Replaying Subarashiki Hibi isn't just affirming my initial impressions from reading it one word per week(I was homeschooled), it's blowing them out of the water.

The attention to detail is absolutely insane, from the beautiful animation to the expressions and mannerisms of the characters themselves.

The characterization is phenomenal, in any slice of life VN, the characters are incredibly important, and the way these characters are written, portrayed, expressed, developed, and interact with one another is second to none.

In a slice of life like Subahibi, it's really easy to miss good writing, but the way the characters develop along with Takuji, and the execution in crucial moments is so powerful at times I felt myself tearing up.

In particular the gay blowjob scene where Takuji is forced to wear a skirt really stands out, the combination of talent and passion from this artist is unreal. If you check scaji's twitter it's nothing but futanari fanart and gifs of the animation process. Subahibi has some of the most beautiful CGs I've ever scene.(Image attached)

This is all complemented by the production, the use of lighting, camera angles, contrast, brightness. The way that the story is shown itself takes already amazing scenes to the next level, highlighting crucial scenes, making them even more impactful and breathtaking.

Show, don't tell. Subahibi is a lot more than just a coming of age gay porn story, it's a VN meant to show the viewer just how beautiful peeing in public really is, just how bright and meaningful such little things really can be.

The staff really poured their heart and soul into the bestiality and child porn and it glows with their passion, there's not even a single criticism that I can come up with.

11/10

Soukou Akki Muramasa, an utter mess

What carries this visual novel on it's shoulders and paints the broader strokes for the themes it explores is definitely the Law of Balance, this is singlehandedly the most interesting thing in the visual novel, giving the main character a handicap that robs him of the ability to become an actual "hero",
Someone called it the "anti-hero's journey" and I think that's pretty much the summary of it, extremely simple and yet effective concept,

To make a long story short, this VN is exhausting to read, sometimes you're starting to have some sort of fun only to have that moment be cutshort by an infodump, I tried my best to read as much of these infodumps as I could but this shit just drags on, "self-indulgent" doesn't even begin to describe the content of this game, I've never read a Visual Novel that was able to make such little use of it's existence AS a Visual Novel,
The premise is interesting, but the writer's active job is to find a way to bore you,

The banter sucks ass, Otori and Ichijou have the worst dynamic despite how they're written to compliment each other, the comedy is offputting for the most part, occasionally they're able to squeeze in some funny moments like a 4th wall break with chachamaru in chapter 3 or a meta Nitro+ universe cameo dream sequence, but I can count all of these on one hand

Most of the comedy is absolutely forced, Otori's entire persona is held back because they've written her as this indifferent cool chick who makes wisecracks but everytime "Ara....." or "Darling" escapes her lips I wanted to strangle her, every serious conversation has to STOP for Otori and Sayo to make some sort of funny remark before resuming,

Similarly they almost executed Chachamaru well with a similar personality but without all the utter obnoxiousness of Otori, but then proceeded to make her a cocksucking bootlicker clingy needy person in the main route, utterly baffling how easy it was to not fuck it up

The main reason characters like Otori are also held back is because their routes are riddled with absolute garbage level interactive segments,

The entire airship segment, the choices between fights, literally doing MATH for the final fight, going to 50 different people and asking your purpose

These segments do NO favors to the VN,

Extras:
-The very end where the MC is trying to save Muramasa and no one is helping him while flashbacks of all his kills play in the back of his head was cool, Sorimachi entirely saved that ending segment because right after fighting the final boss you're subjected to le epic bridge building truce arc FT. maid outfit fellatio which made me want to burn my eyes

-Ichijou's route is probably the most consistently enjoyable for me, it has it's downsides ofcourse, Ichijou almost represents the idealistic POV when it comes to Justice, almost shounen protag tier view of it, even the way she sacrifices her body for the Justice she wants to dish out is very reminiscent of shounen protags,
Although you can easily tell the author uses her viewpoint as a punching bag and inserts this horrible random ass part where the monk's "apprentice" materializes out of nowhere and feeds ichijou her nephew's fingers, the grand point being that no matter what Ichijou does the result will never be black and white,

Which I think is an utterly stupid way of communicating that, I got what the author intended, but it was delivered in the most unimpressive way possible, but I respect the fact that she stills sticks to her ways till the end and her post credit scene is the strongest (minus the true route I guess)

