So you’re probably wondering “Nana, what happened to the Steam Next Fest ramble?” Well, there’s a simple answer for that, which is I figured that I have so many blog projects I want to do that I figure that I should just not do a blog post of Steam Next Fest this time round. I did play some stuff though, so you can check it out here.
But Enough about that! It’s time to go back to this game! I initially took a look at this game during the Steam Next Fest in February. I usually just keep these things on my wishlist, but then I actually got a DM from the lead developer and Main character of the game, Aizawa Kana, promoting their Kickstarter. The Kickstarter itself was very simple, so I backed it, though the game came out a week after the Kickstarter ended, a lot of the stuff they want to add will be through patches.
That being said, what does this game have to offer as a Megaman Zero-inspired game? Let’s find out. As always, spoilers are abounding, and I’m playing the PC Version.
To start off, the story is pretty much a standard Megaman game honestly. While there’s a lot of background lore, the only real things that matter are as such; you are Aizawa Kana, an Operator equipped with a Virtual Drive system, to access the powers of the other operators, and there are 8 in total to defeat with 2 bosses in-between, one being a clone of Kana called KO2, who was made by Stor, a scientist who was helping us, but then turned bad because of course he did. the other being Stor himself, who is helping Dr D.G, a scientist who wants to destroy Neo Bablion. who Kana promptly defeats before stopping the earth from being destroyed. That’s pretty much it. I have no problems with the basic story, it’s pretty much another Megaman X story game, especially considering it’s their 1st game, but where I do have a small problem is in the characters.
Not yet, I just started the review.
I do understand what they were going for, the idea is that you watch V-Tubers and I do, but the problem here is that all of these V-Tubers are from mainland China, and mostly stream on BliiBlii, which for people that don’t know what that is, it’s basically China’s version of YouTube, which isn’t super accessible outside of mainland China.
While there are some cute moments between characters, like Shiori Hana kinda wanting to keep Kana to herself, or Memo just kinda being a jerk as soon as you meet her, I kinda wish I knew the Lore of these V-Tubers a bit, since their designs are very cool honestly, and they are brought to life super well in the pixel art honestly, it really it’s really good looking, though staring at some of the later bosses, though some designs are more clearly Megaman inspired than others.
… Don’t remind me of Megaman X6 please.
On to the gameplay, which I think is pretty heavy on the Megaman parallels as well, but it added its own twist to things which I really like. You have all the moves of Megaman Zero, Dash, Charge Shot, and Sword attack you can charge, though you can’t do any combos with it. However, you get a nice kick move that you can use and I found it pretty useful at points, though you can mostly not use it honestly. The game itself is kinda structured like Megaman 7, as after taking down Nezumi, who is the 1st level of the game, you can take down 3 other Operators, Yan, Shiori Hana and Ji Yi. The way that the typical weaknesses work though is kinda interesting. Each Vtuber has an element that they use in their fights. Ice, Fire, Electricity and Wind. Fire is weak to Wind, Wind is weak to electricity, and so on. Instead of giving you special weapons, the bosses give you cards for the Virtual Ride system, and when you use a card of the said element, you can use special moves, under the right conditions (which is basically charging up you’re meter to 100% by killing enough enemies), you can let burst attacks. Honestly, it’s a very unique of dealing with this for me, I like it quite a bit, as it is still simple, but adds a unique spin to things.
Since the game gives you the weakness for Shiori Hana, that’s the one you will want to do 1st, though Yan is easy enough without the weakness. Ji Yi on the other hand, is near impossible without the weakness, and I learned that the hard way by getting beaten up by her mech arms dozens of times.
After that, you face KO2, a clone of Kana that clearly references Omega from Megaman Zero 3. This is also something I wish was expanded upon as bringing the clone of Kana makes for some interesting dilemmas faced by all parties, but nothing much is really done with it besides revealing Dr. D.G. and showing off Stor as a traitor because of course he’s a traitor.
After that, you get 4 more bosses, YY, Memo, ICE and Eliana. The levels become a bit more unique here, as YY gets a sorta playroom since his level is based on a theme part, Memo gets a level that reminds of Storm Eagle’s level in Megaman, and Eliana gets a level that clearly a tribute to the older Castlevania’s. It’s a joy to see, though getting through these levels is surprisingly easy, especially by Megaman standards. It is a bit harder exploring for health upgrades, weapon upgrades and R-Tanks, this game’s version of E-Tanks, but it’s not a dealbreaker if you don’t have them. I did play on normal though, so that might have something to do with it.
I will say though, there’s a menu that has a bunch of options to make the game easier when you unlock them by either getting them in the store or finding them in levels. When you get Double Jump and Air Dash, PUT THEM ON ASAP. It makes platforming so much easier in certain situations, especially if you’re going for 100% completion like I currently am.
After the other 4 bosses, you end up fighting a random robot, before going through an amalgamation of all the levels before facing Stor, and then the usual boss rush happens before facing Dr. D.G. in a climatic showdown that even has a self-destruction sequence. Neat!
Besides the main, there’s not too much to do outside of it besides looking for things to get you’re 100% save file, which involves looking for CD, which unlocks the soundtrack within the game. You can fight all the bosses again, and there’s even the EX Boss Rush which they just added yesterday at the time of writing, I haven’t fully tried it yet, but it’s fighting all the bosses non-stop with no healing outside of R-Tanks, so boy, that will be interesting when I get to it.
Virtua Unlimited Project was a very fun time, and honestly my Game of the Year so far. This team did a great job making a Megaman-inspired platformer, and adding VTubers to it, even if I feel the story is a little lacking. It’s also a big thing in my eyes, as it’s the 1st game(at least that I’ve heard of) to feature Vtubers that aren’t from Hololive, Nijisanji or Vshojo, which is kinda an important thing as mostly games that feature Vtubers that I’ve heard about feature those Vtubers, such as Holocure and Vshojo’s upcoming game with Hidden Leaf games are made by fans for fans or are trying to appeal to a broader multiplayer audience.
This game, however, feels like it’s a great in-between, a game that is be cool for fans of these Vtubers, but is very fun for the normal person to play, and is targeted to people just really like retro platforms. I really hope that this team can make more games. I would love for them to a 3D game like Megaman Legends or Kingdom Hearts if they can pull it off. So please, if you can support this game. You can get it on Steam for usually quite cheap.
Well.. that became longer than I expected. Anyway, a nice little fun detor there for me to play, and I’m glad I did.
Next time, we begin our anime doubleheader with a review of HighSpeed Etoile! I will say now, I probably like it more than most. But for now, thanks for reading, and I will see you next time.
Ok, so it’s been a while since I did an editorial of sorts, but I would say there’s not been anything I wanted to talk about. However, recently, the game studio UNSEEN popped up founded by Ikumi Nakamura. Hey. she’s one that showed off Ghostwire: Tokyo for Tango Gameworks, before leaving and putting it in the hands of Shinji Mikami and Kenji Kimura respectfully. So, remembering some stuff from before(and also just wanting to do some writing that isn’t reviews), I decided why don’t we look into some stuff here, and also have some fun giving some opinions on it?
Please keep in mind I’m not an investigative journalist, I’m just a dude who knows how to research, and also remembers stuff pretty well. That being said, let’s talk about why UNSEEN is pretty different, and why Ikumi Nakamura is great.
Before we can go into that I have to go back and discuss the past of Ikumi Nakamura. though I’ll try and keep things pre-Ghostwire Tokyo as brief as possible. Nakamura applied twice for Capcom and got accepted in the year 2004. Capcom was Nakamura’s dream studio to work at after her father passed in a motorcycle accident, and how much they bonded over horror movies, even though she admits she wasn’t the best starting out in Ask Ikumi number 1:
I used to get called in by my senior once every three months and get they would often tell me “You might get fired next time”. I wasn’t exactly a star rookie.
Still, she did stay on long enough to be the background artist for the cult classic, Okami by Clover Works, a game that she gets asked about a lot, though with her running her own studio, and Hideki Kamiya now out of a job for a bit, yea Kamiya left Platinum and is now under a non-compete clause, which given that this isn’t a sport this is… dumb, that game could be getting an unexpected revival. Only time will tell on that part.
It was a IP where everything was new and the goal wasn’t clear, but it turned out to be the project I learned the most on.
Nakumara on “How did you feel when you got involved with Okami?”
Anyways, if you know anything about Clover Works, you will know that the studio eventually became Platinum Games, as most people working at Capcom left the studio to become independent, and she joined the Studio founded by Kamiya, Resident Evil 1 director Shinji Mikami and Current PlatinumGames CEO Atsushi Inaba. Ikumi actually pitched a Nintendo DS game for them, and it got greenlit, however…
I even went to Nintendo to give a presentation, and they told me if Platinum Games released this through the DS, not that it will be the end of Platinum Games, but Platinum Games will have a really, really bad reputation,
Nakamura on her cancelled DS game
That… is an extremely lame excuse, because the DS was pretty hot in 2007, so games would probably be a hit for it, but for now, it remains lost to time. She then worked on Bayonetta as a Conspest artist, something she said she was fortunate to be on, as she really loved Devil May Cry. She then went to work on Scalebound, but that game got canned even after she left, and well… this face sums up my feelings on if I should comment on this or not, given the mess that game has seemed to be for Microsoft. Hell, given what we know now, it might have been the warning shot…
Anyways, she ended up going to Tango Gameworks alongside Mikami, and ended up being the lead artist for the 1st Evil Within, then did additional art for the 2nd Evil Within game. She then got a chance to direct her own game, Ghostwire Tokyo and the reveal of this game is probably one of the last great moments, if not the last great moment in the history of the now cancelled E3.
