Little King’s Story is among my favorite Wii games, and while I technically reviewed this game way back when, I generally look upon my writing during that time in a very negative light, and with a PC version recently coming out, I figured it was as good a time as any to revisit this delightful game, and I’m not too surprised by how I feel about it.
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So this week I began a project that will involve months of tedious data entry, and nearly everything that could go wrong with getting this project set up occurred when I tried setting it up. But I’m going to be paid good money for doing it. Also, my mother gave me a tablet that she got for free from AT&T. Meaning I could play Pokemon Go, if I had a data plan, quite easily as well due to the pair of Pokestops that are just a few blocks away from my house. However, I don’t, and I do not have anything else I can really use a tablet for. (more…)
After the unveiling of Sonic Mania, it occurred to me how little I personally remembered the Genesis era of the Sonic The Hedgehog games. I only ever played them at a young age, and I don’t think I played them very much at that. Heck, the first Sonic game was the first video game I ever played, and all I remember about it was being in Marble Zone, losing all my rings, and getting upset after I died. A memory that acted as a very poor first impression of video games. Yeah, so I already have reason enough to not like this game, but being a poorly constructed relic doesn’t help much either. (more…)
I mentioned last week how I’m going to revise some of my earlier novels? Well, I’m still doing that, and I have to say that I’m surprised how happy I still am with Verde’s Doohickey. I did spend a lot of time at it, but I normally hate my work right after I finish it and always think that it can be done better. It’s actually been quite the confidence booster to reread it and edit a few minor elements. Heck, I would officially publish it if I had a cover, and I think I’ll start pursuing that fairly soon. Possibly from the artist who drew this week’s header image (more…)
Red Faction: Guerilla has been off my radar for quite some time, which actually surprises me, as it is a game developed by Volition, the people behind Saints Row, and I absolutely loved the second and fourth games in that series. It is also a game about destroying buildings, which has a primal and cathartic appeal to me. However, the brown aesthetic of this game always put me off, and it wasn’t until I caught a few glimpses of people gushing about this game before I chose to check it out and see what made their knickers so tight and cozy. Yeah, I still have no idea what they found so appealing about this game. (more…)
Time for an update regarding my narrative writings! First off, I am going to revise my two prior novels, Verde’s Doohickey and The Malice of Abigale Quinlan in the ensuing weeks, where I will remove red herrings and things that are distracting to the story or just do not work. I will also be rewriting one of my favorite story, Psycho Shatter, to better match my current standard of writing. Now, you may be asking why I am doing this. Well, my upcoming story, tentatively titled Psycho Bullet Festival: Please Bury My Children, has been encountering quite a few snags over the past few months, and I want to put out something in the meantime. Plus, I’ve wanted to do these things for a while, and I feel that is as good a time as any. (more…)
My thoughts on the Neptunia games should be well documented by now. From Re;Birth 1, 2, and 3 to U and Hyperdevotion, every game in this series has loads of potential, and could easily be a zany and lighthearted adventure overloaded with adoration for the medium of video games. Unfortunately, the lack of polish present in these games, and the lack of quality of their content has prevented any game in this series from being greater than being okay. For over a year, I’ve looked at Neptunia VII as the point where the series would ideally start getting good, where it would ascend to new plains and become a genuinely great series of fun lighthearted RPGs… it almost does. (more…)
I really should stop saving these preambles for the last minute, as I seldom ever have something interesting to say about… anything when placed on the spot. I suppose I could talk about my hormones and job, but that’s a bit private, and I’d rather not divulge every detail about my life. Unfortunately, aside from my writing, blossoming friendship, work, and the games I play, I lack many things to talk about, as I’m a pretty boring person when you get down to it. (more…)
So, I’ve been wanting to revisit the Mass Effect trilogy for a while, but I kept putting it off for various reasons. The vicious opinions surrounding the ending, the overpriced DLC that isn’t included in any bundle, and the lack of controller support. Although, I managed to remedy the latter using a handy mod. Anyways, with Andromina still a looming enigma on the horizon, I figured now is as good a time as any to start the spacefaring adventure of Shepard the space shepherd. So I’ll just jump on in. (more…)
I rarely ever have good material to begin these segments with, as they are very disposable, and not very good. Heck, the majority of Rundowns I’ve done in the past weren’t good either. This is a segment that, much like every other aspect of this blog, exists solely for my own selfish reasons. Sorry, I’m in the well of despair again, and I’ll surely get out of it for the 178th time. (more…)
I should probably explain that my goal for this blog for the past six months has been to get one review posted every week, and I’ve been doing my best to curate my game playing schedule to accommodate that. Unfortunately, sometimes I run into a game that I struggle to say much of anything about, and I spend very little time with before reaching the conclusion, as there just isn’t much to it. That’s unfortunately the case with Love At First Sight, and I feel sorry for the game because of it, as it really is quite nice.
