Into the TV

It’s been a minute! I was on vacation and travelled to visit family. I had the best intentions to keep up with my gaming streak but very quickly noticed that I wouldn’t do anything else if I played video games like I normally do. I enjoyed the change of pace and being with family I haven’t seen in a while. We took walks in historical places, went to museums and churches, ate good food and talked about everything we could think of. We also got our share of family drama, but all things considered, I enjoyed my time very, very much. 

Between reading, doing crochet, and playing with gorgeous family cats, I found some moments where I could play a little bit of Persona 4 Golden. I’m still reading The House in Fata Morgana, but I think my enthusiasm ended at the end of the main game. A Requiem for Innocence had some interesting, even exciting story arcs, but Resurrection is a slog and so unnecessary. When I’m reading it I feel like I should be doing something else, however I can’t put down something that I’ve already started. It’s just that I don’t really need to know the backstories of everyone involved in the main game when the information is already available there. I don’t need to know their futures either because it deletes the uncertainty that made the ending of the main game so meaningful.

On another note, it isn’t surprising that I’m enjoying Persona 4 Golden as much as I am. It’s the Atlus effect! Their games are good and appeal to me with no effort. I don’t care if it’s high schoolers again fighting against some sinister power because the characters, their portraits, the art, the story, the gameplay, are just pure top tier goodness. I think the story and atmosphere in Persona 3 Reload is more up my alley though. The green fog, the corrupted minds, the certainty of the end of days, the messiah that will save us all – it’s in fact a very familiar story in the sense that it conveys a positive message of love, sacrifice and, ultimately, physical and spiritual endurance. That group of friends goes through everything imaginable to save what they believe in, their connections, the love between each other, and the world at large.

One of my favourite scenes so far in Persona 4 Golden

Persona 4 Golden is a bit more chill in the story aspect, at least so far. I don’t believe there isn’t any higher power at work, good or bad. Is there in fact any Persona game that doesn’t make us question our beliefs and drives us through hell to make us see the significance of everything around us? It’s the little things, man. The story is more like a thriller – a set of mysterious murders and disappearances in the city of Inaba connected to antennas and the TV. Bodies are found dangling from antennas, people disappear from the world and end up inside a TV program that broadcasts on rainy nights. We soon discover that we can literally enter the TV and save people there before it’s too late.

The main story is focused on the investigation aspect. The Velvet room’s existence feels even more mysterious with the presence of Maria and her dry sense of humour. I haven’t explored Margaret’s social link yet to see if there’s more than a list of boring persona fusions I won’t ever use. Then there’s loads of other social links, all significantly impacting the power of our fused personas. The core group we play with is positively affected in battle the higher our social link is. I’ve been focusing mostly on the party we play with and the characters we can interact with at night. 

Persona 4 Golden is the best version of the game there is, but it isn’t a remake like Reload with all the quality of life features these remakes have been spoiling us with. I think the game is perfectly fine, but I can’t say I feel like I’m being as efficient in my time management as I was in Reload. Most of the time I have no idea about what I can do on certain days. I often feel like I’m wasting time in activities like fishing. Fishing makes time pass as well as maintaining the garden, but catching bugs doesn’t. It’s confusing. This is where the voice feature comes in. It’s a feature that lets us see what other players did during the day we’re in. I use it to get some clues about which people are available that day to hang out, and it’s also useful to see what activities got the bigger number of participants. For a first playthrough, it beats having a guide with me at all times.

Eating watermelon

After about 30 hours of gameplay, I still don’t have a clue about what’s going on and most likely I’m not supposed to. I believe I stopped playing at the time when I got all the clues about Naoto and I’m ready to step into his dungeon. I haven’t been in the mood for dungeon crawling these days, so I took a little break from the game. Persona games slowly build up and I kind of enjoy the pace. Since this time I’m playing the game in shorter sessions I’m not following the story so thoroughly. 

I’ve mentioned on Mastodon how uncomfortable I feel with Yosuke’s homophobia. I don’t want to dwell on it because most people know it’s wrong and unacceptable. I think, however, that situations like the tent scene are all too common among younger and even older people, and still should be represented in video games. I’m not for censuring older games because of their unfortunate takes, but I’d like to have had some agency as a player to tell Yosuke that his masculinity is not at risk by sharing the same tent with a colleague because he’s gay or bisexual.

