Criminal Girls 2（クリミナルガールズ２）

I pride myself on never buying games at full retail price on release but gosh darn, I liked Criminal Girls INVITATION so much that I couldn't resist pre-ordering the sequel with scented eyemask, etc. (Still smells good!) I did however inexplicably manage to resist shelling out for the spanking stick (I dunno even what to call it) as tempting as the notion of owning such a great collector's item would be for my game collection (plz, plz pick up on the sarcasm).

Oh hi hunny, didn't see you there! Oh this? It's nothing, just my new video game

But alas, before even starting the game, I knew that it would be missing that Imageepoch magic that's so hard to measure called "fun". I played it for a few hours and dropped it due to its grindy nature and the slightly off putting character design. Now, almost 4 years later, I finally grinded the plat out in about 50 hours. NIS released a patch soon after release to add a "Casual" mode probably realizing their "Normal" difficulty was the equivalent of "it's just like Dark Souls!" mode in other RPGs. Still, I managed to resist the temptation to lower the difficulty all the way up to the final true boss.

After grinding for a few more hours, I tried to beat the last boss at level 51 but it kept healing itself faster than I could damage it so I eventually cracked and set it to casual. Yeah yeah, I know, gamer fail. Maybe now, I can finally be a pro reviewer and actually make some money. At least you get a ton of exp so I did eventually beat it on normal at level 56 after beating it in casual 4-5 times. Yes, you have to beat the final boss and true final boss 8 times each (16 total) to watch all the endings. Ugh.

This is just like that time I beat Sekiro without using my hands

The endings aren't even all that great. It's like one CG per girl (reused twice) and some bit of dialogue. The other major disappointment was the lack of content after the final boss. Based on the first game, I was hopefully expecting both Maya and Enri to join your party. But no, unlike the amazing end of the first game, the post endgame content was just a token 2 extra floors and yay another boss you have to beat 8 more times... RIP Imageepoch, how I miss you so.

This doesn't include the 5 hours in the other save file for beating the previous final boss BLEH

The battle system while pretty much the same on the surface to the first game, somehow felt lacking. They added a coaching mechanic that will help or hinder depending on not sure exactly what but I didn't really find it that useful. Also, the skills didn't seem to complement each other for any cool strategies. The reason why the first game was so fun was how sometimes things play out just right like a finely tuned Magic deck. This game was just like, "ugh Yurine, why oh why didn't you suggest the revenge move when you know the boss is about to hit your party like 10 freakin' times. STUPID GIRL!"

Hey don't judge me because my girls are all S instead of M!

On the other hand, the punishment... err excuse me, motivation portions definitely pushed that Cero D rating to the limit. The funny part was the game was obviously self aware of the times with dialogue along the lines of, "Sensei, you'll get locked up for that these days." And then it proceeds to show one of your students chained up so that her face is pressed up against Shinoa's breasts. Kuroe especially was like got dayum! Hope the UN doesn't see this! (For more reasons than one) I'll have to self-censor adjust this next screenshot to align closer to global values as non-Jhipsters might not be able to handle it. After all, my $.001 of monthly Adsense money is at stake here. #FreeH■■■K■■■

Hey, I'm just trying to protect the pride of "our" country (wink wink)

Overall, I enjoyed the game, my negativity really just speaks to how good the first game was. This one is pretty decent as sequels go. It certainly didn't destroy the whole premise of the first game and shat on my childhood memories like the turd Chrono Cross. It's more of the same just... not as good. Ok, but not great. At least coupling TWO girls in motivation really shows innovation in that department.

Screenshot to illustrate the S&M mechanic, what are you trying to look at??

Also, always a nice Jhipster smugness bonus when the English version is censored though it just looks weird because they mostly just removed the chains/bindings yet kept them in the same positions. At this point, I would normally complain that the fact that these games weren't kept in Japan contributed to the climate of commercial games today but honestly with all that's going on with the cancer of Twitter and FB and the fact that anybody can become outraged at anything, I feel like it was inevitable. Some (don't know of a better way to say this) white guy thinks Love Live! is somehow better than another anime sexually(?) even though it's the shittiest anime I've ever seen. In summary, we're all fucking doomed.

Couldn't have said it better myself, Enri...

