Recent reviews by エメベアー

As a reader of japanese LNs and WNs, one of the most common "modern cheats" in the isekai genre is the steam engine. I understood the concept, but I never understood how it was used and the special considerations to take to make it work. Well, I learned a lot with this game.

Finally, the english release, and with it, a seemingly newer build that is not 2 months old, and I noticed the difference.

The graphics are like DW9, meaning, the characters are reasonably detailed, and the character design is really good. Some people complain calling it PS3 graphics, but then again, they complain about anything. The Nioh 2 Character Maker looks much better than previous versions, however, it's also limiting in other areas, for example, no more Fat characters. Instead, although there are differences between Male and Female, some parts are now equal for both, like female CAWs as tall as Lu Bu... But they can't be as buffed.

With the new build, the frame rate seems to be fixed to similar levels of DW9, so before there were weird bugs and slower frame rate, but now I was able to boot up some graphic settings and it was fluid, but the point is, it's closer to DW9 performance, so you can try DW9 Trial to see how it runs for you.

The politics phase is overall the same as previous games: You select policies, you get more or spend money, food, you can become friends or enemies with other officers, and so on, but overall, there are less options right now than before. And here we have the Strolling mode, where you can befriend and invite officers and others, and you can also do almost everything through menus.

The events seem mostly ripped from 6 and 7 Empires (I treat it positively), so sometimes it may be a bit too repetitive, but you can skip them nonetheless, but having such events still has it's own charm.

Along with that, the 6 Fames from 7 Empires are back... However, they don't seem to work the same, for better or worse. In 7 Empires, all characters had only 1 main Fame, meaning, if you made your character have a Hero personality, he will only get through the Hero Stratagem Tree, the same for the others, with the exception of Affluent, which has access to all Stratagems besides its own, although the other stratagems are limited to 1 level lower that yourself. The deal is, other characters also had their own progress in those ways of lives, so your comrade with the Hero tree would have Hero buffs and chose Hero-like politics, and the Evil Characters would have stronger buffs at the cost of other expenses, and also chose Evil-like politics, but the most important part: They could take the initiative on things.

Just like in 8 Empires, you are the center of the universe, everyone has levels, but only you can build up fame, they can start interactions with you, like to build friendship, or calling you to start a Vagabond Unit, inviting you to their Kingdom, or the basics: To confess, or ask you to be their sworn sibling. Can they suggest you "I think you are a better ruler, we should rebel" like in 7 Empires? It took a long time, but it finally happened to me, so the answer is YES!

As a bonus however, we now have the fact that parents and siblings have relationships in the game, so Liu Bei will be nicer to the son he threw away, the point is, many characters have parents, and they will get different treatment from Family, and your CAW is also counted here.

Now, for the most criticized aspect of the game: Castle Sieges (Battle).

In truth, I think they are better now than before. Now, let me explain my reasoning.

In the more recent previous games, you had very nice stages for the story mode campaigns played in the vanilla/XL versions, which would then be ported to Empires, and they would just add "generic bases" on that scenario, and these bases could be customized into flavors such as Defensive base, Attack Base and so on. Graphics looked nice with those stylish and large stages, but the main problem that affected mainly the NPCs: The routes from point A to B are always the same, meaning, if you want to stop the enemy with your NPCs, send them to that path, and it will block for sure. The enemies essentially don't take shortcuts, and you WILL use that to your advantage.

Now, the map is smaller, it's more generic and bland, the generic bases are back, but there are less more flavors, the only special bases are the Catapult and Siege bases, which you have to get to attack the enemy bases with catapults, or to build rams or stairs to climb up the walls. However, the rest of the scenario is completely different, and now, there are no more pre-established routes, the enemy may just go past your generals if you don't order them to go for the generals themselves. There is also a Jankenpon system between Sword, Horse and Bow units.

So if you are a Ruler/Marshal, you may have to give commands all the time to your generals on what they may need to do, which can be annoying, but that's the price of your authority. Meanwhile, if you are just an officer, well, now you have to keep in mind that enemies won't follow a single route, and they may go straight to your boss (attack battle) if nobody is going after them. To me, that was a very welcome difference, because now it feels that the CPU can do the same things the player did, and they will do it. Some people complain the Allies are useless, but truth be told, I find them really useful to stall the enemy, and to capture territories. They do take longer than you, but that's a matter of course.