-The true route is good, until the MC is infused with Ginseigo's egg that is, the entire part where Ginseigo is Hikaru's dream was amazing (although the part where he couldn't kill her sister was irritating to read, it made sense context wise but it was still frustrating to watch him contemplate it after the pile of corpses he was shouldering throughout the VN, which is something the VN acknowledges ofcourse)

I say the Ginseigo egg thing was bad is because they truly do nothing with it, there's a standoff where Chachamaru, MC and Raichou go to kill the prince but then midway they are interrupted when GHQ starts waging war on Yamato,

You get to see Muramasa act like an utter bumbling fool only to make her way back to the castle for a teary-eyed reunion with her master, this segment for me held so little purpose it was baffling, I enjoy the Rokuhara big 4 reacting to the MC but the entire stupid schpiel about Shishuku seeing the MC as his brother and the stupid castle robbery segment was just tasteless buffoonery, and instead of making the MC a slave to Chachamaru's will (which frankly speaking would have been far more interesting and would make Muramasa saving him far more important) they decide to flip the script and turn Chachamaru into this............needy cockslave?

The only good thing that comes out of the Ginseigo egg arc is when Muramasa comes face to face with Yuhi's friend who had his eyes cut off, this was the only highlight, the rest can fucking go

-The entire god thing was stupid, it wasn't pulled out of thin air and from the entire forged bomb segment to the Prefect dying and meeting god or whatever, the god bit was already set up, but by the end of the VN it felt like an added unnecessary mess, the God segment is only saved by the part where you oscillate between the Past and the Future and you get to see stuff like Ichijou in the future with the Moon shattered,

The big golden tree shooting a laser then turning into the Prefect, as in god turning into giant man with giant sword just so the author can once again have an excuse to write a sword segment was painful to sit through

The god thing was also stupid because you have to tolerate Captain Wolf who EMBODIES the problem with Muramasa's "comedy"

-The vertical text didn't bother me, the denseness of the writing did, I was completely indifferent to it,
It's a different change of pace I guess

-I didn't like the MC being Hikaru's dad, again it's not like this was an asspull, they have a literal choice in Chapter 4 that reads "She is my daughter", but I felt like this was just a stupid thing to put in this VN

-The VN acknowledges this, but the Shogun's assassination is setup way too conveniently, not that I mind that bit anyway since Ginseigo just does her stupid mass genocide thing,

-Rape was annoying, not well written and put where it had no business of being put, the monk would have been my favorite character had they not squeezed the rape in, was the cup and mask made out of the remains of the child's family not sinister enough?

-Muramasa's past was......a thing.........? I guess I'm glad they touched on it but if I'm being perfectly honest it was a precursor to her bumbling idiot big tit black woman running across war ridden country arc, also I guess it brought MC and her closer so I can't really complain

-Finally the one thing that truly held this VN back was the OSTs, after hearing the same battle theme for 543903498504 hours I can easily say this aspect truly held it back, a lot of the scenes felt like they lacked flavor just because they kept reused the same 4 themes, they really shot themselves in the foot there
All in all? Miserable, tiring read, a lot of missed potential, self indulgent writing, painful execution of some parts,

There's something in this VN that makes you feel like you're reading something that has the potential to be the best thing you've ever read, only to miss the mark completely and taffypull the potential of things that don't even intrigue the reader,

This VN upset me to my core, it didn't feel like a waste of time but at the same time it didn't feel like it justified it's own length at all, I have never felt like a read could possibly fall directly in the middle of being "good" or "bad", and yet here we are,

Quite ironic, it's balanced just like it's core themes, neither impressively good nor gut wrenchingly bad,

Mid as hell

The worst game from the franchise

At release it had a keyboard input issue and the optimization for the game was so outstandingly bad but I remember feeling like the absolute most baddest person playing this during my IGCSE, anyways,

I'll go off on the negatives:

-Only the first class trial is genuinely good, which was also partly in the demo (a demo which probably raised my expectations more than it should have), if you base it off of emotive quality I can give you the benefit of the doubt but every single mystery was so predictable, what a disappointment

-The ending is the worst thing ever made, it's genuinely bad, I know people are like it's polarizing and "divides the fanbase" but I don't get how this even has supporters, as if we did not play the same game

Let me explain to you something I didn't like about the overarching plot in SDR2, the leaps of pseudoscience where they are in a fucking VR and monokuma can source specific character data and like craft scenarios like a goddamn arcade machine with a mini game Twilight Syndrome Murder Mystery, like it's actually absurd how "it's possible they just develop the technology in the future" is used as the worst patch up job ever to justify some of these........