Score: 3.5 I'm not one of those creepy bloggers agonizing about Tifa's breast size in the FF7 remake but while we're on the topic, what cup size did the pixel analysis indicate? out of 5 (50 hours to beat)

The 16 repetitive boss fights and especially the lack of effort at the end left such a sour taste at the end, I honestly wanted to dock the score down to a 3 average but as one of the last games of this type we'll likely ever see (at least on Censorstation), I left it at a 3.5 and poured one out for the end of an ecchi era. If Criminal Girls X comes out on consoles, I'll probably buy it, but I'm sure it'll be watered down. After all, it's not censored if you do it to yourself right resetera??

It's not censorship because the devs are trying to make money! #LOGIC

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

IA/VT -COLORFUL-

I was pretty hyped for IA/VT Colorful as evidenced by the fact that I bought it only 8 months after release. As a cheapo gamer, I try to wait for the "Best" garbage edition before I buy the OG cover that's actually resellable. That puke yellow shit is practically unsellable on eBay. (#GamerTips)

Ah, the old "fuck you, buy the original release ya cheapskate!" edition.

Given that I only know of two other non-Miku Vocaloid console rhythm games: the GUMI-defiling atrocity Megpoid and Project 575, I was looking forward to this as one of the few alternatives from Sega's grip on the micro-genre (my own pro game journalist term for "niche" like "micro-celebrities" minus the dick pics). On the other hand, I also wanted to save this one for a rainy day so I only played a bit here and there. Fast forward a full 3 years after buying the game, I decided it was fine time to wrap it up.

So stupid! I'll never be PRO game journalist if I keep finishing my games!!

First off, the major big benefit of playing the one and only rhythm game based on IA Vocaloid is that all the songs are totally new with nothing recycling from previous games (there aren't any duh). I have to give major props to the nice selection of songs included within the game (gasp!) and the professional quality unlike the ParaPhray amateurs with Megpoid. As the title implies, the UI and gameplay are very colorful and pleasant to the eyes.

Of course there's DLC. 300 yen per song with no set discount?! Pfft, skip.

The songs and PVs are all good, including some really musically interesting (aka weird) tracks such as Chiri Chiri Juso. I really liked the songs by out of survice and Party Party was also pretty catchy just to highlight a few. All in all, the tracks were solid and I have to say some of the animation on a couple of PVs were outstanding.

Good shit, I watched this in PV mode at least 3 times

However, one minor downside is that this game was not as fun as the Diva games in terms of playing around with costumes and accessories. First of all, only a smaller selection of songs support costumes (no accessories) and it just wasn't as fun to play dress up. Also, there are no mini games or having to spend hours to get a stupid goddamn cuckoo clock. That's a good thing if you didn't get my drift. In fact, I'm not even sure why you have to go to the items menu to "get" your costumes after they unlock because you don't need any sorts of points to get em.

No Diva points to grind here and most importantly no fucking patty cake.

In terms of the gameplay, I found that the difficulty was very fair. The double presses are always parallel eg up+triangle, left+square so the platinum is very doable for those comfortable with the genre. The only tricky parts are some of step up plays on hard mode. The random mode is the only way you get double key press that don't match and that can get quite confusing. I was not able to finish all the steps because of the 10 star difficulty with hidden notes on STEP 21. I might be able to do it with a lot of practice but it's not required for the platinum so I didn't feel like it.

DJMax veterens be like, "Is this a joke?"

Score: 3.5 now, can somebody PLEASE make a decent GUMI game?? out of 5 (37 hours for platinum)

Add another solid title for the Vita as one of if not the best handheld console for rhythm games. I thoroughly enjoyed this little "hidden gem" from Marvelous. Now, Diva F 2nd is totally a better game in many ways but since it has all those songs from the PSP titles, I gave this one the same score for being totally fresh. I don't know a lot of IA songs but I can see myself becoming a fan. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any sort of sequel in the works but one can hope.

As an aside, this game is rated Cero C with a needle icon likely due to just one song. Boy, those Japanese sure are sensitive about drugs. Oh I know! Let's rip IA from all media works as punishment! (RIP Judge Eyes Pierre)

Another favorite track of mine though it has drugs. #Boycott!

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Deemo: Last Recital（DEEMO～ラスト・リサイタル～）

There seemed to be a kind of rhythm game dark ages for a few years where the only console games coming out were what I call "play alongs", basically the video game equivalent of a tambourine at karaoke. Bemani (Konami) pulled out of the home console market and Neowiz was MIA after DJMAX Technika Tune. So naturally I was excited when Deemo was announced, a new rhythm game for the Vita. I was less excited to learn soon after that it was a port of a mobile game but I was resigned to the realities of this iPhone mobile shit fest era. Rayark is a Taiwanese developer (or Chinese according to China but let's not get into THAT whole mess) but of course, as a Jhipster, I played the Japanese version.

