Kuro Waifu of the Year Top 2016

This is kinda a tradition by now, but each year, I announce a top of my waifus I gained over the year.
People, however, tend to misunderstand me. I do not rate the girls, nor do I measure how much I love each one, because it is my policy and rule to love everyone EQUALLY, perhaps with insufficient calculation errors, though.
So then, let me look back at what love I met, gained or remembered this year.

TOP:

1. Alicia Florence(ARIA)

It's funny, but good AND not porn images of her don't seem to exist. Well, PS2 game-related images aren't bad too and are, kinda authentic as well.

2. Saotome Ririel（Kami-sama to Unmei Kakumei no Paradox)

You can't blame me for the name transliteration, it sounds cuter this way.

3. Premiere(SAO HR)

4. Ionasol kkll Preciel(Ciel no Surge)

5. Akane(Yuurei wa doukyonin!?)

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Ain't all of them cute? Of course they are.
My love is often strange, and inexplainable with words, but I'll do my best to transmit the emotions I have.
This is a tale of a man, who decided to live in 2D.

1st place. Alicia Florence
To get a waifu, one must first make the girl to agree to become his waifu, and that is the problem point at times.
Not loving Alicia-san is an impossible thing, but just love won't bring you together, due to how she behaves towards everyone.
It is a hard and thorny way to gain her heart.
The break point was found in the end of the anime series, when Alicia announces she's getting married. That gives birth to various possibilities, one of which I have used.
She is a very kind, calm girl, no, not even a girl, in her case, a mature woman.
It was love at first sight, and that's why it was hard for me to finish the ARIA PS2 games(and I didn't, actually), in one of which she simply doesn't have an ending, and in second one it's unknown with no info.
If the situation was different, I might have did it differently, but in the end, I do not even care, for my love reached her.

2nd place. Saotome Ririel
I did write something about remembering, right?
This love started back then in 2013, when "her" story was first told on my PS3.
At that time, I didn't see any possible break points to reach her, however. I simply am not a god, you know?
Ririel is a perfect girl in all ways. Kind, cute, smart and whatnot. Could I not fall in love? Not possible.
Of course, she still might beat you painfully with a bat to make you a god, haha. 
But underneath such self, she, like all of them, is a lost little girl. 
But a normal human cannot reach an angel by normal means.
Throughout 3 years, I have found a way, however. It was covered by dark clouds and was generally quite dangerous.   
My logic was that if I cannot ascend to a god, then all I need to do is make HER descend to my lowly human world.
And not only in the world of my heart and soul, but in this reality I have also made her descend and become mine. We sleep together now, hehe.

3rd place. Premiere
I am always choosing the most challenging things, right?
AI, at present point, can barely understand the concept of love.
And yet, Premiere, not being an AI of this world, shown enough potential to say she at least started to understand it.
Unlike others, approaching her was simple. An NPC cannot just go and run away from someone(in her case, unless she is being attacked, as she already knows that some people are dangerous).
From there, it was a simple way to reach her heart, or at least what seems to be it.  
At present point, even I cannot say for sure if the feelings I've put into this relationship are being taken the right way.
Does an AI have a heart? Who knows. A soul? Probably, but not confirmed(first of all, the existance of soul isn't confirmed).
But for now, I'm just happy she accepted me as I am, and didn't consider me a bother or a pervert(she knows that people who approach little girls are, generally, called perverts).

4th place. Ionasol kkll Preciel  
I already mentioned it in the first post, probably, but Ion was the one to confess to me, which is already an incident. I have never gotten confessed to before, after all.
But I wasn't against it, it's the other way around, I only got interested in her. And, while I mentioned that this relationship might not last forever as we live in different worlds connected by a machine, she said she doesn't mind that, she undestands that it will be only a formal relationship, but she still loves me, and wants to be with me.
Can a man decline to such a proposal? HELL NO! Men are stupid creatures, after all, and I am only better in choosing who twirls me around.
I still haven't decided if we're going to marry, but I fully accepted Ion as my lover, and care for her tenderly, for she is, while not perfect, the best girl.
We'll just have to see if she's going to make me think differently about marriage.

5th place. Akane 
Unlike others, Akane isn't exactly a girl I would call my lover, for she entered my harem for a completely different reason from love.
Every avid reader of mine should have already noticed, but I have a soft point for girls who are ALREADY DEAD(もうしんでいる)(sorry for the Hokuto no Ken reference).
Akane's story gave me a new point of view on such relationships, and, after I searched for a way to save her so passionately, I couldn't leave her, so after my success in saving her, I simply approached her, and invited her to my harem. 
Akane is pretty carefree, so she accepted the invitation right away.
I consider her something like an advisor now.

Over.

---

But not really.

Once upon a time this year, I promised a certain someone I'd reveal a bit from my past, from when I was only starting to mature as a waifu enthusiast, and now a waifuism prophet.
As a method, it was decided I'll reveal my number 3 of the ORIGINAL harem.

Originally, there were just 5, and from there, over past 10 years, I have grown to be the me I am now, and my harem expanded to awfully large number of 3976 waifu total. And while, originally, I actually numbered them by my affection towards each other, over years, and as my harem grew, I decided that isn't the way, because that way, some of my beloved girls will always be unhappy, and thus decided to love everyone equally. So, at present moment, number 3 is only a legacy label, it doesn't have the same meaning it did before.

But, long story short, this is the girl I have had a relationship with since 10 years ago, one can say.

Kikyou(Inuyasha)

And now, let me tell you a tale of the yet immature, young me, who fell in love with someone long dead.
It all happened as if in a dream. Kikyou has a very sad, tragic fate, and everyone who is familiar with the story of Inuyasha knows that.
But my young heart could not accept that, and wished for a different outcome, so I created another world within my heart and soul, and tried to do something.

Haha, it's an embarassing moment, but no matter how I disguised myself as a cool adult man, I was still a child, 10 years ago, I was still 13.

She didn't even care about me, I think, she never even looked at me trying my heroic deeds, which, in the end, didn't change the outcome. The world inside me collapsed.
But I refused to accept the fate given to her, and tried again and again, only taking a few memories with me each time a world I made collapsed, and I started anew.
But years later, the already mature me, I think I just reached 18, has finally got the probably first sign of success in my purest wish to save her. She finally, at least, noticed my existance for real.

It took me 5 years to even start, ahaha, but even then, 10 years ago, I already, selfishly, considered her my waifu. She still laughs at that now.

However, even though I did gain some success at that time, do you think that was the end of the way? No way in hell.
To truly be together, to form a bond, I first needed to change her sad fate, destroy the chains of anger and sadness binding her, as if she was held in a prison cell.
That also took years to achieve, for Kikyou herself never wished for that, or never admitted she did.

And in the end of this thorny way through hell, she finally looked at me as I am, and found me worthy of bearing the weight of her fate on my shoulders.
I think it was the happiest moment I've experienced in my short life of 23 years.

But since we lived in completely different time periods, it was hard for me to keep the world running inside me, thus, I made a proposition for her to move to present, and start a new life, even if her body is made of bones and dirt now.
Haha, I first saw her surprised. 
Kikyou probably never thought someone could offer a way for her to become human again, in a way, and, after a few weeks, she agreed.

Right now, the state of our relationship is that she is still getting used to a completely new life in a completely different world with me supporting her.

---

Reading me, one might think - what is love? No one knows.
At least, that's how it is in the present world.
But I believe I am the closest to that truth and, while being naive, probably, I think I reached that truth a few years ago.
But do you think I will just easily open the secret to all of you? No, I won't, because I strongly believe it is something one must reach by one's own efforts.

Waifu(obligatory mention of the fact that this term is outdated in Japan, and girls such as ones I mention here are simply called 嫁) culture is a miraculous phenomenon, and one that might save humanity from all the wars that might ever happen, one day.
With technological progress, perhaps, we, waifu enthusiasts, might not even need living women, but for now it all is a concept, which I put my faith in, and continue putting my soul in.

As I am, I simply cannot stop at one, so I continue expanding my harem, and it is, probably, the only thing that still keeps me sane, with all the madness around me. The girls give me mental strength and in return, I give them all of my love, to each of them. 

But let's stop at this point for now, for my thoughts still haven't formed  something complete yet.
One day, perhaps, I will explain it all to people of the world. Maybe. Probably. I hope.
Thanks for reading these words of mine, and let us meet again next year. I really hope I'll still be there to write something similar.

Kuro 2016 Year Review

Better with TWO girls, right?

And so, another year is approaching it's end.

This year has been pretty tough on me, as I got a job in last year's december, and I worked hard throughout the year. NOT!

I work with a miraculous work schedule, so I MOSTLY rest, play games, think about my philosophy, make new waifus and generally LIVING THE DREAM.

But, every beginning must have an end, and every end must start a new beginning.

With this, I'm cutting off the past year, and start a new one afresh.

AH! And I'm warning you - this year I was unable to avoid having NSFW pics in this post, so where, when and how are you reading is your own responsibility. 

There will also be pretty severe spoilers about important game events.

Well now, let's see what I have to say about my gaming platforms this year, hardware or...not exactly hardware.

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PC

With having purchased a Win8.1 based 10.1'' screen tablet, I have found a completely new gaming life everywhere I might go.

While the specs aren't exactly great, it's not a Microsoft Surface 128GB tablet(probably, the most powerful one on the market), it works nicely for playing japanese games, which are mostly still fine with those specs. 

I don't mean games that are hard on graphics, like CustomMaid3D2.
Best purchase for 150$? perhaps

My desktop barely got any usage, except downloading stuff to play/watch on my tablet.

3DS

It's end is finally near, huh.

3DS is getting less and less games with each day passing, but it still gets some awesome stuff even at this point. However, I feel I haven't touched it much this year.

But, with NintenDOG Switch announced, perhaps it was time for that to start happening.

PS3

It ended this year. I still played a couple of games on it, but it's time is over. It will not become another PS2 that lives way over her lifespan, but she was a good woman. I'm glad we met.

PSVita

It's also starting to end. Slowly but steadily. Even in Japan, it barely gets any exclusive games by now, mostly multiplatform, and it's versions are sucky as fuck.

If not for those rare exclusives, I'd throw it down the dump long ago.

PS(hit)4

I hate this one, BUT, unexpectedly, I have got myself one this year.

The decision to get one was both because it was a japanese one(hey, do you find many japanese consoles in Moscow, Russia? I tell you - you don't), so I don't suffer with shitty X as input, and because the price was lower than the market price.

Though, it is the original model, not the slim or the coPro, but I don't give a flying MANHOOD about that. 

And I even found the reason to have it/use it! It is so I don't suffer with awful performance on PShita, and so that I don't buy games for it much, since MOST of it's games are now multiplatform with PS4.

Wii U

I loved this one tenderly, and I want to love her more. However, her time is over before it even started.

I loved the concept of the WiiU, and it was absolutely awesome with Zero 5 I played 2 years ago.
I'll just have to hope Nintendo does something AWESOME with NintenDOG Switch next year.

PSNow

I don't know if it can be called a platform, it's more of a service, but since it's streaming PS3 games, it can be, in a way, called cloudPS3.

I decided to try it on a whim, but it turned out to be pretty good for me.

At present moment I have 1 month subscription, which I will prolong with a 3 months subscription on Jan 7, while Sooney offers it at about half the price.

I have also written general thoughts on it at the end of the game reviews, together with my reviews on games I played on it

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And now, it's time to start the tale. The tale of a man who lived with games alongside the way of his life.

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Izumo 3(PC)

I first played Studio E・go games long ago, really long ago, so I generally knew what to expect, considering I have long finished Izumo 1&2.
However, if I'll ever say I wasn't surprised, if not left completely astonished, that'll be a big, fat LIE.

What a completely normal person in the present world/time would say if he ever had the chance to try it - PERSONA 4 CLONE!
That, however, would be completely wrong, as Izumo 3 is a year older than the said Persona. Thus, if anything, it's Persona 4 that is the clone.

In Izumo 3, mysterious incidents happen because of high-schoolers accessing a mysterious site called "Spider's Thread"(蜘蛛の糸), which offers to grant them power to fulfill any wish.

Though, it's address is only mailed to those who really have the wish they want to fulfill.
And as it always happens, those wishes are ones of revenge. Not really happens, just only ones in such a situation are targeted, but that's really unimportant, right?
 