And finally, stratagems... Or how they are now called: Secret Plans

First, when you start a battle, if you have an officer with a certain level of ability, you can select a large-scale secret plan, like summoning winds, poison, fire, wolves, bears, tigers, or even reinforcements. Then these secret plans will have a mini-quest to work, for example, protect a certain unit/territory and/or kill certain units/take over specific bases. So you have a limited amount of time to do that, which makes the battle a little more dynamic. The enemy may also have their own Large-Scale Secret Plan, which will trigger a similar "quest" for them, (I think they trigger it after X amount of enemy Officers are killed), so those, you gotta stop. In any case, both large-scale stratagems can be triggered at the same time, or even both fail, but at least, it makes the battle a bit more dynamic.

On the "it was better before" side are the battle secret plans... There are no more manual siege weapons, so no, you can't summon catapults, or ranged towers, the main Secret Plan cards that you will see are "Character-based", and you will want to collect them all because they are new depictions of the character, so that's nice. Anyway, these Secret Plans are usually related to Buff (Speed, Attack Power, add Element), Recovery, or an Elemental Attack (Benevolent lightning lasers! Conquering ice shower! Bonding explosion!). The damage can be nice, but that's it, you will get a ton of them, if you get a repeated they will stack up to 5, so Dong Zhuo is Common, Xu Shu is Epic... Dong Bai being common is totally undeserved...

Anyway.

7 Empires still continues to be my best Empires, but the polished gameplay and customization in 8 Empires is certainly better there. 9 Empires improved the CAW part, but lost in everything else, I do think, however, things like Custom Banners may be seen in updates, because the white empty Kingdom flags are there, it's kinda like they are waiting to be filled with some meme jpg that we are all going to abuse. Although I would love to have grunt and horse customization again, I wouldn't be expecting those yet.

So, yeah, DW9E may have a lot of potential, may improve with updates if it follows the same structure as DW9. The graphics are more polished than before. I do prefer it over DW8 Empires, because DW9E tried to follow 7 more than 8, now, if it's about the game for the price, I'm on Regional Price, so it's lowered, and for me it was fair, but people complained about $60 and so on, so if you think it's expensive, well, decide yourself.

It is a fun game though, it's not 7 Empires, but I have been playing it way more than I did 8 Empires.

It's short, and you can play it at any time, since the route appears as a new option in the main menu, but if you starting Altdeus it doesn't need to be said: Play the game at first. This DLC is essentially Yamato's side during Anima's route, where his presence is very relevant.

But like all the other endings, don't expect a sweet happy ending, but the same bitter endings that you can't say for sure if they are bad or good. But Yamato is a good guy, that's for sure. It's also really nice to learn what happened to him after the events of Anima's Ending, because... That was really harsh... When I played that route, I was left speechless and feeling terrible. I still feel bad, but now I know what happened to him at least.

There is a new opening and an extra soundtrack for the main battle of the DLC. I expected some more relationship with AARC Ares, but lore wise, I shouldn't expect a Noa out of it, kinda sad, but understandable. The new battle song, well, it doesn't raise the same strong emotions as the same battle in the main game, but it's fitting, a mix of sadness and hope.

However, just like Tokyo Chronos is vaguely related to Altdeus, Considering Julie and Patty, I think that this DLC may also be giving some extra information to the next game my hunch being Julie being aware of the "branches" of the story, which I seriously don't remember in the main story, but she straight out mentioned them here, so I'm expecting Dyschronia to touch on this topic considering it's "Turn back time" quote.

A warning, this is a Visual Novel, not an Action Game.

For players wishing to learn how to find the different branches, there seems to be, in general 4 Heroine Endings, each with Good and Bad, and after each ending, the start screen will display a silhouette of the "heroine"'s ending you unlocked. The first 2 times you play the game, you will unlock "extras" in the next playthrough, so Ending Meteora will be the first, after that, you will be capable of unlocking the second branch for Endings Noa and Anima, and after any of them, you unlock the ability to open the final branch, to the Coco Ending (Final).