The Japanese VA for this Taiwanese game is Ayachi #BAE

The Vita version I believe added those nice animation cut scenes and while they are silent, there are a few lines of dialogue voiced by cutie Taketasu Ayana in-game. I dug the stylish presentation at least much more than what they're teasing for the upcoming WTF 3D remake on PS4. Overall, I enjoyed the simple story and presentation even though all the songs are basically a black background.

I'll take this over the 3D shit, thank you

The gameplay is very simple and this is a definitely a good rhythm game for casuals. Being a mobile port, you basically touch the keys when they reach the line. The yellow keys don't require a tap meaning you can do some very satisfying slides.

Ooh, this is going to be so satisfying

The piano is a major part of the story so all the songs have a piano track which naturally means that the music is not quite as varied as other rhythm games. Of course, they managed to sneak some dubstep in because how will I live without more dubstep? (barf) Overall, I thought the included songs were pretty good though nothing super memorable except for Sakura iro no yume; I must've played that shit like over 10 times.

This reminds me of some song from a Ghibli movie

Though the Vita version had a decent amount of songs, the rate at which they unlocked was way too slow meaning you ended up playing a lot of the same songs again and again. There are a handful of songs unlocked playing the After Story and they offered the Shattered Memories DLC for free but it only unlocks after you beat the game. This means I finally got a whole bunch of songs only after I was kind of already over the game. And of course, you can't help but feel cheated now that the Switch version is out with ALL the DLC which I imagine is a crazy number of songs. No trophies on the Switch but who cares about that shit, not me!

While full combo is pretty easy, it's a BITCH to get 100% (Silver trophy)

Oh well, who knows if Switch is even fun to play with that size and weight. The Vita 2000 was a perfect size for me to swipe away while holding the thing laying in bed, something I can't say applies for the Switch. #NotSaltyOkALittleSalty Also, for some reason the fully animated cut-scenes from the Vita version appears to be missing, going back to the original still images. The Vita version may be worth it just for that if you can get it on sale (not on a $ale like when I bought it).

I can't recommend Vita version over Switch (even though it's better)

Score: 3 fine, I guess it's time to switch to the Switch, ugh out of 5

Overall I had a fun time with the game and it's a solid title for the cost I paid in yen (it was on $ale). Obviously my score might have been higher if all the DLC was included like the Switch version. I just wish that the keys actually made the music. In some segments, there's an echo if your timing is off so your skill does have minor affects on the music and the the Duet mode actually seemed better in this regard but overall, it sounds mostly the same whether you play well or not. Definitely no DJMax here. (Please don't ask me how I played Duet mode with no friends.)

Having finished this a full 2 years after I bought it, the rhythm game market is hotter than ever. Not only did Neowiz knock it out the park with fucking amazing DJMax Respect, Sega lost their shit and released the double whammy Future Tone and Future Sound. Well Konami is still fucked but otherwise, it's definitely a good time to be an oto-gamer and Deemo was a good palette cleanser for the dry years.

You'll need to google the meaning after you beat (spoiler warning)

I mean honestly, does ANY game need more CV than just Aya-nyan?

Oh those Taiwanese devs, they're so funny

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Undertale

I learned not to get swept up by internet hype especially since I STILL regret paying even a single cent for "oh look at me cover all the hipster selling points" indie title Gone Home. But as even my nephew recommended it, I guess I had to try Undertale at some point especially since I live in my sister's basement for free #MillennialMinimalistGamer.

What my room looks like minus piles of games, empty dew cans and hentai wall scrolls.

I decided to get this one on (my sister's) Switch during the recent #BLACKFRIDAYKILLERDEALSCLICKNOW!!!! even though I would have preferred to play this on the Vita. I skipped the Vita because digital games are region locked and I didn't want to waste the money and space on a physical copy. I'm not a weeb so I really didn't want to play this in Japanese and cringe at how they tried to translate all the stupid puns nor did I want to have to reset my Vita to NA region. The Switch version miraculously has no region restrictions and even comes with both languages. I'm sure glad I went the English route because the JP version doesn't look like it uses any Kanji. I guess what was an unfortunate technical restriction from the Famicon days is now some sort of weird hipster retro fashion statement. Fuck off.

Speaking of ぎじゅつ, have you heard of fucking Unicode?