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So, I’ve been doing this for, what, three years now? I literally just remembered that I needed to post this within the past twenty minutes. Yeah, let that be a sentiment to how awful I can be at managing my various tasks and assignments, so long as they are self imposed at the very least. I mean, I never missed an assignment in school, and I didn’t even use an assignment notebook in high school, so why that diligence didn’t transfer over is beyond me. (more…)
Well, it’s finally here. After 3.5 years of anticipation, and a second playthrough for both 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors and Virtue’s Last Reward, the conclusionary chapter of the Zero Escape series Zero Time Dilemma is finally here. I already spoke of my love for this series, so without further ado, let’s jump right in. (more…)
I’m going to keep this introduction brief, as I have a Zero Time Dilemma to solve, and I’d rather find the solution sooner than later. So… Yeah. Time for another week of video game news with only a handful of things I want to talk about. (more…)
I originally wanted to begin with a preamble about berating this game for having an insufficient amount of its advertised waifu abuse, as both the quantity of true waifus and their abuse leaves much to be desired. But that really isn’t what VA-11 Hall-A is about, despite what 18 month old marketing materials led me to believe, and instead it is a visual novel about cyberpunk bartending, and a pretty wonderful one at that. (more…)
So, I started hormones over this past week. Specifically on the 23rd, meaning my hormone anniversary will forever correspond with Sonic’s anniversary. The Steam summer sale began, and it is the worst one by far, as only a single game on my wishlist had a discount over 50%. I started working on a project with a friend of mine, which will likely manifest into something cool in about a year. Also, I’m going to be flooded with games over the next two weeks, as Zero Time Dilemma comes out on the 29th, while Megadimension Neptunia VII launches on July 5th. Golly, I’m going to be ever so busy with all these Japanese video games. (more…)
Following the initial release of 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors, the game failed to capture a sizable market in Japan, with sales failing to surpass 50,000, while in the west it sold enough to justify a second printing. Because of this the game was viewed as a success, and a sequel was put forward, one that would release on two platforms in order to maximize the audience, feature a far larger and more ambitious story, and be rebranded under the moniker of Zero Escape. However, the game failed to perform adequately in Japan, and there was a brief period where it was believed the series would end forever on the cliffhanger of the series. Which would have been a colossal shame, but that isn’t the case as the final chapter is due out in a week. But before that, let’s dig into the middle chapter of this trilogy with Virtue’s Last Reward.
