Cave Johnson

I own every Key VN available in English on Steam, but I haven't got to most of them yet. I attempted a Key VN marathon of sorts back when I got most of them, though I was only able to get through Planetarian and Harmonia before my heart got annihilated. Clannad is currently 65% off on Steam, and goes on sale there quite often. It's a good option if you don't mind getting it digital on PC.

I appreciate the warning, but it doesn't make much of a difference to me; I'd still go for the trophy even if it required 100k enemies defeated (but also complain a lot). Regardless, these kinds of trophies are annoying. I can only imagine that they are handled by staff who are clueless about how the game actually works. That, or they just throw out random numbers not based on any logic whatsoever. I suppose it's not all that uncommon with this series, as earning 100 million credits in Re;Birth 1 is a similarly pointless trophy.

英雄伝説 黎の軌跡 [Kuro no Kiseki] THE LEGEND OF HEROES 全てのトロフィーを獲得した。 I’m really behind on updating my most recent platinums, so I’m going all the way back to four months ago. Though I got the game on release, it took months before I felt I had the time to sit down and actually play it extensively. On top of already being a long game, I tried to read all of the dialogue, which I usually gave up on if there were too many kanji I didn’t know. This makes going through the game take at least two times longer than normal for me, but at least it’s good practice. I'm not going to go over the story since this series is two whole games behind in the west, I'm having trouble recalling the finer details, and of course, I didn't fully understand it either. Once the PS5 version comes out and I play it using the spreadsheet translation, I should be able to give a more detailed write up then. I’m barely going to comment on the trophies this time around, since they’re more or less the same as every other Kiseki game. There are slightly more differences due to the alignment system I guess, though even then the trophy list isn't that different. Aside from some missables as always, there’s not a lot to worry about; nightmare on NG+ is just as easy as previous entries. I didn’t plan the platinum screenshot, and I inadvertently got some NPCs playing mahjong in it. All of the tiles are blank upon closer inspection (that or they’re all haku tiles), so I don’t think anyone has to worry about Falcom adding mahjong to Kiseki… yet. Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroine’s Infinite Duel Infinite Blasterz You earned all other trophies. Another platinum from four months ago, except this technically goes way farther back. I got some of the trophies over three and a half years prior. I believe I got some of them in order for a milestone to end up how I planned it, but then got distracted and never finished the rest. I finally got tired of leaving it unfinished, which is why I’m talking about it here. I don’t actually remember why I bought this game in the first place. Considering that I don’t particularly care for fighting games like this, nor was I familiar with most of the characters, it doesn’t make sense. Regardless, I was determined to go back and finish it. When I did, I was surprised to find out that it was a lot easier and shorter than I expected. I started up the game after years of not touching it, and in just a few hours, I already had the platinum. I can’t think of anything else I care to say about the game; I barely recall buying it, after all. It was okay I guess? I’m certainly not qualified to speak on the quality of the gameplay, so I couldn’t review it in that aspect. I suppose all I can say is that I got the platinum, shelved it, and moved on. Soul Calibur VI A New Story of Swords and Souls Obtain all trophies. Yet another platinum from four months ago, and it’s also another fighting game. This makes more sense, however, as I like Soul Calibur; it’s a rare exception to my general disinterest in fighting games. I grew up playing the hell out of Soul Calibur II and (to a slightly lesser extent) III. When I finally had the chance to try IV and V later in life, I was massively disappointed by both of them. I don’t know how anyone thought going “all your favorite characters are gone and / or dead, here are their replacements” was ever a good idea. Who the hell wanted to see that shit? Not me. That applies more to V than IV I believe, but I can’t really remember and don’t care either. After these negative experiences with the previous two titles in the series, I was naturally skeptical of Soul Calibur VI. I gave it a chance anyway though, since my sister had it (she also played II and III a lot “back in the day”). As it turns out, VI is a huge step in the right direction for this series. Story wise it’s best described as a reboot, which was a good idea considering how IV and V screwed everything up. While I played Soul Calibur VI quite a bit around the time it first released, I lost interest in going for the platinum at some point. I put it off for months, then months turned to years, and it ended up being three years and three months later when I finally got the platinum. Unlike Nitroplus Blasterz, Soul Calibur VI requires a lot more for the platinum. Before going back to it, I’d say I was about half way done with the requirements for the single player trophies. Thankfully, I had the sense to get the online trophies back when the game was still new, so that wasn’t a problem. Overall it’s not a difficult platinum, just a bit time consuming and somewhat boring. Sealing 30 astral fissures (trying really hard not to make a joke about a different kind of fissure) can be frustrating, but I quickly learned to skip the ones with cheap bullshit gimmicks and wait for more reasonable ones to show up. Doing this made this trophy a joke, albeit somewhat of a grind. I found that Libra of Soul got dull rather quickly in general; the main story mode was better and didn’t drag on too long. It’s not that big of a deal though, since I wasn’t exactly expecting a compelling story from a fighting game. I also tried to get into playing ranked matches online, but I lost interest fairly quickly. Even though Soul Calibur is an exception, I suppose I’m just not that into fighting games. I have two more platinums to go over, but I’ll save those for another post whenever I get around to it. That, and I also don’t feel like cramming five platinums into one post. Recently, I started planning out two milestones that are coming up: platinum #150 and trophy number 7,000. Rather than have one game for both, I’m currently thinking of making Akiba’s Trip 2 my 7,000th trophy, and Blue Reflection: Second Light platinum #150. I’m also going to try to reach both of these milestones before I have to go back to class for the Fall 2022 semester, but that’ll probably be hard to pull off.

I would've rather got the New Game VN on Vita, but it was cheaper on PS4, so whatever. Also, Neptunia Virtual Stars easily has the best back cover of any game in the series:

I figured I might as well get this while it's still cheap, seeing as there is zero chance of a western release at this point.

The inconvenient thing about status updates is that everyone who responds gets a notification every time someone else does after them, and there's no way to unsubscribe from this feature as far as I know. At the end of the day I doubt anyone cares all that much, but somehow I feel like I'm spamming a bunch of notifications when I respond a week later after ten others have. I made the same mistake with the Atelier series. In fact, I'd argue that going back to the original Atelier Rorona after playing the plus version is far worse than going back to the original HDN after playing the Re;Birth versions. On the contrary, I started with Senran Kagura Burst on 3DS (an otherwise excellent dust collecting device) and I don't think it's a bad starting point. Although it's possible that I only think that way because I started with it. If anything, I found that Senran Kagura goes down in quality with later releases, though only when it comes to the story anyway. Burst and Deep Crimson are leagues above the rest of the series when it comes to the plot, and I'm talking about actual plot here, not that kind of plot. For whatever reason the storyline from Deep Crimson wasn't continued and everything started anew with Shinovi Versus. That reminds me, I should probably go back and listen to some of the bonus character voice clips, since my understanding of Japanese was very minimal back when I played mk2. I like that many of these games contain a bonus character voice menu, which is something generally only seen in VNs. Anyway, I'm not sure how much of the hate for Nepgear is actually real or just the development team screwing around. For all I know it could've been just a few fan complaints online that became somewhat of a running gag in Victory. The second Falcom represents Trails / Kiseki, I guess they couldn't fit that and Ys into one character. Two characters is kind of ridiculous, though. While I prefer Kiseki, it makes more sense to represent Ys due to its historical significance as one of the longest running RPG series. Quite ironically, Cave was one of few game companies I hadn't heard of prior to playing these games. I haven't played it myself yet, but given the recent Nep x Senran Kagura crossover spin-off it's certainly a possibility. I suppose the closest we've got so far is Homura as a DLC character Nitroplus Blasterz, which isn't very close at all. It's really a miracle how far this series has come despite how rough it started out. Based on the reception you'd think a sequel would've been completely off the table, but it ended up working out anyway. That's the best way to do it. I went into this series having no idea what to expect and I think it worked out better that way. I wasn't aware that Victory could still be purchased digitally, and it's a good thing that it's cheap. Some games haven't been discounted in years (or ever) and probably never will be before being delisted (like every version of Project Diva: Dreamy Theater).