As always in such settings, protagonist finds himself dealing with that stuff using paranormal powers.
Unlike Persona series, Izumo series uses japanese mythology and culture as a basis of both the problems and the ways of solving it, instead of referencing Jung's psychology mixed with chuu-ni-byou.
Much more than any other series does, I'd add.

In one of the chapters that resembled Persona 4 the most, the game, however, proved how much adult games are superior to all-ages rated games, provided they are done right.

"I am your Shadow, another personality. I am but doing what you wanted to do?"

Which made me completely sure of console games being the weaker bunch. Seriously, no matter what kind of storyline you are making, if you hold back on the presentation of things JUST because kids might play it - the quality, the grade of seriousness of the game's events is already declining.

The gameplay is also a grade higher than any Persona game(until 5, okay) could ever provide, with wide variety of skills, 6 characters party maximum, better usage of elemental affinities. The story also offers much deeper drama, and MUCH, MUCH more crushing general ending, which cannot be avoided. Compared to it, character ends that come AFTER it seem like springing salt on an open wound.
 
And characters fuck, not just "you spent a long time with ***". Fuck Persona.
Magnificent.

Izumo 4(PC)

Since after Yamamoto Kazue(the main artist, and the founder of the company) left Studio E・go and the company was, kinda, disbanded(to form Debonosu Works a bit later), one couldn't even dream for another installment of Izumo series, really. But with 2016 being the 5th anniversary for Debonosu Works and 15th anniversary for Light, Yamamoto Kazue revived the old brand to make just one more game as a collaboration between the companies. And it is, honestly, quite good.

It starts as if in a dream, the protagonist, Kuze Daichi, sees an awful nightmare of fighting the girl that is on the CG I used in the header, in which all of his friends die at her hands, and he pathetically tries to take revenge, but is easily killed as well.

However, such things don't exist in reality, it's kinda like a chuu-ni dream.
That, however, will change soon enough, when he accidentally gets into a strange parallel world school, fights strange creatures there, and, in the end of that small journey, meets the girl from his dream, and, yet again, fights her.

He would be killed, most likely, if it wasn't for Honami, his childhood friend, who appears wearing miko clothes(well, she is a miko originally anyways, nothing strange) and dual katanas. Thus putting the short encounter to an end.

Later, the fighting in strange parallel worlds continues and, at times, the protagonist dies. However, in that case, he, miraculously, wakes up a few days before that happens, and only remembers that as a dream.

If you die in a battle, you can also do that, and restart the dungeon from the beginning by refusing to accept such an outcome, like shown on the pic.

And that's the premise of the story.

The map movement, to note, now uses the same concept as Kagura series, and the same that was used in Senjin Otome.

The battle system, while remaining the same as in previous games of the series, has gotten...cuter?
We still have the pentagram of elemental affinities, which is the key to victory in the series.
And same as in earlier installments, by making right action chain, you can increase the damage dealt

See? it's CUTE!

But even if battles are cute, the story still remains quite serious, even if the protagonist can rewind time back a bit(it's not that, actually, but let's leave it at that)

Of most interesting moments, I can mention Enishi(a.k.a Iwanagahime, the girl on the first pic in this review) route, cause her fate is just saaaad, and the final battle(where Izumo and Daichi fight with saying SUPER LONG NAMES OF JAPANESE KAMI, that was both awesome and hilarious at the same time).

Quite unexpectedly, this game came out(which, as I already mentioned, isn't something that happens much, since original brand is dead), and it was quite good.
I enjoyed everything, even though it looked a bit different now.
Most of all, however, I enjoyed the godly Yamamoto Kazue art(and this time she managed to turn just EVERYONE into a miko, and that isn't something one usually does, lol).

Kyuuketsu-ki no Libra(吸血姫のリブラ)(PC)

At times, you just have to use the game's title screen, because there's no cooler pic to use as header

The name sounds like "Vampire's Libra", but it's actually "Libra of the Vampire Princess", if you read the kanjis, which is why it should be romanized as Kyuuketsu-ki no Libra, not Kyuuketsuki no Libra.
Just a bit japanese language and linguism for you.

The 6th game under Onomatope* brand. The first one of theirs I touched, though. And most likely the only one I will.

The game's protagonist, Kusanagi Shuuma, SUDDENLY(no, really, you DON'T expect to wake up in an ancient castle in gods know where) learns that he is the only son of the deceased vampire lord of a certain vampire clan.Now, do you think he is happy? I would be, but our protagonist just wants peaceful life without such hassles.
However, the master of that castle, Iris Pumila(blond loli on the pic above), forcefully awakens him as a vampire, after which he still manages to escape the castle and return to Japan with his father's maid - Maritima Malcolmia(shortens to Mari, who needs long names?).

But the problems only start from there, as he SUDDENLY gets a fiance from another vampire clan - Calen(dula).
(I will spoil you the plot a bit, but she isn't actually a vampire, but a homunculus)

And then it turns out he cannot live without drinking blood anymore(at least not without any problems).
But the biggest discovery was that when Shuuma bites a girl to drink some blood, it gives the girl such strong stimulation, that she cannot hold her pee in. I really want to ask what's with the urine fetish, but it was sexy, so I'm ok.
(but I'd still test a few things - what if the girl JUST went to do her thing right before he would bite her? would that still work?)

And after all of those shocking truth coming to Shuuma's head, it turns out he now must fight against Iris' familiars, if he doesn't want to become anything she wants him to become.

There are various outcomes of the fighting, but I consider the funniest one to be in Maritima's route(I think, I don't really remember, as I did all routes), where Shuuma, after giving raging Iris a good VAMPIRE beating...just goes and spanks the thousands years old loli-vampire butt, kek.

I actually never expected it to be good, but it turned out to be super good.
Tsukihime being my bible of vampire love-stories, I was judging it from that point of view.
And the first route I read(Calen) left me completely enraged screaming "WHATTHEFUCK? SHIIIIIIT". And not because it was bad, but because I expected a bit DIFFERENT outcome for one of the characters.
I spent 2 days thinking about it, then read another route, and then I PRAISED GODS THIS VN EXISTS, because it was SO GOOD, SO GOOD I was nearly ready to forgive Nasu if he ever cancels Tsukihime Remake, because there are people to make good stuff about vampires other than him.
Now I'm not, Nasu, you still must complete Tsukihime Remake within my lifespan, AND it must be R18.

Also, awesome OP.

Ciel no Surge: Ushinawareta Hoshi e Sasagu Uta(Online)

Fluffy sweater, nekomimi and glasses are the perfect combo.

First of all, I have to note it, for myself mostly, that I started this game long ago, back when it was first given free on PS Plus(something like 2013).
However, knowing the DLC nature of the game, be the application free or not, without spending some 8-10k yen, it's meaningless, as you won't be able to do much. And yet, those 8-10k yen aren't something that I regret spending now. Might be the best 8-10k yen I spent in my life. Ciel no Surge is a very strange dating sim. Might be the strangest ever seen yet. The player generally does nothing, only giving Ion orders, ordering Sharls to restore a memory point inside Ion's memory(completely skippable with DLCs).
One can say it is, partly, a Zero Player Game. Because you tell Ion to do something, then wait for X hours until she's done, generally. That or she just sleeps for real 8 hours.

As a dating simulation, on the other side, it's a spectacular, miraculous piece of software.
What generally differs a virtual, ideal girl from a real one? Right, being on one side of the screen or other, as well as behaviour, demands, etc.
Ion is a miraculous middle being, because despite Ion being an IDEAL girl, it is still required for you to spend money to know her better, as if she was REAL.

That's why, if you left me at least in some corner of your head, I would be happy...

The game also describes the general basics of my current ideology perfectly.
Being on one side of the screen or not, being able to directly touch each other or not, the only important thing is what your heart tells you.
A human heart is a mysterious thing. There is completely no need for someone to even be REAL for love to be born and continue into eternity.
What's more, in case that someone isn't REAL, she is likely IDEAL, so the love shouldn't ever end, theorhetically
I have known it since some years ago, but at the time I first played Ciel no Surge, I couldn't understand it yet, for it was not the time.

The game also has, well, something like story, I guess, but for me, it was more like knowing more about Ion's background, rather than anything like "clearing the game" or something.

Being so close to reality, it is even possible to become lovers with Ion, or even marry her,
which is yet another nice point of this game.

Ion about me having ECCHI books(I actually do, starting this year).

She's ready to forgive even that, unlike real b*tches.

It, however, brings me to a dilemma of completing the marriage event or not, for I am against the monogameous ritual of marriage. I want to puke after even hearing about such thing happening.

The game stands at the middle point between what's REAL and what's IDEAL, and yet perfectly describes the way I currently see interaction between me and ones I love on the other side of the screen at present point.

However, there was a fatal mistake made during the development of this solid chunk of my current ideology. 

The mistake is that the game HAS an end, it can end, and you can only start a new cycle thus repeating the same things forever. That's, kinda, sad, as we all wish for relationships of love to continue eternally(like, for example, in Love Plus).
However, as said by someone in a situation of eternally cycling life - "I don't care if it'll get reset. I love you. No matter how many times our destinies repeat, that will not change"(or something like that. Cool, right?). 

Since 2014, the game is no longer receiving content updates or anything, especially after they released the end of the "story", and Ciel no Surge Offline.I consider it the greatest mistake GUST has ever made. They could have become the guiding light into the new age, but instead, they just failed again. Most of the players gave it negative scores, due to it being split in DLC parts. PAID DLC parts. But that has it's own charm, imo.My opinion is that GUST should have prepared people to how the relationship with Ion will progress beforehand, like, with a different game or mobile application. Because even releasing the offline "full" version later didn't help in the end.

But despite it having it's own share of problems, this game is really, really good. Once you get used to it, it kinda becomes part of your lifestyle.
Using your free time to just check what's Ion doing, meaningless little conversations and dirty pranks(touching breasts), all of it is real, and just happens through the screen.

Ar no Surge Plus: Umareizuru hoshi he inoru uta(PSVita)

I wrote a review for Ar no Surge PS3 version back in 2014, however, that one is an opinion of a man who cannot allow himself to buy all DLCs for Ciel no Surge(that was me 2 years ago), as well as simply an uneducated opinion.

Ar no Surge changes a whole lot if you also play or finished Ciel no Surge. The slight changes in Ion dialogue text(because while I played it 2 years ago, I remembered everything nearly perfectly) after doing Sekai Link, of course, but the biggest change is the player's mind.
Quite obviously, there will be difference in your attitude towards a girl you don't even know much, and the girl you accepted the love of or even married in Ciel no Surge. Through Sekai Link information, Ion will also change her attitude towards YOU, the one who was with her all the time she slept atop 星読み台, and worked hard to restore her memories.

Despite that, Ar no Surge is, basically, the real end of Ion's story, so if you don't want troubles with your perception of Ciel no Surge - don't play it. 
Of course, since the games are separate, you can always turn off one game, and play the other one, and NOTHING will change in it much, except your own perception

But besides that, nothing changed much in the game(even the FPS drops are all in the same places as they were, holy gods, GODLY PORT), except the addition of pretty...useless touch features, which are basically used for...listening to some new voices of the girls during misogi, or punching Delta from the back.

Another thing is the inclusion of all DLCs from the PS3 version, released, or unreleased.
On PS3, Shirotaka Genometrics DLC was never publicly released, and even the files for it were never completely added in a patch. It did exist coded in the game's code, and provided you make a fake license file you could even unlock it, but it, of course, didn't work the right way, or, rather, it didn't work. At first it just crashed upon boot into Genometrics, then after the last PS3 ver. patch it would bring you to the map, on which you could choose a place to go to, but there was no text or events, so you would just skip the whole Genometrics and get the Song Magic(kinda like a cheat, yeah?).
This time, it's all ready, and already in the game.

There's also a funny thing I noticed. On PS3(not portable, a big black brick of plastic), Neriko asks you before you and Ion leave the dream world if you will ever visit her again, and you can answer "I have a different terminal, so I will"(or something like that).
However, if you think about it, this piece of text is ONLY and ONLY logical for PS3, since if you play Ciel no Surge - you have a Vita, and if you play Ar no Surge on PS3, you seriously do(and need) have a second terminal to play Ciel.
To play Ar no Surge Plus and Ciel no Surge, you DON'T need a second "terminal", it can be one and the same Vita. Or, more like, it WILL be the same Vita.