I know that all this can be seen as good fun and extremely natural interactions between young boys. Besides, I’m far from the intended audience for this game, but since I’m playing it, allow me to express some disbelief and disappointment. I enjoyed Yosuke’s character from the start. He’s the less stupid sidekick I had the pleasure to know and yet later he presents himself as the main sexist and homophobic from the group. I don’t know why I’m so shocked since almost every boy in my class in the 90s was Yosuke. I don’t know how things are between people from that age group today but I guess we’ve come a long way since then. 

On another note, the game is beautiful to look at and it shines with the little stories for every social link. Chie and Marie are two of my favourite characters and I find Hisano and the nurse very intriguing and a bit creepy. The other social links that I’m more engaged with are Dojima and Nanako, who’s struggling with immense solitude. I’m still expecting some weird twists in the main story but I haven’t run into any major events yet. Everything happening in the margins has been so satisfying that I don’t feel any need to rush things. 

Overall my experience with the game has been very positive and my level of enjoyment is on par with Persona 3 Reload. Both experiences are very distinct from each other, even when sharing the same Megami Tensei universe. I’m really enjoying these games, what sets them apart and what connects them in a broader sense. It’s not a dull franchise where everything looks the same and feels the same, just with better coat of paint. As soon as I get back into my routine I’ll spend some afternoons with this great cast of characters.

The House in Fata Morgana

The House in Fata Morgana (THiFM) is a visual novel written by Keika Hanada and developed by Novect. According to wikipedia, it was released in 2012 and 2014 in Japan for PC and iOS and then in 2016 by MangaGamer for PC. Later down the line a Nintendo 3DS and a Playstation Vita version were released by Dramatic Create and the more recent versions for Playstation 4, Vita and Nintendo Switch were released by Limited Run. These versions are complete with the two DLC and short stories. It’s called The House in Fata Morgana: Dreams of the Revenants Edition and it’s the one I’m currently playing.

THiFM is very linear compared to my experience with other visual novels like The Letter. By interacting with objects and exploring the mansion when given the opportunity to do so we can pretty much unlock all endings if we save our game at every choice prompt. What’s cool about the Dreams of the Revenants edition is that it unlocks the stories in order, which means you need to get the true ending before you can access the DLC stories. Everything else is marked in grey and you can’t select it before you complete the main story, and the same goes for the DLCs. “A Requiem for Innocence” is the first tale available after playing the main story and it unlocks progressively. It’s a prequel. Then there’s “Reincarnation”, which isn’t available on PC, and as far as I know it’s an epilogue. Additionally we have yet to unlock the short stories and the extras. There’s a lot of content in the PS4, Vita, and Nintendo Switch package.

In this edition there’s also a Back Door. Take it as some sort of funny hack. By answering three questions we can unlock every story in the game. I didn’t use the option, but it’s very useful to those who already know the story and want to play the additional content in whichever order they wish. I’m currently reading “A Requiem for Innocence” and enjoying the little bits of plot that were left to the imagination when I went through the main game. In such intricate stories I tend to prefer staying in the dark about a lot of details and interpret them using the information originally given to me. I think it’s more exciting knowing less and keep wondering about intriguing details or what could have happened during certain events previously left unseen but that were central to the tragedy that followed.

** There’s spoilers for some parts of the story **

THiFM tells the story of a person with amnesia (where did I hear this before?) who ends up at a mansion in the middle of nowhere. They wake up inside the mansion and a beautiful maid – the Maid – calls them Master. We, as the Master, can’t figure things out on our own. The Maid seems to be very motherly and sweet and she’s the first person we see after waking up in a rocking chair. She seems very happy to have found another Master and it looks like for all intents and purposes we are there to stay. However there’s a lot of confusion about how we got there in the first place. The Maid warmly offers a helping hand. After all, she most likely knows more about us than we do ourselves and she’s ready to offer some guidance through the mansion’s halls and rooms enveloped in darkness. Yet, what she’s offering is not a simple guided tour of the mansion; it’s in fact a deep dive into the mansion’s history and the stories of its previous Masters. In order to do that, the Maid asks us to hold her hand and never let go. Then, we open the first door.

