Don’t Think, Just Jam
I started a screenshot album for my virtual adventures. Check it out if you’d like.
How does Akame hold up these days? I remember reading it a while ago and even though it wasn’t the best thing ever, I did enjoy it well enough. I’m curious if this opinion would survive a return after so much time.
Bonus question: have you seen the anime adaptation?
It’s not that I was super invested in or enjoying that arc, I simply hate story threads being swept under the rug without proper (or any, really) conclusion. It’s mostly a personal gripe rather than a genuine wish towards the series to be honest.
Not much to write about this week but I did find a new (well, unknown to me) series so there’s that. Here’s what I have:
Lots of Cyberpunk 2077 this week. I’ve been mostly driving around and doing side missions/gigs so I didn’t make much progress with the main story. I did however finish the parade and the intro (rescue) section of Phantom Liberty to unlock Dogtown and make sure I won’t lock myself from the expansion in case I decide to play it later.
As fun as the game is I feel myself drawn to any and all non-combat activities, which are somewhat limited in this game. Maybe I’ll do a photography tour of the map for a bit?
I’m still busy with various things so I can’t put my full attention towards the community or VNs in general just yet. I have however been on a week long trip recently which means I was finally able to relax and take a moment to spend at least some time on that.
My first priority was playing through the first (well, zeroth) episode of of the Devil. It was pretty great - writing is snappy and enjoyable, visuals simple but unique and the music is bopping (even if it can get a little repetitive by the end). I also really like the gameplay elements. They’re simple but work as a neat way to spice up the experience and nudge player’s attention towards things that could be chalked up as background lore.
What I wasn’t immediately sold on was the epilogue. The twist was fine - it wasn’t particularly surprising but I also don’t feel super strong about it in any way, negative or positive. What I was surprised by however is how milquetoast I felt about everything after solving the case. It’s not that this part was necessarily bad, it simply failed to grip me the way the rest of the episode did. I have no idea why I feel that way, it’s really strange.
I still want to continue with the rest of the episodes, more so than before in fact - I just hope their content will keep me strictly in the “main part mode”.
Secondly, I also finished D1AL-ogue, the VA-11 Hall-A inspired cyberpunk technician game.
It has an interesting story, enjoyable characters and a simple progression loop (start the day, interact with 2 clients by talking and doing puzzles, go to sleep). Even though some of the writing (or more likely the English translation) didn’t manage to reach the level of its inspiration it’s still a fun read all the way through.
I mentioned it before but I really love the art in this one - it’s a fantastic example of a classic style pixel art. For the most part anyway. There are some illustrations that look kinda funky but the stuff you spend most of your time with looks amazing and makes me want to work harder on my own pixel art skills. I’ll find the time to do that one day…
Despite simple mechanics, gameplay holds up really well until the end. I actually wish there was an endless mode just to play around with randomised puzzles or something. It’s kind of addicting once you get into it.
I’ve got nothing more to say about it right now to be honest. It’s a great VN, especially for the low price of nothing at all. All that’s left is to wait for the expanded version. Devs were actually planning a crowdfunding campaign for that but according to their new update post they managed to find a publisher instead - good for them.
I’ve been jumping back and forth between three very different games since last week. They differ in gameplay, themes, atmosphere, art style and age, leading to a pretty significant whiplash when switching between them. These titles are: Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, Cyberpunk 2077 and Dressmaker.
It seems I’ve hit a wall with this one - not in terms of difficulty but rather annoyance. The further I get, the more annoying new enemies (or their variants) become. I’m not going to say “the game is bad now” or anything like that, I just need a short break to avoid burnout. I’m also back home so it’s harder to just step away from my desktop and hop on the Steam Deck but that’s a “me” issue.
I’ll be back soon.
I keep chipping away on this from time to time in an attempt to finally complete the main story. I managed to reach Phantom Liberty ending a few months ago but I never got past the start of act 3 of the base game - I complete the parade, do a few side quests and that’s pretty much where my playthroughs usually end.