An important event which pushed me forward.
There’s something in her presentation style that feels so genuine and brings out a lot a charm and genuine passion which is hard to find nowadays. I think was in my last weeks of A-Level exams, so seeing this before school was nice to see. She got pretty popular overnight with this, but it would all come to a crashing halt as in September 2019, she left Tango Gameworks, due to the stress of publisher-developer politics making her ill, which just shows how difficult making games can be. Ghostwire Tokyo would once again, be put in the hands of Mikami and noted Tekken and Metal Gear artist, Kenji Kimura and would come out in March 2022 for PS5, and a year later for Xbox Series X and S.
Nakamura then hit a big layoff doing a lot of different things, mainly travelling. I do remember her announcing she was working for a construction company, and I was like “What the hell happened here for her to leave games entirely?” Keep in mind, we didn’t know what made her leave until mid-2021, so that was my though process there. However, she did some stuff for games, such as Rainbow Six skins, and designs for Gungrave: G.O.R.E, and after visiting some studios, having a kid, congratulations, and getting Gastroenteritis at one point, Jesus Christ, we end up to March 2022, where she announced her Studio, UNSEEN.
WE ARE ARTISTS, WE ARE BORDLESS, WE ARE UNSEEN.
Unseen is a different type of development studio for sure, as they cross cultures and are very open to doing things like indie studios. So far on their channels, they have done a few Ikumi Nakamura Q&A’s which I’ve enjoyed watching, Ikumi doing more travelling, along with the entire Unseen crew and Midnight UNSEEN, which I have not watched yet, but it seems interesting.
All of this led to 2023’s Game Awards, where she revealed the team’s 1st game, KEMURI.
While a teaser trailer was shown at The Game Awards, more information was given in February of 2024, revealing that it is a multiplayer game where you hunt Yokai. You seem to mainly use something called the “Fox Window”, from what I can gather, it’s a piece of old Japanese folklore, being the idea that if you connect your hands in a certain shape, you can see Yokai or Ghosts, though I know that’s an elementary and dumbed down explanation for it, though. The trailers and the Ask Ikumi on this subject say a lot more, and I recommend you check them out.
As for my opinion on this; KEMURI looks very good, but I’m worried about the Multiplayer stuff, I’m not a big fan of Multiplayer projects, but this looks pretty stellar, and they did say there is the option to play by yourself, so it should be fun. Plus the character designs and animation are truly stellar, it’s amazing how expressive they look, and it’s helped by the team leader being very relaxed and happy in how she presents herself to the general public.
Nakamura is somebody that I feel is very passionate for games and game development, something that I feel has been missing from a lot leaders in the game industry nowadays. Teams like UNSEEN and people like Ikumi Nakamura are showing that it still matters, The fact that she’s so open with her stories and what inspires her is also really great… even if I don’t get what she sees in Ghost from Call of Duty.
While do have some reservations about KEMURI, it does look like a good and very fun game to play. I hope she and the entire UNSEEN team do well, and please remember the one thing that Nakamura-san wants the most:
ADDITIONAL. DEVELOPMENT. FUNDING.
So yea, that was a fun little thing to write about. Sorry that this didn’t come out in April. I was very busy, I had something going on basically every day this month, and there’s been a lot happening in general, so I kinda put this on the back-burner for a bit. But I’m glad it’s over now.
Before I go, thank you to everyone I met at WASD this year! It was my 1st convention, and I had a great time. Hopefully I can go to more of them.
But yea, thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time.
Hey! Here’s another one of these old articles. Granted, IDK if this game is still being worked on, but eh, I do still like this quite a bit. I was gonna do a new small thing, but this month got kinda of busy at the end, plus I kind of ended up working a lot more on the editorial, so that will be out next month alongside 2 anime 1st impressions!
But here’s one about Boneko, a cat platformer that I found pretty neat. Please keep in mind that these, unlike the updated ones that have older dates on them, are for other sides, so the tone is pretty different from what I write normally.
That being said, thanks for reading, and enjoy this article. I’ll see you all soon.
Boneko was made by Patchoid,a developer who has a few other games under his belt such as EVA: Battle for Survival. This game centres around a girl named Bony, who’s cat, Boneko has drunk a potion, and turned into a hat. A very basic story, something has happened to a loved one; go save them before it’s too late. The dialogue does lend helpful tips, giving both light comedic humour, and informative description at the same time.
This is your view of collectables. You have 8 of these lost and found toys, and 60 balls of yarn to collect, but I feel that the jump arc really hinders me from getting to some of these places. Isn’t the that goal of a collect-a-thon platformer? These are mostly for show value, so collect at your own risk. The game is styled like a metroidvania, and mostly takes place in a house, so while you are restricted to one area, I can say it is very pleasing to look at.
I would suggest that you should only play this demo if you really want to know more about the early development of this game. It’s being upgraded to unity, meaning that the game engine being used here(Game Maker) will differ in physics from the final product. This demo is charming and fun, but may alienate players with its new overhaul later on.
That time of year once again! Should be fun, though outside of one game, the theme is anime platformers, cause there’s a lot I was interested in, so I decided to do them, though there is a nice racing game, and a familiar game to go over. So let’s dive in!
Let’s begin with a return to good ground in Frogun Encore, a sequel to Frogun by Molearo, and once again published by Top Hat Games.
I haven’t played the 1st game, but it seems since then Renata doing well, having made friends with Jake, who she’s visiting now, but things take a turn for the worse when flies start invading the town. Not much again in terms of story, but eh, pretty fun and suitable for this game.
I wrote about the gameplay here, and it’s largely similar, but the levels are bigger, you have a double jump, and there’s multiplayer now. I can’t try that out though, cause well, the friends I do have aren’t near enough to me. Still, I got through this relatively comfortably, but the bosses do feel like they would be easier with friends. I might see if I can get my sister to play this with me, but yeah, pretty fun, I hope I can try both of these games soon.
Let’s change gears and go into #DRIVE Rally by Pixel Perfect Dude.
It’s a racing game with not much story, but a lot of personality, as you’re co-driver is always saying the most outlandish things while driving. The controls are more like DiRT 4 than Dirt Rally, which is a good thing, as it feels a lot easier to get used to, and the graphics are unique in the racing genre. I’ll put this on the wish list for sure, I can get into this.
And now we can dive into the long list of anime platformers I have, starting with Aeruta by FromDawn Games.
The story is interesting, a girl named Chala, ends up being followed by some sort of evil spirit, blowing up the Oven of One Effie, and is forced to help out at the bakery she runs. The diagalog and sprite animations are very cute I like what I was able to play of this.
That being said, I wish this demo had a Save System because I was enjoying myself while playing this, but I wasn’t able to save and come back to it. I understand that’s just a personal thing, but the gameplay of the combat stages is just like Castlevania but you pick and choose which paths go down each day as the enemies you defeat end up being materials for when you run the shop each day. It’s very fun, though I haven’t found a way to upgrade my attacks yet, so I’ll try and play this one more, again, finding it a lot of fun, just had to rush things a little bit.
Next, let’s try not to wake anybody as we go over Sleeping Dragon by Vermillion Studios.
There’s no real story to speak of, but the gameplay is nice, it’s a platformer similar to Captain Toad in Super Mario 3D World, and it’s pretty fun, but I do think that there need to be some adjustments to the controls, as the camera felt very hard to control at times and using things like the Paraglider didn’t really feel satisfying. I think the game’s design is fine as is, but I do think they should do a lot of fine-tuning before the game’s release.
Onward then, to Never Grave: The Witch and the Curse by Frontside 180 and published by Pocket Fair.
The story is super there, but I got the Gyst of it pretty easily, you are a hat, you possess this girl and you are trying to help this village get back up to speed. The gameplay is another Metroidvania-style game, with Roguelike elements, although platforming is pretty unique as you separate you’re self from the girl and just be the hat when you need to get to a place, which is very cool and eventually, you can just upgrade you’re stuff once you build things. Yeah, when you’re not slashing up enemies, which I will say the ability to possess certain things, like a dog, is pretty awesome, though the combat with the sword is pretty nice, you can actually help out around the village, as you pretty much have to build things to be able to upgrades, as the buildings contain skill trees. It’s honestly a nice change of pace, and I like it. The game is also VERY pretty, Honestly, I found this game very fun in all aspects, and I’ll keep my eye on this one, though I’ll be careful about it, I’m not a big fan of the drama around Pocket Fair, mainly regarding Palworld.
Let’s finish up with Virtua Unlimited Project by Virtua Ride System, and Publish my Neverland Entertainment.