I’m not going to retell the whole story here. I’d like to, but it’s so unnecessary and I wouldn’t count on my memory for that! I think it could be funny to create a shorter version of the story for kids without the bloody parts and the everlasting trauma, as a tale of romance, acceptance, love and sacrifice. It’s a beautiful tale that spans hundreds of years. The first three doors we visit with the Maid are the tales of three different people whose tales ended in tragedy. The mansion is cursed by a cursed witch. I don’t know about you, but I think that a cursed witch is more dangerous than a witch, right? A witch can be good or bad, even though in the story and the period it represents, being a witch is always bad. So a cursed witch is extra terrible and comes with extra misery for everyone touched by her.

I need to confess something. I loved the story from the start. The first three doors with the contained stories of its characters were great. The first door tells the story of a brother and sister, the second door tells the story of a beast and its lover, the third door is about a man blinded by power and status and his best friend. There’s a common denominator to all these stories. A white-haired girl appears in all of them. She’s a pure, wonderful, sweet, shy girl, but she has an effect on the hearts of men and women that ultimately contributes to their demise. Who’s the White-Haired Girl is one of the central mysteries of the story. How come someone so pure and without any ill intent has such capacity to change lives for the worse?

About what I had to confess. I spaced out a lot while I was reading. It wasn’t because I got bored with the story; it was because I was trying to tie the knots and to figure things out on my own, something I’m still currently doing. What’s beyond the 4th door and all the doors that came after is a bit of a blur. I wasn’t exactly counting, and when the storylines started making more sense in context, I stopped paying that much attention to the door I was at. From a certain point on it doesn’t matter that much, unless we want to make a tier list of your favourite doors and I have none. I loved all of them equally. One door has a false story, but we eventually get the right one, so it wasn’t that important.

Since this was a story of pain, trauma, suffering and, possibly, redemption, it was important for our main character to figure out who they were, who was the White-Haired Girl, who was the Maid and who was the witch. The stories of these characters are central to the plot and are related to the stories of the other characters behind the first three doors. Behind the other doors we have access to the real stories of the witch, the Maid, Michel, Michel and Giselle, more witch and then going back in time to the first story of the mansion and how the terrible curse happened in the first place. The motivation behind all this is the salvation of the soul from the corruption of the witch’s curse, by creating an opportunity for everyone to tell their stories and find redemption. Also, another very strong motivator was the love between Michel and Giselle and how much they were invested in rejoining after death to fix what they couldn’t achieve in life.

The game explores the lengths of human evil. There were some times in the course of the story that I had to take a little break to collect myself. It must have happened three or four times, because the level of torment and torture in some parts was way overwhelming. Rape, domestic violence and transphobia are a central part of some character’s stories. Also, if you happen to be a saint, never tell anyone. Do you know what people do to saints if they spill the beans? The Son of God was the first to go. 

Michel’s story was – among many others – very hard to watch. He was born with a girl’s body but never identified as one. If you have ever been in this situation – as a trans person or someone who doesn’t fit gender roles – during your formative years this story will sound equally familiar and painful. He had to deal with a family that wasn’t accepting of his identity and then he was locked up and fell victim to a noble girl’s bullying that lasted until she got bored and moved on. It was awful to see what she did to him. To make matters worse he had fallen in love with her. At first he had a female body but, after getting sick, he woke up with a male body and everyone thought he was cursed. His body wasn’t complete, he wasn’t a finished man, and that fact contributed to even more bullying and hate. It’s not hard to guess what happened to him afterwards: he was sent to the mansion. It didn’t happen only to him; some people were sent there either after a terrible experience or, if they already happened to live there, misfortune between those walls would eventually find them. 

The thing with Michel is that he is a very intriguing character and to me he’s still an enigma. In hindsight I know that he had some physical traits that served as inspiration to someone else in the story, but what the hell happened to him to make him transition only by the grace of God or was it something else more sinister? I can’t wrap my head around it. Maybe I spaced out on that part. My idea is that his suffering resonated with the witch and the only way to call him to the mansion was to make him an abomination (their words, not mine). 

