u/Porolin

I wasn't even going to consider the Pokopia DLC until it was fully out, but I'm a sucker for underwater/mermaid themes (plus Popplio is one of my favorite starters and Brionne is my birthday Pokemon) so I caved and got it. I wasn't sure how enjoyable an entire area with underwater controls would be, but it actually feels pretty good. It's my favorite new favorite area in the game now. Hopefully the other area they add is just as good.

Playing Pokopia also made me want to replay Dragon Quest Builders 2, so that's what I'm doing now. It's my first time playing it on the Switch 2 and it feels so much better than the Switch 1. I'm still early on so it'll be a while before I can really see the difference, but even the loading times are significantly faster.

I played a bit of Fields of Mistria a while back and would like to go back to it now that it's out of early access, but my laptop screen is dying so I want to wait until I replace it before I really dive into any PC games.

Finished 9 RIP last night. I enjoyed the game overall, but Minami was the only character I was interested in as an LI. Maybe Kureha, Hibiki, and Koharu to a lesser degree. I stilled liked the others as characters and enjoyed all of the routes to some extent though. I liked School Ghost Stories and Other Realm more than the other two. I was so happy to see that Misa had not one, but TWO whole female friends, plus family as well. I always love when the MC has solid, non-romantic relationships with characters.

I was already interested in Minami going into the game, but I was worried Misa might get pushed around too much during his route. Luckily that wasn't the case, and I absolutely love their dynamic. Kureha is a distant second favorite. He's adorable and I love how brave he is even when visibly terrified. Hibiki isn't quite my usual type, but he's still pretty cute and his voice acting is great so I ended up liking him more than I thought I would. When I initially met Koharu I though the would be a lot calmer and cooler so I wasn't expecting to like him that much. I love the rough around the edges, easily flustered type of tsundere though so I was happy to see that I was wrong. He even has cute fangs, which are my weakness.

Playing Birushana now. Honestly, I wasn't really interested in this game, but I bought it a while ago anyway because it was on sale for $13 and I figured it was at least worth that. The only LI I'm even remotely interested in is Noritsune and I'm playing his route first so I don't have much to look forward to after this. Benkei is adorable so far, but I'm not into age gaps so I'm not super interested in him as an LI for Shanao. Shungen's okay but I'm not generally into the childhood friend trope, and the other two don't sound like they're up my alley at all. I still want to try and finish the game though. I like the side characters so far, so I have to play through the other routes to unlock the IF endings. Plus the art and soundtrack are amazing, and I'm enjoying the historical/political side of things. The biggest problem I'm facing with this game though is that it's really making me want to go play Okami instead.

Gonna finish up 9 RIP today. I don't normally play bad ends in otome games, but I've been getting them in 9 RIP because it felt like the sort of game where bad ends make sense.

After this I'm going to play Birushana. I bought it on sale a while ago but never got around to playing it. Then if I'm still in the mood for another otome game after that, I still have Temirana to play as well.

My biggest issue with crafting in cozy games is inventory/storage management and timers on crafting. I think grinding for materials can be relaxing if they're not too hard to get, but having to constantly go back and empty my super small inventory into my dozens of chests is tedious. Even worse if your tools break and you have to go back to craft more or carry spares that take up valuable inventory space. And then having to remember where I put everything so I can pull the materials back out to craft multiple different types of wooden boards (which take time) and iron ingots (which also take time) to craft into nails so I can finally make a table. It ends up being too much work.

Dragon Quest Builders 2 is one of my favorite games because it avoids most of the gripes I have about crafting. It's spoiled me though because now I have a hard time playing games with more tedious crafting systems.

I thought about getting Temirana, but I just played two otome games back to back and I'm not sure if I have it in me to play a third. Especially since I've heard Temirana is on the longer side. As much as I'd like to join in on the discussions I think I'll enjoy the game more if I wait.

Instead I've been playing ACNH. I ended up restarting my island because it's been forever since I last played. I mostly just did HHP stuff anyway so I didn't lose much. I haven't been able to get into ACNH as much as previous games in the series, but that's in part due to how tedious crafting is. Now that we can craft using materials from storage and craft multiple items at a time I'm hoping that part of the game will be more enjoyable and I'll be able to stick with it longer.

Still playing Mistonia, but I'm having a hard time finding the motivation to finish. There are a lot of individual things I like about it, but as a whole it's just not drawing me in much. I also only have Ascot and John left, and I'm not really interested in either of them. I almost never play non-romance routes, so the chances I ever played the final route were pretty low to begin with. My LI ranking for the routes I have played is Lucas > Alfred > Edward > Linus, although I did enjoy all of them as LIs. Route-wise, I'm again reminded of how my taste in otome games seems to differ from a lot of people's because my two favorite routes were Alfred and Edward, which were the two most people seemed least interested in.

I love the voice acting in this game. Everyone's great, but Saki Fujita did an amazing job capturing Tia's personality. I wish this game had a voiced MC.