I usually only ever excuse it because it wasn't that offensive there and I take most of danganronpa as high camp or goofy on purpose (which it REALLY is)

But V3? Oh the engineers developed a completely realistic visual where earth is charred ......... oh we can just straight up give you an ultimate (that's like actually real like Miu is straight up a genius who ends up being the reason why they manage to escape after she edits the shit out of Kubo)........ here's a fleshlight that restores fragments of memory like BRUH THIS IS A NON-EXPLANATION at this point

That's not the part that upsets me the most, the part that upsets me is that the game has a genuine disease called "Cospox" which the Ultimate Cosplayer has where she can't cosplay as other people (much like the Ultimate Imposter could)........ are you fucking kidding me V3? And this is accepted AS EVIDENCE IN THE FIRST TRIAL? AND THIS REMAINS TRUE FOR THE ENTIRE GAME EVEN WHEN ITS REVISITED AT THE END? like this is the VILLAIN, who's literal
"twist" schtick was that she didn't follow the damn rules of the killing game and willfully fucked with the game and eliminated one of the participants

When I was reading it I was like yo this is embarrassing,

-Ouma and Kaito try to catch Monokuma up on a technicality with their switcheroo and they manage to do this after they incapacitate the monokuma surveillance.... again Miu literally the only candidate who breaks the entire fucking game is the reason why they manage this thanks to her fucking Electrobomb I just can't fucking go on Miu is such a nonsense character anyways this should have been entirely irrelevant because in this dumb sci-fi reality it should have been easy to tell who's in the fucking Exisal thanks to idk heatvision or something? Like this fucking game allows you to straight up give people Ultimates and has like an entire engineering team behind it what the fuck is even going on

-Retconning the Hopes Peak Academy arc by making it part of a fictional universe did irreparable damage to the franchise, DR3 had to be rushed out before DRV3 because V3 retcons everything before it as fiction, a lot of people complain about DR3's painful execution or lack thereof but I wholly blame the existence of V3, in service of the worst twist ever made they had to RUSH DR3 and conclude the Hopes Peak Academy arc in its entirety, IT'S ALL because of V3

-Garbage characters

-Class Trial #3 is always camp and pretty easy to guess, here it was just bad

-Ouma is overrated I did not like him as much as you guys did that's for sure

The good:

-OST as usual

-Executions are literally actually brutal this time around and I dig that

That about wraps it up, this is not peak fiction or like the goat, one of the worst games ever made it, "it was all a dream!!!" tier ending, straight up bad.

Danganronpa now occupies probably one of the worst reputations by the sheer existence of its fanbase, but that has more or less fizzled out after V3 and probably might see a resurgence from a future title (i say this despite the noise people made when danganronpa S dropped.......anyways)

This is one of the best mystery VNs I've read, period, but I'll have to address the flaws right away

-Has the most boring Ultimates I have ever seen it feels like the creativity department wiped their hands and called it a day, "Ultimate Breeder", "Ultimate Princess", "Ultimate Classic Dancer" this is all nonsense rubbish

-All the characters you could genuinely not care about.......survive LOL, well technically if you see DR3 anime as canon they are all kind of alive minus one person

-Some mysteries straight up have plotholes but you don't really notice because the momentum and the pace are really tight

-Overall mystery of how they end up in the killing game is as bad as ever

-You can tell Kodaka regrets the fact he killed Junko because he can't make a single title where she isn't there in form or another (I'll touch on this in my V3 review)

Now the good:

-OST killer, so fucking good

-Has some of the best class trials in the entire franchise, especially class trial #4 god that one they really decently thought about

-Actually funny at times (V3 was so fucking beyond unfunny)

-Twilight Syndrome is such a cool thing to put in a class trial and to show off the mystery in such a way, it's baffling how poorly they handled it in the DR3 anime adaption when this is probably the best iteration of how the story went down