It was very pleasing to watch his transformation and his reaction to his changing body, the hope he got when he finally could live as himself. Also we can interpret his existence as some sort of a prophet or an angel, someone who was called to fulfill a role he didn’t exactly ask for – one among many – but with the right motivation and for the salvation of everyone’s soul he fought until the end. Everything is dramatic in the game and the same goes for his relationship with Giselle and his quest to find her soul and be reunited with her at last.

By this point it’s very obvious that I’m just rambling. There’s a handful of souls that were called to the mansion because of the witch’s curse. Why the witch cursed those people is revealed during the real story of her suffering at their hands. It was absolutely awful and degrading. Some souls were mere connections and others were the perpetrators. It’s clear that her wrath inflicted pain to more than the perpetrators, extending itself to their acquaintances and relationships, and employing different means. After some centuries, cursing people is only fun if you have someone to share it with. 

On the matter of sharing, something really unexpected happened when I was reading a part of the story between Michel and Giselle but it could also have been a little before that. As I mentioned, I space out or lose my focus sometimes, so using the log is absolutely necessary. When I opened the log – surprise! – I found parts of the dialogue that weren’t on screen. It was the witch’s doing and possibly related with the unique nature of the chapter.

Contrary to other visual novels, in THiFM we know when we’re on the right path for the true ending. The other endings happen quite suddenly and don’t have branching paths so it makes it easier to reload a save and choose the other options. I played the game with the music volume turned to a minimum, because I couldn’t read and hear some loops at the same time especially when the music was more lively. The game’s soundtrack is beautiful but I prefer to appreciate it as a standalone thing. 

I think it was a very well written story and I warmly recommend it to anyone interested in gothic horror visual novels with gripping stories and mature themes. The prequel I’m currently reading – A Requiem for Innocence – has a bit more of that goofiness we’re used to, but fortunately THiFM takes itself seriously from start to finish therefore making the story and everyone involved more believable and relatable. 

Games I’m playing in April

My video game sessions have been all over the place lately. This text will be less about overarching themes and more down to earth, including what I’ve been playing in the last weeks or so.

Cyberpunk

** Spoilers only for Cyberpunk **

I have been exploring all main endings in Cyberpunk. By main ending I mean the main choices we have to pick to reach Mikoshi inside Arasaka Tower. I’ve been choosing to always go back to my body. I did two missions so far and unlocked the Aldecaldos ending, which was very good and promising for V. It was the ending where I got to maintain Judy as my romance option without having weird things happening. I romanced her more for the story development than for the vibe I got from her. It’s not a character I’m very attracted to. I think Panam’s friendship is much more valuable in the game than any romance. In hindsight, I could have gone without romancing anyone in the game.

After unlocking the ending and watching the last scenes as well as the credit scenes I got the feeling that there was hope for V and that Panam wouldn’t easily give up on V and would try to save her by any means necessary. That’s the value of a good friend. From Judy, I got the same feeling as I always did. She wanted to run away to “find herself” and I happened to be in the right place at the right time, getting away from Night City, and she took the ride. Me being there or not was just a detail. That’s the Aldecaldos ending, not Judy’s, which makes me think romancing/befriending Panam is some sort of a canon.

After that ending I unlocked the Rogue/Silverhand ending. I enjoyed it and it was a bit easier to reach Mikoshi than with the Aldecaldos. Once again I defeated Smasher in a fight I wasn’t ready for because I’m playing a type of blade/shotgun glass cannon, and once again returned to my body. The ending was very anticlimactic because I was beyond help. I didn’t have a family to support me even though I was the queen of The Afterlife. More people surrounded me and applauded my feats but less people did actually show the drive to help with my short lifespan. Of course, Judy was the first to jump ship on her quest to find her place in the world. Why waste any time in the company of a terminally ill person, right? Judy isn’t the kind of person you’d want at your side if you’d find yourself in a similar situation, but the odds of finding someone like her in real life aren’t slim. After a nice mission in space and an ending clearly open to interpretation, the credits roll and we find our closest acquaintances wanting to know how V is doing.