I always enjoy reading your detailed monthly updates, and there are a few I meant to respond to before time slipped away from me. Now that you have a checklist it'll be easier for me to show up a few weeks late, lol. Anyway, going back to the original HDN is rough after playing just about any other main game in the series, so perhaps it's for the best that you played that first. I started with Re;Birth 1, so I'm not sure how I would've felt about it had I started with it. mk2 is quite an improvement over the original, and Victory refines the formula even further (as you'll find out later). Glad to hear that you liked Nepgear, as many didn't seem to like her as the main character (to the point where these complaints are the subject of some jokes in Victory). I also like that you mentioned Yui Horie; I couldn't imagine disliking any character that is blessed by her angelic voice. Nice, I'm aiming to be a scholar in that subject myself. This series does have a problem somewhat with sometimes bringing back characters, sometimes not. I've played most of the games in this series, and I couldn't possibly remember what characters are included or left out of each game. I vaguely remember Cave and Falcom being in either Re;Birth 1, 2, 3 or perhaps all of them. To make matters more confusing, there is one game where there are two separate characters named Falcom (one for each of their most popular game series). It's surprising to me that there hasn't been a fighting game spin-off yet, as the potential character roster would be insane. That's very close to how I feel about these games. If one were to critically analyze everything in them, it's easy to find flaws such as the recycled dungeons and lack of towns that aren't just a menu screen. Some may not be able to overlook these flaws, but for me, the pros outweigh the cons by far. Anyway, I'll be interested in hearing your thoughts on Victory when you get to it. It introduces a certain sleepy sadistic maniac, who happens to be my favorite character in the series.

That's unfortunate for anyone who only owns the Vita version. I suppose it will only be available for the PS4 version then.

This and part 1 are both fantastic albums that are (from what I understand) very important parts of power metal history.

I'm currently going through Akiba's Trip 2 for the third time, and I can safely say that Rin is still the best girl. :P Kidding aside, I wonder how this will affect the Vita versions of the game. Is it still possible for developers to release DLC for Vita games? I believe no more physical games can be released, but I'm really behind on news regarding that subject. I also have to wonder if a trophy (or trophies) will be added, if so I'll have to buy an NA copy of the Vita version to get the trophies. That's nothing compared to what fisty123 will have to go through, though lol. Regardless, I'll be buying this DLC day one for the PS4 version.

I forgot to mention that I'd of course be open to any counterarguments (preferably from those who have played the first game more recently), but I doubt many have. I have to admit that not finding the Digitally Downloaded article was poor investigating on my part. With my 0 followers on Twitter (I never actually tweet anything myself), I doubt I'd get a response. Either way, I'm not sure the author could (or would) say, as it would be akin to throwing the other author under the bus.

I've only played the first two Serious Sam games, so I wasn't aware of those articles. It certainly wouldn't be surprising, though.

Exactly this. Part of what has kept me from playing Persona 3 is the lack of a true definitive version. Not being able to control other party members in a turn-based game is a design choice I'll never understand.

After playing through most of Blue Reflection: Second Light, I’ve come to believe that it doesn’t belong on this list. Part of that comes from my personal experience with both the sequel and the first game, but more importantly, TheGamer seems to have no credibility whatsoever after doing some digging. They have no Wikipedia page, and seem to have appeared only recently. Their only “claim to fame” (if it could even be referred to as such) is “In 2021, we wrote an extensive expose on workplace abuse at Techland, an oral history on Dragon Age: Origins, and we were the first to report that PlayStation was moving to shut the Vita store down”. They’re also affiliated with Game Rant, which contains some of the worst, low effort, and ill-informed articles I’ve ever read. As for the article in question, they claim that Kishida’s comments come from a “roundtable interview with ourselves, Digitally Downloaded, and Twinfinite”, but the link to Digitally Downloaded is dead, and in the Twinfinite interview there is no mention of fanservice at all. I wouldn’t be surprised if TheGamer twisted Kishida’s words, or outright made some of them up. His supposed comments sound really hard to believe; they sound suspiciously like the exact words people such as the author of this article want to hear. Ironically, their website claims to “...stress objectivity in reporting topics of a sensitive nature” in their ethics policy, which is clearly not true in the slightest. There is absolutely no attempt from the author to be objective in the sourced article. Before, I couldn’t dispute this, as I hadn’t played the game yet. Now that I have, it’s easy to see what a complete farce this article is. Relatively speaking, Blue Reflection never had a lot of fanservice, and the sequel is more or less the same. It is clear from some of the transformations and swimsuit costumes that no one on the development team actually cared about toning down the fanservice. If anything were toned down, it would have been to avoid the game being rejected by Sony. From what I understand, that’s not enough to get a game on this list. Anyway, the whole reason I wrote all of this was that I’d hate for someone to pass on Blue Reflection: Second Light because of a poorly written article written by the laughing, joking, numbnuts at TheGamer. I think it’s evident from their games that Gust doesn’t care about the supposed “attitudes towards fanservice in the west” pushed by a select group of individuals.