In Ariadne, a visual representation of the story line and its branches, you can see the ramifications, and can also jump through past events from past branches at any time if you want to complete things. There is also a mini "encyclopedia" of terms in Ar, holding important terms of that event and what they meant at that time, so if you forgot something, check those to remember. However, you can only jump into major events, so sometimes, you may have to backtrack a lot if you want to just check the other option that you just went through because there were no major events in some time.

For how to play the game, you will go through 3 types of events:

- Novel mode is the most common, as the novel advances through it, and is the easiest to explain: People talk, you read, and so on. On a very strangely adopted method you have choices, which affects hidden parameters, like Obedience, Independence, being Open Minded and so on, but because there are no numeric parameters, my impression is that it changes the options you may face ahead, I would imagine that, if I'm too obedient, I may be unable to go against an order in the future, and if I'm too rebellious, the choices may not allow me to agree with certain characters. This is just a guess, as I have no real idea how it works, but for example, in my second playthrough where I was a little nicer to Noa, I got to see her concert, and I didn't even had such option in the first playthrough, but of course, maybe it's locked the first time, or maybe it was related to the parameters, but this uncertainty is awesome and just makes things more natural, because I don't need to think too much, and just go with what I think will be better, without worrying about missing much either.

The main problem is that, unlike other novels, there is no Log button, so careful when skipping text, as you can't read what you skipped, and will have to go back to the title menu and start the current part from the start to see it again.

- Search Mode are somewhat rare, but they are basically the moments when you have multiple options to either interact or talk with people. Sometimes it's just to interact with things or talk with the characters, but once interacted, unless they have an extra event, you can't do it anymore, and without Logs, be careful with button pressing again. The worse part of this is that there is no indication on what advances the story or not, so if you went to check on something and you left the place because you thought you would have to do something else to advance the story, well, you will move, and any other interactions will be lost until another play through. You don't lose anything technically, just... That feeling of 100% as soon as possible... Search mode may also be used in small puzzles, although those are linear, basically, find the item you have to interact to advance the story... Well, it's basically the same thing, really.

And here is the best part:
- Mecha Battles. They are essentially an **overloaded Novel Mode**: It's mostly linear and you don't have much control, but it's more interactive (press buttons), and sometimes you may have choices (attack, don't attack, if allowed, do something else), and is where you will find some branches in the story.
But... The experience... It can't be described. Check the official website for the artists doing the sound design to understand what I mean: https://altdeus.com/en/staffcast/artist.html

For the Sound Track, you have someone from MONACA, who is also known for OSTs like the Nier series, although if I were to compare the OST here, they remind me more of Gundam Unicorn, Aldnoah Zero, and Guilty Crown (the three by Hiroyuki Sawano). There is also kz (livetune), very famous for many great Hatsune Miku songs.

Please MyDearest, do sell the Soundtrack on Steam!

For the sequence of events, all mecha fans are guaranteed to love it: You have a full launch sequence, filled with the boot process, your Operator/AI/Partner Noa giving you her blessings, and mind you, she stays in the cockpit singing the battle theme, with a sound similar to Hiroyuki Sawano's more agitated insert songs.

I feel like I'm piloting the Macross, and I'm not talking about the Valkyries, instead, it's heavy and clunky, reminding me more of the the Battle 7, Battle Frontier or Macross Quarter in Battle mode, and everything you do and see is from the cockpit, so for example, up until now, I have not seen my own mecha properly (I could be vaguely or partially seen through monitors, or glasses, or even reflection when I'm inside, but never from a 3rd person view), the movements, although limited in view, feel a bit clunky, but not as in "bad clucky", but as in "I'm piloting a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Macross" type of clunkiness, so you know the weight of the movements, or when you get hit (although, of course, the VR can't make itself heavier).