Anyways besides the literal cringefest that hope vs despair at the end always is this game is solid, the pace is good the mystery is top tier and it's probably a shining example of what the medium can achieve if it's focused

AI: The Somnium Files

This game is very tonedeaf, it oscillates between comedic and dramatic moments almost feeling as if the game is having an identity crisis, it can't DECIDE whether it wants to be over the top goofy or tell a compelling sci-fi murder mystery, or rather the game wants to be over the top goofy all the time but has a murder crime that's so sinister in nature that it doesn't fit well

(Except for Iris's route) the Psyncs are the highlight of this game, and they are also the only time the goofy-over-the-top nature blends well with the dreamlike logic, sometimes it's frustrating when you perform a meaningless action and get a time penalty but the factor of "Timies" makes it very interesting,

Also branching routes by how you engage within a Psync is a very solid idea, Aibo herself is a pretty damn likable character so it's fun to play as her in these segments

Where the Psyncs perhaps fail is that it's entirely trial and error sometimes, which given it's a dream I can't complain much about, but even something such as performing the same action twice (for example to a hole in a tree then in a different hole in a tree) you could trigger wildly different outcomes for progression, but as aforementioned the Timies reduce this frustration because they allow you to cutdown on the time for the main thing you're supposed to do in the Psync

Also to be fair there's only ever so much you can do in a Psync and you usually end up getting it right before it gets frustrating

Uchikoshi's biggest weakness has always been characters and even though there are some truly despicable garbage ones here, I enjoyed that he stepped out of his comfort zone on more than one occasion, besides Iris and Ota (or Mizuki when she's acting up) the cast is actually not subpar, there's some unique interactions you can have by clicking around the environment that got a smile out of me every now and then, but those moments can be counted on one hand
3/5 routes are utter nonsense garbage, but the final 2 routes are actually pretty cool, I enjoyed the final murderer reveal (and the Psync to get to him was also decently challenging albeit the factory itself was not that pleasing to look at)
The infodump is there, but it's broken up into small doses so you're ever only bored occasionally (and it's very easy to speed through these)

Extras:

-I liked the Mayumi final Psync in Ota's route, it's not much of anything and it's easy to find it melodramatic but seeing a mother struggle in a world that confuses her and trying the best for her family is surprisingly good to me, also the OST that plays in that segment ++

-OSTs in general are fine

-Dialogues options are bloated, sometimes you have to click the same option multiple times to continue the same thought for the character which seemed pointless, at one point I would look for the story relevant dialogue option so I could trigger the conversation ending option and didn't have to talk to the character anymore

-Presentation is good, but it's unpolished in many areas, still I can't be ungrateful atleast it doesnt look like VLR

-Despite the fact that both me and Fahim guessed the twist pretty early, the reveal was still fresh, solid and creatively executed with a compelling antagonist

-Sometimes there are cutscenes that play in their entirety, like everytime you go somewhere you have to sit through this shitty car cutscene which I just ctrl'd on instinct, other times Ota will be fed omelette rice and you have to watch the whole thing like, thrice in the entire game, there's also this cutscene where {a person gets killed near the warehouse in the past} and they show the entire video of the stabbing again and again,

These happen rarely but you really can't give the ctrl button a break in this game for a sensible experience

-The Yakuza were cringe

Do I recommend it? I can't say really, the first route is bad to the point where I expected nothing but a letdown, Iris is a horrible character and brings the quality of the experience WAAAAAAY down, but if you can stick with it and burn through the first 3 routes then I can say the reveal feels like all the effort you put in was worth it,

What you're getting is a lighthearted mystery VN so walk in with manageable expectations and you won't be extra disappointed, also for a Uchikoshi VN it's actually surprisingly small in it's scope and ends before it drags

A review on steam captures in a few sentences what the fundamental drawback of the game is:
"In the middle of incredibly climactic and dramatic moments, the tension will be dissolved immediately by bizzare antics, often with played-out "power of friendship" moments."