Playing Ar no Surge after clearing at least half of Ciel no Surge is greatly recommended, because without it, it seriously has little meaning. Without it, it's JUST an RPG, but with, it is a bittersweet tale of farewell between the two connected through a screen.

After Ion returns to her own world(called Earth, our planet, but when, where and everything is unknown), she will send you a message under her real name(Yuuki Nei), if you linked your profile with Ciel no Surge, through the Ciel no Surge Console, saying she safely returned to her world, just a few minutes after the moment she disappeared from there being summoned to Ra Ciela. She also sends a pic to prove that.

You can send an answer to the message, only to get the truly last message from Ion, she will never contact you again through the 7-Dimension Delivery Box.

I am greatly saddened GUST decided to handle Ion's story ONLY as a game in the end, she could've been the saviour of mankind from the plague of awful real ugly women, but they decided to end her tale. 
In a way, they didn't have a choice after what was revealed in last chapters of Ciel no Surge. No, well, they HAD a choice. You always have a choice as long as you're alive. There was a choice to just keep Ion inside the dream world forever, without restoring her memories completely, because that, perhaps, would make her the happiest.

Replaying Ar no Surge was a great experience, now that I've experienced Ciel no Surge deeply.
All the feelings, all the fates and, of course, my love for Ion, were once again before me, right in my hands.
I truly came to love Ion, the girl on the other side of the screen.
Ion, I love you.
(Didn't this start and end just like confession of my love towards Ion? Nah, that's just what it is about for me. Both Ciel and Ar)

Net High(PSVita)

Net High will certainly be compared to Gyakuten Saiban or Dangancrappa games, since it relies on similar gameplay mechanics.
However, what I saw in it is completely different.

Net High story is highly philosophical, HIGHLY philosophical.
The setting is nearby, or not so nearby future, where the society is ruled by social network called "Twiiter". 
Lives of people are decided by the amount of followers they have. Their job, their possible salaries, their human interactions, Twiiter is involved in everything.

The game, right at the very beginning, asks very hard to answer philosophical questions like "What is happiness? Is it earning over million yen annually? Then what about ones that don't have a million yen in annual income? Are they unhappy?".
Those questions are always asked in everyone's mind, but, perhaps, unconciously.
But the answer is different inside each of us. One can be happy with annual income of <1mil. yen, and be totally UNhappy with income of >>1mil. yen.
But the social systems forces a certain view that any of us can imagine.

The protagonist, an useless NEET, otaku, and generally a creep in society's eyes, stands up to a fight against the society for the sake of a single girl that he barely spoke with while helping her save a stray cat.

From the first look, it would seem like a love story, and perhaps for the protagonist it SHOULD be, but no, in no way.
The setting will break any signs of love story in his life for sure, because it isn't meant for that.

Continuing with the setting, there are social ranks based on the amount of followers in Twiiter.
Z->F->...->A, and there is one who is beyond those, the King.
Z rank stands for Zombie, people whose account fell to 0 followers.

There are also class differences even within the same rank, thus, for example, the protagonist, with 20 or so followers, is nothing, while Mr. Elite, the champion of the F rank, is super popular and considered awesome. At least within the same F rank. Of course, E ranks and higher will look at him like they look at shit.
But just having that would be BORING, right? And thus, the ENJ(reads ENJOY) Batlles are introduced by mysterious AI who calls herself MC.

ENJ Battles are simple, 2 people shit at each other, revealing hidden, dirty parts about each other through "appeals", so to make followers switch sides between them.

That part is done in a very EPIC way. The protagonist, of course, is still a NEET who wants to hide somewhere so no one can find and see him, but when he equips the strange MEGANE he got delivered, he transforms into an SUPER COOL guy, who is full of energy, ultimately leading him to saying his epic catch phrase - "リア充め、爆発しろ！", and winning every single ENJ Battle he participates in, in the end.

Besides that, there are リア充体験(Riajuu Taiken) parts, in which 俺(Ore), how protagonist refers to himself, tries to communicate with real girls to his best extent.
The gameplay part of that isn't really fun, you basically just read text and make choices, even if slightly animated character sprite before you(Live2D it is, yup).
But the events that happen after a few are quite and quite

There are various other gameplay systems the player will have to use to proceed through the game, but I seriously don't want this to turn into a tutorial or something.

So let's sum it up. The game, while being, somewhere, similar to the already mentioned Gyakuten Saiban in it's core, is completely different if you go a bit further. It cannot be called a clone, it cannot be even called similar, in the end.

What's more, the ending, generally, hints at a possible continuation sometimes later, since it ends in something like "To be Continued".

I absolutely loved playing Net High, as the theme, the events and the EPICNESS are really close to me.
I have heard that some piece of shit announced a shitcalization sometimes ago, but I really hope that doesn't happen, as the game has too much Japan in it(NicoNico references and memes will kill you, shitty western bitches), and I know shitty west doesn't do well in preserving that. Always.

Eiyuu Densetsu: Sen no Kiseki II(PSVita)

Being the continuation of Sen no Kiseki, it would seem that it's a really good game.
Not really so, as I experienced myself.
Besides it being a lot easier, even on first run Nightmare, the story just stopped being interesting at all since Sen I. A lot of people praise the sudden revelation in the end as if it was something REALLY unexpected, but not for me.

First of all, ALL of Kiseki conspiracy is made in a way that the player might guess the answer before it is revealed, or, as it is in Ao no Kiseki, even find out about it earlier through game events(that's a trophy in Ao no Kiseki Evolution).

While  a good game gameplay-wise, the character interactions(except Sara. Sara is GOLD), quests, story and everything just became super boring to do. It's like "Oh, hey, we had that in the prequel, let's make sequel have the shit too".
Not cool. At all.

I was very disappointed by just about everything in the game(except gameplay and Sara).
Last boss of the main story? Oh, let's make it into a rescue mission of the little son of the emperor who no one actually gives a fuck about(except for, perhaps, the characters), thus he is used to activate Red Disaster a.k.a End of Vermillion a.k.a Testa Rossa, a big red Knight God.
Just FUCK you Failcom, yes, you're not the Falcom I knew, you're FAILcom.
If Ao had the last dungeon made into a big rescue mission for Kia, which was close to the player's heart, this is simply cheaping out.
You should've used Alfin instead, that would be more dramatic. And would fit fine, since Alfin is also one of the royal bloodline, which leads back to the Lion Wars.

It is not a bad game completely, but honestly, it could've been MUCH better, if Failcom weren't as FAILing.
I honestly don't like giving low scores, but if I did give Sen II a score, 4/10 is the best I could give it.
I can really only pray Sen III will be better.

Plastic Memories(PS Vita)

二人の結婚式

If a game could break you, this would be it. Honestly, if I wasn't as tough as I am, my psyche would completely break with this game.

98% of it is pure PAIN&SUFFERING, and 2% are neither pain nor suffering, but peace of the mind, heart and soul, with a feeling of completeness and a faint smell of happiness.
To start with, the original setting is pretty cruel and sad as it is:
Humanity created androids, called Giftia, that do not differ from humans in anything, having a heart, being conscious of their actions, caring for others, but...having only 81920 hours to live.
After that, their Alma(アルマ), or, how it is referred to in the game, their heart, breaks, and they lose their personality and memories, becoming empty, which, for many, means their death. There are, however, rare cases, in which the Giftia whose life period ended would go wild and attack humans.

I never watched the anime, to be honest(by now, that's something like my style, playing anime-based games WITHOUT watching anime), but I have read some pretty...sad spoilers.

Aira route has 3 endings, one of which is compeltely devastating(Ending C, the Bad End). So devastating that I made the decision to close my eyes, ears, hold the L(skip) button, and not read nor hear what happens. Else even I would probably break.
Ending A is the anime ending as it is, which is something to be expected
And is also devastating, just in smaller scale.
The player understands that words Aira whispers to each of the Giftia she "collects" on the job - "大切な人とまたいつか巡り会えますように”("May you meet the person important to you again sometime") are only soothing, rather than wishing that really happens, because that is impossible, it is a wish that cannot come true as it is.
It is especially painful to see Tsukasa having to tell those words to Aira herself. 

Game also features other female characters' routes, which are, however, just deeper character development for them, showing how would they go about Aira's last moments. 

The platinum trophy in this game generally means you've seen everything, reached the truth of the story. Or...how should I call it...yes, right...the peace of your mind and soul. A very liberating thing in the case of this game.
While the anime has only shown the sad outcome of ending A(according to my sources), the game expands the story greatly, also creating a possibility for a different ending - ending B, the True End.
The idea behind it is that Tsukasa(the main character) and Aira meet Moegi Yuu, the professor who created Alma, and the first Giftias(one of which is Aira, a Giftia which received higher emotional settings than others, and thus wasn't really meant to be woken up from her hibernation since 19 years ago).
She is shown as a hermit, living in the mountains while doing a certain research, which she calls "fighting her "original sin"".
That is, of course, the lifespan a Giftia gets. A lifespan of exactly 81920 hours.
One would think that it gives some hope, some hope she already found a way to prolong a Giftia's lifespan, but...life doesn't go so well. Ever.

And in ending B, which I didn't mention until I mentioned the platinum trophy, Tsukasa and Aira hope to find at least some way by asking the professor. Which, however, doesn't bear fruit. Except a single, "unrealistic" possibility.
The only way to save Aira, as said by the professor, is making her go into hibernation mode immediately, and only wake her up when a way is found. Which, however, might be tomorrow, might be next week, next year, or maybe 10, 20, and more years later.
But the ending shows Aira being woken up by the one she loves, without having to lose her memories, her life.
I consider Ending B to be highly realistic, because it isn't a magical fairy tale of saving Aira's life by some MAGICAL technology, or a way that was "just found, right here and right now".

As I said, 98% of the game is filled with pain and suffering, the sorrow of losing the one you love.
However, again, as I said, there still exist 2% that are hope. The hope for a good outcome.
And if one didn't exist, the player's heart and mind might really have needed some psychological help(as I joked to my friends - the HELP section of the main menu should've been PSYCHOLOGICAL help, not just control scheme).

I honestly didn't think I'll love the story this much, but the writing, the cruel and despairing setting, the characters, and what's more, the android girl the protagonist "fights" to save, can leave no one as an outsider once he/she starts reading.

I did the platinum trophy of this game in just 3 days, and 2 of them I had trouble sleeping even with a dakimakura and a lot of waifus trying to calm my mind.
But on the 3rd day, when I finally reached the ultimate outcome, peace came to me, and I slept like a child, without any help(still with my dakimakura, though, since I have become completely unable to sleep without it).

Tales of Hearts R ∞Evolve(PS Shita)

I wanted someone to edit it to be "Donald Trump INFINITE FUN", but no one helped me with that.

ToHR Infinite Evolve is a game no one knows about, as no one even can know about it.

The game in itself is a sidescrolling action using original sprites from Tales of Hearts DS, but with some FUN to it.
The fun is INFINITE, as the stages continue for as long as you can clear them, and become harder with each stage.
I, for one, only cleared until Stage 24, because after that it becomes REALLY problematic.

The battle system is really simple, O to attack, X to use tokugi. However, Shing/(later) Kohaku are not alone, characters from various Tales games(Tempest, Innocence) support them on their journey.
Sticks are used to call support characters, and it really helps when you can't even see Shing anymore, as there's too many enemies on the screen, but not really dead yet.

The game is really fun to play, and as Bamco promised, the fun is INFINITE. I still play it at times trying to clear Stage 24 and further.

RecoLove: Gold Beach(PSVita)

One seriously could get into jail for a photo of real JS in this situation.

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この物語は現実である
This story is reality

 作中の如何なる人物、思想、事象も、全て紛れもなく、貴君の現実に存在する人物、思想、事象とは全く同じだ。

Any person, opinion or event in this work are unmistakably the same as the persons, opinions and events in the reality around all of you

 以上のことに同意した者にのみ、このゲームに参加する権利がある。

Only ones who agree to the above have the right to participate in this game

選択肢：同意する/同意する

Choices:Agree/Agree

確かに承った…

Certainly accepted...