The story is a lot, but to sum it up; humans have been put in Cryo Staisus while the world is repaired and Aizawa Kana, an Operator for has been equipped with a Virtual Drive system, must use it to stop the Rioters who cause Chaos incidents, which are basically natural disasters. It seems pretty cool, and there are apparently V-Tubers in this game, though I don’t recognize any of them.
The gameplay is more or less, Megaman Zero with Elemental powers. You have a gun that you can charge, an energy blade that you can charge, and depending on what element you have equipped(in the case of the demo, it’s either Fire or Ice). it affects you’re charge attacks giving them different properties like making your charge shot a fast ice missle or rotating firebirds. You can also use supercharge attacks, from shields to screen nukes. I honestly REALLY enjoyed playing this, and I’m putting on my wishlist for sure.
And that’s everything! Honestly, I would say this is the best Steam Next Fest I’ve personally played games from, and I’m sure there are a lot of other games that other people have played that are pretty good too!
For now though, thanks for reading, and I will see you next time!
Ok, so this was something I didn’t think I was gonna do, but I was excited for it honestly. Ever Crisis was announced at the same time as Final Fantasy VII Remake INTERGRADE and Final Fantasy VII: The 1st Soldier in 2021 as a mobile game that would go over all of Final Fantasy VII Compilation, and it seemed pretty. It was released in September 2023, but in December 2023, it got a Steam release, and that’s the version I’ll be looking at. I’ll be looking at Chapter 1 of everything in the game so far, so spoilers are abounding, but these games are old, so most of you should be fine. Anyway, on with the blog post!
So there’s some story to go through, but I won’t waste too much of you’re time with it. FF7 and Crisis Core are recreated in the style of old-school Final Fantasy, or more specifically, the style of the 3D Remakes, with mixed results. For Final Fantasy VII, it works pretty well! Everything comes off as pretty well done, there’s not a lot wrong with how the game looks and is animated, and if they were to do a smaller-scale remake, I would like it to be like this, honestly.
Crisis Core on the other hand I think suffers from this treatment, as it feels like the presentation doesn’t help show Zack in the way that Crisis Core and Crisis Core Reunion do. One of the reasons that I think Crisis Core works is because of the performances and animated Cutscenes that show off who Zack is and the animations and Voice Acting that accompany them. It’s a nice thing to show off, but honestly, eh, I’m not the biggest fan of the story presentation in this game. Just buy Crisis Core Reunion.
Final Fantasy VII: The 1st Soldier is where things get interesting as there is a new story here regarding the origins of Sephiroth. We begin with Sephiroth and a man in a hood calling himself a here looking like they are going to clash, but it turns out to be a dream by the man in the hood, called Glenn Lodbrok, who’s actually talking to his friends Lucia Lin and Matt Winsord while on a helicopter ride. However, the front of the helicopter ends up cut off and they begin falling at a fast rate.
When the helicopter lands, only Glenn and Lucia are there, with Matt nowhere to be seen, however, after some wandering they find Matt, though it’s not clear if something has happened to him or not. After wandering the island they are on for a bit, they end up meeting a dog, and having to follow it away from danger. They end up meeting a boy and he takes them to a forest, but he ends up seeing through them, saying the fact that they want to stop war is a lie. Overall, I think this is good, but also I’m kinda not interested in the characters outside of Glenn honestly, maybe when Sephroph shows I’ll become more interested but not now I think.
So the stories are mostly the same, but how does the gameplay fare? To answer that, it’s kinda a standard turn-based game, but with a nice little variation to the the formula. To start off, while you do get the 3D remake-styled graphics those only apply to the over-world. In battles, you get something similar to the FF7 Remake style of graphics, but with turn-based battles, which is pretty neat to see something like that run on PHONES of all hardware.
You still have you’re limit breaks, and basic attacks are automated, but a big thing now is offence and defence meters. You press space to switch between the 2. Attack mode is used to charge you’re Defence mode, so switching between the 2 at the right times is pretty crucial to how you’re experience is gonna go, as staying in one mode isn’t gonna help you, trust me I tried that. While all the characters are simular, some are more fun than others. When I wasn’t in story mode, I mostly ran a party of Cloud, Tifa and Barret, Cloud for Power, he has some very strong attacks depending on you’re setup, Tifa for Speed because her limit break charges insanely fast, and Barret for range as his shots are also pretty strong. It’s a good combo that can get through most things. And just to be clear, this is also the combo you will probably use a lot during the story mode of FF7, as you have recommended parties there as well, though you play as just Cloud and Barret and Cloud with Aerith.
Of course Tifa throws the out overkill punches…
For Crisis Core, you’re recommended party is Zack and Zack alone. He’s plays pretty simular to Cloud, but honestly, it’s fine, the game is designed around the lack of teammates, though Ifrit is a pain in the ass. I ended up pairing him with Areith for event and daily quest tasks since well, Areith is a really good healer actually, so good back-up, and also shipping I guess. For real though, these 2 are very effective together.
Zack is the powerhouse, while Aerith is White Mage Bitch. Sorry.
I got more out of them than with the 1st Soldger characters, because. man, talk about a downgrade. Glenn is okay with his big axe, but Lucia and Matt are very focused on their gunplay and I don’t find that super interesting honestly. The free costumes are nice, but honestly, I just find the guns a bit more interesting. This doesn’t apply to what I’ve played of young Seproith, he uses Katanas, and I love his animations, can’t do anything without being stylish, now can he? I just haven’t played enough of him. Same goes from Red XIII and Yuffie, who just came out.
While there’s not a lot wrong on the gameplay front, the Gacha can be a bit weird, and well, let’s start with the Genshin comparisons. A thing that I don’t like about this game is that every time you start it up, you get bombarded with all the notifications and FMVs about what draws are happening and what’s in the Limited Time-Shop. While I understand you need to make money, it’s a bit annoying coming from Genshin, where I can boot up the game and then just play it.
Gacha here is for weapons and only weapons, and because this is more aligned to traditional Gacha, there is both Free and Paid Crystal Currency, and some Limited Time Banners, are locked to ONLY paid currency. Weapons do determine one or 2 of your special moves, so you want the best gear, but to be fair to the game, as someone who hasn’t spent money on it, I feel like the rates for 5-star weapons are pretty generous on both Standard Banner and Limited Banners. Plus, if you get a repeat of a weapon, you get parts for that weapon, and once you have enough parts, you can upgrade the rarity of that weapon and even over-charge it once you get to 5-star rarity, which is pretty neat.
I do admit I think I am luckier in this game compared to Genshin, I’ll pulled for Tifa’s Christmas gloves and got them at 5-star rarity on the 1st try, that’s luck for sure, but also DAMN. It’s not hard to get things at a high rarity if you pull a decent amount, and I don’t pull on this game a lot(in fact I still have 150 standard banner tickets), so I feel like you will be fine.
However, let’s talk about Ever Crisis’ selling point, the costumes. Gonna be fully blunt here: THEY ARE WAY TO HARD TO GET. 1st off, some costumes are only available in banners, and to get them, you need to pull 120 times, but you can only use 10 pulls because they are the only things that count as Stamps. You get enough stamps, congrats you have the costume, but if there are 2 to earn, good luck as a free player unless you have saved a ton. My advice would to just skip the characters you don’t like, make things easier for yourself there.
There are also some costumes that are avable using costume exchange tickets, but there inlines another problem, the game doesn’t give you ways to earn these! Not even through events, which you would think would be the case. I did get one these free with the Steam release, which I used to get Metalfoot Tifa, which is a pretty nice skin, kinda like a light armoured costume for her, but it’s the only one I have outside of the 1st Soldger skins which they give you for free in the story, which are cool, I like that they give the characters unique looks, but also, I kinda want a costume for Cloud as well, but I guess I’m stuck till the next banners are revealed.
For now, Samurai Cloud during the banner pull animation will to suffice.
Ever Crisis is what I feel is a fun experience marred by it’s new elements and Gacha. While I love the way it presents it’s old stories, and the battles are very fun, I find the new 1st Soldger additions unintresting, and the Gacha feels very frustrating at time, and kinda takes away from the overall experence for me. Still, I would recommend this to people want to get an experience of FF7 before Rebirth comes out, or those looking to relive some FF7 memories.
Another one of these done, huh? Was a fun write up to do! Hopefully, I can keep interest in this, it’s pretty neat.
Next time, it’s the Steam Next Fest roundup! Can’t wait to play some fun demos. But for now, thanks for reading I will see you next time.
Hello! It’s time to get into the rest of Genshin’s newest Archon quest. Last time around, we ended up introducing ourselves to Fontaine, and meeting a good chunk of the cast, in what I felt was a good introduction to the region, though everything felt like it wrapped up a bit too neatly. But what awaits us going forward? What’s gonna happen to Chlide? What’s the deal with Furnia and what is The Knave’s role in all of this? Let’s find out. As always spoilers await you if you decide to go further.
After a few days spent around the Spina di Rosula base in Fontaine, Neuvillette asks us to come see him in his office. Things have taken a turn for the worse, as Chlide has seemly gone missing from Fontaine’s Prison, the Fortress of Meropide, and in a meeting, that Furina insisted on despite Neuvillette suggesting that they should avoid it till they have a concrete plan, and he has a point, as Arlecchino seemly is using it to politically pressure Fontaine.
