#Gacha Every review | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

popponn · 8 months

Text

i didn't expect to see a future with you.

summary: it began as another fun and beneficial thing to have. until suddenly, it was about wanting ‘you and him for a very long time’. (in other words, he really didn’t mean to fall for you. really.)

characters: kaiser, reo, nagi.

notes: i tried to write about l word without mentioning it once. i hope i manage to get them right, this is my first time writing reo and kaiser especially. warning: relationships that started as casual and unserious, gacha at nagi's part. i really like fall later and harder troupe recently...

kaiser

months ago, if kaiser knew you got a fever, he would type a message of ‘get well soon’ without much meaning behind it along with a few extra sentences just to charm it all up. he would just cancel the date the two of you were supposed to be having and do anything else. practice, review his performance, or hell maybe have a different date and have fun with someone else. it was written all over the place, how this thing between you and him were anything but serious. he would never ask for your care, therefore he wouldn’t give you anything other than ‘the fun’ either.

and yet, here he sat on your bedside, porridge in hand like a nagging nanny because a moronic idiot—you—thought it was smart to walk through a storm instead of calling him or someone to pick you up. the thought of relationships and definitions and such as became the furthest thing in his mind the moment you called him with your slurred voice. you, being a helpless mush that could only wrap yourself with a blanket, couldn’t exactly protest to both his presence and harsh words. kaiser certainly didn’t shy away from calling you names—incompetent fool, being one of the tamer ones—the moment he arrived at your bedroom with medicines.

after cursing you and your useless outdated static of a brain, kaiser ushered you into the bed as he searched through your cabinets and ordered foods for your empty stomach. under the haze of your fever, you apologized to him and thank him. kaiser just gave you another comment about being stupid and baited a laugh from you. it was raspy and uglier than usual, but kaiser thought it would suffice. then, like a noisy sickly chatterbox, you asked why he choose you instead of his ‘anything else’.

“…it’s because I’m not an idiot,” Michael Kaiser replied to you after a long moment of silence. His back was turned towards you, the tone in his voice unshaken and flat, yet undeniably honest. “I know what I want.”

Your head throbbed painfully not truly understanding what he meant. But for him, you pushed out a chuckle, “’s that so, Michael…?”

“Do you even know what you are saying?” he shot back, his blurry figure walking closer towards you. As the view of his profile became clearer, you realized how you couldn’t quiet put a name on his expression. “Just rest up, you big baby.”

reo

as cruel as it was to say this, reo didn’t exactly begin with seeing you as a ‘person’. to him, you were more of the embodiment of ‘momentary excitements, rest, and escapism’. somewhere for him to have fun without thinking much, a someone who he could interact without any law of cause and effect following him. reo was certain you too saw him the same way. the two of you were a ‘why not?’ that could and would end like a passing breeze. it was nice, but it wouldn’t last long.

then, slowly came the late night chats, the voice notes filled with mundane things and lame jokes. afterwards, long talks about both anything and nothing followed. you came to his match, you were introduced to his teammates, you were a presence that was almost became a constant in every hour reo spent awake. and reo knew more than anyone else that he didn’t hate it when he watched you cry uglily at a movie he didn’t bother to pay attention to. in a way, he knew he was gone.

snotty and messy, your hand blindly reached around his sofa for a box of tissues. reo couldn’t take his eyes away from you as he laughed lightly and pushed the tissues towards you. hearing his chortles, you threw your cold feet towards his lap. you were looking at him with a pissed off questioning look whilst reo could only think how he could do this everyday.

“Is it even that sad?” Mikage Reo asked, teasing even when he slowly shifted your legs to comfortably rest on his lap. When the ‘pissed off’ look on your face intensified, Reo wondered if you would let him took a photo. For what, he didn’t exactly know either, but he certainly would be happy if you would let him.

“It’s about him finally realizing what he should have done, Reo!” you said, as if it answered everything. Reo could only chuckle—because perhaps it did. “Stop laughing! I didn’t laugh the last time you cried at that lame movie!”

He pushed himself closer towards you, a smile that felt like it wouldn’t die down plastered itself on his face. As the space between the two of you disappeared and you slotted yourself on his side like a piece long gone, he leaned his head against yours and didn’t stop himself from wrapping a hand on your shoulder. Still with a feeling he would soon said out loud to you, Reo continued to laugh merrily, “Come on, don’t say that. Here, here, let me wipe off those tears.”

nagi

the two of you started as a pair of gaming buddies simply because he found you funny and became what was pretty much ‘maybe-dating by convenience but still play together every now and then’ because one of his nosy sponsors who would love nagi to date his daughter. you were not troublesome, you did not ask much from nagi, you did not disturb his soccer career, and you seemed to like choki a lot. nagi didn’t exactly understand why you ‘date’ him, but if the comments from his friends were anything to go by, he supposed whatever reason you had were not terrible for him in any way.

the two of you sometimes hang around his room. usually it because you wanted to pull a gacha character and demanded nagi’s hands for luck. nagi didn’t exactly get it, but it wasn’t rare for you to made an interesting expression depending on what you got, so he supposed it was entertaining in a way. and each time the two of you did this, he also found it was fun to sit beside you and had you grab his hand for ‘luck’.

then the sunset came through from the window that day and you grabbed his hand yet again. suddenly, nagi found it unsurprising for him to remember every contour and corner of your hand. his eyes were trained on your face, watching you focusing on your phone screen and it felt like seeing you for the first time. when he intertwined your fingers with his as you cheered, it felt natural.

“Did you get her?” Nagi Seishirou leaned his weight towards you, letting the bed tilted along with him. He let you held his hand tighter as you too pressed your side to him. A grin that was bright and messy plastered itself on your face and Seishirou thought it suited the color of sunset. “You get her, huh? Yay.”

You were still buzzing with joy and excitement, your other hand reaching over him to hug his head to your chest. “Thank you! Thank you! Sei, I owe you!”

“Owe me, huh…?” Seishirou tried his best to think of a respond, but honestly all he could think of was how pleasant it was to be hugged by you, even if you probably weren’t thinking much of the action. Perhaps he really was as lucky as you had stated through big words and stressed intonations. As he returned your hug, Seishirou said, “Then, can I ask something for my payment?”

845 notes · View notes

sasaranurude · 12 days

Text

Okay. I've been playing Tokyo Debunker today, since the release happened to catch me on a day when all I'd planned to do was write fanfiction. I just finished reading the game story prologue (it was longer than expected!), so here's a review type post. If you're reading this post not having seen a single thing about this game: it's a story-based joseimuke gacha mobile game that just released globally today. It's about a girl who suddenly finds herself attending a magic school and mingling with elite, superhuman students known as ghouls. If you look in the tumblr tag for the game you'll see what appears to be a completely different game from 2019 or so: they retooled it completely midway through development, changing just about everything about it due to "escalating competition within the gaming industry."

I'll talk about how this looks like a blatant twst clone at the end.

