Various thoughts on a variety of topics.
A psycho-diver by trade, Juuta Busujima is made an offer he can’t refuse to cure a famous pop star’s sudden mental instability. This is no ordinary job though, and it has already claimed his friend’s life.
Features a shadowy cult, ESP, violence, murder, nudity, sex, and a couple abstract dream sequences.
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After seeing a number of comments claiming this was one of the best RPGs ever, I finally got around to playing it recently.
It’s a good handheld game, sure… but it’s certainly no RPG masterpiece. There are quite a number of flaws, beyond the inherent simplicity of being designed specifically for short play sessions. The most glaring of which would have to be the plot structure and storyline itself:
This is a game about jumping around between timelines and modifying the past to change the future, yet it’s just as linear as a conventional RPG with every single decision point having a rigidly right and wrong answer. If you choose the wrong decision you have to immediately re-do the choice to pick the right one, and if you do things out-of-order or miss something you’ll be blocked from continuing until you do everything the right way.
So it has all the negatives of a time travel story (questionable logic, forced backtracking) with none of the positives such as multiple endings. There is only one here, though it’s accompanied by a number of sidequest-unlocked epilogue scenes (only the Conuts one advances anything), and ultimately you’ve gone on this epic journey just to… restore the status quo. The actual progress toward saving the world is put off with a sequel hook.
The combat system is fine at least, despite fundamentally making no sense whatsoever and having a penchant for tossing over-populated encounters at you that basically require the use of magical AOE attacks. And I can’t really complain about getting ~32 hours worth of playtime out of it to see everything, even if some of that did only just amount to running on a treadmill.
While rummaging through his grandfather’s stored things for something to pawn, Hikaru ends up possessed by the ghost of a Go instructor from the Heian period. Soon enough Hikaru becomes interested in the game as well and starts trying to become a better player.
Unlike many of this sort of series, this one doesn’t really have any comedy to speak of. It treats the game as deathly serious and even the school life portions focus on darker topics such as bullying and jealousy.
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The youngest son in a family full of entertainers and show business talents, Izumi Sena is a somewhat introverted young man who ends up agreeing to take part in a special anniversary commercial. A commercial which intends to use the same cast as one he accidentally ended up appearing in 10 years earlier… as a girl. Meanwhile, the wildly popular actor Ryouma Ichijou also happened to be in that commercial and has not been able to forget about the girl he met there. What will happen when these two are reunited and Ryouma finds out that Izumi is actually a guy?
An otherwise conventional ‘popular guy, plain girl’ romantic comedy with a mostly male cast and slight focus on the entertainment industry. The majority of the comedy is centered on how awkward both Izumi and Ryouma are about expressing/dealing with their feelings.
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At an undefined point in the future the discovery of a new energy source has completely changed the face of society. Now two oganizations are fighting for control over this energy source, with the fate of the world hanging in the balance.
Despite the name this does not have all that much in the way of giant robot action. It’s more of a character drama with secondary martial-arts aspects and only tertiary mecha action.
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The normal everyday life of the completely untalented and slightly unlucky Nagito Komaeda is thrown into turmoil after one of his close friends is suddenly murdered.
This takes place after Danganronpa 3‘s last Future episode and just before the Hope episode. It starts off with wacky school-life antics and ends with philosophical monologues.
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Some 200 years after a space/time collapse a world’s inhabitants uncover the remains of ancient robotic weapons. Following their restoration and use in warfare two major powers have emerged, and are now locked in a race to restore as many of these “Armors” as possible. Enter Lean, an Armor mechanic’s apprentice who finds himself suddenly forced into the role of military spy at a time of great political upheaval.
Set centuries after the first Orguss, this series is quite different and does not require having seen that one. It’s initially focused more on espionage and political intrigue than mecha action.
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After moving from Tokyo into the countryside so that her father could pursue his dream of becoming a baker, Tsubasa is having trouble fitting in at her new school. Complicating her new life further is the sudden intrusion of two aliens who have just crashed nearby with a cargo of monstrous creatures.
A sort of ‘coming of age’ daily life series that shows how Hikaru’s existence helps Tsubasa become more outgoing and shed her crippling timidness. The action-centric monster seeds plotline takes up about a quarter of each episode.
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When sorcerers cross the line and start using their powers for evil, the Sorcerer Hunters are contracted to eliminate them: Carrot the skirt-chaser, his magic-inclined brother Marron, the brawler Gateau, and the dominatrix sisters Chocolate & Tira.
An action comedy, centered primarily on Carrot’s manic behavior, set in a grim world where the common people live in fear and poverty. It mostly consists of episodic stories with only about a quarter of it being plot-driven.
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In this universe populated by anthropomorphic animals, Tamala is traveling to Orion for reasons initially unknown. Along the way she ends up stranded on Planet Q and becomes acquainted with a cat named Michelangelo.
This is not a conventional story in any sense of the concept. It’s more akin to a meditation on, or a repudiation of… something. It’s abstract and has visuals resembling Anime from the 1930-1950 period mixed with full-color CGI.
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