Even in English, I noticed a weird usage of singular "they" to refer to the Player, which in our time was a sentence agreement grammar error. I thought it was an easy problem to fix by asking your gender but then I remembered nowadays that would be a PC nightmare with whatever popular genders youngers are identifying with this week. So yeah, I guess they don't have to worry about grammar no more and by "they", I was referring to me. So should I start talking about the game or finish off with another round of old man ramblings?

I feel like every indie game I played has at least one picturesque, scenic road. +1 hipster point?

Given how hyped this game is for reasons I cannot fathom except I guess not everybody has played 30 years of masterpieces that were never translated to English, the question is not if this game is overrated but by how much. After all, DDLC pretty much lived up to the hype for me so miracles do happen. Well, I'm happy to report that Undertale is only very mildly overrated. Unlike other shit hipster titles, this game actually has some substance and is even fun to play. The combat system is challenging and the music is really good all around.

The entire OST is good, which is quite a feat.

As for the story, it was pretty good and yes, I'd hate to say it but for the hipsters, it does have that Mother 3 vibe. I don't know if Toby played Mother but I wish he could have at least added a dash option like Mother 3.

I thought this was gonna be a place for some revelation but no, it's just where the boat takes you back.

To see the true ending, you do have to play the game twice but it's not that much of a chore since the game is pretty short. The characters were charming enough that I did feel bad about deleting the game but hey, what are their lives compared to the extra space so nephew can play the next trendy game?

Not everybody made it in my first playthrough (sorry lesser 🐕)

I think the story had potential to make this a 4 great game but I didn't quite get the narrative about the Player. I don't want to go into spoilers but yeah, I don't understand the reason for why you were still there.

Overall, it was a good game but I'm still glad I didn't waste my money on an overpriced physical copy. At least it's not published by Super Limited "you might need to suck some dick to get a copy" hipster publisher.


Score 3.5 out of 5 (played maybe around 5-15 hours even though the Switch knows the actual FUCKING number and no I'm not going to install stupid parental control app just for record of hours played)

I might have gone for a 3rd playthrough to complete the trophies but oh, Switch doesn't have trophies. How am I going to know I'm fully enjoying a game without trophies? And also, the Switch is fucking heavy to play in bed, portable my ass. Oh I guess I was supposed to stand it up and play with my (non-existent) friends IRL during a trendy party on my urban roof? Thanks Nintendo for making me feel inadequate. Ok, that's it for my mini Switch rant, sorry.


Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Trails in the Sky SC Evolution（英雄伝説 空の軌跡 SC Evolution）

OH MY GOD.

Sora no Kiseki SC Evolution is a fucking loooooooooooooooooong game. Got dayum! That's really the first thing I have to say after 118 hours of trailing in the sky... or something...

Game too long, doesn't respect reviewer's time. Score: 0 out of 5 -Shitaku

Of course, now that the original PSP game has finally been localized (oh, welcome to 2006, non-Jhipsters), you might think you can beat this game under 60 hours, but remember I'm playing through the main story like an audio-book and listening to hours and hours of professional voice acting takes a lot longer than the version that's now 12 year's old. (Sorry, non-Jhipsters).

Most don't know SC secretly means Shit-hole Countries cause Japan is racist unlike USA

I started playing Sora no Kiseki SC Evolution right after I finished FC, which is always a mistake. I mean, I always do this even though I'm always burnt out from the previous game and inevitably, I drop the game after a few hours. Though in this case, it didn't really matter because I had zero chance of finishing such a long RPG without dropping it at least 3 or 4 times (or 5... or 6). The only reason I was probably able to finish it was my vain attempt to catch up every time Falcom announced or released another game in the series. At any rate, once I got up to Chapter 5 clocking in at 60 hours, I got far enough in that I figured, fuck it. Time to GIT GUD.

Unfortunately, that's not a coincidence as chapter 5 is when you're done traveling the lands of Liverl for the 2nd time. Ala FF X-2 style, Falcom saved a buttload of work by recycling all the exact same locations from FC. It's reasonable to expect a game to start slow as it introduces the setting and characters so I gave FC a break for the slow start. However, I naively didn't expect to do the same thing AGAIN in the sequel. Yeah, you finally get to go to the docks at the Capital (big whoop) and that tantalizing locked room in the sewer of Rolent (spoiler: there's nothing in it), but 90% of SC's locations are recycled and milked to death. So while the highlight of FC was all the detailed sprite trinkets, I was definitely less impressed this second time around.

Wow, I didn't know Libeeru was spelled like that in English. I guess better then Liverpool?