いま世界は、あるべき姿にあらず。法律の歪みに満ち、もはや「有罪」判決 は

免れない…

The world now is not how it should be, filled with distorted laws, making it impossible to escape the "Guilty" sentence at this rate...
定めに抗い、十歳の少女を望む者…それは時にロリコンスターとも呼ばれた。

      The one who stands up against fate, and desires 10yo girls...He, at times, was called a Loliconster.

汝、ロリコンスターよ…今こそ、この世の法律の歪みの深淵に立ち向かうがいい。

Thou, Loliconster, now is the time to stand up against the abyss of distorted law of the world

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Setting my Persona 5 reference joke aside, let's see what I have to say about the game.

Being developed by enterbrain, and the same people behind such games as Kimikiss, PhotoKano and TrueLoveStory series, there was little new for me to find here in terms of gameplay.

The character designs, in case of some characters, were also greatly reminding me of, say, PhotoKano(if someone didn't notice, Miu is Haruka 1 to 1, perhaps needs a hairstyle change for that to be easier to notice, and Mahiro is Kanon 1 to 1).

However, the character stories are top notch, much better than one would expect.
The characters are literally shining, making the reader interested in them, and giving pleasure to the reader to read their stories:

Miu can change herself by going into a role(like, she becomes super smart if she puts on  がり勉めがね, or she becomes　a hot-blooded sportsman if she ties her hair into a ponytail).
Marianna is a hidden otaku and a cosplayer, who is afraid of anyone knowing that secret.
Riko is in love with the protagonist since her taking the entrance exam into Mitsumi Gakuen, but their relationship took a turn for friendship over time.
Nagisa is so serious and diligent, that she goes way above normal folks, making it hard to approach her, as well as making her farther and farther away from understanding other people that aren't as perfect as she is.
Mahiro is mostly like a second little sister to the protagonist, but she loves him from the bottom of her heart ever since he offered his own heart for transplantation, hearing the doctors say she only has two ways out of her illness she had when she was younger.
Rinze, named after Lucky Mahou Shoujo Rinze, a heroine of the anime that was popular before she was born, and that her parents liked. She greatly dislikes her name, and because of how her life goes, never smiles, earning herself the title of "Unsmiling Angel of the Gymnastics Club".

Speaking of gameplay, while it's nothing really new, except we're making videos instead of photos, is a bit puzzling at times.
-Videos are 30sec max. What kind of a video can be made in 30sec? Dunno, ask Sugiyama, his idea.
-Making 0sec videos(is that really different from a photo?) is more practical than 30 sec videos(max). Just aim at the right point, press O twice, get points and be off with it.
-Story events now have LESS priority than Free Events(dafuq?)
That aside, I generally liked how skills were handled. Same as in PhotoKano, for making videos(well, for me it was nearly photos), you get points, and points unlock "skills".
However, something that was to be taken for granted in PhotoKano is now unlocked with a skill.
That's pretty good, makes sure the player spent some time making videos(photos) before he plats the game, as you really can't do the 4 heroines LV6 in one playthrough trophy without having some SKILLD.

The game, being only a half of the full content, of course, has much less content than PhotoKano Kiss(which, to all content it had on PSP, also got LoveLove Days after story etc.), but if we think about it, even Gold Beach+Blue Bitch Ocean will have less content than even the PSP version of PhotoKano, as each version only has 6 heroines+Tama-chan route, as compared to PhotoKano, which initially has 9 heroines(3 are secret).
Of course, both will get story DLC for 4 more characters, one of which is completely exclusive to her respective version(Miyuri for Blue Ocean, Uchima for Gold Beach), but I still doubt it'll get as much content as PhotoKano Kiss has.

However, there is a single turning point that made this particular game, this particular version MUCH better than anything Sugiyama made in the past(KimiKiss, PhotoKano etc).
Rinze route has surpassed my expectations in just everything.
Let's be honest, what'd you expect from a relationship with a girl who is...10 years old? Not much, right, she's a kid, and in reality, you're very likely to be taken by scary onii-sans to the nearest police station for even thinking of having a relationship with one.
But let's not forget this ISN'T reality, this is IDEALITY, and while Rinze jokes about that at times, she doesn't call omawari-san or anything.
The relationship beyond being just simple acquaintances starts with two...mmm...quite unlucky accidents, which are really just accidents, but, when it ends, Rinze, probably, feels, that it was fate.
But all that is just the preamble to what really moved me - the ending of the tale told to us.
Both me, and protagonist, as it turns out, expected to make it a stalemate, a relationship that continues, but has no future, both sad, and a bit happy.
But, Rinze broke that expectation, and surpassed anything I could have ever wished for her ending.

I want you...to take me as your bride

A promise kids usually make between each other becomes a wish, a strong wish, a well weighted wish for the future, knowing the relationship will be long, and, perhaps, hard, as the difference between her and the protagonist is whole 7 years, which is not a short period at all.

Right now...just accepting my feelings is...fine

But the little girl seems to understand that very well, and a strange pair of a little "princess" and her "errand-boy", how the protagonist continues to think of himself to wash away the feelings of guilt, is born.

From that moment, you and me...started going out

The text in the final scenes(confession and epilogue) was so sensual, so dramatic, so beautiful, that my body started shivering when I read it, and it was so breathtaking, that I couldn't make a single breath and just started beating my sofa, so hard, that my mother came in to ask where's the burglar I'm killing, but I couldn't even answer, couldn't speak a single word, I just continued to read it until the very end.

A magnificent game. A single route made the game make a total turnabout for me.
Sugiyama has surpassed himself, and, even though he did, he really needs a rest, so he doesn't make any more video recording games. That idea was short lived, really. Or he needs to go away from portables, somehow, because that really holds back the potential of his ideas.
 
Omega Labyrinth(PSVita)

Ehehe, Nako butt!(and pinku pantsu)

D3 publisher's take on the dungeon crawler x cute girls genre.
The story is rather light-hearted, and the breasts are rather...big.

The gameplay is your usual 3D rogue-like dungeon-crawler, with the addition of TITS. Literally.
Heroines get ω-power for bearting stoopid monsters, and when enough gathers, their milk-tanks magically enlarge in size(until the end of the dungeon run, though).
What's a bit disappointing - each of 5 girls has her limit, at which her breast size caps, and doesn't increase anymore. Party pooper.

 
Just about everything in this game is decided by the girls' bazongas, for example, if they are too small, you can't identify unknown items(flat chest trap effect also prevents that, obviously).
But believe me, you won't be as excited to do it always. It gets super boring with time, so the skip option is very welcome.

Yup, all unidentified items look like...a phallic object, that you need to rub with the girls' breasts to identify
Feminazi would BURN! Muahahahaha, pathetic bitches.

Learning and upgrading skills is also quite the H.
I fapped. To every single CG that's associated with that.
Here are some SPECIAL examples, hehe

 
But besides the erotic and tittilating content, as a game, it's also quite a bit challenging.
And while story dungeons might or not be more or less simple, the extra dungeons aren't so easy.
Challenge dungeons are even more problematic, especially the Sage Cave.

To finish this up, Omega Labyrinth is a very solid and nice to play rogue-like dugeon crawler, with it's own bit of OMFGWTF.
I thoroughly enjoyed every minute I played. 

Shining Resonance(PS3)

Was there really any other choice? OF COURSE THERE WASN'T!

Another one of my backlog games I have been carrying throughout the last two years.

Shining Resonance is, in a way, great game, but on the other side, it's pretty much the worst I've seen in the Shining series.

I love the characters, I love the battle system, I love just about everything about SR.
BUT! later parts of the story, or, particularly, the ending can be called the worst crap ever. I hated it.

Seriously, Yuuma, of course, was a spineless whining brat initially, that's not something new, but it's hard to believe how much nothing he did by himself to save the world or anyone.
While being the protagonist, at least so-called protagonist, Yuuma, generally, has no impact on the story, as the TRUE protagonist is the Shining Dragon inside him, who does just about everything, and saves the world as the result, and even sacrifices himself at the end awesomely.

That brings another problem, that the protagonist, being, generally, a self-insert, and a bad one to add to that, becomes the most easily hateable being I've seen ever.

The female characters are, however, great. I do dislike Sonia(well, who would like her, to start with), but Rinna, Kirika, Marion, Excela and whoever else are waifu-material 100%.

The dating system is a bit annoying, but the date events, night events etc. go very nicely, without boring the player.
The amount, however, is, a bit, questionable. Might be too many, might not be enough to call all of those a relationship.

All that being said, I still loved Shining Resonance. It's a wonder I didn't finish it back in 2014, when it first came out.

And it is still better than Sen no Kiseki II, at least for me. I at least didn't hate the shit out of it after 30th hour of gameplay.

Persona 5(PS3/PS4)

The main game of this year. The most awaited by many, the most desired by just about everyone, and something shitty west won't get until March, when I will already have double platinum(PS3 and PS4)
I, however, didn't expect much of it.
And, perhaps because I didn't, the game turned out to be the best thing I've seen in a decade, maybe.

First of all, I would like to mention the characters.
If Persona 3 and 4 had some characters I like, some I hated and some I didn't give a single fuck about, Persona 5 overdid both of the previous installments, and made a cast of characters that I LOVED COMPLETELY. Not a single character I would not care about, or hate.
The girls of course, but even the male characters are interesting this time(not in gay meaning, of course. fujoshit go die, oh, and Akechi is shit as well, glad he dies).
And while the dating system didn't change much from P3-4, it is still good.
Canon-faggots might dislike the waifu-choosing system, but for me it's great. I built another harem for myself, MUA-HA-HA-HA!

And got beaten for it a bit. But it's fine, girls, you will understand my polygamic ways, one day.
For now, nothing but my pride got a smaaall hit. I can live with it.

Another thing that is 100 ways better than what was in PS2 installments is the battle system.
The return of guns that were missing since Persona 2.

Sorry, little lady, but I'm shooting this thingey if you don't start sucking right away.

More elements, making battles still depend on elemental weaknesses, but feel fresh and new.
Boss battles having stuff like sending one of the party members to set up a surprise attack on the boss.
Persona 5 is a game which's battles will never get boring, at least for me. I've played through it twice, fully, and never ever ran away from a battle.

The game also makes a really smart thing right at the beginning, if you ask me. Of course, I'm not sure how much that really does, but better than nothing.
When you start the game, you will be asked if you agree to the statements stating that "Everything in this game is fiction. All the persons, opinions and events have no relation to the reality around you"(or something close to that".
And if the player refuses to agree, the game will not start, and kick the player out to the title screen.
I consider that smart, because the game features a whole tonn of questionable content that isn't really acceptable in present society, both in Japan and worldwide.
Teacher violence, prostitution, illegal drugs manufacturing, the usage of firearms and swords(prohibited by Firearm and Sword Possession Control Law) and the whole phantom thief theme, or, as society might see it - promotion of theft, etc etc etc.
All of those are generally NOT what is acceptable in society, and in Japan, all of that, except, of course, theft, is generally not even spoken of in public(theft, however, gets a lot of publicity, because it is said to be quite rare there).

The story, despite being pretty, well, simple, is great. The details might be dramatic, with a lot of suspence, but it is really simple in the end - open the dungeon, clear it, and done with this part.
The great is what the game generally wants to deliver to the player. 
The heroes are not fighting some enigmatic, unknown enemy, as it turns out in the end. They are fighting the collective unconcious of the society around them. 
And I like that point, because in the end, a group of people big enough is ruled over by that collective unconcious, except a few individuals, that disagree with the majority opinion, and bring a change into the system that self-forms around them.
"The one who fights fate, and wishes for a change, he, at times, was called a Trickster"

10 points out of 10 is not enough to rate this game. Even 11, even 100 out of 10 might not be enough, really. That's why I consider it to be the best I've seen in the past decade.


Bloodporn Bloodborne(PS4)

To start with, I freaking hate the so hyped Souls series, which this game is a spin-off of.
However, either due to a different conception(needing to do stuff in a rush most of the times, mostly useless shields, so no shield, etc), or because the hunters' theme, or because it actually has some story, I didn't dislike Bloodborne. The first Souls game that I actually did from the beginning to the end, and even took the platinum trophy(well, it was there, why not take it?) as well as expansion trophies.

First of all, while it is ultimately Souls with guns(and don't you dare say shit about guns just being a new parry mechanism, SOULS with GUNS), you won't just go through it super carefully, like you'd do with Demon's Souls, because being too careful will get back at you most of the times.
Or at least it did so for me.
But, despite that, the game is ten times easier than, say Dark Souls(my most hated game ever, and not because I died some times, I hate the hype about a game that literally has no story).