I’ve updated and expanded my mod list, refreshed motivation to continue and decided to complete the game “eventually” rather than “as soon as possible”. I had to drop the difficulty a notch as my idea of playing extremely underpowered character doesn’t mesh well with the mod adjusted damage and the amount or type of mandatory combat this game has. I’ve been also having some issues with crashes when reloading saves - can’t say redoing sections in such circumstances is a welcome prospect.
So I’m back again, right before the parade. Can I stick around till the finish line this time? No idea. The only thing I can do is try.
At least I got some neat screenshots again.
As the title suggests, it’s a cosy crafting game where you design and make dresses. There are dozens of individual dress pieces you can mix and match to come up with your ideal design, huge number of materials you can use to piece it together and tons of accessories to make it look exactly the way you want it.
Gameplay is also really good. You start by taking measurements of your client, then selecting the design for each piece of the dress (bodice, collar, sleeves, dress) to fulfil their requirements. Once that’s done you have to cut the necessary pieces from the material (gotta spread them the right way to avoid waste), align these pieces on a mannequin and get to sewing. The last part is a simple mini-game, where you manipulate the piece to keep sewing according to the marker - the better you do, the higher quality of the dress. What’s really great is the fact that the controls during this part are set up to simulate the act of real sewing (you press space to advance and mouse to rotate the fabric).
Last, but not least, there are accessories. This is technically an optional step (at least in the requests I’ve played so far) but some well placed additions can completely transform your creations so it’s definitely worth playing with.
Besides client commissions, you can also just design and sell your own ideas. In this case you get to skip the first step (measurements) and don’t have to stick to specific requirements (style, main colour etc) - simply go wild with your imagination and make the dress of your dreams. Or whatever you’re able to do with your available funds/materials.
It’s a fresh release (came out last week) so not exactly a good subject for this community but it’s great so I wanted to mention it. It’s also really cheap (about €15 without the launch discount, I believe) which is pretty awesome.
To be clear, I’m talking about this game, not the application with similar name also available on Steam.
I read a few more chapters of Over rev! but I’m still somewhat mixed on how I feel about it. I think the manga itself isn’t bad, I just don’t fully vibe with its humour (and the main character at times).
I’ll give it 10 more chapters and decide what to do with it after that. I might just keep it as a “read in case of extreme boredom” kind of thing. We’ll see.
I’m not sure why they used Type 97’s name from PNC/GFL2 while using GFL1’s Type 95 but whatever.
One thing worth keeping in mind is the fact that the first game was a small experimental project made as part of the Orange Box rather than a full-fledged title. It’s short and a bit simple but it was more of a neat bonus in a pack of other games, not a star of the show. That’s not to say your opinion is invalid, on the contrary, it’s just… between years of hype and the scope of the project, having Portal blow you away would be more surprising than your current feelings towards it, in my opinion.
As BurnWits said, Portal 2 is more of a full-fledged title in comparison. If you enjoyed the first game, there’s a high chance you’ll like the sequel. Will it be closer to the mind blowing expectations you had for the first one? I don’t know. It is however a bigger and more polished product so it might satisfy you more in that regard.
I do understand the unwillingness to increase your backlog though, I know this feeling really well too.
Sounds good. I don’t mind a slow build up so that’s not a problem, all I care about is story that’s enjoyable (or at least interesting) to read through - looks like I’ll be happy with it.
Length is my only worry to be honest. Not because I don’t like long VNs (or games in general) but I have a bit of a problem sticking with things at the moment. It’s what prevents me from starting SG and finishing some other games I’ve been playing on and off for… years in some cases. Mind goblins can be infuriating in the worst ways sometimes.
Weak DRM is a plus but I’m honestly over jumping through hoops for paid products. I’d rather spend money on something that’s exactly how I want it from the get go - there’s enough stuff in my backlog I can be a bit picky without feeling like I miss much.
I can understand the space concern. Thankfully (or unfortunately), my collection isn’t big enough to worry about it just yet but I can see it being a problem in the future. Besides, I spend vast majority of my time in front of the screen already so I try to find ways to step away from it for certain activities - reading physical is one of them.