However, what WAS impressive was the sheer amount of dialogue and how much of it was voiced. If you thought FC had tons of dialogue, you ain't seen nothing yet as SC probably has more than double the previous game. In addition, there's TONS more variation depending on who you decide to take in your party compared to FC which had fixed party members for the majority of the game.

The level of variation in the voiced dialogue was made possible probably only because the original developers didn't have to worry about voice acting. It only takes a dev a few copy and paste operations and a switch statement to code up "Let's go, A-kun and B-ko!", "Let's go, B-ko and C-chan!", "Let's go A-kun and C-chan!", etc., etc., etc. Some of the dialogues even depend on what you did in the previous game ala Mass Effect (before EA took a huge dump on it). When it came time to voice the Evo version, I really don't envy the enormous job that was in store, especially for poor Estelle-chan. I highly doubt that the newer games such as "Steel at its natural temperature" would have the same level of immersion, though I would be highly impressed if it did.

Notice the little pacman to replay the voiced dialogue. (Sorry non-jhpisters)

Falcom also could have taken the lazy route and decided not to voice at least the side quest dialogue, but nope, they soldiered through and even though the VA quality of the various NPCs sometimes sounds like Falcom friends and family members pitching in to help, I at least applaud the effort. Fei, the mechanic, is a hottie though cause she kinda sounds like my ex. (We broke up because they changed her illustration style to be based on the manga spin-off instead of the canon light novel.)

Hey, where's the Falcom friends & family cast credits?!

As usual, the game is chock full of side quests and not all of them are just filler. You'll probably miss a few hidden ones unless you are playing with a guide. The one for chapter 2 was an absolute BITCH, and was actually the most difficult battle in the entire game because FUCKING JIMMY dies in one hit and it's game over (hard mode ofc). There were literally times when you would lose the game even before your first turn. If I was smart and bought the accessories that prevent sleep and confuse for all 4 party members at the Capital, it would have been much easier as you can keep casting absolute guard on FUCKING JIMMY. Of course the store in Zeiss didn't have JACK SHIT. I finally made it with a bunch of Evade 2 Quartz and plenty of items for the status ailments after like 10 tries.

You know what was surprising though? Just by completing this optional sub-quest, FUCKING JIMMY takes his stupid pirate treasure to the museum and you can talk to him throughout the next chapter. Eventually, he ends up applying for a job at the museum. Presumably, none of this would have happened if you didn't complete the optional sub-quest and would have affected even a tiny bit of dialogue in Chapter 8. I didn't check but it would be almost impossible to see every tiny piece of dialogue in this game.

Music was not bad. A bit better than FC.
A couple variations I did check for fun was even a tiny change depending on the order in which you spoke to NPCs or party members. For example, when I spoke with the lady at the restaurant in Rolent, she mentioned her daughter wanting to see Estelle and Estelle replies, "Actually, I already said hi" based purely on the order in which you spoke to two NPCs. Most of these tiny variations in dialogue are voiced as well and really adds immersion to the world not unlike Fallout.

The attention to the tiny sprite details also added to the immersion. While I was a bit disappointed at the heavy recycling of the towns and locations from the first game, I still enjoyed seeing the various tiny expressions in the character sprites and the little accessories. This is the kind of game where if the character were to make an omuraisu (hypothetically speaking), you would see the tiny eggs cooking in the frying pan and a dot of ketchup on the finished product along with the salad.

As a Tiny Kitchen fan, I approve of this game.

The gameplay, while the same as FC, was more interesting as you get more powerful orbments. While in the first game, I almost ignored Arts because of how long they take to cast, this time around, thanks to upgraded orbment for 40-50% reduction in cast time, I made way more use of Arts buffs. Having absolute guard even in a small circle was almost OP as I just bunch my characters and cast after every attack.

As for the story, well, it was a bit of a disappointment honestly. There's nothing wrong with it and it's a perfectly fine, orthodox (what we call Jhipsters call "King's road") story. However, when you experience a story that spans two games and over 150 hours, you kinda end up having super high expectations on a grand finale. And let's just say, while the story wasn't bad, it was certainly no Xenogears. The new art and videos were a pretty good addition at least IMO. I mean, if it wasn't misogynistic that is.

Oh settle down, spoiler freaks, she's right on the damn LE game cover

While I really did want to give this game a score of 4 as a great game, the ending just doesn't deliver greatness. Also regarding the length, while I had fun with it and it's chock full of content, I'm a very busy man and I would like to move on to my next paycheck... err I mean review. I'm not doing this for fucking free you know? Oh oops, actually, I am doing this for free cause OH MY GOD I'm playing games... for fun?? CRAAAZY. So yeah, fuck you Kotaku, this game gets a 4 just for the hours of fun and entertainment.

