so this will probably be the last game i play for a while! for personal reasons, i've had to make quite a few life decisions this year and a lot of my focus will be focused on furthering those efforts. so it only seems fitting that my last game for a while is also the final chapter in a saga nearly eleven years in the making as well. as a 1.0 player it's been an absolute treat seeing how much the game has grown since then but it's also a little melancholy wondering how much time i'll really have left with these characters that have been with me for quite some time already.

so i'm gonna do something a little different this time! i'm not going to give it a rating! the game itself has been such a large part of my life as a comfort pick that it feels unnecessary to justify my love for it with a binary score. with that being said, endwalker for me not only marks a conclusion to the hydaelyn and zodiark saga the game has been building up to since 1.0 but also a conclusion to a period of time in my life as well given how large the time i've spent with it has been. all in all, while ambitious at times and a few things are a little hamfisted in delivery, it has heart and that's what really matters.

payoff is the name of the game here in endwalker and while i won't mention specifics in an effort to keep this spoiler free, the story is an incredibly solid experience. while i do favor shadowbringers more, the margin of adoration between the two is pretty slim still! there are times the pacing drags its feet and while those issues might be largely intrinsic to its structure as an mmo, the ends justify the means somewhat for the most part. most who have finished it like it far more than i but i've come to realize these past few years i've become a little more expectant because of my relationship with the game itself. i will say while some parts of the story are contentious to me the payoff is very much worth it and the ffxiv team definitely know how to stick the landing while playing their nostalgia cards right. basically, get your tissues ready!

the visual spectacle on display here has also been really great with some fantastic tracks here from soken. the zones in particular are also a lot grander in scale and very visually distinct which i appreciate a lot. endwalker is very pretty and you can really see the new ways the team has been playing with those design ideas. i'm pretty glad with the direction the soundtrack has gone in as well with the success of shadowbringers seemingly not making soken inclined to replicate it but more or less continue what he's been doing for a while. so naturally, a lot of the ost really slaps! i'm also gonna take time here to say that the vocal performances by pretty much everyone here is fantastic and probably some of the best line delivery on par with shadowbringers if not transcending that at times. without saying too much here as well, the gameplay encounters here are all really enjoyable and my only really big criticism is that the cutscene/story to gameplay ratio is pretty skewed. there are also some new gameplay features which really breathe more life into the story oriented moments with characters since you have side convos with them about various things with the addition of accompaniment during exploration segments. the convos are all really intriguing and better contextualize the events around you. the solo duties here are also very good. sadly the ffxiv team decided to try out trailing missions as well but uhh they really feel awful tbh so while i appreciate the mission variety and experimentation... maybe those shouldn't be there in the patches! also there were multiple instances where i was practically foaming at the mouth for a dungeon or trial to show up but the story was still engaging enough for me to say it's largely worth the wait. i largely played endwalker in 15 - 17 hour sessions since i woke up early to dodge bad queue times so needless to say, i quite enjoyed most of it!

as this review draws to a close, i'd like to leave on a little bit of a personal note. ffxiv has been with me throughout most of my life and it has always been a fond memory for me playing it with each new expansion. and while all good things must come to an end, i hope that final fantasy xiv goes on for just a little bit longer. i've grown so much as a person from the time i first played xiv and i owe a part of that to this game. its works like these that stand as exemplary pieces that represent the transformative power of the medium for me. but alas, endwalker is a story about moving on and carrying the legacy of those before you. we treasure those memories because they shape who we are and give us the power to move forward. it's been a long time coming yet each end sparks a new beginning. after all, the journey is far from over! i'm just glad this expansion has yet again given me some brief respite at a turbulent time in my life. farewell for now old friend and from the bottom of my heart, thank you final fantasy xiv.

-mits

the nier automata of vn sequels. reused plotlines, constant meaningless callbacks to its predecessor, gimped music, and while it has a nice art direction, it is ultimately an underwhelming experience that captures none of the magic the original experience dies irae had. after all, at its very core, it's failed to submit to the philosophy of never reminding the player they could be having a better experience. dies irae is the better experience.

however, i would recommend it if you completely forgot about most of dies irae because this vn doesn't shut up about reminding you about it every two seconds !

" pantheon would've probably been better " + jop cope + ratio / 10

bean was wrong.

as my taste has been constantly refined by the things i consume and how i choose the things i wish to experience throughout the years, i find it harder for things to click initially with you beyond superficial factors such as "oh this cover art looks nice" or "this gameplay looks great." there are certainly games you "know" you'll enjoy once you pick it up perchance but it's even rarer however, to find a game that clicks with you initially, yet is also even better than you could've expected.

a-train pc classic is one of those games.


it's not a game i judged by its cover certainly but definitely something i found randomly one night browsing through the steam's store page and thought to myself "why is this 3ds port of a train sim priced at 60$?" apprehension aside, i was curious. in retrospect, one could argue a fool and their money are easily parted but in this case, i was making an investment of sorts leaning mostly on the personal side. yet i was no such fool, my gut knew better than to overlook the neat aesthetic and anyways i liked trains so why not check it out?

and ultimately? i'm really glad i did. what i found was not only a very comprehensive and addictive train/city sim hybrid but i also found a game filled with enough charm reminiscent of an almost bygone era in gaming, a game with a sensible size of scope, passion, and visuals that are not pushing any graphical boundaries by any means but comfortable in their presentation to match their general aesthetic. i feel that i should add that this game is quite difficult. even following the directions to a t, i find that the freedom the game allows you to have even during more guided segments definitely still often resulted in an ever-increasing mountain of debt. the point here is that failure is your greatest teacher in this game and at the end of the day, i learned a very personal thing as well. maybe i should stick to being a hobbyist and not pursue a career in railway management.

but i digress, personal lamentations aside, what's presented here is a game with a strict learning curve and an even more rewarding gameplay loop. this game, i imagine, is dedicated to a very niche demographic that appreciates the genre it represents and i think a strong reason for why this title has a lot of staying power for me personally is not only in part to its well-crafted design but the fact that it can be played in both long sessions and short bursts. it's been fun to play this daily in short bursts of "maintenance" but it also never feels tedious or draining watching your railway system grow after hour-long sessions. the soundtrack also goes really hard???? i appreciate that a lot.

anyways, should you play this game? if you like trains and the prospect of railway management sounds appealing to you then sure! if you're wondering whether this is a good entry to start, however, i'd recommend on the port of the newer switch title which at the time of writing this review comes out next month on december 7th, 2021 which is supposedly a lot more beginner-friendly and something i'll be getting around to at that time too. compared to the slump the industry experienced last year, this year was full of surprises in new titles and old titles that i discovered throughout and i'm glad to say a-train is one of them.

based tutorial secretary/10

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!