I've been trying to play Mistonia but it's been slow going. My eyesight's bad so I prefer playing on my TV, but a power surge fried my power strip so now I don't have enough outlets to plug in my TV and my Switch unless I want to move my TV to the other side of the room. So now I have to play in handheld but I'm having a hard time concentrating. It took me two days to get past the common route, but I'm hoping things will go more quickly now.

In other news, I finally got the jacket I've been wanting for ages and I love it! I always held off on buying one because it's a bit pricey, and since it's from a small business I didn't know what the return process would be like if it didn't fit. And since I normally wear petite sizes and all of their things are unisex, there was a good chance it wouldn't fit. However, aside from the usual issues (shoulders too wide, sleeves and length too long) it fits great! And even the issues it does have aren't nearly as bad as I thought they'd be.

There are other LIs I dislike more than Allan, but he's definitely the most popular one that I just straight up don't like. I was hoping he'd be one of those LIs that I warmed up to as I played his route since everyone else loved him so much, but nope! Finished it and still didn't like him.

I used to play the various flash games you could find online, and that eventually lead me to play Amnesia. Didn't like Amnesia at all, but then I bought a Vita for P4D and figured I should buy some other games as well. Code: Realize sounded interesting, and even though I was worried I'd regret it like Amnesia I bought it anyway and ended up loving it.

Although if you want to go back even more, Ar tonelico is the first game I played with VN elements and romance options. That's what originally lead me to seek out more games like it, including Persona 4 which then lead to me buying a Vita and giving otome games another shot after bouncing off of Amnesia. And what's more, I also bought a PSP in order to play P3P and almost bought Sweet Fuse when it came out, so I could've potentially gotten into otome games even sooner.

Finished Battlefield Waltz last night and enjoyed it overall. I did feel like some of the routes lacked romantic chemistry so the romance scenes felt a bit jarring, but the characters were enjoyable enough that I could look past that. Even the side characters were great. Lan was... fine. I didn't find her particularly impressive, but she wasn't all that annoying or frustrating either. Asaka being voiced by Megumi Ogata made me wish he had a route. His glasses art in the shop is A+. Also, as someone who used to be a big TeniMyu fan, I was excited to see Kazuki Kato in this. My overall LI ranking is Nike > Wilhelm = Pash > Abel > Lustin > Tifalet, which is about what I expected going into this.

I'm playing Mistonia next. So far I've seen the title screen. I really like the butterflies and flowers. The colors are nice and so is the music. I love the logo as well. If you're looking for an otome game title screen to experience, this is definitely one I'd recommend. I'd give it an 8.5/10 overall, but the logo gets a 9.5/10. If you're a fan of warmer colors you might want to skip this title screen though. Also, if you hate nature, the title screen is pretty much all nature. Flowers and leaves and butterflies. There's a bird in the logo, too.

I didn't expect it to be heavy on the romance. Like I said, I'm not normally a fan of romance in manga, so Noragami still had more romance than I would usually like despite not being labeled as a romance. But because I don't usually like romance stories outside of otome games I also wasn't expecting to get as invested in Yato and Hiyori's relationship as much as I did. I'm mainly disappointed at how little interaction they had at in the last couple of arcs because their chemistry was so great. But I also understand one of the authors had health issues, which is unfortunately a way-too-common cause for rough manga endings.

It's been a long time since I've played an otome game. I think the last one was Tengoku Struggle when that came out, but then nothing I was interested in came out for a while and I eventually stopped paying attention to new releases. I got some eshop cards for Christmas though so I've decided to spend them on otome games. I grabbed Battlefield Waltz and was planning on getting a couple more on sale, but now I'm kind of leaning toward Mistonia instead. If I do get Mistonia though I'm not getting anything else though because I just spent a bunch of money on the Steam sale, so I'm torn. Mistonia's art is so pretty and I love the MC's design, but I could also get several games for less money.

Instead of playing otome games this year, I ended up reading a lot of romance shoujo manga instead. I'm not normally a fan of romance manga, but I read Noragami earlier this year, and even though I really liked it overall the ending blue-balled me so hard that I needed to go read some proper romance. My favorite of them all is probably Kamisama Hajimemashita. I started reading it back when it came out but never finished because I'm terrible at keeping up with ongoing series. I don't recall ever being super into it when I read it before so I never had any plans to finish it, but I'm glad I went back. I also loved Usotoki Rhetoric. It's pretty light on romance, but the characters were great and I loved the relationship they developed throughout the story. Kieta Hatsukoi was another one that I enjoyed, and while reading I realized it was the same artist who did Ore Monogatari, which is another manga I started when it was still ongiong, so I went back and finished that as well because Aruko's art is hilarious.