Score: 4 ok sure why not but WTF is up with Ren's voice? Don't they have lisp speech therapy in Japan?? out of 5 (118 hours to beat)

Having said that though, I'm totally burnt out and I definitely WON'T be starting 3rd anytime soon. Maybe I'll get to it when Falcom releases Subzero Steel 6 Kai.

I mean c'mon, you get to see an NPC hungover, throwing up in the shower. GAMING GOLD!

At the end of the day, I had fun times with all the NPCs and the side stories. I just have to wonder how the story would have turned out if Joshua was ugly and not a fucking ikemen. Where's the representation for ugly, fat men in gaming today?! #GamerGate.

Oh, and FUCK YOU JIMMIE!

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Great Ace Attorney（大逆転裁判 -成歩堂龍ノ介の冒險-）

For some reason, I have no trouble getting through Ace Attorney games as this must be the only game series on the market that I'm actually mostly caught up on (minus crossover stuff). In fact, the reason why I haven't written about all the AA games is because I finished them long before I started this blog and don't really remember the details too well.

So when Daigyakuten Saiban was announced, I could've bought it and played it right away buuuuut, AA5 was such a disappointment, I was wary of the franchisement of the series ala in the style of "Ass creed" and COD. Anyways, I steered away for a while because reviews suggested the story was half-finished. Sure enough, with the announcement of the sequel aka "ok, hopefully this time they finished the game for real", I thought it was about time to get my objection addiction fix in.

I don't even remember all the countless references to this series

My first impression as I started the game with wary skepticism was got dayum, the music is good. The AA soundtrack really needs to be fully orchestral and finally, we have the technology to make the music come alive.

Thank goodness Nintendo is finally getting modern technology!

Just listen to that sweet Contrabass
Beside the sweet soundtrack, I really liked the fresh 20th century setting. I think the franchising of Naruhodo Ryuichi is really what made AA5 so dull and tired and Capcom really should've ended it with that character (but I'm sure Marketing/Sales had different opinions). Anyways, who cares about all that shit. It's WAIFU TIME!!!

Susato: My AA #1 Waifu

The highlight of this game is definitely Mikotoba Susato. Her grace, her Yamato nadeshiko mannerisms, a delicate and yet strong willpower. Oh man, everything about her makes me want to travel back in time to Japan before the advent of Gyaru-go. Ugh, JK nowadays are so tensage.

Git your "chou yaba yaba gachi" shit out my face, HO!!
As for the meat of the game, the plot, well, there's a lot of filler cases. Except for the god game AAI2, we all know the first case is just your typical tutorial filler but honestly, even though I haven't played the sequel, I'm 99% sure case 2 AND case 4 are pretty much filler as well. So if you consider 60% of the game is filler, yeah, I can see why they "needed" to split it into two games. Only by case 5, does the story START to get interesting and so really, in this first game, you're just left enjoying Susato's mannerisms and the music. Fun times, but not much more than that.

me> Please marry me Susato!
However, the story is not nearly as unfinished as the Japanese reviews suggest. Yeah, it leaves some questions unanswered for the next game but I was expecting the game to end at any moment out of nowhere based on how pissed some of the reviewers were. Given the complete lack of taste of Japanese gamers nowadays, maybe they should've added some gacha cards and suckered people out of several thousands of yen to review more favorably? Anyways, while this game is not as good as the best AA games, it's certainly better than 5 and a bit better than 4. Given that this is a Capcom franchise now, I don't think you can expect much more than that.

I do find it interesting to finally play a AA game with juries instead of the usual bench rulings. Even though AA4 hinted at adding juries, it's funny we had to go back in time to finally experience it.

Score: 3 I dunno I'll have to wait and see how shit plays out so 3 for now out of 5? (35 hours to beat)
Bonus 0.5 point for #1 AA waifu Susato and OST

After the disappointment of AA5, I really don't expect too much from AA games anymore in terms of the story department. The best I can hope for is casual fun times with likeable characters and maybe even some moe. In that regard, Daigyakuten Saiban fully delivers even though the cases themselves are mostly underwhelming. Even for the ladies, I'm mean I'm not gay or anything but Holmes and the prosecutor are pretty damn hot. Just wait till you see Holmes without his hat.