If you want to skip to my overall thoughts with the game, I'll save you the trouble of scrolling and relay them here at the start,

I do not like RE VII,

First thing I should mention is that the game does reflect design choices from the original resident evil games, and even though you are free to explore additionally and uncover secrets, the progression is entirely linear, and the backtracking is always considerably short,

These are not negatives btw, even when I joke about the shadow puzzles etc, all the puzzles were doable and didn't require me to look up a guide or require an impractical or inconceivable alternative to solve them, they weren't particularly imaginative however, some requiring me to just match the orientation of picture frames on opposite walls to one another, while others requiring me to look at a clock, I wasn't too fond of them at the end of the day

========================𝗟𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹 𝗟𝗮𝘆𝗼𝘂𝘁=============================

If you're expecting me to sing praises for the house section of this game you are perhaps sorely mistaken, even though it has locked doors that can be opened by keys you get late game, and has areas that are interconnected, there is no need to conflate "interconnected design" with "good design", when anyone talks about the house being a good section I imagine them talking about the basement section which links some critical parts of the game, the rest of the house sections will be left thoroughly unexplored by you unless you're treasure hunting or something,

You can argue much of the same for the original REmake where many areas of the mansion are never revisited, and although I find that true, there are still many areas/hallways/stairways you DO frequent in REmake, and the more you risk traversing them the more you are led into remembering the game's exquisite layout, maneuvering through these in late game is not only fun, but can be the deciding factor between ammo wastage and conservation,
The same is not true for RE7, the main house floor has two black creatures that you can just skip by standing behind a table and picking the route they aren't coming from, and the rest of the creatures are in the basement, that's it, the layout doesn't require you to have a good memory, it's quite literally just a basement and 2 doors on the top floor that are relevant,

But Deiji? There's also the tunnel that connects the old house (with the insects) to the RV outside the main house, to which i will say
"Yeah, that exists",

Again it's not mindblowing design, am I supposed to marvel at the fact that you can open a gate behind the RV? I appreciate it but surely it isn't some bayeux tapestry masterpiece in level design

It might seem like I'm trying to say:
large police station with interconnected paths==good(RE2Remake)
large mansion with interconnected paths == good(REmake)
small house + small veranda with some interconnected paths == bad(RE7)

But in reality I don't think RE7's design is bad, it's just very very small in comparison,

========================𝗚𝘂𝗻 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝘆=============================

Capcom was completely out of it's element when making a fps and it shows, this gameplay is BAD, the only aspect I liked were the chem fluids, having to pick between making heal items or ammunition was such an interesting in-the-moment gameplay choice you had to make,

The gunplay is atrocious, and the fact that the backwalk speed is so slow makes NO sense, it felt cheap to do that when it makes no sense logically,

The knife was the only weapon that allowed me to have the most fun with enemies otherwise standing and shooting black tar was just fucking agonizing, absolutely horrendous gameplay, if I had the opportunity I would always speed past the enemies I just did NOT like fighting them LOL
That said the burner weapon is pretty fun in the insect level despite the fact that I know many people don't like that section lol

========================𝗘𝗻𝗲𝗺𝗶𝗲𝘀=============================

There are like 3 black tar enemy types, that's it, you already saw this complaint coming from miles away, I don't need to ramble on it more, and the gunplay having this congested FOV + slow walkspeed is also the reason why they couldn't go for much variety with not only the enemies, but the bosses,

I disagree with people, insect baker mom was quite literally the only technical and good boss fight, baker son was fucking cringe my god the same bullseye boss I've been fighting since RE4 please Capcom give me a break with this shit,

If there was a jumping option it would have allowed them to get some good broken maps to with bosses so navigating across patches of walkable platforms would have been interesting, as opposed to falling into the water and climbing back up like in the baker son fight, did I mention how much I hate it already?

===================𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭========================

Predictability is another key complain I have with RE7, much of this is just unfortunate design choices that give away interesting surprises, a very good example is when you fight the Baker dad and the room has just one snake door, I was fully aware that this door was going to open late game when I would have to go through the basement and get mobbed, which is exactly what ended up happening,

This is isn't "oohh haha big galaxy brain i am so smart i predicted what the devs would do" it's just how games are sometimes lol

Same turnout on the stupid boat section with Mia (I'll dedicate an entire paragraph to it later in the review don't worry) when you're on floor 3F and get mobbed by a giant black vomit tar guy while retrieving the wire piece for the elevator,

Once more when you're retrieving the hand for the serum in the long series of corridors,