I’ve read the “normal” version of Villains Are Destined To Die so trying out a physical version could work as a good comparison. I’ll probably go with the printed one though - I’m not a fan of proprietary apps and DRM. Well, that and I simply prefer reading physical (too bad not everything I’m interested in is available officially in English).
You know what? My question was meant to be rhetorical since everything you’ve described was exactly why I stopped using a different official service but having it written down like this is a good reminder of why I hate those sites. Thanks, I needed that. And I definitely agree.
As for physical… I’m curious how well physical releases work for manhwa. I know there are some series that did release this way but I never got my hands on one so it’s still kind of abstract for me. I certainly prefer physical for manga, even if more expensive, but manhwa? I’d like to check that out some day.
Yeah, I’m too excited for it to give up that easily! It just got buried under stuff with actual (if soft) deadlines. I’ll just keep tweaking the mod list until then - hopefully the end result won’t turn into a complete clown-show by the time I’m ready to go.
Man, I finally bought SG a few months ago but the perspective of starting it kinda terrifies me at the moment. How is it?
I’m about 65% into the game (well, map exploration) and grinding a bit in preparation for the next boss fight. I’m also trying to unlock as many skill cards and new items as I can (without gunning for 100%) so progression slowed down a bit. Still, I’m getting there.
As much as I love this game, I’m not planning another playthrough just yet. I simply wanted to try out the Saints Row 2 Juiced Patch which promises huge performance improvements, mouse fixes, graphics improvements and a bunch of other things. It delivered quite nicely and the game runs and plays much better than it ever did.
Add a few other mods (Gentlemen of the Row for fixes and various additions, Made 2 Measure for better clothing customisation, PS3 Audio for better audio quality etc) and the whole thing becomes a joy to play. Not that the vanilla version wasn’t fun but its technical state leaves a lot to be desired and does affect the overall enjoyment.
I didn’t forget about this! I’m still a bit busy and can’t start my role-play focused playthrough just yet but I’ve been doing some additional prep for that in the meantime. I decided to set the game up from scratch using Heroic Launcher instead of Lutris as the former tends to give me better stability and performance lately (I also want to move away from Lutris in general). Additionally, I figured out how to configure the Amethyst Mod Manager for the game on Linux which makes the mod list setup and debugging much easier and cleaner.
I was planning to include my full mod list here but it put my comment over the character limit. I’ll add one once I’m done modding and ready to start playing.
I’m still not sure when I’ll start the actual playthrough but it’ll most likely be around December or January - I hope I’ll be able to wrap up my current time-consuming black hole of a project by then but we’ll see how it goes. It will happen, that’s all I can say for certain.
I initially thought the AI translation might’ve borked currency conversion but the Korean version of the article uses 1.1 trillion for the total value so that’s not it. Either way, that’s one expensive blunder.
Setting aside the absurd sounding investment claim (maybe they did waste such mountain of money, I don’t know), good riddance. I really wish companies learned from Steam in regards to combating piracy - providing good service is the best way to get people to spend money.
You compete with a sea of trash machine translations, how can you lose to that?
I was on a trip last week which meant a perfect occasion to catch up on my library again. I checked out a few titles but while most of them started good to great, some turned towards rather generic (or just not fun for me) direction pretty quickly - with the latter titles I dropped them faster than I could think to note them down for this post so I’ll stick to a few series I stayed with for longer. Most of it is manhwa, as is the tradition recently - it just reads well, what can I say?
I could probably squeeze a few more titles but I feel like this is a big enough text wall as is. Not like I have a ton of interesting things to write about everything I read anyway. Man, trips are nice (for catching up with your backlog).
Yeah, I’m aware of the anime running out of the source material though I remember actually liking some of the anime choices more (or rather, in different way) than the manga ones funnily enough. I can’t really go into details since it’s been so long I don’t remember much (nor can I say I’d still think that way now) but that’s something that stuck with me.
Good to know it’s still holding up. It’s one of those titles I’m always worried about going back to so this gives me some hope I might pull the trigger on that some day.
How much of the sequel came out? Is it a longer read or something short and unceremoniously cut in the middle of an arc or something?