As such Neuvillette asks us a favour, to head into the Fortress of Meropide on false charges, and investigate what’s happened. After one last day of overindulgence, and a brief meeting with Charlotte who asks us to speak to the Duke of the prison, we head inside, and this is where things get interesting, to the point where I’m actually gonna talk about gameplay now instead of after everything.
So you go inside, then get shown around by the Duke, Wriothesley and also meet Sigewinne, the head nurse. You also end up seeing Lyney, who is there with Lynette and Freminet investigating the Fortress itself, and what secrets it may contain. Traveller and Paimon decide to work together on this as might have something to do with Childe’s disappearance. From there the invitation starts, and things kinda become very open-ended, as you can work to investigate the hidden rules of the Fortress, skip work entirely and investigate what’s going on.
The Fortress of Merupide is a prison, run by Wriothesley, and it’s kinda a maze in it’s own right. There are a few floors to the place, and it’s very dank like you would expect a prison to be. However, there’s a sorta rec-centre vibe to the place, as it feels like a sorta rundown home for the prisoners. There’s not a ton to do there outside of the world quests, but it’s also nice just to see what’s going on.
During these sequences 2 things happen: you meet up with Lyney, who alongside Lynette and Freminet, also conducts an investigation of his own to investigate the hidden zone of the fortress, and Childe’s Vision is beginning to give you dreams of what happened, as he’s seemly run away to somewhere, as “Something is calling” him and that he “has to go”. and by the end of Act III, we learn that he managed to find a way out through the pipe system. And while not a lot has happened yet, a lot is about to happen, considering that Act 3 is always kinda the transitional/break in the story period.
The traveller sees one of Lyney’s cards, signalling they should meet up with him at some point. They determined that Freminet should go into the pipes and investigate things, and maybe find Childe, while Traveller goes to S, faking illness to get more information, which they soon hand to Lynette.
After 9 days, Lynette fakes illness to get into the infirmary, however, when the Traveller and Lyney go to meet up with her, she’s nowhere to be found. After some searching, they realise that Wriothesley knows what they are planning, and Lyney takes off after him, realising Lynette and Freminet might be in danger, with Traveller in hot pursuit.
However, Sigewinne seems to know more than she lets on…
Being able to read human expressions is quite the useful skill.
Sigewinne
Lyney bursts into Wrosthey’s office demanding to know where Lynette is. While the Duke says she’s having tea, Lyney doesn’t buy it.An intense negotiation session commences, where the Duke puts our knowledge of the prison to the test, but Lyney, not wanting Lynette or Freminet to suffer once again, tries to strike, but is stopped by S, and then Chlroinde comes with Freminet, who while searching seems to have ingested Primordial Seawather, and somehow isn’t dead, though he is unconscious. I will say this did do a lot to really show how much Lyney cares for his siblings.
That’s a bit overboard.
After some treatment, Freminet explains what happened to him. He found some clues of where Chlide escaped to but didn’t realise there was Primordial Seawater within the Sea. Traveller then goes to see Wriothesley to explain what’s going on, and he takes us to the forbidden zone, where we can see a giant lock with a seal at critical levels. Wriothesley explains that this is meant to track the amount of Primordial Seawater within the sea, which by the critical levels means that something has gone wrong, and Wriothesley makes one thing clear, the breaking of this gate means Fontaine is screwed, though he does have a back-up plan, which involves getting the Prisoners onto a big ship to save them all.
Wriothesley brings us back to the dorms in the Fortress, where he says we can choose to tell Lyney and Co. about what we saw or not, which we choose to do before going to get dinner, meeting Sigewinne and Clorinde and going to bed, as Lyney believes that this is the way the prophecy comes true.
The next day, it seems that all hell has broken loose, as prisoners are trying to evacuate. Traveller and Paimon figure is the seal about to break and go to check on Wriothesley and Clorinde, who are holding things back as much as they can until Nuvelette arrives, sending us to go search for him.
Now back on the surface, Nuvelette asks us to accompany Furenia as she goes for a meeting with Arlecchino in case things go badly, but outside a small discussion of the prophecy, which Furina says she is ready to take care of(and she apparently isn’t lying according to the traveller’s analysis), things are pretty peaceful between the 2 parties, while Nuvelette takes care of the Primordial Seawater overflow, for now anyway.
After the meeting with Furnia, Arlecchino speaks with us about some intel she has found, as apparently, Furnia is not in possession of the Gnosis and might be under a curse, as an attack on her by a disguised Knave seemed to leave her visibly shaken. However, despite Nuvelette’s appearance, it appears to not be him, which is interesting, to say the least.
Can this be an alternate skin when she comes out?
After a quick discussion with Nuvelette, Traveller and Paimon head back to prison, where Wriothesley basically says we are free to stay as long as we want. Act IV ends with Chlide seeing a vision of a whale, in a place that is kinda unclear atm.
Act V begins with our release from the Fortress of Meropide, but then there is a tremor, indicating something severe has happened. Traveller and Paimon go ahead to find Nuvelette, who talks to them and says the tremor came from Poission, where Spina Di Rosula, is located. They head there, worried about Navia, and when they get there, things are already a mess. Navia’s helping as many people as possible, but things aren’t great as it’s found out that Sliver and Melus have passed away while trying to help people. What makes this worse is that there is no body for Sliver and Melus, who asked to be buried at Navia’s father’s side.
Arlecchino arrives, which puts the traveller on guard, but it seems to be that she’s helping out around Poission as The Fatui’s goals aline with Spina Di Rosula, and this incident seems to be a sign that the Proficy is coming closer. While Arlecchino needs to take care of some stuff, she guides the Traveller, Paimon and Navia to some ruins. However Navia’s day goes from bad to worse, when they begin to cave in, and Navia falls into some Primortal Seawater, killing her.
Or so it would seem, but, Navia wakes up having to go to a trial, but what’s more concerning is that Navia notices some people that died in the Poission incident now seemly alive and well, most notably Sliver and Melus.
The trial is very confusing, it seems to just put Navia on trial for her generosity, or rather, her duties as leader, but Sliver and Melus realise that this is just to get Navia to stay here with them rather than getting Navia to remain as leader, and with some help from Nuvelette, Navia is guided to land of the living, where Nuvelette has joined the Traveller and Paimon. Another thing to note is that Melus and Sliver took the form of Oceanids and before leaving, the crowd took the form of Oceanids.
After exploring further into the ruins, they find some stone slates with drawings on them, which seem to indicate the prophecy happening, as the last one indicates the Hydro Arcon, on her throne weeping, as is said in the prophecy, but they need help from Furnia to decipher it further, so as Navia goes back to check on her people and Nuvelette goes to attempt to speak Furina, we head back to the Spina, base, but also meet up with Mona, who does confirm that she is from Mondstadt, she just changed her name thanks to her Master, Astromancer Barbeloth Trismegistus or just B, a part of the Hexenzirkel, a group of mages that contains Alice, Klee’s mother, Rhinedottter, creator of Albedo, and Mage N, who we will get too later.
Anyways, Mona is here because the Steambird, the newspaper that Charlotte works for, asked her to speak on the prophecy, and she even warns us to stay away from the water. In need of help, Travellers asks if we can speak to Mona’s master, and Mona says she’ll see what she can do. One thing that I do love about Genshin is that everything is slowly becoming interconnected and it’s nice to see that happen as the game begins to move towards the last chapters.
After a good night’s rest. Traveller heads to Nuvelette’s office, where Sedene mentions to us that Nuvelette and Furina have gotten into a dispute, Nuvelette is trying to get Furnia to give up her secrets, but it’s not happening, clearly as Furina runs off, even ignoring the traveller. As such Nuvlette figures that some help might be necessary, and calls in the House of the Hearth, Navia and Clorinde, who actually leads the charge on things, proposing that they need to give Navia no other option.
I will say Clorinde is very cool, but man, she got skipped over hard. It’s kinda how other people found Sara’s stuff very interesting even with no character development, and how I felt the same for Candace. It seems to be a trend with newer regions, hoping that the character’s look will get people to pull for that one, and it’s worked so far, but we will see how it goes for Clorinde.
I was once ordered to observe a duel of hers. Even just as a bystander, the coldness radiating from her was absolutely chilling… I don’t know what it would be like to face her directly in a duel, and I hope I will never find out.
Lynette(about Clorinde)
Anyways, after that meeting, Mage N shows up giving Traveller these ominous words:
Ultimately, fate shall serve as your only guide no matter what will happen in Teyvat’s future. All you need to do is to play your part.
Mage N
Traveller tells Mona about the encounter, who says that Mage N has a great sense or direction, but the words don’t really offer any obvious hints. After this, the traveller and Paimon take a walk, reflecting on their time in Fontaine, and also wondering what they would if they knew the World was ending, as the reality of things is that the world could end tomorrow.
The next day, Furenia is hounded by a mob of people, but this doesn’t seem to bother the traveller and Paimon, as it all seems to be part of the plan, as they find Furina in Poisson and manage to corner her, in an effort to try and give up her secrets, because well, they need to know what they are going to do to stop this prophecy. Traveller seems a bit wary of the time it’s taking, but that may be because Lyney has suddenly puts them into the opera house, thanks to him using a bigger version of the magic swap trick.