But I think my favorite manga that I read this year which wasn't a shoujo manga was Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou. I wasn't even planning on reading it when I did, but someone I followed on tumblr reblogged some art from it and even though I initially just scrolled past it, I just kept thinking about it until I had to go read the manga. I had planned on reading it a little at a time but somehow accidentally ended up reading the entire thing in one night. The song Bottled Message in the Sky from Blue Reflection: Second Light is one of my favorite piece of video game music, and I think it goes well with this manga too.

I feel like Stardew Valley lacks the whimsy that the RF/BokuMono games have. I know that some people like that the characters in Stardew Valley feel more realistic, but to me it just feels like all of the worst parts of living in a rural town without any of the good aspects. Like, I already know those people irl. I don't want to have to deal with them in my cozy games too.

I think Stardew Valley is an impressive indie game with a lot to do in terms of farming, but for me the story and characters are a big part of why I play these games and I just couldn't get into that aspect of Stardew Valley.

Most bigger titles I play are from series I like or devs I'm familiar with so I don't necessarily need demos for those games, but I pretty much exclusively find indie games through demos nowadays. There are so many indie games out there that, unless it gets really popular or I see a recommendation for it, I'm probably not even going to realize it exists without a demo.

Most of my Steam wishlist is games I've played demos for and enjoyed but still haven't gotten around to buying. I don't have the time or money to add even more games to that list unless I know I'll enjoy them.

You know, I haven't done much with it during the day, but now that I'm looking at it more I'll have to start. Here's a quick picture I just took.

https://preview.redd.it/4ext0gbll2cf1.jpeg?width=2560&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=20a68f581c73e98efc91eb7b5a1bd8c8ccf89d59

Here's a comparison at 0%, 50%, and 100%. I wasn't sure about it at first, but now that I've taken some pictures with it I'm finding it pretty useful. It's more subtle than the other blue lighting, but that also makes it more versatile.

https://preview.redd.it/a977lbu170cf1.png?width=2018&format=png&auto=webp&s=0d4c9fcd65359946d8b04960c079943a1e4c99a6

I knew I had to have it as soon as I saw it and I don't regret it. I've been taking pictures with it all day.

https://preview.redd.it/syn08knuzxbf1.jpeg?width=2560&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aa9714d6f8763e467f67938fc0d0c9530fd90c04

Same thing happened to me. I drowned repeatedly and then after I respawned I teleported back but couldn't interact with anything.

Here it is with the eyelashes. I have the full makeup set, but I mainly use the base makeup and lipstick and absolutely love them.

https://preview.redd.it/6d9825ndf12f1.png?width=3470&format=png&auto=webp&s=2a2d796ad83d0fa0898e9b6c5536fc605d3b9c81

I also got that glitch once. I've seen a few T-posing Nikkis around various places but this one was the funniest and most unnerving.

https://preview.redd.it/qgxkhnmnoqye1.jpeg?width=2560&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9face8088d6d3d6d7ded1cb94ef6b2d36e682c6c

I've always just used the F1-7 keys to change outfits, and that still works thankfully.

I wasn't too bothered by the update until I found out that they retconned the story. I've been playing gacha games for nearly a decade, so I fully expected them to ramp up the monetization tactics. I'm an extremely low spender ($8 since launch) so none of what they're doing on that front really matters to me, since I'm not getting full 5* outfits anyway. The glitches are annoying, but they also usually mean compensation so I can put up with them for a bit if it means free stuff. Thankfully I've been able to play the game, but it sucks that some people are still having trouble.

At first the story stuff confused me, but I thought it was just for the event. I figured they included a tutorial for the new players the Steam launch brought in. Knowing that they completely scrapped the original intro is so upsetting. That was genuinely one of the most intriguing introduction scenes I've seen in a game. The new one is a terrible first impression in comparison.

I don't actually think it would be that hard to fix either. Just introduce the Sea of Stars after getting to Florawish (later would be better, but I don't think they'd want to keep co-op gated for that long) and say it's a what-if scenario or a vision of the future that Nikki has to prevent or something like that.

I could see that being part of the reason, but they sure went about it in the entirely wrong way. If they really wanted players to have access to multiplayer quickly, they could've added a quest for it shortly after reaching Florawish. It really doesn't take that long to make it to that point in the game. Just have Nikki go investigate some mysterious portal or rift or whatever they come up with, she gets sucked in, and then she wakes up in the Sea of Stars. The rest can play out pretty much the same way. Most single player games with multiplayer elements have at least a bit of solo tutorial before you can unlock the multiplayer gameplay.

Also, as someone who prefers playing games solo, if I had been met with the multiplayer aspect immediately after starting I probably would have quit. Introducing it right away would've made me think that it's a necessary part of the game.

I'm really hoping this whole thing is the result of pressure from higher ups to get this out for the Steam release even though it wasn't ready, and they'll be able to fix it later. I like the idea of the Sea of Stars, but its implementation right now is an incomplete mess and a poor first impression for new players.

I have been waiting basically the entire Switch's lifespan for a Phog icon. I'm not upset that he didn't get one this wave. I AM upset that Boze managed to get one first.