villains, though what we have was still very threatening and well built up. Sadly it's the worst offender of the era where Falcom games didn't know when to end, making you question the definition of a 'final' chapter. I am also of the belief that we should ban Falcom from devising true endings, as they don't seem to understand how to implement them correctly.

After story, while I'm not sure if it was wise to make the game even longer in this version, is at least great. I was surprised at the amount of new assets they made for this, it has nice vibes. The sequel baiting is interesting and I think whatever the next game they make in this universe could be interesting—hopefully not once again built on the shell of Kiseki to give themselves more time for the next Ys.

Gameplay is pretty straightforward, and it's no Ys, but still pretty fun and there's good variety in the characters. It plays well to its strength of fast-paced battles and encouraging you to speed through the dungeons. There's some surprising difficulty spikes that gave me trouble (in a good way), such as the boss of chapter 5.

Music though? Absolutely the best part of this game. You have Unisuga handling more of the soundtrack than I believe he has on any other Falcom game, and he knocks it out of the park. Sonoda also chimes in with his excellent atmospheric themes, and Jindo doesn't lack for strong contributions either. Singa's opening theme might be my favourite song from him, though I can't say I cared for his battle theme (as usual, it meshes badly with the other composers).

As for the translation... let's say that I sure hope the switch relocalisation for this game is significant, because the translation I played was bad. Ignoring the badly placed memes (which I gotta say are super minor in comparison to what I'm about to say), I counted a truly wild amount of mistranslations in all the voiced scenes alone, and in a fair amount of unvoiced scenes I had to crosscheck with the JP to make sure the TL wasn't spouting BS at me (it usually was!). Honestly I really regret playing this in English in retrospect, easily the worst Falcom loc I've experienced. Granted, coming from Aksys it's a surprise that it was even comprehensible—their Otome translations are fucking atrocious.

So yeah, was it worth playing? For me, yep, it was fun and I found it pretty great. It doesn't stand out in any area, but it makes for a fun anime game with a lot of Falcom's usual strengths. I'd certainly recommend it to anyone who enjoys anime rpgs that don't pretend to be more than they are, at least once the relocalisation for switch comes out. If I'm to compare it to Trails, which let's be honest is inevitable here, it would probably going around the middle of my rankings for that series—which puts it a good bit above CS1/2.

Also if anyone cares, there's no DLC costume for the guys. Though it's not CS4 level as the girls don't get much either.

The House in Fata Morgana is beautiful, gut-wrenching, masterful and breathtaking. This visual novel will take you on a journey unlike any other, so I can't recommend it enough. You might cry, you might get angry, you might be happy, but in the end, I guarantee it'll emotionally resonate with you. Nothing that had so much heart clearly put into it could leave anyone walking away from it not having gained something from the experience of reading it. I'm so glad I finally read it, because it's an experience I'll never forget. Play this. PLAY IT. PLAY IT FUCKING NOW.