At least I can add this to the shrinking list of Jhipster Japanese exclusive titles. If you're wondering why Capcom is quoted as saying they "can't localize" this title, I think a recent Sherlock Holmes lawsuit settlement might be a very good plausible explanation. To sum it up, we Americans are consumerism slaves to our corporate overlords and lawyer shark jokes, etc. etc.. Ahem, anyways, time for the obligatory Jhipster smug seal of approval on this never to be localized Japanese gem candidate if they don't fuck up the second sequel half of the game.

Jhipster smugness seal of approval

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Net High（ネットハイ）

Net High is a game where I have so much to talk about I honestly don't know where to even begin. This game is truly a product of our time, an artifact that would have made absolutely no sense only a few years ago and is a perfect encapsulation of our society at THIS VERY MOMENT.

This game has it all including shameless self-plugs!

I'm sure kids of the future will look back on the kids today watching other people play games on twitch, their snapchat shenanigans, and whatever else they're doing nowadays and look bemused and confused with their typical smug "I can't believe this is what old people used to do!" asshole attitudes. Finally, today's kids can get a taste of their own medicine similar to how us old fogeys feel now with these stupid kids react videos to rotary telephones, Reaganomics, the holocaust or whatever the fuck they're doing on the youtubes nowadays. I'm sure the future kids can have a good laugh at these old kids watching videos on a OMG physical screen instead of some sexy AI avatar projection gently serving up their entertainment straight to their brain cells. Umm, what was I talking about again? Oh yeah! Net High is an extremely unique and funny game.

In the sequel, it'll record you playing a character watching a livestream of the game which your friends can then watch.

Net High is basically Ace Attorney but instead of a courtroom, you have Tweeeter, a social network not unlike Twitter and the netizens as the jury (Well AA is strictly bench rulings but whatever). You as the main character must steal Tweeeter followers from the riaju elite (if you don't know what a riaju is well, ggrks). Each battle is live-streamed from Niyo-niyo douga with the winner decided by the number of thumbs up from the viewer. Of course, you can thumbs up yourself. OF COURSE. AS MANY TIMES AS YOU WANT! SPAM AWAY!!

This is how public discourse has evolved over the centuries? Sorry Socrates...

As I said, if you're not all up on Japanese internet culture in 2015, you may get a bit lost with the numerous parodies of popular websites, apps, games, etc.. I wouldn't even call it references at this point. The game's setting is basically a dystopian result of the constant stream of meaningless information and distraction we are bombarded with via our smartphones nowadays. It's a reflection of today's modern smartphone culture and what a sad, sad world it is (don't even get me started on that pokem** Go shit).

Kankore parody but with tanks called Pankore? GENIUS! And this was BEFORE Girls und panzer exploded in popularity.

Not only did I love the premise of the game, the voice acting and cast was superb as well. Every voice actor was excellent except for one painful exception which was I think unavoidable given the situation which I can't talk about cause spoilers. In particular, I just loved listening to the voices of Shiru and MC.

I totally love this game for the voice acting. NO REALLY!!

The art, animation, and music were great as well. If the artstyle reminds you of Gurren Lagann and Kill la kill, you're not the only one. The illustrator is a freelance who has some really nice fan art on his tumblr page.

This guy's got some mad skills

My only real gripe was that the battles were painfully easy. While it makes a good effort of well, shamelessly ripping off AA, complete with frequent remarks about the protagonist's spiky hair, which gossip to use to attack your opponent was always painfully obvious. The investigation sections were anything but, requiring not much more than picking dialogue options. But at least Net High has petting mini-games!

In addition, there's a real pain-in-the-ass trophy that requires you to play for 3 hours a day for a week consecutively. I don't like to be rushed so having to keep the game on until I could play 3 hours for the day was a big bummer especially given that the game is not much longer than the 21 hours it takes for the trophy. Not to mention that one time it crashed after 2 hours... ARGH!!

I thought the artstyle, animation, and music were all good and-WHOA BOOBS!
Overall, I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the game and loved it to bits really. I was simultaneously amused but also slightly frightened by how much of the real world is reflected in the game. What with all the gamerg*** crap, flaming, and all the ugly stuff going on nowadays with getting people fired from their jobs, doxing, death threats, and swatting. While the "game" aspect of Net High was certainly its weakest point, I still had fun with it and was thoroughly entertained during every minute of the story (despite some large plot holes). And at the end of the day, having fun is all that matters to me.

I highly recommend this game for all Jhipsters and while there is no localization yet, the fact the trophies are translated to English means non-Jhipsters may eventually be able to check out this neat title, hopefully before all the references get outdated and are no longer relevant. Here's hoping they come through with the sequel they teased at the end!