Starting with the positive: The story is charming. I enjoyed it thoroughly the entire time and am excited to read more. The mix between visual novel segments and motion comics was really nice--it broke things up and added a lot of oomph to the action or atmospheric scenes that visual novels generally lack. I like the art in the comic parts a lot. the live2d in the visual novel parts is... passable. Tone-wise, I think the story was a little bit all over the place and would like to see more of the horror that it opened on, but I didn't mind the comedic direction it went in either. The translation is completely seamless. The characters so far all have unique voices and are just super fun and cute. Of the ones who've had larger roles in the story so far, there's not a single one I dislike. It's all fully voiced in Japanese and the acting is solid. (I don't recognize any voices, and can't seem to find any seiyuu credits, so it seems they're not big names, but they deliver nonetheless.) Kaito in particular I found I was laughing at his lines a ton, both the voicing and the writing.

He's looking for a girlfriend btw. Spreading the word.

The problem is like. The gameplay is the worst dark-pattern microtransaction-riddled bullshit I've ever seen. Hundred passive timers going at all times. Fifty different item-currencies. Trying to get you to spend absurd amounts of real world money at every turn. There's like five different indicators that take you to various real-money shop items that I don't know how to dismiss the indicator, I guess you just have to spend money, wtaf. Bajillion different interlocking systems mean you have zero sense of relative value of all the different item-currencies. I did over the course of the day get enough diamonds for one ten-pull, which I haven't used yet. Buying enough diamonds for a ten-pull costs a bit under $60 (presumably USD, but there's a chance the interface is automatically making that CAD for me--not gonna spend the money to check lmfao), with an SSR rate of 1%. BULLSHIIIIIT.

There's like a goddamn thousand-word essay explaining the dozen different types of character upgrades and equippables and equippables for the equippables!! Bad! Bad game design! That's just overcomplicating bullshit to trick people into thinking they're doing something other than clicking button to make number go up! That is not gameplay!

In terms of the actual gameplay, there is none. The battle system is full auto. There might be teambuilding, but from what I've seen so far, most of that consists of hoping you pull good cards from gacha and then clicking button to make number go up. There's occasional rhythm segments but there's no original music, it's just remixes of public domain classical music lmao. I'd describe the rhythm gameplay as "at least more engaging than twisted wonderland's," which is not a high bar

At least there's a cat in the rhythm bit.

And like, ok, I gotta remark on how derivative it is. Like I mentioned in my post earlier, this game is unabashedly aping twisted wonderland's setting and aesthetic. (That said, most of the stuff it steals from twst is magic school stuff that twst also basically stole from Harry Potter, so...?) However, it isn't exactly like twst: in this one, the characters say fuck a lot and bleed all over the place and do violence. Basically, the tone is a fair bit more adult than twst's kid-friendly vibe. (Not, like, adult adult, and I probably wouldn't even call it dark--it's still rated Teen lol. Just more adult than twst.)

Rather than just being students at magic school, the ghouls also go out into the mundane world to go on missions where they fight and investigate monsters and cryptids. Honestly, the magic school setting feels pretty tacked-on. The things that are enjoyable about this would've been just as enjoyable in about any other setting--you can tell this whole aspect was a late trend-chasing addition, lmao. So, yeah, it's blatantly copying twst to try to steal some players, but... Eh, I found myself not caring that much. Someone more (or less) into twst than me may find it grating.

Character-wise, eh, sure, yeah, they're a bit derivative in that aspect too, but it's a joseimuke game, the characters are always derivative. Thus far the writing & execution has been solid enough that I didn't care if they were tropey. If I were to compare it to something else, I'd say the relationship between the protagonist and the ghouls feels more like that of the sage and wizards in mahoyaku than anything from twst. There's some mystery in exactly what "ghouls" are and their place in this world that has me intrigued and wanting to know more about this setting and how each of the characters feels about it. I have a bad habit of getting my hopes up for stories that put big ideas on the table and then being disappointed when they don't follow through in a way that lives up to my expectations, though.

So, my final verdict: I kind of just hope someone uploads all the story segments right onto youtube so nobody has to deal with the dogshit predatory game to get the genuinely decent story lol. Give it a play just for the story if you have faith in your ability to resist dark patterns. Avoid at all costs if you know you're vulnerable to gacha, microtransactions, or timesinks.

#suchobabbles #Tokyo Debunker #it's a global simultaneous release so I'm curious to see how it ends up doing in Japan #it's gonna be competing directly with stellarium of the fragile star which releases in a few days lmao. and is about a magic alchemy school #looks like the two games twt accounts have a similar number of followers #and then theyre competing with bremai releasing in may...#also adding this at the very end since i cant confirm anything:#but i found out abt this game bc it was rt'd by the former localization director/translator of A3en #i dont know if she worked on it or maybe her friend or maybe shes just hype! who knows! but i think her word (or rt) is worth something

113 notes · View notes

cerastes · 9 months

Text

My smug ass going to read character reviews online to see how wrong they are about Lin and being completely correct, predicting that they would call her a mediocre unit who only has her S3 while I whoops copious amounts of rumpus in High Waves IS3 with her S1.

Just don't look at online wikis or databases when it comes to gacha, man, they never know jack shit, it's funny every time. Not in FGO (paragraphs upon paragraphs of "AoE NPs are bad in general, but they are good for farming!"), not in Epic Seven, and sure as hell not in Arknights.

#the same people that were like ''Gnosis is bad'' and ''Specter the Unchained is bad''#loooooooooooooooool

99 notes · View notes

omg-ame-chan · 11 days

Text

ok i played tokyo debunker all day here is a quick (not really) review

first off gameplay is for the most part non-existent. you do fight against monsters but the entire thing is in autoplay and you can skip the whole thing by pressing a single button

there is a rhythm game part every like 10 battles or so though which made me happy. even if the songs are all public domain ones. and it's extremely offbeat. and there's tap registration issues.

ok next why does tokyo debunker use ai art in it. genuinely embarrassing.

went on a 4 year hiatus to "elevate the quality of the game to further meet your expectations and be able to face elevating competition in the gaming industry" only for the game to release and not even have the effort put in to hire actual artists... ITS SO DISAPPOINTING what was the point of that hiatus if you aren't even gonna try. they should've released the original game they had at this point

ai art is used in all the backgrounds of the visual novel section and some of the interactable items like the images for the quiz you do during the prologue. The manga style and card art don't use it at all it seems though

and once you realize it you cannot unsee it and it completely ruins everything

seems like all the budget went towards the voice actors because the game has no original soundtrack either. everything is remixed classical music.

not to mention the game is super cash grabby. it's a zigzagame game so it's to be expected but still. stuff like having to pay more than a 10 pull just to be able to change your icon from the default one is actually insane. also 1% SSR rate and pity is at 500 pulls and it doesn't even guarantee a character card it could be a warding card please end it all!!!

also the devs are blocking everyone who criticizes the game on twitter. lol. lmao.

despite all that the story is interesting and i really like the characters especially these 2 guys i love the "medic who definitely shouldn't be a medic because they are Extremely Off and have committed medical malpractice atleast 10 times" type of characters they are always my favorite

damn you "bad gacha game that makes me have to resort to watching youtube videos of the story because i don't wanna support monetarily it in any possible way and go through the pain it brings by actually playing it".... you have won once again

