need to play: coquette dragoon, spare parts, heaven will be mine

played, need to review: clinical trial, bustafellows, mysme, the arcana, we know the devil, ace attorney???, more i can't remember

ummmmm how could i NOT play the toxic yuri jam game with the embroidered UI. do you even know me? are you paying attention???? god. this game is so obviously stunning to look at that describing it feels like a waste of words. so, i'll keep my praise to the writing.

i find that VNs (and games writers in general) tend to underscore their own cleverness, explaining their metaphors and themes, as if the reader's literal understanding of the text is more important than their emotional or intellectual response.

by contrast, 10mt is a refreshingly confident VN. when i reflect on this game, the first word that comes to my mind is "literary." it's not good because it's like a book -- i don't think any game is better for being less like a game -- but because the text is unafraid to challenge the reader, and maybe even lose them for a few steps. this is a story that trusts you'll catch back up.

a game with a powerful sense of place, fully developed characters, and a few gut-twisting turns along the way. next time you've got two hours to yourself, play it!

i want to love this game!!!! presentation-wise, this is the medium at its finest. the techy, neon-bright UI is a perfect extension of the game world. sometimes literally -- as you mouse around the point-and-click investigation sequences, the UI embeds in the scene itself. it highlights the omnipresence of surveillance technology in the story, and moreover, it's fucking beautiful to look at. the character art is expressive and has style for days.

and yet...... i'm not thrilled with the writing so far. the worldbuilding is fascinating, but it's delivered unnaturally, through characters expositing to one another without any real reason to do so. the main character is great, but her every other line is a quip. it all gets in the way of my immersion, which is a shame, because i want to be immersed so badly!!!!

i'm going to give it another shot and play the first chapter. i want to fall for this game. i hope i do!

i am admittedly "not a JRPG guy," but i adore the JRPG flavor soulsov brings to the table. every character feels like they could be the subject of their own game. ysme may be the star of the show (and yes, every third thing that comes out of her mouth makes me scream-laugh), but loic is the real heart of the story; the mind-boggling degree of repression he inflicts upon himself has me consantly excited for the moment he'll finally snap.

there is not a dull moment or a wasted word in soulsov. the writing is edited down to a razor point. the art is luscious and painterly, but never overwrought. the choral tones and midi texture of the music suits the JRPG aesthetic. even the UI is impressive.

perhaps my only criticism is that soulsov has spent a lot of time in flashback so far. i don't love games where the backstory is more engrossing that the ongoing plot. but as i write this, only two chapters have been released, so there'a plenty of time left for the story to pop off. i can't wait for the rest!

another one i want to love. this game's got a great setup -- two straight boys trapped in a room are forced to choose between acts of escalating sexual intimacy or violence to survive. the presentation's all right, and the artwork is clean and technically sound. but the prose was just so... lackluster. the main character doesn't have a strong personality or point of view, and although his enthusiastic heterosexual appreciation for his bestie is extremely funny, i'm not sure if the comedy is intentional. maybe i stopped before it got good, but in the four or five hours i spent with this game, i wasn't thrilled.

folks, they call it kamige for a reason. i went into higu expecting a dense, nuanced, and challenging psychological thriller, wrapped in a 2000s slice-of-life moe shell. what i got was a layer cake of mystery, grounded worldbuilding, developed characters with conflicting ideologies, paranoia, societal critique, funny teenage bullshit, and 2000s slice-of-life moe, all presented with the charming subtlety of a brick thrown through glass.

i was surprised to find higurashi's prose is actually quite easy to read. i'm not sure where i got the impression otherwise. the writing washes over you like a warm breeze, which makes the hammy horror scenes that much more fun.

i'm only two and a half games in, but i can't wait to read more.

mion should take testosterone

one of those games i should've played before i read any other VNs! i fully understand the place this title holds in modern VN history, but by the time i started reading it, i'd seen a million other games with the same themes... probably because fata morgana set those trends.

i loved the presentation in this game. every character sprite looks carved from marble -- solemn, stylish, and polished. the sense of place is spectacular, just steeped in melancholy. it's the archetypal manor mystery for good reason. as i type this, i can hear the fireplace SFX on loop in the back of my head.

but my god, does fata morgana take its time! i love a slow burn, but much of the writing here is outright redundant. dialogue and narration alike frequently restate what the reader already knows; every third sentence could be cut from the script without losing much. i've heard it picks up in the latter half, but by the end of the third door, i still wasn't hooked.

i won't forget the manor with the porcelain maid, but i don't think i'll return anytime soon.

a tremendous waste of my time!!!!!!! the characters are flat. even among protag-kuns, the narrator is particularly annoying. the novel portions are fraught with lackluster writing, and the non-novel portions are buggy, frustrating, and uninteresting. in a complete ass-pull of a reveal, the last 5% of the game introduces a new plot device that solves every mystery introduced up to that point. i rarely feel so frustrated at the end of a game, but i was steaming when i put this down.

my first exposure to AITSF was a screencap of a character discussing The LGBT Community, so for years i assumed this game had gay shit in it, only to discover that the most central queer character is the subject of constant transmisogynist jokes. Lol

if AITSF has one million haters then i'm one of them.
if AITSF has one hater then i'm that one.
if AITSF has no haters that means i'm dead.
win or lose.
0 games or 3 games.
bad end or true end.
i will always despise and revile you !
even if the whole world says you're a good VN. !!
¡ FUCK YOU KANAME DATE !

some fun scifi concepts, beautiful presentation, and a handful of pure-gold characters, bogged down by a majority annoying cast and some truly pitiful romance writing. my favorite character, moeka, is seriously underdeveloped and underutilized; the way luka's gender is handled by the narrative is straight up vile; i never found any reason to care about okabe. i did quite like the way the branching paths tie back into the main narrative, but fun design =/= good writing. overall, a miss for me.

that kid's poetry sucked lol