Score: 4 whereupon I spent hours pondering the effects of the internet on our society and cultur- OH MORE BOOBS! out of 5. (32 hours for platinum)

BYE BYE!!

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Harvest OverRay（ハーヴェストオーバーレイ）

My first galge '&' wasn't exactly one of the best games I've ever played, to put it mildly. Of course, what better way to utilize the valuable experience of trudging through one of the biggest waste of time ever by following it up immediately with another game in the exact same genre: Harvest OverRay.

Fool me once... shame on... shame on... fuck it, here we go again
In my defense, I bought it during a PSN sale and well, what can I say, I'm a sucker for "sales". On the positive side, while '&' took a painful year and 7 months to stomach, I found reading this one seemed to go much faster and was actually kinda interesting for the most part. It still took a bit longer than the 2 hours and 6 minutes that seems to be shortest amount of time it takes for losers to hold R1 for 2 hours to fast forward to a platinum trophy.

Loser hall of fame, yeah I'm talking about you paul... or ed linex?

I'm cautiously optimistic that "OverRay" with an "R" is a play on words instead of an embarrassing "lip my stockings" typo though misspelling "plot" in the end credits doesn't give me much confidence that it was intentional.

PREASE spell check

However, the correctly spelled "overlay" might be referring to the heavy use of AR (augmented reality) in the game's setting. In the not so far away future, technology has matured to the point where a contact lens device allows you to seamlessly see the "overlay" of a digital display on the real world (AR).

It's not exactly a revolutionary view of the future as say serial experiments lain, which came out during a time when we were cursing out Win98 BSODs and still using modems. After all, the big companies are already working on AR with Google Glass, MS Hololens, etc. Still, it's interesting to imagine what the world would be like if VR and AR are fully matured and seamless.

Is that a Sony Personal 3D viewer I see on the left? SO FUTURISTIC!

Whatever, who care about all that shit? It's IMOUTO TAIMUUUU!!! Remember I mentioned a game about chasing your little sister would be very different nowadays? Well, here, we finally have a game that takes all the innuendos of shows such as oreimo, oniai, and imocho and brings things to their natural conclusion. Unfortunately, given that this is the censored consumer port, you don't actually see anything and the game does throw in a cheap, "oh they're not related by blood" loophole. Even though the story does NOTHING to explain why they're not related.

Oniichan has a special dessert for you after dinner. Hehehe... what? It's ice cream!

As for the rest of the characters, Komachi was my favorite due to her voice being the least annoying and has absolutely NOTHING to do with her lolicon character design. Speaking of character design, the boob geometry was a bit umm... I dunno, maybe there's an artificial gravity bra in the year 2045? Yeah...

Tamaki, who has the most annoying voice, is the route for the true ending after you go through the other 3 girls and have censored implied consumer port sex. Lilia's route was pretty good but Sumi's was just totally unrealistic, oniichan-obsessed imouto incest stuff. Overall, I didn't really like how all four girls like you right out the gate with pretty much no effort. Yeah sure, who wouldn't like to be surrounded by 4 girls that are into you for no reason but unfortunately, it's too unrealistic for nerds like umm... not me! Ahaha, what you talking about? Girls CONSTANTLY be all up in my business.

Yet another galge OP... I guess this game was aight.
Score: 2.5 Incest? Loli? Weirdly shaped boobs? SURE, WHY NOT? out of 5

Overall, I enjoyed this game way more than '&'. Unlike '&', it didn't have a bunch of crazy, random choices that had absolutely nothing to do with the outcome and it was extremely easy to go through without a guide. All you had to do was just choose the girl you wanted in like 4 dialogue choices. The story was interesting mostly because I like the technological aspect. It has nothing to do with the fact that the main character is a 24x7 gamer as I can't imagine being so uncool.

Games, games, games （ゲーム、ゲーム、ゲーム） Not me, I'm talking about the main character, silly!

The Vita port was done poorly with a number of audio issues, including one glaring bug for every line that combined voices. It played only one track unless you replayed it in the history. The audio quality was pretty bad overall so minus 0.5 for the subpar port quality.

Yes, that is literally a TODO left in the game.

Some bonus screenshots for umm... archival purposes. You may want to skip to avoid spoilers.

Well, it IS Cero C after all. What were you expecting??

Cero C sure but English is totally not studied in Japan (at least not well apparently). Whoneedsspacesafterall?

Apparently that sweater comes with boob pockets...

There's even a free theme on PSN! Hey, don't judge my Vita library!

HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SAY I'M NOT INTO LOLI??!!

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely