Various thoughts on a variety of topics.
Roped into becoming a substitute teacher at the prestigious Alzano Imperial Magic Academy, to all appearances Glenn Radars is a lazy, incompetent slacker. In truth he’s a highly specialized mage with a very specific skill set… skills which make him the perfect instructor once properly motivated.
A multi-genre school life series with a moderate focus on ecchi and a much greater fondness for comedic misunderstandings.
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aniDB
Crunchyroll
Wikipedia
Known as the “God of Fighting” in the hugely popular MMO Glory, Xiu Ye ends up screwed over by the manager of the pro-player club he leads and forced into early retirement. Contractually barred from re-joining the professional scene for the next year, he decides to work his way up from nothing on a new game server with the intent of eventually taking back the top spot.
Half set in a fantasy gameworld where all the action takes place, and half set in the real-world where the tone is more serious/reflective. Both parts are peppered with comic relief.
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aniDB
Wikipedia
While the game has several extremely annoying bugs, for the most part it’s a fun (if repetitive) dungeon crawler.
There’s all the multi-character persistence and loot of a Diablo-like game, with the turn-based and environmental traits of a Dungeons of Dredmor-like game. There are two unique aspects here. The first is that instead of doing one run/character at a time, you have immediate access to 7 characters (one of each class) which share loot and can be used at will. The second is death; if a character dies they get captured and have to be rescued by a different character.
At the moment I have all 7 at levels 10-12 and have just reached the 11th dungeon. So far there’s decent enemy variety (each odd dungeon number introduces new ones) and skill variety (though I’ve only found 2 non-starter ones at the moment), but having to repeatedly grind the same area (even with the randomized layout) to overcome sudden difficulty spikes is annoying. Particularly since any time you fail to clear a level for any reason (death/capture, bug, menu exit) any items found/used or changes made since entering it are completely reset.
Finally got around to seriously playing the game and just finished it.
Turned out my earlier annoyance regarding the multiple resource pools was mostly an over-reaction; once you get a point or two of Edge it becomes practically impossible to deplete them. I only ended up resting 3-4 times over the course of the entire game, and could’ve probably got by doing it just once if I had used those full-heal cyphers. That said the game isn’t very large by RPG standards… maybe about the size of Tyranny (perhaps a bit smaller).
It certainly is Planescape: Torment revisited though. Much like its predecessor, this game rewards high Intelligence values on the PC, heavily promotes exploring every branch of every dialog tree, and allows most confrontations to be solved/avoided without engaging in combat. That last one is particularly good since (also like PS:T) combat is kind of a pain.
However it’s the gameplay as a whole that’s holding it back rather than just the combat: The character building system is lacking, with many skill/ability choices being either useless or redundant, and you never really feel particularly powerful or godlike even at max level (which is Tier 4). Attack abilities don’t do all that much damage and companions who aren’t in the party not gaining experience certainly doesn’t help either. Equipment ends up being the main source of combat effectiveness, and the variety in that department is notably lacking (while there are tons of cyphers/oddities, there are only a few interesting weapons and a highly limited armor selection). There’s not really anything to collect either aside from merecasters.
Which all adds up to this being the perfect game for people who love replaying the exact same scenario while making slightly different choices (since those choices do actually tend to affect things here). Anyone looking for a more physically engaging or mechanic-based experience however will most likely be disappointed.
On an alternate plane there exists beings neither human nor god who control the forces of nature on Earth. As a right of passage, on their 16th birthday they travel there to spend a week experiencing the elements firsthand while avoiding the attention of humans. During this period a girl by the name of Chun accidentally causes the death of a human boy, setting in motion a chain of events that threaten to destroy the heavens.
A high-fantasy fairytale drama with a small number of action scenes mostly concentrated in the third quarter and a bit of romantic development.
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aniDB
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Alisha is a princess desperately trying to avoid war while searching for a ‘Shepard’ to save the land from an encroaching darkness. Sorey is the lone human in a village of seraphim, beings invisible to most humans, who loves exploring ancient ruins. A chance meeting between the two sets in motion events that just may change the world.
An action drama with comedic ‘next episode preview’ segments. While almost entirely an adaptation of the Zestiria video game, a couple episodes (5-6) adapt the beginning of Beseria. Note that the Doushi no Yoake special is included here in a slightly altered form.
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aniDB (1), (2)
Daisuki
Fansub.co
Funimation
Wikipedia
On the way back to the surface following their grueling battle on the 18th floor, Bell and the others stumble upon a hidden hot spring.
An ecchi OVA featuring a small amount of action that takes place shortly after the main series‘ 13th episode.
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aniDB
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Taking place a little while after the end of the second game, this third installment in the franchise is basically a combination of the first two with an overhauled combat system. Making it easily the best of the bunch (once you install the re-translation project to reduce the terribleness of the localization).
Character-wise, with the DLC, you get access to the whole cast and don’t have to jump through any hoops or waste any Plan space to unlock characters (although Uni, Ram, & Rom don’t become available until the last chapter). Story-wise there’s only some especially cringy moments in the 6th chapter or so. And as for the re-used assets… well, there’s still a ton of those.
The most notable improvement here over the previous games though is the revamped combat system:
Instead of having an EX Bar that the entire party has to use (and which has to be re-filled every time you enter an area), each character’s SP pool doubles as an EX Pool. Meaning now you can pull off multiple 3-bar EX attacks in a row. Even better, the game now tells you when an enemy you’re attacking happens to be weak/strong against an element and even specifies whether an attack you’re about to use is magical or physical.
Another new addition is an in-game achievement system. By doing things with each character like running, jumping, taking damage, switching in combat, using items in combat, and so forth, that character will get stat boosts and unlock character-specific Plans to further boost their stats or add new abilities (like a 5th combo slot).
Really, the only flaw with this entry (besides the localization and re-used assets) is that the DLC character Events are bugged to appear a chapter earlier than they should. So if you’re only able to get one of the three games, this would be the one to prioritize.
On her 15th birthday, Chiya travels from her home in the mountains to Labyrinth Town in the hopes of finding her mother. While there she becomes an apprentice to an urara, a type of fortune-teller the town specializes in training, alongside three other girls from different backgrounds.
A mostly light, comedic series with a moderate fantasy bent that mainly consists of cute girls doing cute things. The lesser focus is on glimpses of a darker supernatural world related to Chiya’s parents lying just beneath the surface.
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aniDB
Fansub.co
TheAnimeNetwork
Wikipedia
A couple years have passed since Sasuke left the village. Naruto and Sakura continue their search for him while Akatsuki persist on their quest to collect all of the Tailed Beasts, and all eventually get caught up in a catastrophe of world-ending scale.
Continuing from where the first series left off, this one ultimately isn’t much different besides having a fondness for flashbacks: It’s still a mix of comedy, action, and drama peppered with Anime-original filler content to extend the duration. The characters do behave less childishly though, and most of the canon content leans more toward the dramatic.
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aniDB
Crunchyroll
Wikipedia