Lyney is defined by his family and not wanting to lose them again, to the point where he’ll sacrifice him for them instead, as he wasn’t able to protect Lynette that one time. It’s a really good dynamic, and honestly really makes him relatable to a lot of people. It’s also interesting to find out what connections he could have to the Fatui, as the Knave is very intent on Lyney surpassing her.
“Father” gave us a family, raised us, and told each of us what we should work towards. In turn, what I can do is very simple… Remain loyal, and protect our home.
Lyney about “Father”:Famliy
The point of this whole exercise is to prepare Furnia for what is her final trial in a way, with Navia’s Spina teammates providing the reason for her to run away. As they attempt to try to break Furnia and find out her secrets, by accusing her of not actually being the Hydro Archon, but despite her dipping her hands in primordial seawater, she doesn’t. Also, she didn’t dissolve, but they used a concentration of primordial seawater that wouldn’t let her dissolve, which given that the Primordial Seawater was mixed with normal Seawater when he went to dive, it would explain how Fremiet is still alive right now.
Furina is found guilty by Nuvelette, but the sentence given by the Oratrice Mecanique d’Analyse Cardinale is harsh:
The Hydro Archon, guilty… To be punished via the death sentence
Nuvelette
However, Fremiet returns, having gone looking for the stone slates, so that this whole thing can be explained, and honestly, it’s pretty neat, and once again requires me to skip ahead a little bit. The old Hydro Archon, Eguria, sensed a yearning from her fellow Oceanids to become human. However, creating a new species is forbidden by the Heavenly Principles. Eguria found a way by using Primordial seawater, but this came at a cost, as Fontaine’s people were cursed to dissolve in said primordial seawater. The sin that Fontaine’s people were born with, the original sin. As such, Eguria’s successor, Focalors came up with a plan that I’ll get into in a second, but it involves this trial, meaning that everything has gone as planned.
That being said, before we get into the meat of this story quest, can I talk about Navia for a second? God, I feel her so much in this, losing her father, then losing the 2 people closest to her father, in what turns out to be a pure accident must be HEARTBREAKING. It’s honestly amazing to see how far she’s come, and I can’t wait to see what her story quest involves.
I regret to say that after my various interactions with her — such as when I inadvertently angered her, and when I accepted her apology — and even now, in spite of the guilt I continue to feel over what happened to her father, I feel… very distant from her, as if I’m observing the starry sky from the bottom of a deep lake. It is by no means intentional, and I also know it is not something that I can easily make up for. Unlike water, emotion does not settle quickly once agitated, nor is it naturally inclined towards equilibrium.
Nuvelette about Navia
Anyways, Traveller realises that the root cause of the disaster was the monster in Childe’s dream, which enters the opera house, but is stopped by Childe, who still disapproves of Nuvelette’s guilty ruling as he gives him the thumbs down before falling into a hole created by said whale. Still, there’s a giant hole courthouse, but they apparently can’t defeat the creature, but as the Oratrice prepares to carry out the death sentence, the traveller makes one last attempt to reach out to Furnia, but instead Nuvelette ends up with the aforementioned Focalors, who explains everything.
Focalors couldn’t let her people die, so she developed a plan to outwit the Heavely Principles, splitting her divinity and humanity, the divinity being what powered the Oratrice, and the humanity being what Focalors wanted to be, flaws and all. She found her truly beautiful… and then cursed her. She was unable to grow old until her task was done, This is further shown to us by a stage play showing that Furina was basically bluffing everything till things got to the current stage… for a goddesses life span. It’s kinda like a much longer and drawn-out version of Ocelot’s plan from Metal Gear 4, only without the Hypnotic suggestion and Nanomachines.
Furina is someone I’m still kinda in the middle on honestly. I feel for her plight, the fact that she has the drawbacks of a human while having the lifespan of a god, which has to feel like an eternity of suffering. But at the same time, I’m still not a big fan of her personality personally, cause I just don’t like characters who have to fake things, even if the reasoning is good, and in this case, it’s very good. It’s just something I’m not a fan of in fiction personally, though her story quest does seem to leave some potential for what’s to come. That being said, Focalors is also cruel in her own right for subjecting Furina to this fate.
Why are you just standing there with your mouth gaping? Ah, you must be stunned and at a loss for words… Understandable, it is I after all… Fontaine’s most beloved star, Furina. I’m on a very tight schedule, so you’re lucky to even get an appointment with me.
Furina’s Hello
All this was a plan for Neuvillette to take back the power of the Archons and forgive the sins of the people of Fontaine, as he has grown fond of Humans now. As one last dance from Focalors, she is executed, and Furina is granted Humanity as Neuvillette forgives the people of Fontaine, effectively ending the threat to Fontaine, but now with the power to defeat the whale, named the Everdevoring Narwhale, he and the traveller go to take care of it, however, as he takes away the power of the Primordial Seawater a woman named Skirk appears, taking away the Narwhale and Chlide somewhere else.
Skirk is Chlide’s master from the Abyss, who describes the Narwhale as her master’s pet, She isn’t been around for long, since well, she’s probably for later on, but, it does seem that she is pretty formidable, given that her master, Surtalogi, is pretty similar to Rhinedotter. Meanwhile, the prophecy is now in full swing, as boats are taken to help people trapped in the water by Navia with the House of the Herth kids diving and helping where they can, as well as Wriothesley using his ship to help those inside the Fortress of Meropide. However, the water subsides, and everyone seems to be fine, Furina now in white and freed from decoy duty steps out of the Opera House, wondering what to do with herself now.
A few days later, we meet up with everyone to check on how they are doing. Navia and Clorinde seem to be making up. Charlotte seems to be the same as ever, which is nice to see, and Fortress of Meropide will continue to run as normal, under Wriothesley’s guidance. I don’t really have much to say about him other than I think he’s at least cool. The same goes for Sigewinne, not so much that they are bad, but they are pretty one-note as far as the main story goes, though Sigewinne trying to understand human emotions is pretty interesting.
Hello, please try to quickly summarize your intents and goals for this meeting. Oh? You’re not here for business? Well, that just makes me even more nervous. Alright, then perhaps we should sit down and discuss things in a little more detail… Oh, and you can call me “Your Grace.” That’s what they all call me down in the Fortress, and… well, I kinda got used to it.
Wriothesley’s Hello
Lyney and Lynette seem eager to include Fremimet in their shows and The Knave has taken the Gnosis as a “diplomatic gift”. God damn it, Neuvillette. Chlide is back in Snezhnaya healing up, and Traveller gives The Knave Chlide’s vision to return to him.
Can’t really say much about Arlecchino, since she very much seems like a “for the future” type of character but she does always seem on the verge of about to snap, and her voice actor does a great job with what she’s given.
Afterwards, we go to meet Nuvelette one last time, who explains everything the traveller didn’t see and says that he’ll take over court proceedings now that he’s become the Archon, but also lets us know 2 important things. The 1st is that Chlide’s guilty verdict didn’t have anything to the things happening in Fontaine, it was something that kinda just happened in this story. The 2nd is that the Gnosis pieces are the remains of the 3rd Descender and that Skirk’s master is “The Foul”. What does this mean going forward? We’ll find out in due time.
Fontaine’s story is a bit more chapter-centered, with the smaller mysteries making up the bigger picture, but I will say it made Act V a lot more interesting than it was in Sumaru, where we at least had an idea was how things were gonna go down. It’s honestly really neat how everything comes together story-wise and while I do think the characters are a bit of a step down from Sumaru, it’s a least a fun ride with everything going on. It also helps that this is the 1st region that’s really playing the stuff outside of just the nations, we had seen hints of it with Sumaru, but here it’s in full force, and it honestly makes me more and more interested to where the stories gonna go during it’s as get closer and closer towards the end.
As for gameplay, not much has changed with the new additions as far as I can tell, so I’ll just touch on the 2 world quest lines that I’m doing currently. The 1st one is Aqueous Tidemarks and features a diver named Virgel, who kinda tricks into doing his dirty work for him, but it’s pretty clear from the off what’s really going on. It’s decent so far, but eh I’m not really having fun with this one.
The other one that I’m doing is called Asciant Colors, and I like this one quite a bit, as it features the Melusines, particularly Mamiere and her robot dog Seymor. It’s honestly a pretty fun time so far, but I haven’t had the time to go as far into it as I have wanted to, but the Melusines as nice, they kinda of remind me of Moogles.
Genshin enters its 4th year this year and it’s been worth the Journey up to this point honestly, I love every region and they have started trying their best to improve on the game where they can. I’m honestly having a lot of fun with it, and yeah, I don’t think there is anything more to say than I’ve already said.
MAN, THIS WAS A LONG ONE. I had a lot of fun writing it though, which is what matters. For now though, thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time.
IT HAS BEGUN! It’s time for Steam Next Fest impressions once again, and I’ve picked a few games too look over. Just to quickly mention, I was gonna look at Koumajou Remilia Ⅱ: Stranger’s Requiem but that game’s demo is unplayable due to the controls being mapped incorrectly, and there being no way to change them, so if that demo still works after the next fest, approach with caution.
1st of all, let’s start with Blade of the Netherworld by a studio over in China called Hurricane Games.
The game’s story is at least interesting to me, a dude in the netherworld gets granted a job collecting souls, and it’s bound to go wrong at some point, as these things do, but the gameplay is what keeps me interested in this game.
It’s a 2D Hack n’Slash styled game, with Roguelike elements, and it feels very good to go through each room, and you can get a number of things from each room from one time usage weapons, to health restores, to souls, which help you level up everytime you take a break, where you can also go fishing, but I didn’t play enough to unlock this feature. Honestly, I’m not a fan of Roguelike games, but this has my interest, so I’m gonna try and play this when comes out.
Up next, Adventure of Rikka: The Cursed Kingdom by PoorlyDrawnSquid, a solo game dev.
The story of this one is also pretty simple from I can gather, a boy named Rikka goes to the kingdom a few times, and is asked to investigate the strange going ons around the world.
We have a 2D Zelda-like, something I wish there was more of TBH, and it’s pretty fun, though I found the puzzles a bit confusing. I do also like how the story is presented, cutscenes aren’t super special events, you kinda just do them and go, which is neat. I’ll be keeping my eye on this.
And on to a game that I got very curious about the moment I saw it on steam, Notice me, Leena-Senpai!, a game by GameDevTosh, and published by YanakoRPGs, who also have an open source Pokemon engine. I might have to check that out.
The premise is simple, Leena, Mai and there friends are trying to fend off a bunch of people invading their school including a mysterious figure and (name here), who has very cool design. There’s more too it of course, which is being built up decently, and the characters are pretty neat, I like that Leena cares more about food than anything else, that’s funny.
Gameplay-wise, this is something pretty interesting, it’s a tower defence game, but the units are all anime girls, which is my jam. The game does actually get pretty tough, but I find pretty fun to work through these problems, and it feels pretty rewarding. I don’t have much else to say about it other than that. This comes out on Dec.1, so go get if you have the money and the chance, it’s pretty neat.
Next on the list, Maiden Cops, by Pippin Games.
3 cops, Nina Usagi, Priscila Salamander and Meiga Holstaur end up going out on duty after an explosion, finding out the damage is being caused by a former cop, Miranda. It’s an ok story, but honestly the big thing I like is the characterisation, it’s pretty neat.
The gameplay is fun, it’s a beat em up but honestly, I’m shocked I managed to pick this up and play this as easily as I didn’t since there’s not really a combo system, just a few basic hits and a few special attacks. The game also does look nice, but the bloom with the CRT filter does feel a bit intense look. I think this games needs a bit more time, but honestly it’s at least decently fun.
Finally, let’s look at a racing game with Make Way, by Ice Beam and Published by Secret Mode.
I did this one because I have to feature at least one racing game in this, and this is… fine honestly. Not my kind of racing game personally, but I did some charm out of it with it’s focus on making tracks, then racing, and also destroying you’re opponent. That’s all there is too it, but it’s one of those things where you need to find friends to have the most fun with it.
And that’s all I got! Overall, a pretty good selection of games here, though I think racing games need to become a bit more prominent in these showcases.
But for now, thanks for reading, and I will see you next time.
It’s that time again! Genshin just got it’s newest big update and it looks pretty insane with all the stuff we’ve been seeing. Another new world awaits us, and boy this one was highly anticipated, So let’s not waste any time and just dive right into this one! As always, spoilers are abounding, and I’m playing the PC version.
So before the events of Fontaine, what have the Traveller, Paimon and the cast been up to? Well, after Sumaru’s problems were solved, we went back to Liyue and had some fun, and finally met YaoYao, a character that has been long teased, as well as getting a small taste of what’s to come with a musician from Fontaine coming to help out with Celebrations.
We got a nice questline with Scaramouche making himself the Wanderer, in order for him to become playable. I kid obviously, but it’s nice to see given the character’s popularity.
In terms of Dainslef, we learned about how the Loom of Fate was created, what our siblings did the 1st time they came to Teyvat, and how they became the leader of the abyss. This is the 1st time feel like a Dainself quest has been important in the immediate time, and not just building for future events, but as always, we will have to see where it goes.
There were a lot of other cool events, like the cross-nation TCG tournament, the new Festivals for Sumaru and Inazuma, the return of the Windblume festivals in Mondstadt, and Alice guiding Klee to another strange place.
And of course, there was the Dehya Story Quest, which I wrote about, as well as a few other story quests for new characters, as well as a 2nd Yoimiya one which was kind of neat.
But now, onward to newer pastures!
After a farewell to Sumaru from Dehya, we head across the desert, to find the nearest port in Fontaine. The Traveller and Paimon ask around to see how they speak to the Hydro Archon, Focalors, or as she’ll later be known, Furina. However, while speaking to some locals at the port, they see a girl staring at the, talking about how the water will “one day swallow us as well”. A boy named Lyney, comes over and talks to us about it. The idea is that Fontaine will be flooded, leaving only the Hydro Archon to watch as everything vanishes. This is because people in Foutaine seem to naturally be born with “Sin”, and this is the only way to erase it.
And then, the Hydro archon shows up alongside Clorinde, who is seemly her bodyguard. She challenges the traveller to a fight, and the traveller is up for it, given how many gods we’ve fought in the previous regions, but she explains that she means a court case. Somebody better call Phonix Wright and Apollo Justice, cause I’m a terrible lawer. The court case would be over Paimon being a floating thing, and no floating things around allowed on the 1st few days for each mouth. OK, I know you’re already screwing with us.
Lyney helps us get out of it, with his sweet talking and some of his magic. After helping Lyney and the girl, Lynette, who is also Lyney’s twin sister, handout Magic Pockets to help if the prophecy is real, and stopping a thief, we head to the Court of Fontaine, but not before meeting up with Charlotte, a reporter for the Steambird Newspaper in Foutaine. She was in the Big World Seekers TCG event, which is why I’m mentioning her here. She hasn’t done a lot, but I like how passionate she seems about her job.
Charlotte has been trying to get me to agree to an interview ever since we met… Ugh, it feels like she’s already asked twenty times now. She has a good nose for finding news, and she’s the persistent type, too. But to be honest, I have no desire to find myself in the spotlight of one of her breaking news stories, and so I’ve found all sorts of reasons to decline each time
Lyney(About Charlotte)
After getting to the court we get some materials to help make Magic Pockets from the twins’ house and meet Freminet, the younger brother of the 3. He mentions that “Father” will be returning soon, which I’ll get to who that is later. Lyney invites the traveller and Paimon to his magic show the next day, and The traveller is asked to deliver the magic pocket materials to the local blacksmith. After an altercation breaks out, Chlide arrives to stop it and to catch up with us, He’s in Fontaine to try to better his mood and find out what’s up with his vision, as his powers have been fading.
He also goes into some of his backstories, as a person named “The Knave” sought out Childe as he has great power within him, so his vision being on the friz might have something to do with that. Before leaving, Chlide also hands up his vision so that doesn’t need to rely on it when fast off against master dualists, something that’s brought up a few times but isn’t explained.
After a quick ride on the Aquabus the next day, we arrive at Lyney’s magic show! The Traveller and Paimon look around for a bit, but the Traveller then hears a voice that mentions the words “Vacher”. Lynette explains that they are at the Fountain of Lucine, which I’ll mention now is where you put all you’re Hydro Sigules and thinks that the voice the traveller heard was down to some intense emotions being held in the Fountain.
After meeting a man named Neuvillette, the chief justice of Fontaine while waiting for the show to start, the show begins but is stopped after one of the magic tricks involving him switching boxes goes wrong, killing one of the magic crew, named Cowell, and Furina decides to press charges on Lyney due to Cowell’s death because she can do that. Traveller and the now self-named Detective Paimon steps up as Lyney’s attorney, and now we have to investigate the case. Lyney helps us by showing us how the magic trick he did works, but there are some things unexplained, like a vent that has been touched and might have been used for an escape plan.
While searching around, the traveller meets Navia, the leader of the Spina di Rosula, who I think might be based on the Italian Mafia loosely? At least that’s the vibe I get from them. She thinks it’s wrong to treat a trial like an Opera, and really wants to help them get to the bottom of this, even offering to bake macrons and have tea with the Traveller and Paimon.
However, things go really wrong during the trial, as Furina reveals that Lyney, Lynette, and possibly Freminet are part of The House of The Herth, an orphanage run by The Knave or Arlecchino of The Fatui.
They take an adjournment, where the twins explain that they kept that the trick is actually meant to find out why the Oratrice, a machine meant to deliver verdicts, is able to do so, as a way to find out how to deal with the profit, Lyney sneaking into the vent via the tunnels. Afterwards, the traveller deduces that Lyney is innocent, as him being in what he thought was an empty room means he wouldn’t have been able to hear what was going on. However, evidence comes out showing that Lyney has Water of the Primordial Sea, which allows people to disappear into water.
This comes as even a shock to Lyney, but Navia comes in to save the day! She ends by revealing that the girl who was chosen to do the trick, named Lilliane, hid in the opera house, and the sound of the giant thud that was heard was in fact a scuffle between Cowell and Lilliane. After this revelation, Neuvillette and the Oratrice declare Lyney not guilty, but the Water of the Primordial Sea ends up being evidence tampered with by one of the guards, but before he can say anything, he turns to water.
Paimon and the Traveller decide to leave for now, as the problems here including the serial disappearance of girls that Charlotte mentioned to us(the case here was linked to that at first, but Lilliane reappearing makes that a non-issue at this point), but Lyney explains the twins’ backstory, saying they were abused by a rich dude and saved by Arlecchino, who wants to break the Gnosis and save Fontaine. Honestly, I’m glad that at least it’s a plot point this time more than anything, Navia ends up inviting us to a meal at one of the restaurants that she likes to frequent.
Act 2 begins with said meal, where Navia, Traveller and Paimon show some light convocation, while also discussing the disappearance of the missing girls case. There’s some hope that it could be re-opened, but Navia doesn’t trust Fontaine’s legal system. Paimon accidentally drinks Navia’s Fonta, a popular drink in Fontaine, however, it’s notable that it tastes salty. After they say their farewells, Traveller and Paimon head back to the Fountain of Lucine, where the Voice is a lot clearer to The Traveller, and now Paimon can hear it. Traveller heads into the water, where they pass out, and see an Oceanid-like creature, who asks where the aforementioned Vacher is.
The Oceanid turns out to be one of the girls that dissolved, and seems to have a strong bond with this Vacher, as Vacher witnessed her dissolve, but she tells the traveller that Vacher should not come to meet her, as they can’t create new memories together. The traveller then wakes up being attacked by Gardemeks, only with the help of Navia, however, Clordrine steps in to help us out, and takes them all out pretty quickly, but there’s clearly animosity between Cloridrine and Navia, even though the last wish of Navia’s father for Cloridrine to keep her safe.
In any case, Navia came to help us as the Fonta from earlier actually contained Water from the Primordial Sea, which if Navia drank it, she would be dissolved, so good work, Paimon. The water is also what allowed Paimon to hear what was being said in the fountain. Traveller informs Navia and Paimon of what’s going on and decides to head to Navia’s home in the slums to investigate more.
After getting there, Navia kinda explains her backstory, about how her father was killed in the Dualist Ring for allegedly killing his own friend. However, Navia says that it seems like he wanted to be killed and that he was investigating the serial disappearances case at the time, which is why she wants to close that case for good. After staying overnight, where Navia does some investigating on her own, which ends up not bearing any meaningful fruit, they go to see Neuvillette see if they can find a case file, but he has nothing for them, and Navia goes off on him saying that he doesn’t care about life compared to the laws of the court, particularly stemming from Neuvillette not stopping the dual between Cloridndine and Callus, Navia’s father, that ended up killing Callus in the end.
In your eyes, the value of a human life is nothing compared to those cold laws you hold so dear.
Navia to Neuvillette
As they leave Neuvillette’s place it begins raining, and they figure the evidence got washed away by rain, as it was raining on said day, meaning that the murderer could have been washed away after he got turned into water. As such, they head to Poisson, Navia’s base for Spinda Di Rosula to investigate more. It turns out that Melus knows quite a bit. The person Callus seemed shot was named Jacques, someone whom he had been working with to stop the production of Sinthe, a drug made from primordial sea water. With a lead, they can begin the investigation, despite Melus, who was Callus’ butler warning them on what they may find, as it turns out that Navia’s Fonta was spiked… because she was next in line to be dissolved. Callus ended up using Navia as a bargaining tool so that she would at least stay safe, agreeing to not share the evidence he had with the public, but now he’s dead so I guess all rules are off.
He also was diagnosed with a terminal illness but at this point, that just feels like piling on tragedy.
The 2nd quest serves as Navia’s story quest in my opinion, and it’s similar to Dehya’s in the form of finding the keys to their past, in order to find their future. It’s honestly very good stuff for both of them.
Though she’s the new president of Spina di Rosula, her style is more like the nosy big sister next door. If we really had a sister like her in the “House of the Hearth,” that would be really great… I know I probably shouldn’t be wishing for anyone to be an orphan, but..
Lynette(About Navia)
Melus ends up deducing that their 3 prime suspects are Florent, Spina di Rosula’s senior adviser, Marcel Navia’s uncle and leader of the Confrerie of Cabriere Gulid and Thierry, a guard that communicates information between the Guards and Spinula Di Rousla. After speaking to Jacques’ family, the trio go ahead and speak to the 3 people, and after reviewing all the evidence, they conclude that the person behind all this is Marcel, as he would be the only one who could afford the Gardemeks, but they need to go and find out more from the Sinthe production base. However, they are shortly informed, that a trial is taking, as Chlide has been accused of the being the dissaprances. They split up, Navia helping Chlide and questioning Marcel, while Traveller and Paimon invade the Sinthe base, and after their investigations, the truth comes out, Marcel… has always been Vacher. Marcel was the name he took to avoid detection. Vacher isn’t from Fontaine, and his lover, Vigneire, dissolved, he ended up taking women and dissolving them just so he could look for a way to revive Vigneire.
Vacher admits to all this, even breaking down in front of the court. After Neuvillette recites the events, the declares Vacher guilty, and that should be that, but Childe isn’t off the hook yet due to the Oratrice needing to render a Verdict for him. Despite Vacher admitting to everything, the Oratrice renders a guilty verdict, and Neuvillette follows the rule of the Oratrice. Can’t he have the final say as the human element in this? To be fair. he does say he will get to the bottom of all this if Chlide has been wronged which I’ll go into a bit more later, and Furina bluffes her way out of the situation, something she’s pretty used to doing it seems.
While leaving the opera house, Vacher asks to see his lover in the Fountain of Lucine, but when Neuvillette grants his request, he and the traveller find out it’s something a bit more sinister. Turns out the Oceanaid isn’t just Vigneire, it’s all of the women he dissolved, and the spirit of Vigneire was the one who told him not to come here because they would have no mercy for him, and with that, the Oceanaid drowns him, though it’s registered as him dying of fright.
A few days after all this, we check in on Navia, who seems to be doing a lot better and has even made up with Clorinde as well. Navia wants to pay a visit to her father’s grave and so we go and do just that. While there we meet up with Neuvillette, who has been filled with “sadness that has haunted me for days” over not noting things to do with this case, and who also comes to pay his respects. After asking paying your respects, and asking Neuvillette a few questions, the story ends. And honestly, I’m surprised that everything got wrapped up pretty quickly.
Overall, the start of Fontaine’s story has been pretty good, and it helps that it feels a bit more simple than what’s come before. Sumaru advanced the plot a lot when it comes to the layers it added in terms of the Akaysha terminal, Akademia, etc. Very much needed to flesh out the region, and all important in their own way, but the story was much more advanced than saving than Mondestadt, where you saved a dragon from corruption, Liyue, where you had to solve a murder mystery and Inazuma, where you had to stop a seemly tyrant Archon. Here there’s not a lot of additional lore so far, the only thing you need to know is that there’s a court, and the Archon can abuse it sometimes. I am probably simplifying that too much, but right now at least, I can say the extended lore isn’t super important YET.
Let’s talk characters. It kinda sucks that Lyney and Lynette are just kinda with the Fatui though no fault of their own, which means the traveller is on rocky ground with them because they seem like good people. Lyney is a bit of a sweet talker, but he’s a magician, which comes with the territory in a way, and Lynette is super quiet and reserved, which really works for the dynamic between the two. I can’t really say too much about Fremiet, we don’t see much of him.
Furina is someone you either love or hate. Me? I’m in the middle. She seems like a theatre kid drunk on the power she has, and it’s interesting to me at least, but I have no strong feelings about it. Clorinde has a pretty cool character design, and while the bond with Navia is interesting, I think she’s gonna get Sara’d and not have any character development.
Neuvillette is the most interesting of the characters we have so far, as he’s very much a man of his principles and sticks to them no matter what, leading to a lot of emotional conflict within him.
Overall, I would say the story so far is interesting, I just wonder where we are gonna go next with it since there are not too many loose ends.
As for gameplay, Fontaine changes things up in a big way, but in theme with the lower stakes, Fontaine currently is smaller than even Mondstandt, and I’m sure it will get bigger, the exploration above ground is pretty quick to do currently. However, I feel like it makes up for it with its gorgeous steampunk aesthetic, and its focus on introducing cutting-edge technology into the Genshin universe.
I love all of the Gardemek enemy designs in this region, they all have a really good sense of being a step up in terms of what we faced in Sumaru, and they all look very believable for the world. There’s also a dancing boss that I took way too many pictures of while I was playing, as the animation and general concept are executed perfectly. There’s also the aquabus in certain places and regions to make your experience above ground a pleasant one.
But you may notice I said “above ground” there. Let’s talk about Fontaine’s biggest addition, diving into the deep blue sea.