You get all the dialogues and tension that you have to do to defend and attack, like pressing the floating buttons, or holding your hips guns, joining them into some Hyper Gun, and then aim, and as the sequence starts, and you have to press the button the the proper time to shoot, or you miss (The main mecha, the Alto Makhia, is a Cannon type mecha. The Ares Makhia, which uses a sword, is controlled by another character, which is soon to receive a DLC, so I'm expecting somehow being able to battle with the sword).

Keep in mind, this is not a fighting game, so if you are expecting Gundam Vs type of action, you may even feel bored by having the whole boot up sequence all over again, but if you understand the appeal of the Mecha genre, it's mechagasm: it's like you are in an anime, in first person, with an excellent OST, feeling the excitement of what is going to happen next, I just had to write this review now without even finishing the game yet! It's just that good of an experience, the feeling of inside the cockpit of your robot seeing the battle only through the visor, having your partner by your side talking to you and acting to help. It's a little sad that they are short, and there aren't thaat many of them compared to the rest of the game, but hell, that's why I'm going full playthrough, just to play all those parts again!

The plot... It's quite unique, I found small elements that remind me of Aldnoah Zero (OST), Macross (Divas and the "power of song"), Knights of Sidonia (Tsugumi's case) and Genesis of Aquarion (Much shorter than 12K years, if you catch the reference of what I mean), to name a few, only talking about the good parts, of course.

Now, do remember that you may wish to change the voices to Japanese for the anime feeling, I just want to play more and more, too bad I need to sleep, the experience is just that GREAT.

In regards to it's relationship with Tokyo Chronos being in the same universe, there are 2 names that come straight from there, and they are not that irrelevant. However if you have not played the previous game, at most you will be missing a reference, you won't lose anything else.

This is the first Visual Novel I play in VR, because I wanted to know what the experience was, and on that matter.

So I will just leave here the 2 reasons why I recommend this game: VR Visual Novel is really cool, and Monono Yu (The pink haired character).

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Now for the review itself.

My only problem is with the story's base setting, because I just I found out I'm not really a fan of the "detective"/"mystery murder" format, as I feel it's just a sad excuse to make an compelling story, not that it isn't. I mean, Danganronpa is interesting, and surprising, but here... If I were to compare it, I would say it's a mix of Angel Beats and Steins' Gate, two stories that I really like, however, I feel they were great because they either went full science mode, or full spiritual mode.

This one... As a science-cultured person, the idea of "Quantum"s acting as fairies for people was a really poor and sad excuse for the super natural part of the plot... But I do understand that the point of the story is not that, just that this was the excuse for the sake of the "murder mystery/time loop" plot.

Some stereotypes in a couple characters felt a little too forced for me, but maybe I'm just used to better stories, or maybe I just don't know any people similar to some of those forced characters, but that wasn't enough to spoil the overall mood anyway, because the experience of a VR Visual Novel was certainly interesting.

I could look around, see everyone's expressions, understand more of their situation even when they are not the ones talking, And although I say some characters felt forced, others were really well executed too and felt fitting, so there is a balance. The story also does a Yoko Taro, forcing you into a Bad Ending, and then you have to replay the game with some extras, seeing the perspective of the supporting characters, but although it may look like just a replay, it is a sequel to the first ending, as you may notice the changes in the "non-skippable" parts, thus, the existence of a continuous Time Loop.

So certainly, the story and characters can be interesting, the excuses were too forced and the forced bad ending was annoying, but I could only understand why it was like that because of the changes I saw in the "second loop".

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Having finished the ending now, I must admit that the final conflict, let me say it's related to "self-sacrifice" not to spoil too much, and I personally dislike that kind of thinking, and I can't understand people who think like that to such "advanced" levels, so although the ending felt a little stupid, the message was good.

Monono Yu is also the best girl. In the second loop, most of the scenes I couldn't skip were related to her, so I was pretty ok with seeing the changes all over again, although seeing the ending, I now understand why it changed so much after all.

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Having now fully finished this game's sequel, Altdeus, if you are wondering if you need to play Tokyo Chronos for that, you are not really strictly required, but you will get a few references that are both "irrelevant" and one quite relevant to Altdeus' plot that will improve your experience on Altdeus.

Well, it's free, but I can't understand how this game grew out so out of proportions like this...

This is a hard one to recommend, the game is playable. I played the 3 previous games, however with the 3rd game on Vita, I do recognize that it felt inferior to the former 2 that I played because of the limitations and limited controls, so I came to this game with open mind that it wasn`t Gundam Breaker 3, but maybe, if it were like Breaker 1, it would be nice to...

But that's not the case. The controls are ok and all, but the mission system is too... Annoying. Those long stages that felt almost like you were playing a 3D platform game are gone, it's not like every mission is "battle to the death", but then you get "destroy X number of MS-X", or "get the item and recover it"... It's too boring.

Still, for someone who doesn't have any other game of the series on PC... As long as Cross Rays has not arrived yet, this is the only one to go...

Recommending this game is hard...

Well, first, port is not bad, however, the way the game runs may end up very poor, this is not an exclusive problem with the port, as the same happens with the console versions, so if one is to blame something, blame the game engine, not the port.

The updates added quite a lot of nice stuff to the game, photo mode, better AI, stuff like that.

To run it you will need a pretty good machine, and may still need to lower some settings, 60fps may be hard, and sometimes it goes below 30, if your pc is fast enough, should still remain playable, as those parts are usually limited.

Compared to previous games however...

- Some will say dub is worst, but since I played in Japanese dub, seriously, it's ok, similar to the previous ones, I do miss hearing a good original pronunciation of the characters names though, like CaoCao instead of Sousou. English dub is terrible, but well, Japanese is just better anyway.

- the story mode is much more detailed, this however may length the game by a lot, specially considering that unlike the previous DW7 and DW8 where we had Campaign mode based on the Kingdom, now it's on characters, and there are 90 of them, and most of these campaigns are pretty much the same with the main characters of their Kingdom.

- the open world is very nice, some people may say it's empty, but you can Fast Travel from the start of the game, sometimes you just want to go on your horse and see the scenery. Of course, some people may just dislike options. However, this does artificially increase the gameplay time.

- There is fishing, item collection, and a bunch of stuff, but technically, everything is simplified and Fishing is OP, it may be boring because there is no diversity, however, this game is not a sandbox RPG game, besides being Open World. As a non-fan of those sort of games, I'm very happy that these side stuff are both optional and simple.

- the freedom of movement is absolutely great (You can jump over things, you can climb stuff, you can try to follow the orders, you can break doors, you can actually try to follow your army on an attack, take shortcuts and different paths or just go as a Lone Wolf towards the target), you can always decide on how you want to play the game.

- Unlike the old Mashing Square then Triangle system, the Trigger formula is quite interesting. Basically, if before you 7 different combo attacks and always used the same because it was the best, this time, it actually makes sense to use the appropriate one for each case.

- Weapon cloning, because the new engine and system would require a completely new reformulation of the weapons available, I can accept the clones, besides, each character has slight peculiarities with their weapons, exclusive attacks in fact. For example, while I loved the Throwing Knives with Yuanji (her own weapon), using them with anyone else just sucks because my main attack, the Down Trigger, is so different and worse when not hers. I haven't tried the other Knife users, but I know usually the changes are in one or two attack patterns, and generic just loses all of those exclusivities.

Story wise it's debatable, it's mostly good, but filled with anime like relationships to the point of annoying sometimes, and cutscenes can get too long, graphics are acceptable, but not the best.

What I really like though is that, for a Musou/Dynasty Warriors clone, this one is amazing, fast and direct, movesets are quite diverse, and the best part, time is not counted on your ranking, so you can also take your time and not stress yourself out on gameplay.

Series is great as I already watched it about a decade ago, I can certainly recommend the series, but the product being sold here... No subs, just CC, which means:

- No OP/ED lyrics [Singing in Japanese] on a Russian song
- Not translated, CC's are based on English audio, so it takes all the different timings from the useless dub (I know some may prefer the dub for reasons that I don't care, but I don't care about the dub and prefer the original, simply as that, I have no problems in reading, I'm no dyslexic)
- No CC on Tachikoma extras

On a positive side, it does contains Disc Extras. Should be great if you want to watch GitS in English dub, not so great if you want to watch the original and just want it translated.