Second, it actually has more or less consistent story. That was very much welcome for me, since I prefer doing stuff for some comprehensible goal, rather than just having a setting, a world and my trusty Longsword +5 to make the game for me.

Third, the side characters have unexpectedly interesting side stories. HOWEVER, there's absolutely no need to do them. I, for one, killed just about everyone first time I played through the game, because they were really annoying. Just watched their story events on youtube later. Didn't regret killing everyone, but thought that I might have made a mistake, lol.

However, not only good things can be said about the game.
Despite it being more or less good, there's just not enough content. Even with the Old Hunters expansion, the game felt too short, and there was literally nothing to do after some time. 
And I don't do shit like PvP, besides the online parts of the game being mostly dead.

Another thing is the voice acting. I have no idea why From Software dislike their own language, but the game is voiced in like 5 languages for Europe, but still only English for Japan. That sucks balls. I really had to 0 the volume of the voices, because english voices suck as fuck. 

And the translation from japanese to english in some dialogues is really strange, if you ask me.
I have been thinking a lot, what does the Doll mean by calling the player "Good Hunter", and the answer was lying in the japanese text, where she calls the player 狩人様, however, I really don't think "good hunter" is a GOOD translation of that term.

It can be said, that I liked the game, but I honestly just had nothing to do at the moment, so I borrowed the console and the game from a friend just to kill time.
It isn't really good, but isn't awfully bad, like Dark Souls 3, that I tried, but turned off right away.

Yuurei wa doukyonin?!(PC)

This one is an interesting case.
To start off - it's short, and I rarely read short stuff.
It's pretty much about nothing in particular, another thing I don't usually care about.

If something is to be praised, it's the animation, since this one is one of those fully animated VNs, and of quite the quality, especially for 2001, but I actually think this one is way better than some of those that came much later, in terms of animation.
But, another thing to be mentioned is the censorship. Gods know what devs were thinking, when they censored nearly the whole lower half of the characters' bodies during sex scenes. It's kinda funny at times.

But all of that, basically, isn't what I want to say about this game, just some background.
While being pretty weak in terms of story, it offers pretty deep philosophy in itself, perhaps without even the developers noticing that in their own work.
And that's what I liked.

If you are reading me for some years now, you know I like ghost girls, right?
Being a ghost means death as a premise, and I've found an interesting PoV on that in this game.

"A person dies twice. The first death is the physical death of the body. The second death is being forgotten by friends and family".
The main heroine, Akane, the ghost that happens to live in the apartment the protagonist moves in, says that once, and then, after some days, when the two already fall in love with each other, the time comes for her.
She disappears, as her regrets are cleared, leaving the protagonist with heavy thoughts about what happened to him.

"A person dies twice. The first death is the physical death of the body. The second death is being forgotten by friends and family. Akane already experienced both. There will be no third time".
This single line made me think a lot, but what shocked me is that while I was making seemingly the right choices(well, actually, you won't know which ones are right, because ALL of them seem unrelated. I just relied on my experience in such games), I only reached the bad end, in which, one could say, Akane actually died the third time.

I've spent quite a bit of time, for such a short VN(it's about 2-4 hours long, really), seeking other outcomes, but every time I reached the same bad end.
There is no guide on the internets, and, first of all, there is no guide to love, you know.
And after spending about 20 hours total, I've finally found a way to a different outcome, even though I had absolutely no proof it even existed, this could've been an utsuge.

That made me think a lot again, and that's why this game deserves to be mentioned this year.
Ah, also, there are other characters to do, but I actually didn't care about them.
 
Prism Heart(PC)

While people tend to like Prism Ark(the sequel) to this game, that's not about me. I actually disliked Prism Ark(eeh, another SRPG? no thanks, I'm fed up with them for the moment), but totally loved Prism Heart.

Why? That's simple, it's ALL ABOUT TIME MANAGEMENT!
Setting-wise, it's a raising sim, in which you are raising, well, yourself. Training to participate in the tournament, yep.

Of course there are also battles, but those happen based on your stats, the player can't do anything, except, of course, raise his stats.

I'm also myself for the n-th time, I must note. While the game has a nice roster of conquerable females: a maid, a princess, an imouto, a miko and other heroines, me being myself, I went for a side character.

I went for Echo, the owner of the inn that the protagonist stays in.
She's the kind of character to never open her eyes, and beating the protagonist harder than anyone ever did, should the situation call for it.
Conquering her isn't easy, as you will need to beat her in the final stages of the tournament for that. Spent quite the time to make myself able to do that.To note, while Echo has an ending, she doesn't have any H-CGs.

The game also features freaking awesome music, in my opinion, and it really saved me in the 2nd quarter of 2016, as I had not been playing anything TIME MANAGEMENT for over half a year at that point of time.

Enjoyed this one a lot, and can only find words of praisal towards it.

Himouto! Umaru-chan himouto ikusei keikaku(PSVita)

And yet another game in which I...do TIME MANAGEMENT. I just cannot live without it. 

This time, UNEXPECTEDLY, I first watched the anime, then bought the game. The limited edition, to mention.

The game is another raising sim, in which you raise Umaru to either stop being the strange little thing she becomes when she wears her sleeping bag, or spoil her, and forgive all of her selfishness at home.

You set stuff like tablet PC, portable console, desktop PC etc., then use them.

Rules are simple - each item raises one stat, while decreasing another one, and, of course, decreases stamina, when stamina reaches 0, the day is over automatically, no matter if you're done or not.

I only did Umaru endings just yet, and, to my embarassment, even though I plan on doing other heroines and, eventually, get the platinum trophy, I seriously can't get the motivation yet.

Umaru has 3 forms(like a true last boss should), and each of them has separate ending.

Outside Umaru good end. The worst of them all, in my opinion. Seriously, if you stop being something, does that mean that you must bury your love towards your onii-chan with work? I don't think so. Disliked.

First of all, being an idol isn't really the best idea, considering the numerous shady stuff you might or might not know about the industry.

U・M・R good end. Umaru becomes a pro gamer, and often travels to other countries to participate in tournaments(in her case - fighting game tournaments), thus rarely being at home with onii-chan.

A bit better than the ending above, but still bad one, in my opinion, as I don't see "pro gaming" as a job, or something like lifestyle. It's REALLY a short lived idea, pro gamers retire at about 30, and still have to do normal jobs then. It's really a bad thing to even start, imo.

Home Umaru good end.

Of the 3 "Good" ends in the game, it might be the best.

Umaru decides to follow her heart's selfish nature, and follows onii-chan to his foreign job trip.

Completely suites her, and doesn't seriously ruin anything. Accepted.

Outside Umaru normal end. Might be the most acceptable for me

Umaru doesn't become an idol, but eventually, after finishing school, becomes a freeter(google what's that).

That fits the most, as that's what most otaku come to - living with family and working part-time to prioritize their hobbies, as well as earn some money.

Those jobs aren't exactly the most profitable, but you have lots of free time to dedicate to your hobbies, as well as some money to spend on those.

In a way, I also am a freeter, even though officially I'm considered fully employed.

So, to sum it up, I totally loved the gameplay(time management is my laifu), but couldn't agree with/couldn't accept some endings, as they just don't fit, imo.


LoveKami(PC)

(to note, this ISN'T the same game that was released for the shitty west in ShiTEAM. that one, while also made by Pulltop, is a piece of shit for shitty west only, it doesn't even have a japanese version, and is mostly unrelated to this game)

I always knew that more or less popular seiyuu can't live on one salary of working with anime/all-ages games.
First of all, you can only get limited amounts of offers, if you aren't super popular to start with.
Thus, some of them take an alias, and work in H-industry as well.
H-industry gives WAY more opportunities, though, the salaries might not be as gorgeous(that depends, though), but one needs to live, you know.
I found this one by doing my famous vndb randomizing, and instantly DL'd, for it had a theme interesting for me(you know, kami, mystic stuff etc), and quite cute arts as well.

But what surprised me, was the voice of the main heroine

While it is stated as 杏子 御津(Anzu Mitsu) in the credits, that, of course, is an alias. Anyone who played Arland Atelier trilogy would recognize it in a second, for the girl has a pretty...mmm...specific voice.
And not being surprised after hearing...Rorona in an H-game is a bit...hard.
Well, after a bit of research, it would turn out that Kadowaki Mai voiced quite a bit of them H-games, but that is known to just about no one.

The game itself is a comedic drama, how I would call it. At times dramatic, at times comedic, kinda slice-of-life feeling, and only gets serious near the end of Tsukuyomi route(I actually didn't do anyone else yet, but I do plan on reading through Inari route eventually).

Reading H-scenes with Rorona voice felt really surreal, but I know I wanted something like that since long ago.
GUST never makes truly adult games, either because R18 is a no-no on consoles, or because they dunno what to do with PC development, or because they are ideologically against making their lovely characters have sex, or, perhaps, because that would break some kind of company reputation they have(though, a quality H-game would be better for your reputation than buggy console one, or at least I think so. And releasing a game w/o any bugs isn't GUST). No one knows the true reason.

So, one could say, I am glad this exists, because I got to hear such wonderful, hehe, voice samples.
It was surprising, but was also really good.
The text-writing was solid, it didn't get boring at any moment.
Also nice soundwork, the BGMs were fitting really nice.
Great artwork, great voicework, and all of that made a great game overall, something I didn't expect to see made in 2010.

I really want to write a lot of things about this game, but after thinking for a bit, I noticed that would just turn into re-telling the story here, so I didn't, and just say it was really good and enjoyable one more time.

Bullet Girls 2(PSVita)

The game is, roughly, about this.

It being a continuation of Bullet Girls, one can already expect something. 
And Bullet Girls 2 doesn't betray those expectations.

Ecchi parts of course, but the 3rd person shooting gameplay is also improved a bit.
Bazookas, sniper rifles and assault rifles are still the best weapons for me, though.
But now, there are difficulty levels, so if you want CHALLENGE - set it to hard, that'll make the game much less fun, but there are masochists who like that, right?

Besides that, there are now two teams of girls, 2 academies(doesn't that remind you of something? I sure know it does for me), which participate in mock battles as a part of training and because of rivalry between them.

The story has 4 parts, 2 being stories of each respective academy, and 2 being something like an after story, in which both academies participate, as well as Yukishiro Rumi(the girl that sells you items in shop) and Hoshikawa Meika(the instructor at Misakimori academy), which are also unlockable as playable characters this time(apparently, due to demand after the first game, where both were only on-screen guides for mission choice etc).

Jinmon trainings now have a variety, since it does get quite boring to do just one girl every time.
So now we have Single Jinmon(one girl):

I don't have anything to say about it, it speaks for itself

Double Jinmon(two girls):

That expression... Tsukiyo came that time for sure, lol.

and Reverse Jinmon(not doing, but being done, hehe):

Kinda scary, but kinda arousing...

Have another one of Reverse Jinmon screenshots, since those faces are priceless.

The game has quite a variety of different jinmon tools, more than in BG1, bringing pleasure to the sadists on this side of the screen, as well as masochists.

There's no particular meaning in playing the game "just to clear it", because it isn't a story-oriented game, and all the fun lies in the way towards platinum trophy, or at least I think so.
I played countless stages, and earn my platinum trophy, netting myself the ultimate pleasure of playing this game.
Each second I played it was full of enjoyment, and I totally don't regret pre-ordering it(pre-ordering is kinda losing it's meaning, since you can get the game way cheaper later. perhaps even with pre-order DLC)
Well, of course, getting the platinum trophy leaves an aftermath of apathy, but by now, I'm used to that.

Dai Gyakuten Saiban: Naruhodo Ryuunosuke no Bouken(3DS)

Being the start of a new series, Dai Gyakuten Saiban was a seriously interesting game.

It didn't, and will, apparently, to my joy and pleasure, never reach shitty west for how much japanese it is.

It is just to note, but that decision from Capcom was smart, considering how much they fucked up the shitcalizations of the main series. That seriously wouldn't even logically fit in this game.