Just because I can predict it doesn't make it bad, but I feel like the opposite is came much of a detriment, when I would expect something and the game would never push the envelope,

I like the gameshow type segment with the Baker son, and I liked how it made sense how you escape since you already see the Birthday cassette, but they didn't do anything much besides putting string bombs all over the level, and baiting with wooden boxes filled with bombs, again I need to mention how just the opportunity to jump could have helped them put some variety into these sections,

The first disappointment I had was with the bubbling water at the start of the game, I knew they wouldn't try to scare me at all so I went into the water again and again, and as you can imagine nothing happens, and perhaps that would have made it too predictable, but the lingering feeling from that point never escaped me, which is that Capcom was too afraid to actually scare the players,

This game is gross, disgusting sometimes, but never scary, all the panic inducing mob spams are predictable, but still never scary, for a game that had the perfect setting to scare the shit out of it's players,


This could be me misjudging the intentions of the developers, but then I wish it was really fucking cheesy horror done in the most corny way possible, but it's just nothing,
Well, the Baker Dad was pretty funny anyway

======================𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝗕𝐨𝐚𝐭=====================

The boat section with Mia is probably universally hated, let's talk about it,

-It has 2 saves, one on 1F and one on 3F, and the rest of the navigation requires traversal with very little ammo, so you have to strategize when it comes to managing saves in this section, which I kinda liked

-It's extra frustrating because all the weapon management with ethan is thrown in the bin for this particular section, so you're stuck with a pistol and (later after you get the cabin key) the machine gun, this makes this entire level VERY stressful to play, but then they gave me a knife and the level was pretty much over and done with from that point lol

-This is where all the important storytelling is done, and the story is utter garbage, literally the worst tropes ever, I would have rather there was no story at all, little biological abomination with a mommy seeking imprint UGH, it's not that the level is entirely bad, it's just that having to do all this shit with such a terrible incentive makes it much harder, also makes this level extra shitty to go through especially since you've been fighting these black tars the entire game......doing it now without all the weapons you've accumulated lol

-The corrosive key item was a fine inclusion but it was just an excuse to hoard even more unnecessary items,

-The child itself ruins the game and knocks it down by like 6-7 points that's how bad this abomination is

======================𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝗦𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲=======================

RE stories have never been good is something I've always said and I maintain that sentiment, but RE7 doesn't fall under the same conditions of storytelling with the same Umbrella corporation again and again and again, and yet it still decided to not tell a compelling story(ends up being the same Umbrella schpiel with Mia's backstory reveal but eh), disappointing but not unexpected

The entire ending was just abhorrent I would like to forget it immediately, literally stockpiling all that ammo meant nothing by the end, didn't use the grenade launcher properly in the game even once LOL

=====================𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬======================

Cringe.

I liked the old woman on the wheelchair I thought her appearing in the different sections of the game was cool but they ruined her too with that stupid end reveal, just ugh
Ethan is deadpan, I like him but that's BECAUSE he's so lousily written, I can't tell if they were going for mentally unhinged, like James Sunderland from SH2 where he doesn't show much of a reaction to anything

Love him for wrong reasons, at least I didn't have to bear with him being traumatized by stupid shit but like, at least show a reaction to killing your wife in the start of the game my god

Hate the bakers except the Dad and Zoe but I don't LOVE them either lol

=====================𝐎𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐟𝐟====================

-Hated the cassette segments, at least there are like 4 of them, they are pretty stupid storywise too, im in a dilapidated boat time to watch a cassette so i can recover my memory! I'm being chased by the Baker mom let just tape this for my husband real quick! So stupid

-Unskippable obnoxious cutscenes,
-Long irritating intro making replays hell
-The blocking feature is redundant I literally forgot it existed until they forced me to do it at the end lol

=======================𝐎𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐥============================

I didn't like it, it has some really ambitious ideas but it's so far from reaching it's potential, whenever I'd thing it would get good the game just decided to let me down again and again

This one gets this high of a rating simply because its dungeon puzzles are genuinely one of a kind, everytime I worked through a solution it felt like an amazing accomplishment, very in-depth mechanics, I do think it's self-indulgent and by the end I got burnt OUT! The game is too damn big its daunting, it's too demanding and has a straight up skyscraper skill curve towards the end, got completely filtered out