My last ending will be accepting Hanako’s deal, but I don’t remember much of what the deal was. I decided to level up a bit more and do some jobs and gigs before trying the last mission. I finished all of Regina’s requests and visited some more places in Night City while taking NCPD side jobs. Once again I plan to return to V’s body if the ending allows it. From what I’ve seen there’s variations to the endings if we choose to give V’s body to Johnny but there’s only so many times I can kill Smasher without getting bored.

Valkyrie Elysium

One weekend, I was exploring my collection of Playstation games and noticed I still had Valkyrie Elysium installed. I checked it and my save was from almost a year ago. I decided to give it another try. I wasn’t that far from the end-game, but still had a good portion of side-quests to complete. I may have abandoned the game because the colour palette was very pastel and not in the most pleasing way, the colours and volumes had very similar tonalities, the landscapes looked a bit flat, and my eyes got tired from the scenery. However, the combat is good and fun and it’s where the game really shines both for new and experienced players. After re-learning how to use magic, combos and my einherjer, I adapted myself to a number of combat situations, used elemental advantages and finished regular enemies and bosses alike.

I went through all side quests and unlocked some progress and combat trophies in the process. Since I was having fun, I tried to complete everything before the last chapter, but I didn’t collect absolutely everything, only prioritising the side quests and the flowers. When I was ready to enter the last chapter I was meant to choose a path. I used a guide and saw that my progress would naturally land on the true ending. I wanted the trophy for all four endings, so I took the easiest one out of the way. Then, reloaded the save and went for the true and arguably the most difficult ending while I still had the energy. It was difficult and during the fight with the last boss my Playstation crashed. Fortunately it wasn’t on the second phase and thank the gods (and the devs) for checkpoints. Using my rage as fuel, I finished everything and watched the ending that tied everything up.

On the next day, I unlocked the normal ending, which is the one we get if we play the main story from start to finish without detours. It wasn’t what I was expecting if I was expecting anything at all. It felt just like an ending. After that, at last, the alternative ending to the normal one was an endurance trial of many bosses and my hands weren’t collaborating at all. I died once but in the end I won the fight and unlocked an ending that, even though it wasn’t on the same positive tone as the true ending, still felt very satisfying.

I enjoyed some of the other game modes but didn’t stick around. I wasn’t interested in getting the platinum because I had to play the game all over again on hard, grind a lot for the SSS weapons, have S-rank in everything and I wasn’t really feeling it. Moving on, I continued playing Cyberpunk and installed Valkyrie Profile Lenneth. The latter has a very interesting story from the get-go; there’s absolutely no doubt it’s a game I’m going to enjoy. However, it’s a traditional jrpg, and since there’s a learning curve I decided to wait for a time when I had the good energy to dedicate.

The House in Fata Morgana

Then, I got sick. It wasn’t anything serious but I just couldn’t be playing in my living room and had to lie down. It’s where the Nintendo Switch came into play, pun intended. I didn’t want to play anything in particular, just a little help to fall asleep. Some games just find their way into our hearts and more often than not those games are visual novels.

The House in Fata Morgana (THiFM) was sitting in my downloaded games for ages now. I don’t have a physical edition because importing Limited Run games to where I live is a fortune in shipping and taxes, not to mention the rarity tax. I found a nice sale and bought the game for a price I felt was very fair and within my budget. Also, the most complete version of the game is on the Switch, Vita, and Playstation 4, if I’m not mistaken. 

The game was exactly what I needed. It started slow; it’s not heavily choice-based, apart from the last half and endings, and it’s as dark as only some visual novels can be. It tells a gothic story with the romanticised flair of mediaeval times, cursed witches, haunted mansions, ruined families, tragic relationships, mysterious characters and many, many secrets. There’s no over-the-top anime banter, even when reading lighter conversations. After all, we really need those moments of respite in order to survive the story, trust me. I’m playing it first without a guide, but I think that if I’m not right at the true ending I may be very close.

Nobles, commoners, human nature, superstitions, fear, poverty, abuse, power, faith, sexuality, love – everything constitutes the mould from which THiFM came into existence, bringing life to a story full of horrors and despair spanning different generations. Maybe I’ll write a bit about the story, but I think it’s such a great game to play/read without reading anything about it first. It’s what I’m doing – just enjoying the surprises I find and the shocking revelations from the witch.

Games shouldn’t be this good

For the sake of our time.

Unicorn Overlord was released in March 8th and I waited a few days to get my copy for Nintendo Switch. I thought that such a cute game should be a perfect fit for the OLED screen and handheld gameplay. I wasn’t wrong and so far I only played a docked session once. The game was developed by Vanillaware and the concept phase was initiated at about the same time 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim was in production – another great game that I haven’t finished yet. It was published by Sega/Atlus and it seems that everything on the face of the Earth which bears the Atlus name is condemned to be a success.

Unicorn Overlord is a tactical rpg, but it’s not turn-based like I’m used to. It’s real-time where the actions and the order they should be taken – whom to target and in which situations – are previously set by the played into a number of units on the menu screen. Then, those units are taken into battle and the outcome takes place automatically. 13 Sentinels’ combat is a very, very simplified form of real-time strategy, but I loved it, so I had an idea about how the combat would develop in real-time. Some people mentioned Ogre Battle 64 as the predecessor of this type of combat and we can easily see the similarities between unit builds, classes, maps and interface. No matter where the inspiration is, the combat is very addictive and many late nights are a given.

This is where we can try different setups and choose each unit’s leaders

Unicorn Overlord tells the story of Alain, the son of Queen Ilenia who fell to Galerius’ rebellion in Cornia. The game starts with the battle between both Ilenia and Galerius, also known as General Valmore. Queen Ilenia asked Josef to protect little Alain while the castle was under attack and Josef took Alain to an island called Palevia, raised him and trained him into a fine soldier and future ruler. Alain would later lead the Liberation Army against the established Zenoiran Empire, and with the help of the Unicorn Ring, turn the leaders siding with the Empire into their former selves. Alain soon discovered that the ring had the power to dispel a curse altering the minds of former leaders and commanders into accepting the rule of the Zenoiran Empire.

With this knowledge in hand, Alain sets to Cornia first, to expand the Liberation Army, together with Scarlett, Josef and Lex. Scarlett is then kidnapped by Galerius and Baltro and this event starts the first story arc in Cornia. Unicorn Overlord has a lot – and I mean a lot-lot – of recruitable characters. All have backstories and Alain can unlock rapport conversations with them to learn more about their personalities and motivations. It works like a social link from Persona. If they battle together, interact at the tavern or are given gifts, they increase their rapport points. After a certain amount of points a conversation can be unlocked and accessed from a stabilized region. The funnier part is that all these characters have also rapport conversations between a selected number of other characters they’ve previously met. Considering that we travel across the nations of Cornia, Elheim, Drakenhold, Bastorias and Albion imagine the number of interactions available. It’s a lot of worldbuilding and character development.

An example of a rapport conversation between Selvie and Alain. We are all beset by spirits of the dead.

The game isn’t exactly an open-world but it doesn’t have the same linearity as other games where some areas are locked prior to story progression. The quests and side-quests are stage-based. One stage consists of a combat encounter and after clearing the encounter we liberate a city and access its facilities. However, in case we are so inclined we can access higher-level areas and there’s no barriers holding off the progression. If we desire to access Bastorias before clearing Drakenhold, for example, it’s possible to do it. If we manage to clear a level 30 encounter we can access Albion after clearing Elheim and before clearing Drakenhold – which is the nation we should visit after Cornia. I mean we should, but we don’t necessarily have to. The game adapts itself in case we visit a higher-level area first.

A combat encounter. This will be a win with some damage to my unit.

After Cornia, I decided to visit Elheim to know more about the temples and because the Great Sage was about to give a revelation. I had no idea that I was terribly underleveled – my units, not Alain – for the area and I didn’t have many options to deal with magic. However I managed to recruit some crucial characters that helped me clear the first encounters and then everything progressed naturally. By the time I got to Drakenhold I was massively overleveled for the area, therefore Drakenhold should be the first stop after Cronia’s arc to those who worry about being overleveled. Since I don’t, I also unlocked Bastorias and met some adorable furries and then I left the area to progress the story as guided by Josef. This semi-open-world flair is extremely exciting to explore for the first time, because you know that you technically shouldn’t be in certain areas but you can, and then the rest of the game reconfigures itself to accommodate those choices.

