Totally, I had the same issue with Attack on Titan as well. I understand that having a regular cast makes things easier but, as you said, once you notice it that’s that. At least both series are fun enough things like this aren’t enough to destroy the experience.

Over promise and under deliver is rather on point with her when it comes to socialization.

I caught up with both Nan Hao & Shang Feng and The Saga of Tanya the Evil.

There’s not much to write about the former, it’s fun and I’m waiting for more. As for the latter, I have some more thoughts about the series. I like Tanya over all - it’s not perfect but the issues I have aren’t serious enough to affect my enjoyment in any significant way. They still exist though.

Writing wise it’s pretty good. The fact story is happening in a discount version of the real world started to bother me a bit but more in a “this feels a bit lazy” kind of way (even if it makes sense). The more serious problem is the amount of plot armor encasing the main cast - there were multiple instance of important characters surviving attacks that pretty much pulverize anyone else. Things like that are fine in small doses but there’s a too much of it here.

I also really like the historical chapters - parts set 40 years after the war, shown from a perspective of journalists trying to figure out the less known parts of the war, specifically things related to our main character and her exploits. Seeing them stumble over military secrets, people unwilling to talk in detail and dealing with the fog of history is super interesting.

Art is great! There are some fantastic spreads of chaos and destruction and a great back and forth between the normal art and “animal cartoon” segments. This makes it all the more jarring whenever backgrounds (or even whole panels) consist of photos with some filters thrown on top of them - these parts throw any art cohesion out of the window and just look bad compared to everything else. I understand why, I’m just not a fan of how they’re used.

All in all, despite some minor issues I look forward to the rest of the story. It’s a fun if uneven ride and I think I prefer the anime version a little more (Aoi Yuki helps a lot in that regard).

Sorry for the wall of text, I needed to dump this stuff out of my head to function properly.

Look mom, I’m on TV a screenshot!

I’ve been using [DISC] as a carry on from reddit but I don’t mind either way. I’ll be happy to switch to whatever community decides on. Lets just put it in tag list on the sidebar when that happens.

Speaking of the sidebar - we already have shortened tags listed there. While they aren’t particularly common at the moment should we also change how they’re written? It would be nice if we kept things consistent. Something to think about @wjs018@ani.social.

I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt for now. We already had situations that could’ve turned into unnecessary drama but were resolved quickly and without issues - I expect this situation to be similar in this regard.

I’m not sure how I feel about the new girl. Sure it might help Koga but her hunt for a new star feels kind of slimy to me. I hope she’ll prove me wrong and turns into an interesting addition to the cast.

I think I tried it as a wee baby child during a school trip once. Don’t remember much about it (my memory is trash outside of very specific and useless topics) but it seems familiar somehow. Either way, even disasters can be fun, right?

Besides the already mentioned Usagi Drop there’s also Gal Cleaning and its many sexual assault focused .x chapters after it got axed if I remember correctly - don’t think many people talk about it these days.

Ubisoft also announced both The Crew 2 and The Crew Motorfest will have an offline mode (twitter post, screenshot). Looks like the Stop Killing Games campaign is working.

Speaking of, if you’re in EU make sure to sign the The European Citizens’ Initiative petition - we’re already over 30% required signatures!

I think an important step would be to not be afraid of creating characters with actual… well, character. It was somewhat mentioned in the video but it seems like devs are unwilling to make NPCs with their own likes and dislikes, ones that might disagree with players instead of being all over them no matter what. This might be a slight exaggeration but boy do I wish we had more “real” feeling NPCs in games. I’m sure I’m not the only one who couldn’t care less about being the most important being in the universe and would rather be treated as an equal part of the world.

From a mechanical standpoint, relationship system in Scarlet Hollow feels like a good step into making interactions more natural (here is a detailed look by one of the devs) but I realize it’s a lot of work for something a good chunk of players won’t care about. I understand why this isn’t something many (especially bigger) devs would be interested in using but it’s still a disappointment.

Maybe AI will be able to help somewhat with this problem in the future but I’m not going to hold my breath on that.

I’m sticking to slowly clearing my backlog for now but thanks for the recommendation! So much to play, so little time…

Oh, I didn’t try to imply you did. It’s just I’ve seen a lot of talk about this route being more… rough (on a story rather than quality level), so to speak? If that’s the case I’m just not in a headspace for something like that and would rather play it when I’m in a position to better appreciate what’s there. Maybe I just misunderstood people’s thoughts about it, that’s also a possibility.

Either way I do want to go back to it eventually, if only to spend some more time with both characters (I do find them fun whenever they show up in other routes).

I also learned about Yotsuba to when looking for something to practice with (still haven’t touched the Japanese version ironically enough) but yeah, it’s a great series even as a normal read. Quickly ended up among my favorites.

Nan Hao & Shang Feng feels like looking at my friends from school at times. I don’t think their adventures were that crazy but many chapters made me go “yeah, that looks familiar”. Is there anything similar from the female perspective? I’d be curious to see how that compares to real life experiences.

A lot of comments I’ve seen about Shizune’s route suggested it probably wouldn’t be something I’ll enjoy, that’s why I decided to skip it for now. I might give it a shot some day but for now I’m just happy with all the other great stuff in the VN.

Yeah, sponsored chapters are completely explicit about what they are (here is an example if you’d like to check one). It’s not a huge percentage of the overall series but it’s something I’m rather allergic to and had to mention.

Katawa Shoujo is great!

I played it years ago and decided to replay it again a few months back. My initial playthrough was limited to Hanako’s route (got a bad ending which I’m kind of baffled by after the replay) so this time I wanted to try out the other ones as well. Rin’s story ended up being a surprise highlight of the whole process in a way I wasn’t really prepared for (had some very familiar thoughts showing up there). Her whole story just clicked with me and wouldn’t let go until some time after finishing it.

All the other routes were great as well (haven’t touched Shizune/Misha one) and I’m glad I decided to give it another shot for an expanded experience. It was worth it and made me wish for more games with disabled protagonist/characters (without using it as their main characteristic obviously).

I’ve been on a holiday trip last week which means I finally had some time to dig into my backlog a bit. Here’s some brief thoughts on what I managed to get into:

• Yotsuba And! / Yotsuba to! - I’ve been reading it on and off but had to put it down due to lack of time. I just went through the remaining 2/3rds of the series and caught up completely. It’s an extremely adorable story and I love it with all of my being. It also made me look at myself and do some light self-discovery which is nice. Can’t wait for more.
• Gyaru Cooking / Gal Gohan - I wasn’t really feeling this one until chapters 13-14, when Fujiwara makes her first appearance (Nagisa’s addition was even better). I think it was a decent series over all but didn’t really resonate with me so I finished it more due to inertia rather than being seriously pulled in by the story. I never really got fully on board with Miku or Shinji as characters and only few of the gal jokes worked for me. I also wasn’t too hot on the ending but eh, it went about as I expected.
• Nan Hao & Shang Feng - I’ve read a few random chapters of this one before but always planned to go back from the start some other time - well, the time has come. It’s not all gold but even the mediocre chapters are pretty good and when a joke lands, it lands hard. It’s an extremely stupid series, I love it! Mostly anyway… One thing I do not care for is the amount of sponsored chapters - I despise ads in general so calling this annoying would be an understatement. Can’t have everything, I guess.
• The Saga of Tanya the Evil / Youjo Senki - I started this one shortly after the show ended, not sure why I stopped but whatever the reason I did it early enough that I forgot pretty much everything about this adaptation except for the goofy animal representation of all the countries. I like this version quite a lot, it captures both the humor and brutality of the story in a great way and provides some additional info about what’s going on both in Tanya’s head and behind the scenes. I want to read the original light novel as well someday though that will have to wait.

I’m still catching up with the latter two but I’m pretty happy with the results, especially since I spent most of my time resting away from the screen for a change. There’s still A LOT of stuff to go through but any dent in a backlog is progress.

I tried playing Bahamut Lagoon, a Japan only SNES TRPG, but had to stop due to some technical issues with the unofficial translation. The little bit I did manage to play (prologue and the first scene after that) was interesting enough so I’ll definitely try again, I just need to get back to my PC so I can research what’s wrong with it.

To keep with the theme I started Jeanne d’Arc, the PSP TRPG, instead. I like the art style, animated cutscenes and gameplay. Not a huge fan of the fantastical elements but they’re not a dealbreaker either. I’m not sure what to think about the story just yet - I like it for the most part but there are some things that make me a bit wary since they might potentially turn into tropes I’m not going to be happy with. It’s a “wait and see” for now since I’m still pretty early on. It’s good so far.

Can’t say I share your experience with either game but I can understand it doesn’t work for everyone. Personally, I can’t really imaging playing this, Kao the Kangaroo or old Tomb Raider titles without tank controls for example.

To be clear, your comment is exactly what I meant - you tried and don’t like it, that’s absolutely fine. There’s plenty of games I couldn’t get into due to controls or mechanics so I feel you. On the other hand, I met people who refuse to even try to engage with certain mechanics and that’s what I’m not a fan of. I’m all for remakes/remasters/rereleases updating things to let more people enjoy the old thing and hope this will be the case with Croc. And hey, even if they change something in a way I don’t like, there’s always* the classic version.

* Though not always an official way to get it.

Ah, I thought people had some specific issues besides the game having tank controls. Fair enough.

I’m not going to begrudge someone for not liking a control scheme (unless their only reason is not wanting to learn how to play differently) but I do think some people dislike it without even giving it a fair shake. The thing is, these games were designed with this control scheme in mind and switching to a modern one can be detrimental to the experience (compare playing REmake with and without tank controls, the latter makes navigation and avoiding enemies much easier).

Oh well, everyone has their own dislikes.

Edit: I read a bit more and apparently the game always had an option to play with some kind of “modern” controls when using a controller with sticks? I’m guessing they’ll probably polish those.

I totally agree. I just don’t have much expectations towards big publishers anymore, I guess. Not many approach the topic of remakes/remasters from the point of view of celebrating their history unfortunately. Heck, we had multiple instances of publishers removing the old versions from sale just to push people to the new one.

Low effort or not, companies (and many players to be honest) rarely care about their legacy.