#i am extremely disappointed #all those years and for what #tokyo debunker #otome #otome game #josei muke

47 notes · View notes

gacha-incels · 9 months

Text

I think one of the reasons it’s hard for people to cold turkey drop being fans/consumers of a piece of contemporary media is how these “fandom” spaces on social media have been set up. you’ve got generalized spaces online (sub-reddits, tumblr, twitter, etc. I would put even those book and film review websites here and imageboards) where you can “join” a pre-existing group of friends completely based on specific pieces of media.

for those who are post-college years and perhaps more introverted, it’s easier to talk with people online in these places and you can log in 24/7. instead of making friends in a physical schooling atmosphere where you’re surrounded by other people daily for 12+ years, you can log in and make friends digitally by being surrounded by people who all consume the same piece of media as you. so your friendship is completely dependent on this piece of media for the most part.

for younger people growing up now I think this also ties into “finding yourself” where they will see consumption of a piece of media as a core tenet of their personality. I believe this is part of why there have been multiple posts about the Project Moon/Limbus Company situation that say “don’t worry whatever you choose you’re not a bad person either way.” This is also reinforced when people online comment “xyz fan” if they want to call your judgement of something into question. They have in effect assigned you a personality based on your consumption a videogame, for example. When the creators do something so ideologically opposite than what the work presents, it’s extra shocking to those fans who considered consuming the work as part of their personality. I think this way of consumption is also why, at least from what I’ve seen, there has been such a drive to label and categorize “aesthetics” into words you can search hashtags for or put in your online profile. This also has got to be a reason why people go so hard in their defense of whatever media, because they feel like when someone criticizes the media they consume they are in effect criticizing the person who consumes it. They are essentially trying to defend themselves.

When something shocking like the kowtowing to misogynistic men situation with Limbus Company, in a sense the way these “fandom” spaces work online now makes it harder for people to completely drop the game. The consumer now has online friendships and is in entire communities based completely on this media, maybe they have also even created fanart and fanfiction. For some of them it’s part of their personality. If they drop it completely they are also losing these online communities , friends and even a sense of self. I think this is a reason you will see a lot of fans ask “what fandom/game should I get into next”, they want to fill this void ASAP.

As a gacha game, Limbus further complicates this by getting the consumer into a routine they now have to break. Every day they have logged in, done the daily gameplay, even the events and gambling banners have a set schedule. These types of games typically have an ensemble cast with specific set types of personalities so fans can choose their favorite(s). As long as they make money they will keep making stories (just look at FGO), so it’s like having a never-ending story with your favorite character. It’s like a series of movies that always end with a teaser for the next one. It’s easy to get addicted, not just from the gambling aspect.

I was confused at first why other fans were having such trouble completely dropping the game because for me, it was like a switch turned off and I was able to stop caring completely. I think it’s amazing how some Korean fans have completely deleted all their fanart and even taken their fan merch back from the restaurant. But looking into how “fandom” works these days it seems this makes it harder to drop something completely. I’m not saying these are the only reasons, but it’s interesting how this works positively for companies that make these pieces of media that are up for public consumption.

#limbus company #lcb #project moon #vellmori

74 notes · View notes

yandere-daydreams · 1 month

Note

Totally get what you mean with obey me!!! Look I've played older swd games, and I'd been looking forward to obey me release since early 2018 (when there was only a short intro vid). I even played the og beta! And I have been playing the game EVERY SINGLE DAY since its release (which was over 4 years DAILY) and when nightbringer was out I was like, fuck. Neither brought me much excitement and I have stopped reading events for almost 2 years. Now I just logged in to send AP to my friends and quitted. The only thing I'm gonna read is the main story probably.

(Tbh twst is superior is so many ways but I'd argue the gacha system in om is a little better and this is coming from someone with more than 200 UR/UR+ in om despite being completely f2p)

wait am i the only one who played for two solid years and had like,,, three URs total. it was my first gacha game tho so it might've just been a me issue. still requesting peer review though.

on topic though!!! i remember playing a few of shall we date's game pre-obey me and,,, like,,, there were definitely issues with very prolonged story lines and adding on character later one, but at least there were like,,, finished games,,, with routes you could play,,, and look forward to Not playing eventually. i really did like obey me, but there's just,,, too much of it. a good thing can only go on for so long until you're, like, just dangling around its corpse and occasionally dressing that corpse up in a fun outfit for special occasions. i might come back if it ever looks like they're going to, y'know, do an actual final arc with an Ending, but i do not think that's ever going to happen and i feel like it's pretty easy to see why.

#personal #anon ask

25 notes · View notes

crystalcatgamer · 2 months

Text

It's a beautiful morning, and a Revolutionary Army gacha recently arrived. That's right, the Year of the Dragon is the gift that keeps giving. This is your sign to go to every anime store with kujis (gachas) to find it, friends. It's been out for a few days now, but I took pretty bad pictures of it the first time and had to wait to retake. Review below! Also found a very cool promotional video for it here.

First of all, [A] prize Dragon figurine, absolutely beautiful, I hate trying to navigate the official website for OP figurines, so this is the first Dragon figurine I've ever seen. He's also the last prize, which is great. The difference between it and the [A] prize seems to be that it has metallic coloring.

Sabo and Koala for [B] and [C] prize respectively! Fantastic! Now, [D] prize... Somehow, Zoro got lost on Thriller Bark and made his way into the RA kuji. Honestly would have liked to see a Kuma figurine, but guess they needed an outlier or something. Kind of like how Benn sneaked into an Onigashima kuji.

Next, [E] prizes are towels, and [F] prizes are files! Both can be chosen from and have pretty much every named Revolutionary so far! I'm a little confused over how Smoker sneaked onto Dragon's file. Like, almost everyone else has a simple pose or a fighting one, but they really just took Dragon's first (terrifying) appearance and slapped it on. I would have liked a full view of him, but I'll take any Dragon merch I can find! Sabo’s flaming some guy too, so like mentor like mentee (lol)

Addition as of 15/3! Ivankov and Kuma technically have two files, on account of them kinda sharing the second one. Neat detail!

The [G] prizes are cups with a character's name and symbols printed on one side. These are blind boxes, with a wide selection. I didn't end up getting Dragon or Sabo... But hey, they're usable, so it's fine. They're about average size, not too big but a little small.

Finally, the [H] prize are rubber charms! Adorable designs, and also blind boxes! Love how Dragon is doing his crazy grin in his design.

All in all, a pretty good kuji! [A] to [H] prizes, 80 tickets, and only two rankings being blind boxes with four types of figurines. The variety is pretty wide, which will end up tanking its popularity a bit... I love the Revs, but I'm well aware that outside of Sabo, Dragon and Koala, they're not particularly popular by the individual. Though Kuma is gaining love with the latest Egghead arc!

It's a 9/10 for me! Without bias, it makes for a 6/10 kuji. The average One Piece enjoyer probably wouldn't play this unless they're confident in their luck (to get Sabo, lol). I'll return to play it soon!