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Well now, E3 2016 is done, and… it actually went really well all things considered. Sure, EA and Ubisoft didn’t offer much with their press conferences, and the PC gaming show was still a bust. But a solid showing from Microsoft and a quality, well composed showing from Sony, and a super in-depth showcase of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild made for a pretty good now. There were only a few major surprises, mostly due to a series of leaks, yet the number of things that annoyed me were at an all time low… which actually makes me really happy. (more…)
I regularly wonder if my thoughts on a game are too shallow or surface level, that I don’t really dig into the greater and subtler meanings of a game, and instead choose to jump from one game to another about once a week. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, but it gets to me when I play a game and feel like I’m just reciting what snippets I heard of it before, as I generally agree with the common conception about it. Anyhow, I played Dropsy, wrote a review of it, and am putting it up during the week of E3 because scheduling demands it. (more…)
Before getting into Nintendo, there are something things I missed yesterday where I spent roughly 9 hours on a thirteen page Rundown, where I tried my darndest to recap the presence of about thirty games and write my impressions on all of them. Things slip through the cracks, and I didn’t even had time to shower yesterday I was so busy. (more…)
There is a lot of content to cover, so let’s jump right into it. A rundown detailing the E3 2016 presentations of Microsoft, PC Gamer and AMD, Ubisoft, and Sony. There’s a stupid amount of content to cover, and simply getting all of this done in one day has proved to be quite the challenge. So let’s go! (more…)
With a slew of leaks and early reveals out of the way, E3 has finally begun. By which I mean that EA is holding an event outside of E3 around the same time. The ever expanding Bethesda is getting early coverage by going one day before the press conferences traditionally begin. While Kadokawa games, a growing publisher that isn’t even having a proper press conference, just a private media briefing… Whatever, that’s good enough for me. (more…)
E3 2016 is days away, and PRE3 2016 is in full effect. Reveals were made, trailers dropped, and leaks are still dripping from the sweaty underbelly of the video game industry in anticipation for the hype driven commercialized video game event of the year. I could be jaded and cynical about the whole blasted affair, but I’d gain nothing but smug satisfaction in doing so. It’s a fun and exciting time in the world of video games, so I may try to enjoy it and everything related to it. (more…)
Cat Girl Without Salad originated as an “April Fools joke” back in 2013, with developer WayForward claiming the game will be every genre under the sun, and come out for every system possible in fall of that year. That didn’t happen, and the game’s announcement, despite being supposedly real according to WayForward staff, was largely dismissed as a simple joke. Over three years later though, the project was announced on the tumblr of the lead artist and was released exclusively through the Humble Monthly Bundle for June 2016. Was this oddball little curiosity something worth waiting so many years for? Eh… Kind of. (more…)
I’m not going to disclose details on this, but after a lengthy period of loneliness, I finally made a friend with someone on the internets. All because they sent me an email asking about transwoman stuff. And my goodness does it feel wonderful to have someone I can talk to about the minute details of my life, and someone who is comfortable enough with me to do the same. (more…)
So, it’s been about four years since I originally reviewed Zero Escape: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors, and with the third installment in the series, Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma only a month away, I decided I should refresh myself on a series whose intricacies and strong narratives that acted as a key source of inspiration for me as a writer. …And of course I’m going to review them. I mean, the very idea of investing a lengthy amount of time into a game and not reviewing it would be positively preposterous after doing this for four years. (more…)
So, I just finished my latest writing project, Maple Loves Senpai, and within a short while I will begin working on Psycho Bullet Festival 2: Bury My Children. And by work on, I mean outline, as I only have loose concepts and idea, a very basic structure, and a rough estimate of the cast. I hope to get this done in three months, as I will have lots of free time over that time period, but I’m not making any promises just yet. Anyhow, time for disposable talk about video game nonsense. (more…)
Maple Loves Senpai is a love story in the loosest sense. It is a tale of an unremarkable Japanese high school girl, Meipuru Tsuri, who fuses with her would be lover, and discovers she has the ability to absorb other people, and alter her body accordingly. Hi-jinks, murder, pseudo-eroticism, and the appropriation of cultural archetypes ensue in this eccentric and lighthearted romp.
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This year has not been marvelous in regards to the games I’ve played. Most have been pretty average so, far, which is unfortunate since I try to curate my list of games to play to contain games that are generally well received. I enjoy being able to deconstruct elements of a game and articulate what exactly I dislike about them, but I’d rather be releasing relentless praise upon games, joyful that I had the opportunity to play them. …Unfortunately, I can’t do that here. (more…)
So after two years of anticipation, Press-Switch, a body swap and tg focused visual novel that is also one of my favorite games of all time, is about to get its first update in two years. An update in the form of a single route that will effectively double the length of the game. It’s still months away, but once it releases, I’ll probably drop everything I have before going through all routes and writing a praise heavy review for the game. I could go on right now about how its characters are varied and memorable. Its scenarios nuanced and engaging. Its scope colossal and diverse. Its tone delightfully dark and even deprived at times. Along with how it influenced me as a writer. But I am a patient person, and can wait another seventeen months. (more…)
This is a review that has been looming over me for roughly four years now. I originally bought Xenoblade at launch after the participating in Operation Rainfall, planned on reviewing it, but after seventy hours with the game my disc drive broke, and my interest in the game dissolved as complications delayed repairs. So the game was dropped, and I always felt bad for not finishing it. Now, four years later, I decided to replay the game using the Dolphin emulator and an HD texture pack. About a hundred hours afterwards, I really wish I had cleared this game years ago, if only so I wouldn’t have spent the past few weeks rushing to finish it. (more…)
“Hallo Natalie, wie geht’s?” Why thank you for asking Maple-chan. I just finished community college, completely failed at talking to another human being for about two hours after paying for their company, and am going to come out sometime next week. “…Sometimes I wonder why I exist, and then I remember that it’s because some Aspie conjured me in their corrupted mind.” Shut up Maple-chan, it’s time to talk about video games. “Because people care so much about what you think about banal video game news.” …I may decide to kill you off in your upcoming story, Maple Loves Senpai after that comment. (more…)
“Natalie! Natalie! Why are you reviewing a game that came out 18 years ago?” “‘Cos my backlog was cleared out when I played this game a month ago. Also, I liked this game, wanted to replay it, and did so in order to reassess its quality.” “But do you really have the knowledge and foresight to properly analyze games like this in the detail they are accustomed to?” “…No. I played it for twelve hours and wrote a two page thing about it. Is that unacceptable, Maple-chan?” “I guess it’s fine. But I’m not gonna read it.” “Yeah, nobody will. Nobody ever reads anything I write…” “Okay… I’ll leave you alone now.” (more…)
Let’s see… how to fill up a loosely related introductory paragraph… Oh, I’m almost done with community college before I move onto a real university, which is going to suck since I’ll need to commute into the city, but whatever. In the meantime, my summer is going to be pretty free, aside from the nonsense that will surely follow coming out to my parents; which I probably shouldn’t be talking about on a public blog, but I don’t really care if the mundane details of my life are detailed to other people. They probably should not even care, because aside from my self loathing and stream of thoughts that can only be conjured by a corrupted mind, I’m quite boring. (more…)
This is the fifth Neptunia game I’m reviewing after going over the PC ports of Re;Birth1, Re;Birth2, Re;Birth3, and U, and my expectations for what these games will deliver have been set. Serviceable gameplay, rampant recycling of the same assets, and a cheesy story peppered with enjoyable characters and a sense of humor that I can’t help but love on some level. With this being an Strategy RPG spin-off I wasn’t expecting much, and those expectations were met. (more…)
Apologies for not getting a Hyperdevotion Noire review up. Work, school, and family stuff all cut into the time I could put into that game. Review should be up tomorrow evening. Also, on May 31st I will (hopefully) release a novella I’m currently working on called Maple Loves Senpai. It’s a story about a Japanese schoolgirl who gets absorption powers and is guided by the voice of her lover to consume people in order to transform herself into his ultimate waifu. Many stereotypes and dark themes ensue. (more…)
It just occurred to me that I have no idea what a comma splice, independent clause, and dependent clause are. The could be due to my own foolishness, but I like to think it’s because my school placed me in remedial English during my middle school years. I’m not sure why, as I was always a B student, and my writing was actually praised by a few teachers. This school district also sent me to play with the down syndrome and retarded children once a week in third and fourth grade. Because Autism, I guess. Now my autism causes the state to pay for my super level schooling and probably pays people to care for those retarded adults. (more…)
Coming off the heels of the overall well received port of the first Danganronpa game on PC, Spike Chunsoft and Abstraction games released Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair. I originally reviewed the Vita version in 2014, but I like to think that I’ve grown substantially as a writer since then, and I am always willing to support companies, especially Japanese companies, when they support the PC marketplace with niche titles.