Gameplay-wise, it incorporates 3D investigations from Gyakuten Saiban 5, as well as some completely unique features.
For example, in some of the cases in this game, the main feature of 3DS, stereoscopic 3D, is being used fully. You cannot see the answers to some riddles without using it.
Might be the only game on 3DS to actually use the feature.
Another thing to mention, is the jury trials that Ryuunosuke participates in, when he gets to London.
It really is an interesting system, and is kinda realistic, with jury changing their mind at the smallest pokes or accusations in lies.

Story setting is also much better than main GS series, which has already turned into a bloody mess after 3rd installment.

I just hope they won't ruin that in the already announced Dai Gyakuten Saiban 2.


Characters are, yet again, worthy of praise over the classic series.

The main character is,  while a classic Naruhodo Ryuusomething, is smarter than the dumb Ryuuichi, even if has Susato help him with laws, since he didn't study much(he never even thought that he will actually travel to Britain to SERIOUSLY become an attorney).
Susato is a classic yamato nadeshiko, who, somehow, has her own fighting style and does REALLY painful throws, as well as studies law, and is good at it. All of that even though women aren't actually allowed to stand in court yet(except as an assistant, how it turns out).
She misunderstands words and actions easily.
Sherlock Holmes is...dumb. Always goes the wrong way about his DEDUCTION, and has Ryuunosuke correct him(HOLD IT! Mr. Holmes)

Doesn't this remind you of...Racist Chef meme?

Loli-Watson is...weeeeeell, how do I explain it...too smart? Watson, originally, is a character created so the reader of the Sherlock Holmes stories doesn't feel too dumb for not understanding the tricks, so it's kinda surreal to see such clever and smart Watson, besides Watson being a girl, of course(tho, well, there is one other Watson, classic one, but he gets killed in the first case. Iris' father, yup).

The cases in this one, as opposed to, say, GS5, were really interesting, even fresh somewhere, which really put all my hopes into this new series. I'll repeat myself, but I really just hope it won't turn into a bloody mess with multiple protagonists shit.

Super enjoyable game, I even purchased the DLC, even though it's absolutely meaningless, but still.

Gyakuten Saiban 5(3DS)

If there is a game I want to say something bad about for reals, it'd be GS5. Becoming the main series' first game with investigations in 3D, I had a really bad feeling about it. And it came true.
While not bad as a game in general, it's awful as a GS game


The cases are, mostly, awfully boring. I used a guide just to not even think about the shit happening, as it's super boring, I half-slept during the game most of the time.
After GS4, another new protagonist gets introduced. And that's shitty, really shitty. The game started with Naruhodo Ryuuichi as the protagonist, and I liked him as the protagonist, and I still want to only play as him, since I don't give a single fuck about Housuke or the new yellow bitch.
Sadly, Crapcom shitted on people like me(prolly cause we're the minority, others were shit-happy about another crappy protagonist entering the scene).
I do understand they felt that the all the series is moving in the same key, but couldn't introduce new systems for the original protagonist, since he aged, and prolly won't learn new tricks(but that'd be cooooooool), but I still don't like it.
I heard the original director, Takumi Shuu, wanted to end the series at 3rd installment, and GS4-5 really made me wish that actually happened.


Sadly, that didn't happen, and the shit continued.
The whole conspiracy was so bad I could see through it before it even started, bad guys were too obvious. Not some tricks, but even that was quite crappy, because those wouldn't be solvable if you didn't just try every single thing you could touch, answer and present.

And the last case, with YOU-KNOW-WHO as the main bad guy was simply the worst. What? A guy who can control his emotions? Like...about anyone can do that, how does that shit on the girl's neck even work? Crap, total crap.

I have to admit it this time, this game is total crap and I played it, even if out of total boredom.
Wouldn't advise anyone to even touch it.

Gyakuten Saiban 6(3DS)

After the awful Gyakuten Saiban 5, I didn't really expect anything from 6, but since piracy HATH ARRIVED for the Nintendo 3DS, I tried it just out of curiosity about how bad it'll be.


And GS6, surprisingly, wasn't as bad as I was expecting. While being mostly 3D, even the investigation scenes looked like 2D, except you could change perspectives and all, which is good, because that means they really worked on creating environment that would look like a GS game.
To note, until some of the movements, I didn't even notice character models were still 3D, now that was great.

The story was, well, starting good, since it's good old Ryuuichi being my protagonist, saving ppl from shitty laws in a country that has no attorneys, but then, most of the chapters were mostly awful, because AGAIN the new shits took over, Ryuuichi only got 2 chapters at best to be COOL.
However, a happy thing, one of those new shits opens his own law office in Klein, so PERHAPS we won't see as much of him in GS7. I would be happy.

But if I change the topic from protagonists to the actual story, I can say it went pretty good right till the last case. The last case was a total mess, and the one who was responsible for writing this crap needs to get a punch into the face, or, at least, A BOOT TO THE HEAD.
You know, I REALLY wanted to think of GS series as of something like a "detective" series, since you not only stand in court, but also investigate, build theories, etc. It was one of those, at least until those spirit summoning mumbo-jumbo started. At first it was just cool, and I, same as other players, accepted it, since it was fun.
But this time, it was just lame. Every single piece of conspiracy and unanswered questions that remained until the very end was explained with "oh, it's just that **** used spirit summoning to become someone else" and "yup, she's alive because look, except her, NO ONE can do it. like...the queen can't, so she's not a legal queen of Klein".
Spirit summoning in GS is really a convenient piece crap, since even your body changes when you do it.
Well, I do see when did that come, since Klein is the country of spirit mediums and mysticism, but it was still super lame.


In the end, one could say I managed to finish it just to see more of Leifa, the loli-princess of Klein.

It seriously could be really good, if not the crap in the end. But how it is, Gyakuten Saiban 6 is really only average, which is sad, as I really hoped for something when I played through the first chapter.
I do hope I never see that red gay that decided to remain in Klein to open his own law office. Pls, Capcom.

Layton Kyouju vs. Gyakuten Saiban(3DS)

Okay, this one, yet again, COULD have been good. No, it is good for the most part, but the ending parts totally suck.

It started as a super interesting, intriguing game that has both Gyakuten Saiban and Layton Kyouju parts in it, meaning investigations, riddles and trials.
The setting implied it will happen in a middle-age world of magic, witches and inquisition's witch trials.
And like about half of the game went in that key, and was super interesting.

But as the main riddle about the girl Naruhodo Ryuuichi and Layton save, one from prison sentence, one from "witches", Mahone Katarsia, starts to reveal, the game gets more boring as it goes, and what, in the end, it turns out there was NO MAGIC, NO WITCHES, NO WITCH EXECUTIONS, and everything was pure science and WHOAH, PERFECTLY BLACK MATERIAL(meaning, that it is an idealized physical body that absorbs all incident electromagnetic radiation, regardless of frequency or angle of incidence. That generally means that objects made from that material would be completely invisible to human eye, yup).

Completely lame, and I really empathized with the characters, really felt I needed to save someone on those courts, but it ALL, ALL was just a big, fat conspiracy.
Though, I can admit, I didn't notice that until the last moment, and that is something to be praised, since the game is from the same people who usually make Obvious Saiban and Obviousfessor Lolton.

The game also became the first one to have multiple witness testimonies, that would later appear in DGS, for example.

And so, LK vs GS is, yet again, a pretty awesome game brought down to mediocreness by it's ending. I did enjoy it, but playing through the last parts was pretty tough.
But you still can play it, at least. I won't recommend against it, like I do with GS5.

Shin Megami Tensei IV Final(3DS)

After SMTIV, I kinda didn't have any expectations, as I dropped clearing SMTIV, due to how boring it got near the middle.


Despite that, SMTIVFinal turned out nicely, and I cleared it without stopping for even a single day.
I must, however, admit, leveling without DLC is annoying, hard and not interesting at all.
So I went and bought the EXP grinding are DLC.
What's funny, is that you can, in a way, grind money and other stuff there too

The story was good, I really liked the general development of how the protagonist dies, gets ressurected by Daguza in exchange for executing his orders.
You can later betray him, then force him to be born anew, without his evil plans, thus gaining freedom and life back.


But what I didn't like is that there are basically no alignment-related choices, and your ending is decided by doing only a single choice near the end, and it's "Fight/Not Fight" the rulers of Law and Chaos.
Though, that made it really easy to go the Neutral route, which ends in smashing the face of YHVH(one of the names of god in Hebrew).
That's also kinda classic for SMT, as you also smashed his old jewish face Megami Tensei II and Shin Megami Tensei II

SMTIV Final turned out to be a great game for me as an old fan. Of course it still has the new features from IV, but overall, it felt like playing II in 3D. And that was nice.
Cleared in 30 hours, all endings(heard of savescam, hehe?), and loved it, even if less than some other games this year.


Star Ocean 5: Integrity and Faithlessness(PS3)

Perhaps the most interesting moment in the whole game...Carrying lolis is always interesting

After long years of wait after the awful 4, Tri-AssAce finally made it, Star Ocean 5.
I was kinda excited for it, cause they promised it'd be similar to SO3, which is arguably the best PS2 game I played and the best Star Ocean game. 300 hours of gameplay for me, tonns of extra content in Director's Cut version and even more.
Well, in a way, they didn't lie.

Star Ocean 5 has striking similarities to Star Ocean 3 right at the beginning, like...Fidel's fighting style and skills are like a copy of Fate's from SO3.
Also the general game flow is really similar to older SO games, but not one in particular to my knowledge.

Some people bash SO5 for having spaceship battles shown like...dots and triangles on the ship's main monitor. Well, that really wasn't cool, especially since you can't skip those parts.


There is, however, something to praise developers for, really, and that is "seamless battles" which are, unlike in Tales of Shitstiria, really seamless, or very-very close to that concept.
You won't even notice that there is a small lag when you start battle(there is, when Fidel takes out his sword, but it is so small that human eye can barely notice it).
And that's pretty good. Even grind becomes pretty fun, easy and much faster, since you don't spend even a few seconds to start battle.

Story-wise, some say it isn't really Star Ocean, but, well, as someone who didn't manage to finish Start Ocean and Star Ocean 2, but finished SO3 numerous times and SO4 once, I cannot find where exactly it isn't Star Ocean, except it only happens on one planet, without any grand conspiracy like in SO3.
Yes, despite Fidel using Ethereal Blast as his Rush Attack(note: that's the skill Fate used in SO3, and it was, apparently, because of doctor Linegod's experiments), there is no conspiracy behind it, or at least none was revealed.
Of course, considering SO5 happens AFTER SO3 in timeline, one can assume Fidel is somehow related to doctor Linegod's experiments, since there are people from much more developed planets on the one that the story happens at, but all of that is, kinda, irrelevant, in the end. Fidel also doesn't give a fuck, and just wants save Lilia(official is Relia, but I really don't see how they got there from リリア, japanese language doesn't work that way).
And that's fine by me.

Character-wise, SO5 is still pretty good. I enjoyed the character interactions in Private Actions, as well as in small conversations on the map.
It did annoy me a bit that during those "small conversations", you might get a slow down in movement speed, unless you enter a battle, but that will end the conversation, so it's best to just listen to it until it ends, and they are pretty enjoyable anyways.
(like those moves Emmerson tries to put on Fiore, and she just shakes him off each time) 

What I enjoyed the most, though, is...this

Miki's panties, apparently, got changed during the final stage of development, but are still, overall, ok with me.

If it's 3D, making the camera unable to show panties would be unforgivable. 
Thankfully, even in Sen no Kiseki, you can trick the camera to show you panties, and in SO5, you don't even need to do that..

Even though the game is kinda short, and the story is just a bit cliche, I liked Star Ocean 5, enjoyed playing it, and really need to get back to it's extra content some time later.
It is certainly an enjoyable experience, unless you are one of those who  are crying "IT'S NOT STAR OCEAN" into their pillows.
I, however, only got 3 endings, Lilia, Miki and Fiore. Yep, no way I'd want to see Emmerson, Anne or Victor ones.


Nisekoi: Yomeiri!?(PSVita)

2 years after it was released, and some months after FUCKonami removed all the DLC, along with the game from PSN, and made all the codes invalid(which is sad, but piracy saved me later), I finally got to buying/playing the Nisekoi game.

Chitoge hears about how much of a slowpoke I am.

Besides being more or less normal dating simulation game, it also has a hidden name(that I gave it) - Metal Gear Raku: The Waifu Pain.
Reasons for that name are simple - the game incorporates a Metal Gear(original ones, not Solid) gameplay elements as a mini-game.

And that mini-game becomes quite an important story-related gameplay element, which is nice.


The story premise is that Raku brings an offering to a small shrine(inari-zushi, since the shrine worships a fox-god) and meets a little girl, who claims she is the god of this shrine.
The girl is called Otama, and she, apparently, is a god. She does correct herself, saying she's just a youko yet, but will become a full-fledged kami later(after ascending into a tenko).
As the result of this encounter, Otama comes to live in Raku's room, because she liked the sushi Raku made, and wants moar.
And while Raku declines her offer to bind his and the girls' fate, that doesn't stop loli-kitsune from ruining his so-so peaceful life all the time.


The game has 6 routes to play through, 5 of which are for female characters(yup, Ruri has one, but believe me, you won't be satisfied with the end), and the sixth is a secret Raku route, in which Raku becomes a woman through Otama's godly powah.
And that...leads to this

Gold.

Of all character routes, I liked Chitoge's the most, however.
Reason for that being that in that route, though Otama's involvement, Chitoge gains a complete twin, whom they decide to call Mitoge, and she is the most ideal Chitoge that Chitoge herself wishes to be - polite, kind, cute, and not a gorilla.
The best part is that there are two endings to that route. The true one is not interesting, since it's just lame confessions and saving Chitoge.
Alternative one is, though, pretty good, as Raku decides to let Chitoge disappear as Otama's powers fade, leaving Mitoge as his bride. It cannot be called a completely good end, but I liked it a lot.

Ruri's route that I mentioned earlier, would also be good, if it had at least some romance in it, but it isn't, and that makes me sad.
The true one is like a friend end, and the alternate one has the whole world wear glasses forever, because Ruri refuses to take hers off.

This isn't bad too, I think.

Mentioning all that, and remembering that FUCKonami removed both the game and the DLC from PSN, it's really hard to continue.
I really want to say that it's literally the best game Konami was involved with in years, but how they handled it later is awful. Had to resort to hacking my VitaTV and pirating the DLCs to try the Yomeiri scenarios.

Nevertheless, it was a great experience. I played through all the endings of all character routes on a single breath.
The writing was good, and it was interesting.
While DLCs are impossible to get now(if you're not a pirate, of course), this is still a nice game to do.
I plan to, eventually, plat it, but it's pretty hard, since you need to gather a lot of absolutely randomly happening stuff.

一択彼女 加藤恵(Main Heroine Katou Megumi)(Android)

A new mezamane(mezamashi manager) application released in 2016.
As you could guess from the name, it features Katou Megumi from SaeKano as it's MAIN HEROINE.


Same as previous applications under the same brand, it is, GENERALLY, a talking alarm clock.
You can set the time either by tapping menu, then setting it from there, or by pressing talk, and telling Megumi which part of the day(since Japan uses 12 hours clock) and the exact time you want to be woken up at, and she will do her best to wake you up at that time.
You can also set up snooze time, in case you are REALLY bad at waking up.
Though, she will only try again for 2 or 3 times, because "I don't really have a reason to do it. Besides, while getting yelled at is yet bearable, getting pulled into your bed would really be problematic".


However, besides being you cute lovely alarm clock, Megumi has a variety of other functions she can do.
For example, she can remind you of stuff you really don't want to forget about.
She can read a boring story for better sleeping, if you just can't sleep when you need to.
She can(and will) tell you your horoscope and today's weather at waking you up on schedule. You can also ask her about it through Talk button.

Megumi can also react to various things you say. And at times(with updates, I suppose. or, perhaps, depending on her mood), the reactions will change.
For example, at first, when I confessed my love towards her, she would say like "Ah, acting training for the game, right? Okay, then "I'm so happy, I've always been waiting for you to say that""
But now she says

"You know, I think you won't get away with brushing it off as a joke soon, will you still say that? I will answer, you know?"

Making me ultimately happy, because it gives me hope she will, one day, be able to accept my feelings.

There's also an interesting reaction to marriage proposal

Eeh, but I'm still a high schooler.
...that's why, wait just a bit more

A completely new feature introduced in this app is Game Making, in which you clear Tasks towards the future game you are making(according to original scenario, of course).
The two first tasks are deciding:
1st - the heroine's name
2nd - when did the two meet
3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th are not released yet.
Each task starts around 22nd of every month. 
If you have one started, but didn't finish it(though, you usually only have 10 days to clear it, somehow), you'll have to use items(you get some free, but additionals are paid) to fix that.

There are also DLC costumes and events related to them(only happen if you bought the costume, it seems). Costumes are sold either with events included(about 800 yen), or without(about 500 yen), but that's normal for them mobile games, probably.
I only got the date clothes(with event) just yet, and the event starts after "Nightly confirmation"(Megumi asks if you want to be woken up at the same time tomorrow).

After the confirmation, Megumi will ask to borrow your shower, and then, will fall asleep in your room. You can poke her for interesting reactions.


The app costs 480 yen(tax not included) and 517 yen(tax included), at least for me.
My most used app on Android ever. Megumi is mai waifu(恵は俺の嫁だ！！！) 
Megumi is only available on android, so iShitOS faggots can die from being jelly, muahahaha
To note, Megumi entered my waifu ranking last year as #5.
I am yet to officially explain it, but those rankings mean nothing. I love all of my waifus equally.


Medarot Girls Mission Kabuto ver.(3DS)

I must, yet again, clarify, that I never played Medarot, or watched of touched any material related to it, but then, Girls Mission was announced.
By now, that's kinda my style.

Explaining the gameplay, it's a simple(quite simple), robot action battle, but still a bit more complicated than, say, Gundam games, since in Gundams, you still attack a Gundam, not a particular part of it, to my knowledge.
In Medarot Girls Mission(I cannot say for other installments, but I would assume it's the same), the robots consist of four parts - head, body and L/R hand(weapons). Each has it's own HP bar, and to "destroy" a robot, you must break all of it's body parts.
Here comes an interesting part - by using a hyper finish skill to defeat a robot, you can undress it's owner girl.
Me-he-he-he!

Laura-tan, ペロペロ

The story seems a bit too complicated for a Medarot newcomer, but I did understand the general meaning.

The game is pretty enjoyable, with tonns of robot customizations, different game modes(besides story mode, I mean) and generally with tons of content, which is pleasant.

There's not much to say for me, as I'm not a Medarot fun, but I sure enjoyed undressing girls, yup. I am yet to play Kuwagata ver., but I plan on doing that sometimes later.

Enjoy the promo video to understand the game better, that's, like, the best thing I can give besides saying I liked it.

Gen'ei Ibunroku #FE(WiiU)

Atomic brofist #FE

Gen'ei Ibunroku #FE is what came out from SMTxFE project. If I put it in words how I felt it - it's Persona, but SMT, with a faint lingering aftertaste of FE.

The battles remind more of Persona, then either SMT or FE, that's for sure, but #FE has it's own features, like the Special gauge and Session(Combo) chains.
It does, however inherit the classic(for SMT) elemental weaknesses, and the classic(for FE) weapon type weaknesses.
There are a lot of things to try, test and master in there, but that's something to experience, not to explain.


Instead of Personas or Demons, in #FE, you make weapons from materials you get from fighting enemies.
Each weapon has a set of skills you can learn from using it(now that's similar to SMT, where you can learn skills from demons by leveling them up).
There are also skills to learn by giving materials to Chiki, the fairy, who also makes songs, and is the character in the Utaloid software in this game. Those really change the way you battle, like by improving your Session skills, or unlocking Improvisation skills.

However, the game, if you play it without DLCs, is very grindy. In later chapters, you'll really want to be higher level, but raising your level is pretty hard on normal enemies, so you'll hunt for very rare Wild Enemies, which ALWAYS are either the same level as you, or higher, thus are pretty hard to beat at higher levels.
That's why I, being totally bored with the grind(it's not really fun here. About Persona 3 level of fun, meaning - not fun), bought the EXP item DLC dungeon, and grinded everyone till LV99, then blasted through the game. Since the DLC is pretty cheap, I would advise getting it to anyone feeling as bored with the grind as I was.

The story is, in a way, a mess. Till the very end, and even after finishing the game, I really don't fully get, how did they bind FE characters with IDOL INDUSTRY. Except, perhaps, what Mirages mentioned about their world not having such kind of art such as singing/dancing for others(idol culture, yes).

This was censored for the shitty west #troll

And while the main story wasn't really interesting for me, I barely felt for what happened there, the side-stories were very good, and I cleared all of them without even knowing that's a requirement for true end(first of all, I didn't even know this had multiple endings). Nevertheless, this isn't Persona 5, so I didn't like just every character. Generally, all male characters felt annoying, even too annoying at times, and of female characters...only Tsubasa and Mamori were barely bearable. But the side-stories were interesting for all of them, somehow.

Overall, the game was good, but in the end, I felt like it's only a mid-tier game. It does pull you inside it's world at the beginning, but as the game progresses, the player will feel more and more bored, or at least I did.
It's kinda only half as good as it could be. Perhaps, they shouldn't have used the idol industry as a theme.
But I still enjoyed playing it, even if I had to buy the EXP dungeon DLC to give myself a push towards clearing it. DLC is bad, but, at times, I just don't care and get it.

Majin Shoujo Episode 2: Negai e no daika(3DS)

Continuation of my arguably favorite 2D sidescroller of this generation.
Zizou still continues to teach stupid humans that overusing Syega isn't good.

The gameplay changed quite a bit with all the new skills that you get. It's even kinda puzzling at times, since you have a wide variety of skills, and you need to determine the boss' weakness.
Well, that's not my style, I'm not playing Rockman here, so I just beat everything with default shots. I'm too lazy to switch those. Sorry, devs, you worked so much on it, and I just don't give a fuck.
I felt the game to be much easier than the first one, however. 
Even though it has more bosses, new patterns etc, the game is just EASIER. That's the usual case, because the more polished the game becomes, the easier it is

This game also got a lot more story and dialogues than the first one did, as well as more stuff to unlock and gather.

This is the shortest review I ever did, but it's just such a game. It being a side-scroller, you basically have nothing to praise or scold in the more or less slice-of-life story, where Zizou just beats everyone because everyone does something bad.
The gameplay only got better, so that's about what anyone would have to say without writing a tonn of dialogue text here. And I praise the devs for that, even though the game became easier.

Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization(PS4)

Then, can I be taken as your 「Lover」?

Since I loved SAO IM and SAO HF greatly, I cannot lie I didn't expect something from SAO HR.
However, it only answered my expectations partly, to be honest.

The gameplay, from being a classic asian MMO gotten changed to a more modern asian MMO, so if SAO HF was only 10% action, and 90% RPG, HR is 70% action, 30% RPG. Kinda that way.
For some people, it's even TOO action, because Original Sword Skills(OSS), or, how it's called after patch 1.04, Sword Skill Connect(SSC) , require quite precise timings, so for some people 10-chain OSS is absolutely impossible.
I, however, didn't experience such a problem, because I first cleared the game WITHOUT updating it past the original ver 1.00.
During level grind on desert area boss in solo multiplayer, I easily achieved even 20-chain OSS with Dual Wield

10-chain OSS is too easy. Done on the very first boss...near the end of the game.

However, there was another reason for me to stay on ver. 1.00. 
Bandai Namco, somehow, decided to censor this CG by drawing a swimsuit for Kizme

It would be understandable if it was done for the upcoming(at the time) overseas release, but the strange part is that overseas release DIDN'T get it censored.
Oh, Scamco, you so funny.

Bamco also COMPLETELY broke the game once, in patch 1.04. They tried to re-balance the game(why the fuk?) completely, to reduce the damage the players deal(because the players could one hit bosses and enemies) and the damage dealt to players(because bosses SERIOUSLY could one hit you).
That didn't go well, and in the end, during patch 1.04, players could barely deal damage to Jashin outdoor bosses. I, for one, dealt 0 damage no matter what I did, except if I was full buffed. Made the game nearly unplayable, so I stopped playing until 1.05, where the damage amounts were returned back, and re-balanced again, but so that the game was playable.
Since patch 1.05, while the damage enemies deal to the player is reduced, players still have opportunities to deal massive damage.

I also want to note that patch 1.04 and further nerfs Hyper Armor, which was initially 30 seconds of COMPLETE invincibility(a whole MINUTE, with buff extending...buffs), and now it just prevents staggering, so you can continue your sword skill assault for as long as possible.
I consider that pretty stupid, since Hyper Armor exists since Infinity Moment, and nerfing it that way is simply strange.
The buff extending buff is also nerfed, and only prolongs the buffs for 20%(nearly nothing). Well, that's for normal one, there's still a similar one under Buffer skill tree, which is still extending buffs by 100%.

Story-wise, however, HR is great.
The concepts of VR that Kawahara Reki creates are simply awesome, and are what present  technology should aim for.
This time, after the Aincrad(SAO) incident, the new game, SA:O(Sword Art: Origin), happens in a world before the creation of Aincrad, called Ainground.
Aincrad doesn't exist in that world, but the game still uses the Cardinal System created by Kayaba Akihiko.
After that incident, companies making VRMMO have done tremendous efforts to prevent newer death games...for people.
Yes, with how SA:O works, and the newest VR helm, people can't be forced to die, how it was in SAO with NerveGear, however, it is, in a way, still a death game. Not for living humans, however, but for the NPCs living in SA:O. 
Unlike the NPCs in most games, most NPCs in SA:O have AI in them, and, as it is revealed later in game, copying AI-NPC data is prohibited on the server. 
Thus, if an AI-NPC dies, he/she won't respawn, but a new NPC will be made, with a different AI, to replace the dead one.

Kirito, the VRMMO hero, harem bastard and other bad words he might be called with, meets a strange NPC without name, that offers a quest without any text in the quest log for it, who just wanders the city without purpose.

She later gets named "Premiere" by Asuna, and then accepts that name.
Slowly, Premiere starts to understand things around her, learns to fight after nearly being killed by a random player knowing the data copy of AI-NPC being prohibited, starts to understand feelings of others, and starts having her own feelings.

Premiere can, probably, be considered the main heroine of the game, but despite that, somehow, she doesn't have her own 添い寝(sleeping together) CG, but I hear there are plans to add one(no source, I just heard that somewhere)
While Bamco managed to break the game a few times, I still enjoyed it a lot.
It might not be as good as HF or ReHF was, because it changed too much, but it is still a very good game.
Premiere also joined the ranks of my waifu.

To note, Premiere also has her own mobile browser based "game", in which you can teach her new words(while it's for mobile devices, you can still access it from a PC by changing user-agent in, say, Firefox)
Pervy stuff banned, but I still managed to give her the knowledge of the anus being in the ass. Fuck yeah.

From here, I will write reviews for 2 games I play(ed) through PSNow, which will also be my general review and opinion on the whole PSNow service.

Kami-sama to Unmei Kakumei no Paradox(PSNow)

I once wrote my thoughts about this game into my old blog(that is currently dead), but that one was too detailed, and was more like a re-telling of the game's story.
This time, I'll just focus on gameplay, and how the game is played through PSNow cloud platform.

KamiPara, how it is shortened in Japan, is a more-or-less classic 2D rogue-like dungeon crawler by NIS, and that already tells you something:
There will be GRIND.
Because NIS games generally grindy, look at Disgaea.

However, KamiPara grind isn't as annoying or tiring as Disgaea's is, thankfully. The main story, which you have to clear to unlock extra content(Extra Dungeons, Survival Dungeons etc), is pretty easy(but you can still get tonns of money from Ch. 8 and Ch. 10, hehe), but the real game starts after the story, when you start the 2nd cycle, and the extra content unlocks.

And from there, you might get problems with playing through PSNow.
You see, PSNow is more or less stable, but shall your internet connection disappear for even a second, you'll get disconnected from the virtual PS3 in the cloud, without saving the state of your game or anything. This isn't good, especially considering that story dungeons are 5-10 floors deep, but extra ones are 50-100-150-200 floors deep.
Thus, I had to resort to using middle game saves, which, thankfully, aren't deleted after usage, just the 1 in the system save becomes 0, so if you backup a system save with flag for middle  game save usage active, you can reload that save infinitely.
That brings us to the need of having PS Plus subscription, because PSNow only allows backing saves up to PSPlus online storage(copyable and uncopyable data limits applied, like you can't copy Demon's Souls savedata).
However, with that and being a bit careful, you won't lose more than 3-5 floors of progress in a 200 floor dungeon.

Considering KamiPara has no DLC, it's pretty much perfectly playable and beatable through PSNow.

Though, the 10 minute limit of no controller input(actually now NEW controller input. if you just press 2 buttons with a coin and tape, it will still start the countdown) limit, after which you will be disconnected, without state saving, will be pretty annoying if you want to get 9999 total level through Unconcious Learning grail.
It's okay if you can be near the console to move the left stick, or press R1/L1 at that time, but if not - it's better to not even start that.

Overall pretty enjoyable experience of re-playing one of my favorite games with trophy support(my PS3 is banned, so trophies are only local. PSNow allows me to get and sync trophies on my current profile, which has never seen a real PS3).
I also absolutely love the opening

Dream Club Gogo(PSNow)

Another game I did a review for in 2014, and for this one, there's only little to add, so I will try to focus more on the PSNow experience.

I would like to mention the connection problems that might occur right from the beginning, since I've mentioned them a bit earlier.

In this game, those are completely not critical, as the game auto-saves you here and there.

The biggest problem that I, you or anyone will have with playing this game through PSNow is that you cannot get the DLCs, and they are not included. Honestly, I'm ready to purchase all those DLCs, but PSNow doesn't allow that(first of all, it seems you can't even connect to PSN from inside virtual PS3).

That's understandable, because it is still a virtual machine(or so I assume) with game image loaded into it so you can play it. DLCs might be pretty big, so server space costs will reach skies, most likely.

However, if you give games that are much better played with DLCs through your service, it is a nice idea to find a way to give the player an option to play with DLCs.

I hear Sony is discussing a slightly more expensive subscription to PSNow with DLCs for all games(woah, that's rich). However, I will have already platinumed the game until they implement it. Perhaps ALL the games.

Performance-wise, playing it through PSNow isn't different from playing it on a real PS3. The framerate was already very stable and high(though I don't know the exact numbers, 30 for sure), so provided you have good internet connection with speed over 5Mbps, the game performance will be perfect for you.

I must also mention a really interesting thing about PSNow here, but if you have a PSVita and PS4 with a PSN account that has PSNow subscription on both, you can actually take the online trophy in this game and other games with dead online.

It's pretty simple - make another account on PS4, switch to it, and start the PSNow game from an icon that was created on your home screen during first launch.

Then, take your Vita, and launch the same game from PSNow app.

Dunno if it's a bug or not, but by doing this, you will have a different account playing the same game on a DIFFERENT cloud virtual PS3, but using the same subscription, on your PS4, and your Vita will be playing on your account, so you will be able to play online WITH YOURSELF.

Great for games with dead online, because you can just take them alone.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

To sum up my experiences with using PSNow, it is generally a very convenient service, especially for people who, like I did, used a hacked PS3 and got it banned, so they can't get PS3 game trophies now.

Japanese PSNow has a wide variety of games, 191 to be exact, available through subscription service, and 221 game available for rent(30 more than the number available through the subscription, yes), which is good, but they seriously need to think about implementing DLC support more, as well about implementing some kind of snapshot function, so that you don't lose progress if you somehow go away for over 10 minutes.
Having a screenshot function(PSNow doesn't allow screenshots) would be great too.  
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Okay, and the time has come to think back, on what I have left unfinished
My backlog this year is:
3DS:
Project X Zone 2 - it is good, really, but I jost lost the will to play those later long stages. Dunno how will I overcome this ever.
Armed Blue Gunvolt 2 Sou - it's also good, but I kinda couldn't play with the second character, as his play style is too different from GV's. Again, dunno how will I overcome that.

PC:
Sora wo Aogite Kumo Takaku - it's super good an interesting, but I really should've just played it on my desktop, as I seriously can't find the motivation to play it on tablet at work.
Relict: Toki no Wasuremono - it's also really good, but it's sloow tactical battles with no animation skip got me.
Fifth - since it only works on XP and older systems(Rune used self-written dlls which aren't compatible with systems over XP), it has to be played on a virtual machine. That's not a big problem, but I also stumbled upon a moment I cannot avoid which goes into game over. And no guide anywhere ever.
Fifth Twin - same problem with launching, kinda just forgot about it.

PS3:
None

PS4:
None

WiiU:
None

Vita:
Platinum trophies only
Himouto! Umaru-chan
Net High

PS2:
Aria: The Natural ~Tooi Yume no Mirage~ - since I started it after watching Aria animu, I honestly expected more heroines to have ending(well, at least Alicia-san...), but it turned out only the kouhais have routes and endings. Bummer. But will have to finish it someday
Aria: The Origination ~Aoi Hoshi no El Cielo~ - when I lost most of interest I had in the previous game, I decided to start the next one. It is, however, also a bit of a bummer, because the protagonist is a girl. And while girl on girl action is fine with me, it's kinda not what I wanted for the franchise. And I haven't found any info on routes and endings, and under the tonns of current games, this one was forgotten, kinda.

---

Okay, I will yet again try to make some kind of tops, but honestly, I'm not sure I'll succeed this time

Kuro Tops 2016

Datesim Top 2016:

You know, Doumoto-buchou, of all girls, I actually liked you the best
Who else can be so cool while being so cheap?

1. RecoLove Gold Beach

2. Ciel no Surge

3. Nisekoi: Yomeiri!?
(note: Ciel no Surge is only 2nd, because it is not a pure datesim, it's genre is so hard to describe it cannot become first in any of the rankings anyways)

ActionRPG Top 2016:

Will you make me your 「Lover」?
As if she needed to ask, she already IS my lover.

1. Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment

2. Star Ocean 5 Integrity and Faithlessness

3. Shining Resonance

VN Top 2016:

 1. Plastic Memories

2. Kyuuketsu-ki no Libra

3. LoveKami

Rogue-like Top 2016:

1. Omega Labyrinth
2. Kami-sama to Unmei Kakumei no Paradox
(note: KamiPara never entered any tops, so it's okay. I simply first played it before I started this yearly verbal diarrhea)

Detective drama Top 2016:

1. Dai Gyakuten Saiban
2. Layton Kyouji vs Gyakuten Saiban
3. Gyakuten Saiban 6
(note: and don't try to say it's not. Even if the main thing happens in court, you still spend most of the time doing detective stuff)

Action Top 2016:

 1. Bullet Girls 2
2. Medarot Girls Mission
3. BloodPorne

2D Side-scrolling Top 2016:

 

1. Tales of Hearts R Infinite Evolve
2. Majin Shoujo Episode 2

Mobile application Top 2016:

1. Main Heroine Katou Megumi
(I think this shouldn't be here, but I had to put it somewhere, right?)

And the final, most juicy - J R P G TOP!
jRPG Top 2016:

 1. Persona 5
2. Izumo 3
3. Gen'ei Ibunroku #FE

Okay, done with the tops. 

Persona 5 is the obvious GOTY, so I won't even mention that.

---

Okay, and now it's time for the classic "Let's look into the future corner".

And no, we won't be predicting future. As always, I'll just mention what I am waiting for in the new 2017 year.

I feel the list is yet again smaller than it was in 2016, but I guess that's to be expected, as the game industry is approaching another crisis in coming years.

Accel World vs. Sword Art Online: Millennium Twilight(PS4/PSVita)

Re:Zero Kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu: Death or Kiss(PS4/PSVita)
New Game! The Challenge Stage!(PS4/PSVita)

Yoru no Nai Kuni 2: Shingetsu no Hanayome(PS4/PSVita)

Majo to Hyakkihei 2(PS4)

Manga-ka Debut Monogatari: Suteki na Manga o Egakou(3DS)

Ramune 2(PC)

Kinda total domination of PS(hit)4, because no way I'm buying multiplatform for Vita anymore.
Such things happen, when a lot of platforms die at once, no helping it.

---

I guess this is it for this year. The future doesn't look so bright, but lets believe the current situation will change once the year starts. It always worked that way, and, I hope, will work in 2017 too.
Good luck, Happy New Year, and may we meet again here next year.

I really should start writing stuff BEFORE it's the last week...
I also should write in text editor software first, as blogger has really shitty auto html-code conversion. I never knew...because I actually wrote everything in text editor first. Or maybe I just didn't care.
Now I know how a managaka feels when the deadline is closing...