#is this my first time making a kuji review YES IT IS #Did I enjoy it immensely? Absolutely.#I think I made it as concise as possible.#Anyways gang please do the thing; buy kujis #monkey d dragon #one piece sabo #revolutionary sabo #koala one piece #revolutionary army #one piece #one piece kuji #summer nights in your lungs #<- personal tag don't rb

19 notes · View notes

yakourinka · 1 year

Text

just like with genshin the mandatory mainline story quests in honkai railway gacha are a snoozefest but side quests are interesting. this is not an endorsement of the game.

you're on a doomed planet with a single human settlement left. the catastrophe that happened 700 years ago halted all technological advances. they don't have phones, no way of communicating via signals across distances. but someone in bumfuck nowhere is sending and receiving signals. across space.

so your colleagues ask you to check it out because they're worried that the signal might attract undesirable attention to this frozen wasteland. if a hostile or expansionist alien species were to take notice, these people would have no means of defending themselves. you go to check it out.

you climb your way up through the snow and arrive at your destination. just as you expected, there's nothing and no one there. but your phone rings; you have a new message. it must've been a telecommunications signal.

IT'S A FUCKING AD.

curious, you text back.

it's space amazon! they knew a terrible disaster struck and they didn't give a sliver of a shit, but they've been sending spam ads to a dead planet for the past 78 years. there's a guy in space, in some dark, forgotten cubicle, whose entire job is sending ads to people who can't even receive them because they had an extinction event. clearly the bosses don't give a shit whether people look at the ads or not so long as they get sent out!

in the first player hub there are a bunch of optional interactable objects which are like someone flexing their literary sci-fi muscles. each of them is a short story written from the perspective of aliens, either weird, funny, horrifying, or a mixture of them. love letters to sci-fi. the funny thing is of course you don't see any aliens! in space game! there are just Mihoyo Anime 3D Models (TM).

when I was downloading the game the first review I saw was "there's too much text in this game, let me skip faster!!" and I was like, yeah sure bro have you heard of arknights. but there really is too damn much text in the game. on the first planet alone there are 80 flavour text collectibles; steampunk mining equipment manual, flower dictionary exclusive to planet, planet's NY times best seller. not to mention NPCs talk a lot. and you get texts from both playable characters and NPCs every single damn day.

it's actually kind of sad that so much effort and love went into building the backbone of the most lukewarm main storyline ever written for a game (and possibly cast) and a mihoyo gacha.

#honkai star rail

50 notes · View notes

gacha-every · 5 months

Text

Hey, I got a carefree movie review for ya! :D

What kind of review? Oh, well, just from someone who loves fun entertainment, gud characters, and plots! Not really a strict critic but just someone who loves any gud movies that are able to energize my inner child

So if you're also into that, feel free to read my future posts! Or even recommend some movies to me

Anyway, this is my first posted review but I always looked forward to doing this ever since, and it has increased after watching Under The Boardwalk that has recently came out but is unfortunately not given much chances of being seen

BUT ANYWAY, I just watched a new movie, and it's Sahara!!!

It's not really new tho, at least I think so, I actually have seen this before on MovieHD buuut it's in a different language, so I couldn't fully watch it

But today, on Netflix, I'm now able to! And, uhm... I give it a 6/10

The animation is great, especially with how fluid the snakes move (especially especially when they dance! DANCE! They have DANCING SNAKES, people! Fun!), alrighty characters and their design, it's quite funny, and fun in it's own way(?), has quite a gud atmosphere too I guess

But, I didn't really understand the story lol especially the love department

The set up felt sorta Romeo and Juliet, which I like, I mean, Under The Boardwalk has that plotline and I heavily enjoyed it >W< but this one didn't really had... Uhh, proximity with our love interests?

It was gud at first, how the introduction was set up with our characters and their world, especially the part when Ajar and Eva disguised as each other's species which for some reason itched my brain right when they first met... But that was kinda it

They then sorta left their homes and then it went from Romeo and Juliet to Finding Nemo? Because Eva got captured and then Ajar is determined to rescue her, like bruh, you don't even know her???

I was honestly routing Ajar and Gary (Eva's brother) more, and Eva and the uhh white snake lady instead, to be honest with you XD

Because Ajar and Gary had the adventure that I thought was gonna happen between Ajar and Eva (oh and there was also Pitt, Ajar's scorpion friend that sorta... tagged along... same as Gary but he was basically kidnapped lol)

Ajar and Gary had to spend time together, same as for Eva and White Snake (sort of), and yet the main two snakes – that barely talked to each other for more than two minutes in the beginning and then meet again at the end being all swooned that one of 'em sacrificed their body and energy for someone they barely know – are the LOVE INTERESTS?!

But hey at least the ending's sorta funny

I also didn't mention the antagonist yet •>• it's just a human guy that hypnotizes snakes with a flute like blingin' Pide The Piper, he's the one that makes the snakes dance or dance fight, fun! :D

He's sorta creepily intimidating, but in the end his creepiness leveled up but in a weird way ;-; I mean, bruh, he was consistently managing to chase down Ajar to get his flute back DURING A BLINGIN' SAND STORM?! All while jumping on buildings and stuff yet managed to just pop up in front of Ajar out of nowhere?! HOW DOES THAT NOT TERRIFY AND/OR CONFUSE YOU?!

Overall tho, I was entertained, but didn't feel entirely fulfilled - so I watched Back To The Outback to make me feel better (I already seen it, but in case you're wondering, I give that movie an 8/10)

But if you want a Movie where you don't have to care too much about the characters and environment, and just watch amazingly animated snakes dance or go on an adventure, then Sahara is for you! :D

#Sahara #movie review #Gacha Every #fun review #back to the outback #characters #Ajar #Gary #Eva #sahara movie #Gacha Every movie review #Gacha Every reviews #cartoons #animation #kids movies #inner child #rating #ratings #movie rating

11 notes · View notes

little-lucub · 1 month

Text

An agere look on Genshin Impact

I didn't know a better title for this but hey! Agere review of Genshin Impact. Basically just looking if Genshin is a kid safe game for others to play when little :3

Genshin Impact basics

Genshin Impact is an open-world game with main focus on exploration, story and fighting. I personally have been playing this game for a good 3 years as of now and I've enjoyed a majority of it. With it's wide selection of characters and insanely big open world, it's gained a lot of traction across the world. This game is rated PEGI-12, so teens and older. Parents zone mentions that this game does not ask for age verification, so it does not contain sexual content. But it does contain revealing clothes for certain characters (I personally don't thing of them as too sexual, as Genshin has to conform to the Chinese censorship laws.) Genshin is entirely free with only not needed payments being available. You can beat and play the game comfortably without spending any money whatsoever. Genshin does not feature blood or gore, but minor character death and video game violence does appear. Genshin often gets compared to the Nintendo game Breath of the Wild, so if you think that game is suited for your age regression, Genshin probably is too

The Story

The story of Genshin is one of it's most important parts. The game having insanely good world building and the story going very in depth with backstory and character development. There are currently 5 of the 7 countries in Genshin. I think I should mention that the main story and practically all other quests have a good ending! Although I do think some parts of the story get dark and are not suited for children. With mentions of war, death and similar stuff. I'd say most Genshin quests are child-friendly, but just be careful. It's okay to quit the game if stuff gets too dark or to avoid story whatsoever when little. The Mondstadt quest is overall child-friendly, and after completing it, the entire world is open for exploration! (Besides Inazuma). The only quests I'd actively avoid are any quests involving Dainsleif (Specifically, Traveler and The Chasm quests), parts of the Sumeru storyline (As they include psychological horror) and parts of Fontaine's storyline (As they include trials, murder and crime). The rest of the story I'd say is quite tame, but if necessary, parental guidance/a caregiver looking after you is recommended.

Characters

As of writing this, there are 80 playable characters in Genshin. So as you might suspect, there's A LOT of selection. Every character has a different job, attacks, backstory, etc.! One of the things I enjoy the most of this game is collecting and playing different characters! You collect characters either for free from Main Quests, for free from Events, or you wish for them on the Banners (Also known as Character Event Wishes). Genshin is a gacha game, meaning you need to unlock characters mainly with luck. Same thing for weapons. Characters all have a weapon type, rarity and elemental type assigned to them. (e.g. Chiori, who is a 5 star, geo sword user.) But there are several things necessary to level a character up. Which I won't get into detail with here! Just know it'll take some time, especially to max out characters...

As said before, as there is a ton of selection of characters. And I wanted to mention that you can play as a small girl (e.g. Klee), but there are sadly no small boys yet. But there are medium girls and boys (e.g. Amber, Chongyun). There are also tall girls and boys (e.g. Dehya, Kaeya)

Fighting mechanics

As I mentioned before, as characters have an assigned element, Genshin's combat is mainly element based. You don't actually need elements in a team... But it does do more damage! I, again, won't go into detail, but most enemies really aren't scary. If you've played Breath of the Wild or practically any Zelda game, they are WAY scarier.

Other activities

Besides running around or slaying monsters, you can also do other things, such as events, customizing the Serenitea pot, collecting materials, leveling up your characters, or just reading the lore!

Co-Op Mode

Once you reach AR (Adventure Rank) 16, you unlock the Co-Op feature. The ability to play in a world with up to 4 people. If you are little, I'd recommend putting the Co-Op setting to 'Reject Join Requests' if you do not want to play with others, or 'Join After Approval' if you want to play with Friends. I do not recommend playing with random people, as some can be weird. You do not want to interact with others when in a venerable state. If you wish to play in Co-Op, I'd recommend parental/caregiver's guidance.

Genshin is really fun to play with a friend you trust, a fellow little or your caregiver!

When in Co-Op mode, you can explore, do domains together, or just have fun! Some events allow Co-Op mode, so you can do fun little minigames too. Most quests, whether Archon, story, or world quests, get blocked and cannot be done in Co-Op mode. You can also visit each other's Serenitea Pot, although editing it is not possible.

Thank you for reading and have fun if you decide to pick this game up!

Might make more of these in the future about other games I really enjoy :D

#sfw interaction only #agere #age regression #little space #agere little #agere blog #sfw agere #genshin agere #age regressor #sfw regression #sfw littlespace #agere community #genshin impact agere

8 notes · View notes

yungvenuz · 4 months

Text

Game of the Year List 2023

Honorable Mentions: Touhou: Artificial Dream in Arcadia: I love the oddball mashup of shmup and dungeon crawler mechanics, but I ended up losing interest before the end of the game. In Stars and Time: Still playing this game. I like it so far, but I didn't want to rush it through to get it on this list. It'll go on next year's list if I like it enough. Stuffo the Puzzle Bot: Really great soundtrack. Still on regular rotation.

youtube

10. Super Snail (IOS and Android)

This is a difficult inclusion. Super Snail is an Evil game. It's the most monetized game I've ever played. Every screen you can visit can trigger a special offer for a pile of goodies you don't need that you can buy with real money. It's a mobile gacha game, through and through, designed to eat up time and attention and offer back a distant illusion of progress that you could surely expedite, if you were just willing to kick in ten bucks for one of its dozens of customized season passes…. So, why is this game on this list?

Developer QCPlay was already on my radar from previous release Gumball and Dungeons, a similarly high effort mobile game (amusingly originally intended as a Dragon Quest game, until they failed to secure the license and were forced to sand all the iconic teardrops off their slimes and call them gumballs instead). Despite their willingness to indulge in all the awful trends of mobile game markets, these are real, proper game designers, who have buried a real, actual game under all of Super Snail's idle timers and base management bullshit.

Super Snail is constantly shifting, adding new layers of complexity and shaking up existing mechanics. It's the only gacha game I'm aware of in which your gacha machine can be stolen from you temporarily if you use it too much, forcing you to wait on spending tickets until the thief decides its rates are too shit to bother with and returns it to you. There's a dating sim mechanic in which various characters met in your travels (male, female, or both) will find out about your secret base and decide to mooch off you, which is some of the funniest writing in the game.

On that note, the writing is weirdly good for a game that's approximately 80% random pop culture references. The eight demon lords you've been tasked with defeating by the mysterious god "Earth's Will" all have detailed and consistent backstories. There are a few honest-to-god effective twists in the plot, and a lingering question about how shady the god you've signed your life to actually is.

A predatory mobile game shouldn't deserve one minute of my attention, let alone one of the coveted slots on my illustrious top ten list, but Super Snail spits in the face of all that, and god. I can't stop thinking about it, about how many interesting game design lessons are nestled within its strange and evil exterior. So, by compromise, it's grudgingly earned my #10. Just, for god's sake, if any of this backhanded review piques your interest, set a budget for yourself and don't exceed it for any reason.

9. BOSSGAME: The Final Boss is Your Heart (Steam)

BOSSGAME is an action rpg about two dirtbag lesbians, Sophie and Anna, trying to earn rent money by taking random mercenary work in the big city. The story is low pressure fun, with a little melodrama mixed in to spice things up. The plot is needs-suiting, even maybe good, but the reason this game is on the list is the gameplay.

BOSSGAME is really, really fun to play. It uses a combat system reminiscent of the Mario and Luigi rpgs in which both party members are controlled simultaneously. Enemies telegraph attacks that need to be blocked using the left or right side of the gamepad based on character, draining stamina. Attacking also drains stamina, so a careful balance of offense and defense needs to be maintained to survive. Most interestingly, there's no turns: enemies repeat attack patterns usually without waiting for a counterattack, so combat becomes a brain-bending routine of multitasking, with one character needing to block attacks while the other sneaks in some damage. A combo system encourages keeping up constant pressure, with the reward being increased progress toward a super attack that can briefly stun bosses and allow some easy hits before returning to defensive play. The end result is fast paced, engaging, and totally unique combat that was fun to learn for each of the dozens of boss fights in the game.