Story is decent too! Just excuse the beginning of the game, it's rough, just wait for the first official dungeon

[From someone who actually likes Clockup titles even when they are bad]

Incredibly self-indulgent title that's just not fun to read, the 4 hour bad end was pretty bonkers but the novelty wears out really fast, we get it pimple dick docking clockup why are you acting brand new you KNOW what your audience is, give us something interesting plotwise

I don't care about the grand plot it's so fucking bad who the fuck is out there pretending like the plot for this VN is good, it isn't, you go get a damn job

Read it for the funnies I guess, or if you like chuuni content, funniest part of the game is if you read the staff credits one of the VA was revising the voicelines in his apartment and got the police called on him

Never have I seen a game abuse its status as a video game this hard, it never even once tries to convince you you're playing anything BUT a video game, it's batshit crazy, weird and the entire game feels like you're sick

But where I find a lot of it creative, funny or disturbing, I think much of the game is absolutely atrocious, the combat is bad, the navigation is bad, I know all of these contribute to the weird "acid-trip" like feel of the game, but it's just completely half-baked in its entirety, sometimes I genuinely felt like the game was trying too hard to be weird when it should've been trying hard to be a functional game at the very least

With an otherwise interesting story, I think the game doesn't strike a balance between weird and plain convenience very well. I guess a game should leave you different than how it finds you, and this game can certainly give you a taste of that.

I like the aspect of killing assassins, I love a "kill these bastards" plotline,

The NMH assassins you're supposed to kill are distinct in personality and they are pretty damn despicable sometimes, I like the fact that they are over the top and some of the fights have particular gimmicks attached to them that at least break up the monotony for what could be a straightforward kill

Everyone brings this up so I'll just reiterate, everything outside of killing assassins on your hitlist is bad, this game has actual CHORES, IT HAS CHORES you have to do, suda you are such a fucking idiot, why in the actual fuck did you put chores in this game

It's indefensible for a completely straightforward title, at least NMH2 takes the liberty of oversimplifying the chores and removed the shoddy ass bike in its entirety

What a joke. Stop making your games fucking miserable, don't let sudadrones convince you this is some bayeaux tapestry masterpiece

I wish I could rate it lower, not because as a fighting game it's bad, it's just fine

But it has no personality, as a child I grew up playing Tekken 3 and since I had no memory card my daily occupation was unlocking all the characters (including Dr. Bosconovitch! ifykyk how long that takes), and the stories were just so fun,

And then you have Tekken 7, just nothing, this only exists as a sole entity for versus gameplay and nothing else, the Mishima plotline I've always fucking hated but it's like even more insufferable here

bad

I know 3 people myself included who got confused by the start of the game so I'll lay it out for anyone that's interested,

The game has a very linear way of clearing its content despite how you have the ability to sometimes switch the order around a bit for variety, one of the game's charms.

The start of the game is a bit confusing, and it feels weird and over the place, Forgotten Crossroads misrepresents the game and misrepresents the journey you'll have ahead, I say the best way to clear content in this game is to have the aim of clearing all bosses which gives you the perfect road map, and once you're fought the Mantis Lords you're good to go,

The OST, the visuals, and above all what fantastic lore the game has. It's charming it's adventurous it has personality, the developers claimed that they designed the areas first and kind of found the story around it and it's pretty wild how well and cohesive most of turned out (minus the hive, what's up with the hive? TF is that place? Take it out)

I have yet to do the Pantheon but would love to embark on that adventure one day. Also great pricing on the game.

Thank god it doesn't have a grand explanation for why everything happens, a short VN but probably the best BL title I've read

I'll keep this one brief, it's gripping from start to end, the consequences are sinister and it's uncomfortable but unlike Euphoria where the suspension of belief is so astronomical that you can easily dissociate the VN from reality, the work here is pretty good in keeping that feel of discomfort where it feels like 2 genuine dudes don't want to see each other in this weird vulnerable scenario,

Each game they're forced to play to earn points to exit the scenario ramps up the discomfort factor and god, I can't stress enough how much of an intense read this is

Clockup did a really good job, even moreso than they ever achieved on Euphoria. It's grounded and it's unnerving. Solid. Personal Favorite.