Hoshi wo Sagashite... is one of the few ADV games on the Sega Mark III and of course since I wasn't born a Japanese kid with money (curse you, non-Japanese parents!), I had no idea about this game growing up. Hopefully, none of you took my weeb joke seriously because knowing what it's like to live as a Japanese salaryman, let me just say being Japanese isn't all that it's cracked up to be.
Sure, you're having fun now, but wait till you're working 8-9 (no, not 1 hour)
This is one of the few early ADV games that I think is totally beatable without a guide. In fact, I finished it in a few hours with virtually no cheating. I only looked up the minor ending differences. Sure, I putzed around a bit trying to figure out how to order a drink at the bar but mostly if you go around talking to people and banging on stuff, you'll get through it. The menu items are a bit weird such as the option to "eat" even though you don't eat a single thing the entire game. You do have to drink in one part but I guess it would be too obvious if the menu was just "drink".
Yum, fresh meat!
So my screenshots are a little weirdly proportioned because I don't know why I didn't think of this before but the phone is like the perfect platform to knock out these early console ADV games. The shitty touch controls aren't an issue for navigating a menu and it's so handy to just try random shit when you're out doing random shit in real life. Nothing like trying to eat a cat creature with wings that can talk while you're in the checkout line at the grocery store!
Shopping for your GF while shopping for your pretend GF IRL #Gamers
So yeah, this is a pretty cute and simple story about buying an egg for your girlfriend Laila that hatches into the creature you see in the cover. There's really not much to say about the story except I guess maybe environmentalists will get a kick out of it. Mio, the species of that little creature is I guess kinda cute? But let's face it, it's not going to be a grumpy cat or baby Yoda on the social medias any time soon.
Did not sell merchandise or generate even one meme - 0 out of 5 review
Score: 2.5 Yes! This game is not fucking impossible! out of 5
Overall, definitely a neat little title that is probably the best looking ADV game on the system. You'll know what I mean if you look at that Sherlock Holmes game. (My eyes!) Best of all, I loved that it's actually beatable without having to similarly beat your head on a hard surface. Definitely not a bad one to check out on your phone while you're out, presumably doing important stuff in real life (ya right).
And unlike in real bars, she'll actually talk to you!
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
This may come as a surprise to regular readers of this blog (all 2 of you) but I'm actually a pretty big fan of FPS and 3rd person shooters (TPS?) or at least I was while devs still cared about the single player campaign and not whatever battle royale garbage they're trying to hawk these days (damn kids). Yes, I played Wolfenstein and later the free shareware part of Doom probably on somebody else's computer. I played the Quake games, Unreal, Half-Life (including the original), blah blah blah so I have probably well over 10 if not 20 years of shooting enemies dead. And yet somehow I have no urge to own guns in real life and would be perfectly happy not having to worry about what other idiots might do with them but let's not get into that cause it's fucking depressing, not even joking.
It's not fucking Doom (1993), it's Doom. I hate it when they steal the original name.
Anyways, for reasons I can't begin to fathom, most of these types of games are American so I didn't talk about it here as a Jhipster but here we have a 3rd person shooter by the Ryo ga Gotoku studio. I played it in English because Japanese dub for English speaking characters is meh (don't confuse Jhipsters with weebs). It takes place in Japan and logically, the Japanese characters speak in Japanese amongst themselves so the "English" dub is definitely way to go.
She's Chinese but Asians all look the same, right? #racist
I play all my shooters on PC because I'm old school and will always play with keyboard+mouse unless it's a console exclusive. This one is a pretty standard over the shoulder Gears of War cover system type of game but the damn robots suck up a lot of damage at least on Hard difficulty. It's actually harder in the beginning until you upgrade your weapon. Near the end, you'll be popping robot heads like Trump's doctor pops pills.
Damage being like 0.01%. Prepare to pump hundreds of bullets to take this puppy down.
The distinctive feature of this game is the whole voice command thing which I turned off cause I'm not going to be saying "Yeah" into a mic like an idiot. In fact, I had to Google the fact that you HAVE to turn off the voice command in order to use the keyboard to pick your reply. Picking the right answers and also playing well will raise affection levels with your team members while friendly fire will do the opposite, which is annoying because they're constantly running into your line of sight. Parts of the story will change depending on how well you get along with the characters which makes this game feel definitely Japanese.