I'm glad this game ended up being good enough to recommend here, not just because I, too, am lesbian, but because I love designers that are willing to take a chance on unique control schemes. Part of the fun of playing BOSSGAME was getting to learn how to play without being able to rely on any of the muscle memory I've accrued over years of playing other action games. I only wish it weren't so short. Of all the games on this list, this is the one I would most want to see expanded into a full 40-60 hour RPG epic.

8. Slay the Princess (Steam)

A Myers-Briggs test for fetishes. Keep that in mind whenever anybody who tries to talk to you about their favorite "route". Great writing though

7. EDF 5 (Steam)

My official Multiplayer Game Experience of the Year. The EDF (EDF! EDF! EDF!) series is an alien invasion resistance simulator that exists somewhere between Dynasty Warriors and Monster Hunter in gameplay. I've known about the series for a long time, and I had assumed it was the kind of loud dumb fun that makes for punchy clips but wears out its welcome quickly. To be clear, it definitely is loud, and dumb, and fun, but it also has significantly more mechanical depth and complexity than I expected, which kept it fresh and engaging for as long as I played it.

Mechanics like building destruction and corpse hitboxes looks like they're just they're there for spectacle at first, but as levels progress and more and more aggressive enemy types are introduced, these seemingly incidental details take on more and more importance as you need to manage cover and enemy sight lines more effectively. This is the game's most potent tool, I think: everything that makes it great as a ridiculous carnage sandbox has been meticulously designed to also work in the higher difficulty levels to deliver a genuinely tense and highly mobile shooter.

6. Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengeance of the Slayers (Steam)

A boomer shooter in the same canon as Hypnospace Outlaw, partially developed by troubled teen ZANE_ROCKS_14 and polished up for release 22 years later. For an elaborate shitpost, it's very well made, but what most interests me about it is its contradictory nature. Outwardly, it's completely juvenile and silly about everything it does, filled with poop jokes and mouthy rats and evil stepdads. Underneath that, there's the deep melancholy of a 36 year old desperately trying to relive the last time in his life that he felt cool.

all the levels in the game faithfully recreate scenes of Zane's Idaho childhood, from ritzy suburban neighborhoods to car parks to the local fair, but they're all just a little bit too eerily empty for the settings they're trying to evoke. The protagonist's sincere love for his mother completely clashes with the badass attitude he brings to every other scene. Zane put his all into voice acting the protagonist's lines, while every other character sounds like they're reciting lines into their phone in a bathroom. The end result is a masterpiece in immersive game design, meticulously arranged to feel like it came from a very specific time and place in a fictional alternate universe. It's so effective that even the parts that don't work can be argued as a deliberate part of the overall period piece, like the confusingly short penultimate level or unnecessarily annoying final boss.

5. Cobalt Core (Steam)

A card battler built around spaceship combat. It should be immediately apparent to anybody who's played a lot of Slay-The-Spire-likes that Cobalt Core is on the easier side, but that's a deliberate choice here, in an effort to create an engaging narrative experience rather than a perfectly tuned progression treadmill. While Inscryption (another narrative card battler) managed its story by bringing the player away from the cards for cutscenes or escape room sequences, Cobalt Core delivers everything within its roguelike framework, even going as far as coming up with a time loop justification for why the player is repeating runs to progress the story.

In that regard it compares more closely to Hades than other card battlers, and I also think that's a good comparison because I really like the characters and character interactions in Cobalt Core. Each round starts with the selection of three of the (after finishing a short period of unlocks) 7 crewmates available to play with, and every combination of characters has interesting discussions and interactions between them. Characters also have lines to acknowledge specific artifacts, cards, or game states (like big damage or status effects) that offers a level of reactivity to make each run that much more unique. Also like Hades, there's a concrete ending sequence. Backstory for each crewmate is delivered piecemeal throughout the game, and while there aren't any earthshattering twists or revelations, the ending does a good job of tying everything together for a proper sendoff.

Shoutout to Riggs. Best possum in the galaxy.

!Great Soundtrack Alert!

youtube

4. Going Down (2014 Doom wad) (Doomworld File Depot)

This year, I played MyHouse.wad. More and more people were talking about it, and I wanted to give it a try myself before someone randomly spoiled it for me. I didn't end up caring for it much! It did some interesting things, and it was definitely well made, but I'm not that interested in the creepypasta style it was going for.

It did pique my interest in the rich ecosystem of Doom modding that's been quietly trucking along for 30 years before myhouse ever released, though. A friend recommended Going Down, which I found to be terrific, and then I spent the rest of the year playing random wads (level packs) whenever I didn't have anything else to do. Doom has become invaluable to me as a podcast game, especially as I've only just been able to extract myself from Tactical Nexus's cunning grasp this year.

So, without further ado: The Official Doom Wads of the Year Minilist:

10 Struggle: Antaresian Legacy - Most of the levels in this wad focus on low-pressure exploration, but my favorites were the wide-open chaotic battles. I especially like the capstone levels of the first two chapters (maps 11 and 20), which both feature massive arenas with hundreds of enemies active at once. 9 Ancient Aliens - A collab megawad with great aesthetic and theming. Level quality is inconsistent, which makes sense given how many authors were involved, but the best levels in the wad are excellent. 8 Dust Devil - A short campaign of two interconnected levels with a bunch of interesting custom content. The use of grenade launchers and shielded enemies was especially cool, and not something I expected the doom engine to be able to do. 7 Lullaby - A stylish single-map wad in a decidedly undoomlike blue dreamland. There's only five or so major setpiece encounters, but they're all very memorable. 6 Doom 2 - I love how experimental the design in Doom 2 is, especially given that the entire genre of fps was brand new at this point in history. there's abstract levels, puzzle levels, diagetic cityscapes, and more. It's easy to see its influence in every fps to ever follow in its wake. 5 Overboard - A newer wad by the same author of Going Down with a great gimmick- the first five levels are followed by a set of hard mode remixes that use the same maps with more aggressive enemy arrangements. I particularly liked the last map of hard mode, which is identical to its normal mode variant except that it spawns all 500 enemies in the moment the level starts instead of deploying in piecemeal waves as it does in the original. 4 The Thing You Can't Defeat - An experimental remix of the first chapter of Doom 1. Very interesting premise and punchline. If you liked MyHouse.wad, I'd highly recommend checking it out. 3 Tarnsman's Projectile Hell - This is the first touhou game I've played, technically. Deviously difficult design with an emphasis on long distance hitscan enemies that would be extremely annoying in the hands of a level designer any less obviously talented than Tarnsman. 2 Unloved - An ambitious continuous campaign that takes place in a Silent Hill-esque house with several portals to distorted nightmare realms. I like that small amounts of progress are made in each level at a time with frequent revisits to the main hub, and I love the dark atmosphere. Very creepy. Also insanely difficult. 1 Going Down - My favorite by a long shot. The amount of variety in level and encounter design is incredible on its own, but I particularly like the care that went into giving each level a unique identity that still makes sense in the context of the wad's premise (taking an elevator floor by floor down into the depths of hell). Every level is meticulously designed to use the entire space, usually multiple times as later encounters in each level usually reuse the same arenas with additional twists on the layout and enemy deployments.

3. Pizza Tower (Steam)

A fluid platformer heavily inspired by the Wario Land games. Its most notable design choice is the lack of fail state when exploring levels. There's no health bar, and falling into pits only resets the room, so there's no significant pressure until the timed escape sequence at the end of each level. That's not to say the game lacks challenge, though. Far from it- the challenge comes not from reaching the end of each room, but in doing so as efficiently as possible. Pizza Tower's principle antagonist is the 5 second combo timer in the top right, forcing a constant stream of action. Every level has just enough stuff in each room to allow a single combo to be carried from start to level finish, which confers the coveted P Rank medal on level completion.

Full P Rank completion is what I spent three months obsessively chasing at the start of this year. Movement in Pizza Tower is so fluid, and so satisfying to learn how to fully utilize, that I couldn't resist going for it. I got so far into it that after finishing the game, I went back in immediately for an optional challenge that requires full P rank completion of the game in less than 4 hours, which required being able to clear each level with perfect consistency.

!Great Soundtrack Alert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWoTeTZL-C8

2. Beton Brutal (Steam)

The trailer for Beton Brutal immediately spoke to me. I've been a fan of persistent-state platforming games for ages, and it's a sorely underserved genre (mostly lurking in MMOs and player-made levels for games like Mario Maker). I like the emphasis on meditative upward progress, and I especially like the increasing pressure that builds as each subsequent jump risks losing more progress than the previous. Beton Brutal's developer was able to deliver this perfectly while also maintaining a consistent and interesting visual style (a stark contrast to the dreadful nft tie-in climbing game Only Up, which also released this year).

For weeks, I opened Beton Brutal after work and played for thirty minutes to an hour, usually seeing some small amount of new progress before inevitably taking a long fall and rage quitting for the day. I don't think I can call this the hardest game I've ever played, given that there's an entire community of people that can complete the entire climb in less than ten minutes, but I do think I'm uniquely poorly suited for games like this, given the extreme precision required. Still, that made it all the more satisfying to finally complete the game after almost exactly 20 hours of effort.

Three months later the DLC "Beton Bath", with another 500 meter tower with new obstacles, mechanics, and visual aesthetic (themed after public pool equipment, which honestly looks great decorating the tower), released. This dlc had mixed reviews, but it cemented this game as a whole as a favorite for me. The new tower has a very different design approach, with more focus on interpreting strange geometry, seeking out aggressive shortcuts, and taking giant leaps of faith. The last 100 meters particularly impressed me, with numerous falls onto trampolines 80 meters below to stride the entire tower in one jump and reach new ladders, before climbing just a few meters higher and repeating the process back to the opposite side.

trying to settle on which screenshot to include with the entry was agonizing, so I'm going to post a bunch more here. I love how this game looks.

Don't worry about the vertigo meter in the bottom left. It's probably nothing to worry about.

Void Stranger (Steam)

Void Stranger is a tile-based puzzle game featuring a magic wand that can pick tiles up and place them elsewhere. Help the noble handmaiden Gray delve into the 256th floor of the mysterious Void to fulfill her heart's desire, learning more about her past by peeking into her memories as she rests at checkpoints along the way.

…But that's not sufficient to describe it, really. The best way I can come up with to describe what Void Stranger actually is, is as a seemingly normal block-pushing puzzle game that's had an entire additional Myst-like adventure game layered over it. The puzzle game is real, and it can be engaged with honestly from start to finish, but the true fun of the game (and several of its many, many possible endings) comes from interpreting obscure clues in the lore and interface to dive deeper.

The more that's learned, the easier it is to navigate the underlying puzzle game. Almost every object in the game has hidden mechanics related to it, opening up easier routes through initially difficult puzzles or allowing the use of shortcuts to skip floors entirely. Once these tricks are mastered, only thirty or so of the game's 256 floors even need to be visited to complete a run, and most of them can be cleared in seconds.

That's a good thing, too, because there's a lot of travel to specific floors needed to find all the secrets in the game. This is a game that thrives on friction in its play experience, which means it's definitely not going to be a game for everybody. If clues regarding certain shortcuts or secrets are missed, it can add a lot of unnecessary work to completing the game. But I personally love that kind of obscurity in games, and I really appreciate that the developer System Erasure (who made the similarly excellent ZeroRanger) was willing to take a chance on a niche-of-a-niche genre that could really speak to its core demographic: me specifically.

I'm not going to talk much about the plot, because most of it is deeply tangled with the Void Stranger's deepest secrets. That said, I appreciate that every route through the game, even the ones that don't engage with all the secret hunting, have been given fully fledged stories. Even the bad ending has a fucking awesome finale, to the extent that I would recommend seeking it out before engaging with the rest of the game's content (if you get offered a fruit, go ahead and eat it!)

Void Stranger is good enough to make it onto my top ten list of games of all time. I've put it at #6, just behind Iji and just ahead of Full Bore. Everything about it is fucking awesome. Check it out!

!Great Soundtrack Alert!

youtube

10 notes · View notes

ecargmura · 2 months

Text

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End Episode 23 Review - Dungeon Raid

The second exam is about getting to the bottom of an unexplored dungeon! In all honesty, I love roaming around dungeons, so seeing these mages explore them like how one would in RPGs got the gamer in me excited! I relate so much to Himmel when it comes to dungeons because it’s always more exciting to see what a floor has before going down to the next floor! Sometimes, I can find extremely helpful items if I explore every unlooked corner!

Because the requirement is for the participant to reach the dungeon, it doesn’t matter if someone goes in alone or with others as long as they reach the bottom. Some people go in on their own while others are grouped up. Frieren and Fern go in together with Sense, the proctor, tagging along. Wirbel’s group go in together. It’s implied that Land and Ubel go in together. Kanne and Lawine go in together. This leaves Denken with his group and two more people. Methode and Lange group together with them and tread the dungeon. I do like seeing everyone’s different approach when it comes to a dangerous dungeon. Frieren likes to see what it has to offer. Some are pragmatic and prefer less risk while others want to group with familiar faces. The only way to fail the exam, other than dying, is to use the golem Sense provides

I do like the different approaches to dungeon raiding. Denken and a few others are pragmatic and try to be as cautious as possible. Then, there’s Frieren who walks around as if she’s the most seasoned dungeon explorer (which she is) and still gets caught up in mimic traps. I think the funniest part about all of this is that before Frieren gets caught in the mimic trap, Richter and Denken talk about how there wouldn’t be anyone foolish or stupid to fall for simple tricks like mimics, and then Frieren, the main character and the most OP mage in the story, falls for it. Why does she do this? It’s because mimic detection spells are 99% accurate, but she seeks out the 1% in hopes that it contains a rare grimoire. She’d be a gacha whale if she lived in the modern era.

As an RPG enthusiast, I love seeing people explore every nook and cranny and fight all sorts of monsters. Seeing that there are replicas of the participants make the dungeon raid even more difficult. I loved the scene of Denken’s group fighting Replica Laufen. The way the real and the copy go at it with their staffs was really good animation. Also, I feel bad for Denken’s group because they legit ran into the most OP replica of them all: Replica Frieren; his group is already down one person due to Lange using the golem to escape a spike trap.