The beautiful area of Elheim – or Elfheim – as I like to call it

The same freedom we get from the traversal does also apply to the innumerable possibilities at customizing our units. Each character has a class and each class has advantages and weaknesses against other classes. Some classes synergize better than others. All the information about classes is explained through characters in the overwold outside the forts or inside the menu. It’s a bit of a learning curve but the information is easily accessible in the library where we can find which classes work better against each other. Around the forts we often get tips about class weaknesses or natural shortcomings – for example, accuracy – and which accessories help mitigate that.

In the tactics menu we can prioritize actions according to the character’s skills and in which conditions an action is taken. I haven’t fully grasped the menu and all its possibilities, but changing the priorities and conditions of certain skill use and then seeing it in action is very satisfying. Certain weapons, shields and accessories provide the character with extra skills and it’s never a bad idea to check how the introduction of new skills affects the tactical actions the character will take in battle, meaning if those actions are given the right priority or if they’re relevant for the character in question. All classes can be promoted to its upgraded form, where the character can get new and better skills as well as a new accessory slot, or a weapon slot to dual-wield.

The tactics screen with battle conditions and categories

The art style is gorgeous in all its forms. The vibrating colors, the character design, the little portraits changing during dialogue, the 2.5D overworld, the landscapes and backgrounds, the food design that leaves me salivating – it’s everything. The little cutscenes are drawn in 2D, the characters are voiced and there’s dialogue boxes. The art style is very unique to Vanillaware. Even in their other games, the art plays with perspective, with light and shadow, and with character proportions. It’s dynamic even though the characters are static because some proportions, like bigger hands and feet, give a sense of movement and reach. At the same time it doesn’t look very exaggerated; it’s just right.

The stuff of nightmares

I wasn’t expecting this game specifically. When I heard about Unicorn Overlord I was expecting something less addictive, for starters, and much less complex in its mechanics. Since I’ve only played 13 Sentinels, I’ve only gotten the visual novel part of the Vanillaware experience and I thought Unicorn Overlord would be very similar, just in another setting. I haven’t been able to put the game down since I started playing. The other games I’m currently playing are on hold and even though I already have two more Vanillaware games on their way I don’t want Unicorn Overlord to end. Brilliant game!

Hacking souls and time

Last weekend, I made some progress in Soul Hackers 2 and I am right at the end of the game. The crazy dungeons inside the Soul Matrix got a little more complex to navigate. Saizo’s Soul Matrix is still the hardest one in my view, however I managed to complete a few more things before I finish the story. I reached 4F with all my companions, but only managed to get enough Soul Level to finish Milady’s 4F and get into 5F. There, I couldn’t open any other gates without loads of Soul Level. I’ve read that the amount of Soul Level we gain from hangouts increases significantly in new game + making it possible to complete a 5F from any character and unlock an achievement.

I completed all requests from Madam Ginko in order to get items, money, upgrades, lower prices to summon demons, what have you. It’s very important to stay on top of her requests during the playthrough to make things easier in the end. I completed all The Lost Numbers DLC quests involving a new character called Nana. She was on a journey to find information about her father, a person who worked for Yatagarasu  – an organization that protects people from demons – while also learning about the story behind her true nature. This lead us to a new dungeon where we could grind to our heart’s content and defeat powerful bosses.

One day I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to fuse many demons with the money I had. Now my compendium is over 90% and I’ll maybe take it to 100%, something I could never do on a playthrough in Persona 3 Reload without a guide. With the DLC we also get some powerful demons for free from the start, but I decided to ignore them during early game because they were too overpowered. What I enjoyed the most about the game was the cyberpunk atmosphere, the art, the palette, and the interactions with demons and companions. The game is a feast for the eye, the soundtrack can be a bit limited but I already got two favorite songs – COMP Smith and Eyes of the Iron Mask.