In the bodies of water in Fontaine, you can explore an entire underwater world, and it’s amazing to see, as everything I’ve explored so far feels very bright, and it helps that you can’t drown, and a new Stamina system has been introduced meaning you don’t have to worry about you’re normal stamina in Fontaine. There’s also been a couple of new puzzles introduced which in my opinion, really help expand the idea of modern technology. I haven’t done any of the world quests yet, but I’ll dive into that next time.
I was a little worried for Fontaine, as Sumaru really felt like it changed things in terms of Genshin’s status quo, but Fontaine so far feels like a pretty nice follow-up. I am curious about the direction things will go next, but so far, I’m still very happy with the world they have given us, being able to dive into the open Ocean,
And that’s all for now! Genshin always gives me some delight writing about it. Hopefully, part 2 can be just as good.
But for now, thanks for reading and see you next time.
So this was something I felt was a bit of an obligation for me to do, cause well I was a backer for this project and it looked intriguing to me. Skye was something that I was interested in for a bit, because I knew one of the people working on the game, Shaykra Dunn, who is the main character in this game, and honestly the designs stuck out to me quite a bit.
Skye was something I was excited for, and while I did feel updates weren’t constant, Bus Arrow Studios did other stuff to keep me excited, like comic dubs and other webcomics featuring other voice actors, it’s honestly pretty neat what he’s done for the VA community in general.
But let’s get into this. As always spoilers are abounding, and full disclosure, I do talk to a few of the people working on this game sometimes on Twitter including the lead developer, so there may be some bias. I try not to let it get to me though.
So after a long day of adventures, our protagonist, Alex Goldstein finds a slime at the side of the road and protects it from wolves. After caring for it in the evening, a mysterious voice appears to the slime, saying that she can give her strength to protect this traveller.
As such the slime appears the next morning, fully grown and making breakfast for Alex!
This is the titular Skye the Slime Maid, and how she came to be is explained pretty quickly by Larssia, the Goddess of Life and Fertility, who’s been narrating the story up to this point.
THAT’S NOT THE 1ST THING YOU NOTICED ABOUT HER?!?!
She wanted to reward Skye for wanting to protect Alex, and Alex for saving Skye. As such, Alex then takes Skye to the local Guild to become an adventurer. After a day of looking around Tipton, and meeting the bartender Thomas, we skip to a month, ahead. where we get a mission to save Tara, the mayor’s daughter, and someone Skye seemly considers a rival, after she drops her tsundere act.
After an argument between Skye and Alex, Skye goes off on her own to better herself as an adventure, while Alex kinda regrets what he said in that argument. The 2 make up, though Tara does try to insert herself into that, with a repeated joke that I found pretty funny.
From there Skye and Alex team up again, where Alex confesses his insecurities to Skye in a pretty heartwarming scene honestly. But then Skye’s body expands to where she looks pregnant, and while there is a reason for it, that kinda took me out of the game for a little bit because it came out of nowhere.
After defeating a Giant Raven, Skye and Alex head back, Earlier Skye reveals that she had a dream while they were sleeping, where she was pregnant, and her body reacted in response, hence why she woke up the way that she did. But the father is Alex, and she knows that Alex plans to leave Tipton after they reach gold-rank adventurer status.
About a week after that event, Skye and Alex end up having to fight a Dragon, who’s causing a lot of destruction around the area, and is fast approaching Tipton. The 2 fight it, but Skye notices that it’s injured and decides to heal it, turning the dragon into a girl called Livia. I don’t know if this was an intentional Dragon Maid reference since it’s simular to how Kobayashi and Thoru meet in that show, but it was nice to see regardless.
Livia heals the forest, and then for their bravery, Alex and Skye become gold rank adventures!! Awesome! From there the story begins to wind down, as Aramis, Moria,(who I’ll get to in a bit) Livia and Thomas have a talk, while Lizbeth and Tara bond. Meanwhile, Alex confesses his feelings to Skye, and you can choose if you want the final bond to be romantic or not, but I just went with the romantic option since I figure that was the one to unlock the final art.
And so Skye ends up heading on adventures with Alex, and I guess they live happily ever after.
Overall I will say, it’s a nice story, which is very focused on the romance of Skye and Alex, and the writing helps a lot as there is plenty of time spent with the 2 bonding, and there are a lot of cheesecake moments that do feel kinda wholesome, like laying on a girl’s thighs. However, with the expectation of Tara, it doesn’t really feel like anyone else over matters in this, Tara has a lot of time spent on her, probably because people like redhead tsundere, and she is exactly that but honestly I wanted to spend more time with Aramis and Moira, they were pretty awesome in their own right, but they are only used a handful of times in the story and it’s not for anything important.
Livia comes in right when the story is ending, which is a shame considering that design is pretty cool and she’s voiced by V-tuber Tiffany Witcher.
Overall, I do think that the story is good, I just wish we had a bit more about other characters honestly.
GAMEPLAY
So this game is a pure visual novel, and to start off, I will say, I like the UI design quite a bit. It fits the tone of the game quite well, and the character designs are also done pretty decently, as while don’t think they overly stand out as something I’ll remember, I do think they are pretty good. However, I think the overall presentation could have used some work. There were a few side profiles that I think could have used some work, and I noticed a couple of times where there were some spelling and grammar errors. I know this is very nitpicky, especially for a mostly one-person project, but it was to the point where I couldn’t ignore it, and in a game like this, it stands out even more, I’m sorry.
There are a few moments where you have to battle in this game using very basic turn-based mechanics, and I will say they were fine, but these a purely for the story, not anything to do with levelling up.
LOOKS, SOUND AND FINAL THOUGHTS.
I will say the key art in this game is drawn very well, there were 3 artists that were in charge of the art of this game, and they are all drawn very well, though there is a case of a few of them have a bit of a weird in terms of concept, and some of the art is clearly stretched to fit at times. The game’s music is nothing to write home about, but it’s fine honestly and it’s pretty catchy.
This game is a fun time, and it’s something nice to play in between all you’re big games. While I do think the game could use a patch or 2 to just fix a few of the spelling and grammar errors in the game if possible, as I think it would make the game more accessible to people, and the game doesn’t really focus on its side characters as much as I would personally like, it’s still a very nice story about the bonding of 2 people, and some great references slipped in every now and then. It’s not for everyone for sure, at it’s very cheesecake, but it’s a charming time, and that’s good enough for me. I can say I don’t regret backing this. You can get this on Steam or Itch.io if you’re interested.
Well, this got done fast than I expected. Not that is a bad thing, cause there’s still stuff I wanna write about this summer. Next time, I should be finally talking about Josee, the Fish and The Tiger. But for now, thanks for reading, and see you next time.
Hello! If you are reading this, I’m probably doing the preparation for some summer plans for my blog. I’ve been meaning to get some older writings up for this site in due time, but I could never find the time and motivation. But here’s one about Dissidia NT, a game which a lot of people don’t like that I found pretty neat. Please keep in mind that these, unlike the updated ones that have older dates on them, are for other sides, so the tone is pretty different from what I write normally, and the info I gave in this was accurate to about 2018, cause obviously I have played through a few more Final Fantasy games since then.
That being said, thanks for reading, and enjoy this article.
Final Fantasy has once again become a global force to be reckoned with, and with a new entry in their fighting game franchise having a year of season pass including Rinoa from Final Fantasy VIII, Yuna from Final Fantasy X, and my particular favourite, Snow from Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. As someone who has only fully played Final Fantasy XIII and XV, as well as a bit of the older games here and there, I thought it would be interesting to look at how this game appeals to modern fans.
Booting up the game for the first time, you are given a choice of a random summon, which is an ally that can turn the tide with effects on the environment. I got Alexander to summon, which launches bombs on the opposing team. However, while these do provide visual flair, this seems like a needless addition to this game, as the action seems to be more focused on taking out your enemies in a 3V3 team match.
The increased mobility that you have makes this game much easier and more fun to play compared to the original Dissidia and 012. You now have a dedicated guard manoeuvre, which allows you to dodge when moving, and it feels really good to pull this off, especially when used against HP attacks. The bravery meter returns, and with enough bravery points, you can take out your opponent’s HP in one hit. However, just using bravery attacks isn’t enough at times, as your opponent may try and wear you down by using a combination of those attacks.
Certain characters do have special abilities attached to them. For example, Lightning Farron is the only one that changes paradigms(or jobs, i.e. Warrior, Mage, etc), and also has a triple jump (although all characters can jump at least twice). I ended up sticking with her for most of the time I played this game, and it ended up being a few hours over a few days. I really had fun with the combat, as I felt that the game was very pick-up and play. This game does feel like more of a hack-and-slash game than the PSP Dissidia’s, which may come down to the influence of Koei Tecmo Games and Team Ninja, who are notable for making the Nintendo Warriors games, as well as the Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive Series. The online experience has severely improved, as I never experienced lag in my online sessions.
The graphics are a wonderful sight to behold, and as someone who is familiar with most of the Final Fantasy cast(s), it’s nice to see people like Rinoa Heartly take on Cloud Strife. The remixes of music are a joy to the ears for both older fans and newcomers.
Dissidia NT is fun to play for free, and I recommend it if you are undecided about getting the game right now. The game is easy to play, and I found a lot of fun in making my own miracles.
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