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Backstory for anyone who is not aware: I was a big Sonic fan during the Gamecube era, and despite recognizing that the majority of 3D Sonic games are messes on a technical level, I still hold some fondness for them and the franchise at large. …I really wish I didn’t at times. I’d be a far happier person if that were the case. (more…)
Whatever backlog of games I’ve accumulated over the years has petered away as of late. Partially because I more or less abandoned my backlog for the seventh generation of consoles when I switched to PC, and mostly because I am rather flippant when determining whether or not I want to put a game in a virtual rubbish bin. So now I’m emulating games I played four to five years ago, such as Xenoblade Chronicles, as I never delivered on the review I promised in posts I’ve since removed from this blog. (more…)
It’s been about three and a half months since I looked at Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin, a sequel to a game I came around to loving despite a few gripes, but found irritating to play because of a few mechanical changes. But with Dark Souls III coming out tomorrow, at least for those who haven’t grabbed the Asian English version, I figure I may as well give it another go and actually beat the game. (more…)
Another week, another rundown, another instance of me being depressed and dissatisfied with my very existence, but unable voice my frustrations to any single person. Sure, I can post about it online, but that’s a lot like putting a message in a bottle and throwing it into a sea of nothing but messages in bottles. (more…)
Despite being a bit too overt with some of its sexual content, made worse by a later patch, I really liked HuniePop. It was a game about learning more about and establishing relationships with a diverse and interesting group of characters, including a catgirl, an alien, and even a spoiled little mall brat. It featured sharp and clever writing with high quality voicework, and was a pretty compelling puzzle game to boot. So when I caught wind of a sequel, I noted it, ignored it for a couple months, picked it up to play, and… yeah. (more…)
I’m one of those few thousand people who threw a few bucks at Hyper Light Drifter during its Kickstarter, as the project looked interesting, and I would surely check it out after release. Then, with a week’s notice, the game came out, and everybody proceeded to announce their adoration of it. While I would love to do the same, I genuinely cannot say I like Hyper Light Drifter. Yeah, after going through this game, trying to find everything without a guide, I never want to play it again. (more…)
Jeepers am I going to have a lot of games to play this month. Hyper Light Drifter came out on March 31st, Hunie Cam Studios launches April 4th, Danganronpa 2 is out April 18th, and Double Root: Before Crime After Days Xtend Edition is out sometime this month. Plus a proper review of Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin should be up whenever I find time to finish that game amidst this chaos. Seriously, this is the reason why I don’t like buying lots of games at launch. You need to build your schedule around release dates, get 60% through a lot of games, and then stop suddenly and hopefully get back to it later. (more…)
“Electric Nigma! Electric Nigma!” Um, actually I go by Natalie now. “Whatever! Why are you reviewing D4 now? Haven’t you owned it for almost a year now?” Yes, I have owned it for several months. I did not review it because I was afraid I would not like it after playing it for 20 minutes. “But didn’t you adore Deadly Premonition?” I still do, but that’s not how enjoying things works. If you are a good girl, I’ll tell you why in the form of a review. “Natalie! Natalie!” What? “Do you feel like an insignificant creature who will never accomplish anything of worth in their sad little life?” …I’m glad I’m killing you off. (more…)
Well, nothing much happened this week, so I wrote up a little thing about my own weird views of sexuality that probably lacks the insight that I should have developed at this point, but that will probably not happen until I start visiting a head doctor who can lobotomized my noggin and go all Milda7 on my ass. Goodness, I just referenced a sissification artist, didn’t I? Whatever. It’s another week, so another rundown will ensue! (more…)
Throughout 2015, I reviewed the three Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth games, a trilogy of remakes for the first three games in the series, and my dissatisfaction with their quality only intensified as I went through one every few months. They weren’t bad games, just meddling and complacent with abiding by negative gameplay based JRPG tropes and recycling content and assets like mad. But before Megadimension Neptunia VII, which is looking to fix a lot of the misgivings of its predecessors, comes to PC, there’s Neptunia U: Action Unleashed, a button basher spin-off from the Senran Kagura developers. (more…)
Yep! I am still going to post these every Sunday because gosh darn it I really do find pleasure in reviewing the happenings in the video game industry every week and talking about them. It’s fun, cathartic, and does not take up a lot of my time. As such, Rundowns will carry forth for the next… however long. Also, I completely failed to contribute to a conversation for 3.5 hours yesterday, so I’m feeling like a ripe little turd at the moment. (more…)
Considering how this is my third review of one in the past three months, I shouldn’t need to preface how I enjoy visual novels, specifically of the Japanese variety. When done right, they are able to tell captivating stories with an enjoyable cast of characters, often interspersed with a lot of things that would be difficult to do in another medium. But that’s not to say that the medium is free of its own share of trash. So without further ado, time to talk about Cho Dengeki Stryker! (more…)