Memories Off 6 T-Wave – thoughts

I bought this in last year’s 5pb sale along with Yubikiri no Kioku and shoved it in the backlog until now. The full package is Memories Off 6 Complete, which bundles the base game with the fandisc. It’s the 6th game in the Memories Off series, which had typically placed an emphasis on its realistic setting free of absurd elements and natural characters. The first Memories Off featured a protagonist who still feels the effects of the death of his girlfriend. The second game started with a unique situation in which the protagonist and main heroine were already dating. Yubikiri no Kioku (otherwise known as the 7th game) gave the hero a fiancee who sticks to him like glue, a girl who blackmails him for free housing, and a heavy past that ties it all together. This game? It’s a typical school life romance.

Criminal Girls: Invitation Review

A dungeon-crawling RPG where you use various methods of torture on teenage girls to get them to learn battle skills. Developed by Imageepoch (known for the Luminous Arc series, and more infamously, Time and Eternity) and published by Nippon Ichi Software. It looks low budget like a cheap fanservice game, and while I wouldn’t argue against such accusations, I also found much enjoyment in it as a light RPG that’s reasonably balanced and easy to get into without having to make huge commitments or decisions. This might interest those who want a simple and straightforward RPG with some lewd mini-games.

Himawari Review

A loli with mysterious powers in a space pod crash-lands in the local park, gets plagued with amnesia, and starts living with the protagonist and tagging along in his club activities. A joke-tier premise, combined with the relatively unimpressive and inconsistent doujin game-quality art and mediocre first episode made me get stalled in the common route for the longest time. Aside from a few funny scenes here and there, the first “route” did nothing to grab my interest until some reveals at the end. Then the preview from the second episode kicked in. I began the next part of the story and never looked back.

Princess Arthur – Thoughts

Before anyone asks about what happened to my mother taking over the blog: she found a new job so unfortunately, you’re stuck with me. Also the リア充 life worked out so well I’ve left my room only for exams and McDonald’s for the past month. This otome VN is up for grabs on JP PS+, so I went ahead and played it.

Princess Arthur sets off with an ambitious setting, combining the legend of King Arthur and staple western fantasy elements to create an otome game with the premise “What if King Arthur was a girl?”

Mashiro-Iro Symphony: *mutsu-no-hana

It’s been a while since I’ve played, let alone fully completed a moege. An ordinary school-life moege, at that too! Needless to say, this has satisfied my gakuen moege itch for quite a while and I don’t think I will finish one again in the near future unless there’s some sort of catch or interesting twist to it. If I had to describe my experience playing this, it would be like eating a wedding cake whole, by myself. At first it sounds sweet and tempting, and it is kind of fun, but you’ll be full and sick of it after eating the first level of the normally 3-tier cake (give or take some depending on the capacity of your stomach).

428 -Fuusasareta Shibuya de-

I refuse to let a month go without a post, so I decided to go type that review I’ve been meaning to type as soon as I finished the game. A while back I wrote about a game called Time Travelers, which was kind of neat in its use of five different protagonists to advance the story, but ultimately fell short on plot and writing. Preceding it is 428, a sound novel from Spike Chunsoft that also uses the 5-protagonist system, but does it more skillfully. The emphasis on the “novel” part also means more in-depth character writing and a longer and more detailed story overall, as compared to Time Travelers’ movie-like approach.

Amnesia V Edition

I think I’m slowly warming up to otome games…

The heroine lost her memories due to a spirit named Orion landing in her head, and conveniently for the narrative, also wiped out whatever previous personality she has! Together with Orion (who only she can see), she must interact with those around her to regain her memories, while also being careful to not get found out about her condition lest she get sent to the hospital and left there to rot without remembering anything.

11eyes – Tsumi to Batsu to Aganai no Shoujo

Looks like I’ve been on schedule with my New Year’s Resolution to finish off some PSP games. This time, it’s 11eyes Crossover, the CS port of a 2008 eroge. Included in Crossover is Tsumi to Batsu to Aganai no Shoujo, which is the main scenario that this review will cover, and an additional original scenario with a new cast in the same setting that I’ll probably write about later on. Expect some pretty conventional chuu2 plot devices.

New Year’s Resolution

Other than the obvious things like don’t die, don’t fail out of university, get a job, etc., I will probably try to clear off some of my PSP backlog so I can move forward. I realized I’ve amassed loads of PSP games bought on a whim/sale/bought when I was in the mood for a game but by the time it arrived via super slow SAL shipping I was in the mood for other things. The last one happened more often than I’d like to admit.

Anyway, one PSP game down a month is my goal.

Sweet Fuse: At Your Side – Otome game that I’ve been meaning to play but never got around to. I’ve been meaning to play more otome games in general, but I am terrible at picking good ones.

11eyes CrossOver – chuuni galge. I particularly remember 11eyes from the days where I watched and admired a lot of eroge openings, but couldn’t play any so I just looked at pictures and made up stories.

Mashiroiro Symphony – apparently a rather 王道 moege that seems pretty well-received. I’ve always liked the art as far as moege go.

Twinkle Crusaders – Got the battle system recommended to me.

Dunamis15 – The naming scheme sounds like one of those VNs 5pb makes to cash in on the Ever17 sci-fi hype, but apparently the plot is actually decent in this one.

Akiba’s Trip Plus – Stripping people in Akiba, needed a game with real-time battles to balance the list.

Shining Hearts – looks like a pretty standard RPG with character designs by Tony Taka, will play when bored

7th Dragon 2020 – Dungeon-crawler with classes, always welcome in my book.

Corpse Party – Bought from PSN on sale

Half-Minute Hero – I’ve always found the concept of this to be pretty neat, and it seems to suit handhelds perfectly

Star Ocean: Second Evolution – Played SOI, always meant to play SOII since it’s everyone’s favorite. PS1 RPGs tend to have pretty good atmospheres if nothing else.

Sakura Wars I & II – It was 500 yen during Sega’s JPSN sale! And this is a compilation of two games! Plus Sakura Wars is supposedly a classic, which means there’s a high chance of it being decent to good.

Despite being calling myself an RPG fan, I still haven’t played most of the Final Fantasies, so I was planning on doing an FF marathon (not including I, which I beat, and III, which I played and didn’t really like), but I guess I’ll be saving that for later when my backlog is less massive.

I might not be able to play all of these or end up switching some around, but everything is for my ultimate goal of cutting down on my backlog.

Dangan Ronpa 1&2 Reload

This is the Vita compilation of Dangan Ronpa 1 and 2, with upscaled graphics and added touchscreen support (extremely helpful for a certain part of the second game). Since I marathoned both games in a short period of time, it is only appropriate to write about both.