This is as far as I got before I enter the last dungeon, or what I think is the last anyway. My two main characters – Ringo and Figue – are becoming more human by learning through interactions with other humans. They are machines made in human’s image, created by Aion, a big sentient AI, maybe composed of many other life forms, born from the digital footprints of humans. The purpose of their creation was to save the world from great danger, of course, but things didn’t go as expected as they never do. When human emotions formed inside our character’s personalities every action gained a new significance and by consequence emotions started getting in the way of what was otherwise a very objective mission. One of them went rogue and now it’s up to us to fix the world, before saving it.

These demons are adorable

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During the weekend, I decided to go back to Steins Gate Elite. It’s a visual novel with primary focus on time travel and creating a time machine. I started reading it some months ago but it was a bit on-and-off, the story and the characters weren’t captivating enough at first. So eventually I abandoned it and played many games in between. Steins Gate was that VN that I would read when I didn’t want to play or read anything else. Okabe was very irritating and over-the-top and I could only tolerate him in very small portions. This time I was a bit under the weather and the best thing I could do was going to bed and reading a VN that could work as a pathway to a good nap. I was at the end of Chapter 4 and initiated Chapter 5. From there on, any idea of a nap diluted in the hands of time and I was very much glued to the screen. It must have happened a little before a certain character was killed. I was instantly shocked and I had to read on. Okabe changed a lot, so much so, that I found myself wishing for his nonsense at times.

Suzuha and Okabe

The suffering and confusion brought upon Okabe during his time leaps was palpable. At a certain point even I was giving up hope and questioning the point of saving the world to be. During his hopeless mission to save a special someone he would try again and again at changing something, anything, a few hours or days before a tragedy in order to prevent it, even when it was obvious that the end result would stay the same. At this point we understand the motivations of the cast of characters, especially one that came from 30 years in the future. Real time passed so fast from then on that I ended up unlocking my first ending. The game went full circle and I stayed with Mayuri and Daru in a peaceful world, all of my friends were gone. Very easily I unlocked Suzuha, Moeka, Lukako and Faris’ routes. For Kurisu and the true ending I needed a guide.

Makise Kurisu

The good part about using a good guide was that I could choose the right sms answers for the true ending and then save the game when I was one answer short. With an answer left to trigger the true ending we can instead see Kurisu’s ending and then reload the save. The funniest part was that, after I watched her ending and wept and laughed and everything, I engaged the true ending and it was exactly the same thing. Same scenes, same conversations, but I couldn’t skip them. Then the credits rolled and I thought I was doing something wrong and checked the guide again. They wrote something like “read on, trust us” and trust I did.

*** Light spoilers true ending, continue to next paragraph ***

What came after was a very substantial part of the game because it was long and tied a lot of loose ends from the beginning. Everything we see at the start of the game is explained and I didn’t notice any major plot holes. However, I played the first 4 chapters a long time ago, and I don’t remember every little detail. Kurisu’s murder in the Beta attractor field, where the game starts, is explained and that moment is revisited by Okabe and Suzuha. Okabe gets a message from his future self and finds motivation to rewrite the narrative of that worldline by use of deception. It’s genius! However, I would have enjoyed watching the deception taking place, I mean seeing the reaction of the real Okabe from that worldline. Also that shift between dead Kurisu and alive Kurisu was triggered by a worldline shift I didn’t see. I didn’t see it but Okabe certainly did because he jumped to an attractor field – Steins Gate – where everyone is alive and living their sweet lifes. In order to start anew on an attractor field without any known convergence – a new start for humanity – Okabe had to save Kurisu, and that he did. It was a beautiful ending especially because of everything that happened in order to get there, all the heartbreaks and so on.

*** End of spoilers ***

Yes, it was a great read, for sure! By pure coincidence or not, Spike Chunsoft has a sale on Steam right now, so I grabbed Steins Gate 0. The story takes place in the Beta worldline, meaning after Kurisu dies. Poor Kurisu. Her death is the first thing we see when we start Steins Gate and it’s always looming in the background even when she’s right before our eyes. Steins Gate 0 starts about the same way, with some variations and it’s intended for people who read the original novel. The very first scenes are a big spoiler! I’m very curious to see what they did with the story. The old art is wonderful. I would recommend playing Steins Gate with the original artwork and then watching the anime.