Oh and two new voice actors were revealed for two characters. Methode is voiced by Reina Ueda. I’m familiar with her role as Miyo from My Happy Marriage and Mayu from Wonderful Precure. I didn’t expect to hear her voice a hot older lady and be good at it; she should do more. There’s also Taito Ban as Ton, the guy who went in by himself. He’s the voice actor for Sung Jinwoo from Solo Leveling. I guess there’s a reason why he went in by himself in a dungeon; let’s just hope he doesn’t run into any statues with creepy smiles.

Watching all of this just makes me want to play an RPG. Man, I haven’t played games in a long while. Frieren gives off that RPG vibe that I miss playing at times. What RPG franchise is your favorite? I love the Tales series, but their dungeons in recent installments have been very subpar… What are your thoughts on this episode?

#frieren beyond journey's end #sousou no frieren #frieren #fern #sense #himmel #denken #laufen #richter #methode #ton #lange #review #anime #anime review #ecargmura #arum journal

8 notes · View notes

zizz-asdf-re-r-o-u · 7 months

Text

NU:Carnival Gambler's Paradise Event Review/Analysis

Warning for spoilers! (Note: This was written before Rusted Nation event came out, so some of the gore/assault stuff I talk about is missing)

Ok so I'm technically new to playing Nu Carnival (as in, since Sunburst Festival), so I can only compare it to Sunburst Festival, Misty Vale, and the reruns since Sunburst Festival. But I thought I'd share my thoughts on why the Gambler's Paradise event was so good.

As a disclaimer: I'm not into fluffy stories and personally prefer horror, gore, action, and ofc smut. So if that stuff ain't your cup of tea, then what I'm saying are positive things, may not be your thing. I'm also a lesbian so I'm not playing this game with the intention of self inserting myself to be banged by the guys. I can only think in terms of the quality of the sex and story compared to other porn games I've played.

The story/sex:

One thing many people have said about NU:Carnival, is that its a gay porn game, but with "an actually good story and good characters". However, if we look at it realistically in terms of what most players can afford, then it's more like a gacha turn-based RPG, with a few porn scenes locked away. With the exception of the 1st opening scene, in all the main storyline chapters, there is no sex, unless you pull for character cards. At most, we occasionally get characters talking about their sexual exploits and Chimes of Darkness event had an off-screen orgy. Naturally, this is still a gacha game and the H scenes will never be available for free.

But in Gambler's paradise, a very taboo sexual crime (vore) is what kicks off the plot, characters are deliberately flirty for plot reasons, a magical cock ring is what solves the day, and so on. It's a very horny event, mixing porn with plot and that's what I think makes a good porn game. A porn game shouldn't be censored or fluffy- it should have horny first, and then to elevate it from being just a bad cliched average porn game, it could also have a good plot.

The SSRs:

I personally think SSR Aster & Morvay battle stats kind of suck, so we'll just ignore that. Instead, their SSR designs are very good. I do really miss femboy twink Aster, but full form Aster is not bad and actually made me notice/appreciate twink Aster more. Morvay, however, is standout because he doesn't have illogical gravity-defying skintight clothes and has fatty pecs. All the big titty guys (including Morvay SR/R/N) in NU:Carnival have perky tight muscular pectorals. But SSR Morvay? His are borderline sagging! To everyone who complains that there is are no fat guys in Nuca- first up its a porn game so it'll never happen, but SSR Morvay is the closest we can get to so far. Nuca's other claim to fame is the clothing damage. I don't have every card so I'm not sure if any other cards have it, but I think Aster & Morvay might be the 1st SSRs with visible marks on their bodies (kisses, handprints, rope, etc).

As for the rooms- I did look up kink stats for all rooms, and I gotta say- Aster & Morvay have THE most creative H scenes in the entire game so far. Nuca is actually kind of vanilla if we think about it, and they BROUGHT the kinky shit. Most other porn games have more far extreme (or stupidly ridiculous >_> ) stuff than these 2 rooms, so Nuca is finally starting to catch up.

I would like to bring extra attention to Aster though. I've read a lot of BL manga, I've played a tiny number BL games, watched many more BL game Let's plays/livestreams, and have researched many titles/looked at many people's recommendations, so I think i know a decent number of titles. At this point in history, there are absolutely 0 transguys that have sex in BL (not including "magical MTF genderswapping" that hentai/anime is known for). There's also 0 use of strapons in smutty BL. We've also still haven't seen Aster naked or directly using his junk into/with someone else. Yes there's mention of Aster's "rod" & something gushing/leaking behind Eiden's back in his SR room, but we don't see it, there's no "orgasm splashing sound" that Nuca's H scenes are known for, and Aster's VA is also not orgasm-moaning/screaming during it.

Several other tumblrs have already speculated that Aster might be trans and reddit has speculated that Aster might be ace spectrum/sex repulsed. So Aster might be the 1st male character in all of explicit East Asian BL to use a strapon, possibly trans, and possibly on the ace spectrum. Also also- Aster's a shapeshifter, he can probably make a dick appear & reappear at will! And transguys can also do packing! There is just so much evidence it can't be just coincidences. I think that's SO cool.

The gameplay: Unfortunately, the battles were the same as any other NU:Carnival battle. Nothing novel about this.

The gore/horror/assault:

This is the point where MOST people will disagree and turn away, so trigger warnings for everything. And just cause I enjoy the horror, does not mean that everyone needs to. It's valid for someone feel uncomfortable/horrified by it, but also you should not yuck my yum. Like I mentioned, I'm not into gay porn to pretend I'm being banged by guys.

Anyways, NU:Carnival, is a mostly vanilla gay porn game, so there's only horror *sometimes*, and it's usually just fighting/killing, psychological manipulation, or Kuya. Well, Gambler's Paradise opens up with serial killing and vore. We also "see" onscreen sexual mutilation, onscreen sexual assault, murder, and Aster & Morvay technically cannibalize Leroy. (They're familiars, Leroy is a familiar, so cannibalism?) Depending on how you interpret Aster & Morvay's relationship, you could view Morvay's room 5 H scene to be Aster assaulting Morvay too. Note that all the violence and stuff is still limited by the mobile game animation format, so the animation isn't great, but the text and SFX communicates the horror well enough.

Now, there are actually a LOT of horror BL visual novels/games with sex and most of them are high quality horror compared to NU:Carnival. However, one thing NU:Carnival offers is it's signature self-awareness, genre-saviness, and the opportunity to do sexy comedy horror. And ofc, since it's a regularly updated online gacha game, that means it has the time to be relevant and to experiment and try out different genres, so if this event isn't for you, there is the main story and other events that could suit your taste. Gambler's Paradise takes what it's best at, takes the risks & opportunities its' genre can offer, and makes it unexpectedly fun. (Except the whole gacha/pulling/price shenanigans, and ).

#nu carnival #personal #nu carnival theories #nu carnival predictions

14 notes · View notes