You can't have a Japanese game without a geisha, right?
Of course, I didn't give a fuck about the guys or Rachael (pretty much also a guy in my book) and spent most of the game with Faye and Cain. Having only one hottie definitely does NOT feel Japanese so I was stuck with Cain as the third wheel. I don't think getting chummy with Cain does anything for the story but I don't care about Steam achievements so I'm happy with the ending I got and have little urge to play through it again.
As for the story, the whole robot vs human thing has been done so many times, it's almost impossible to have an original story. The only thing I would say is that the game tried to be a little bit original and didn't do anything too cliché like Blade Runner or something. The main character was a bit fishy being called the Survivor and all but I won't give anything away. Overall, like the rest of the game, it was fun enough.
You only kill robots so I guess that doesn't make you a murderer #BeAllYouCanBe
Score: 3 but wait, what if we were all robots in the Matrix in somebody's dream? Whoaaaa, deep. out of 5 (14 hours to beat)
I always have a shooter on the side as an outlet after hours of hardcore RPGing or hours and hours of ADV reading. I still play on hard mode because hardcore gamer here of course. This game does unlock yet another level of difficulty after you beat it. It was fun and all but I got my fill and won't be going for a replay. It was an average enjoyable experience and not much more than that. At the very least, it was WAY better than my previous shooter outlet: TimeShift (sigh, the shit I play).
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
Right after I finished Diva f (lower case "f" for Vita version), I was on some kind of Miku high and played the sequel pretty much non-stop for 2 weeks straight though I guess I did pop it in probably the day I bought it like 3 years ago (#hoarder).
This is what my actual weeb room looks like. Yes, I'm also blonde American wearing yukata everyday.
The first song that popped up was freakin' Melt (again?!) along with 105 pieces of DLC on PSN which pretty much puts the final nail in the coffin of the DLC-free gaming golden age. So things weren't looking too good from the get-go and my fears were confirmed as the song list features lots of repeats from the PSP games.
Firmly in the DLC fuck-me-in-the-ass era
Fortunately, it's not nearly as bad as the wholesale recycling they did on Diva 2nd and Diva 2nd Extend and none of the songs from Diva f are reused. So if you're one of those new kids who never played on the PSP, all the songs will appear new to you. Marketing would probably even call it a remake of the classics with enhanced graphics and gameplay. After all, they brought back all the popular songs such as World is Mine (for the 3rd time but who's counting?) and even made completely new videos for some of them.
Of course, for me, as a veteren of the series, it's a bit of a disappointment especially since there's been a new Miku song released every day except one for the first 10 years of her existence so there should have been plenty of new songs to choose from. At least they brought back my favorite from Diva Extend Musunde Hiraite and even added more eyes cause MORE IS BETTER.
Not as scary now after playing this song for 20 times+
It's still a good set as they picked out only the good songs from the PSP era and added a few new songs I really liked. At the very least, there is now almost no reason to buy Dreamy Theater for any of the PSP games given how overpriced they are and with the weird requirement of having to prove you own the PSP version, the first one actually requiring you to plug in your PSP!
PSP "classics" now in full HD glory!
The other nice tradition they continued is automatically unlocking all the modules you already purchased (using diva points) from the previous game. Despite the large list of DLC, the game comes with a number of great looking modules ("for free") combined with all the modules from Diva f. My personal favorite was "Bless You" followed closely by "Heart Hunter" and "Honey Whip" cause garter belts #hentai #loser.
Some of my favorite songs in this game were Hello, Worker and Knife. I was especially impressed that they changed the little picture on the character's resume in Hello, Worker depending on which character you pick. This kind of attention to minor detail is what gets me hard... err I mean "inspired".
Of course, you can use the matching Luka module with suit+tie but this is how I dress at work #MericanBlond
Another awesome new song was Kagerou Days because if you get the Chance Time at the beginning of the song, you get a TOTALLY NEW video. That was pretty cool and I wish they do that with more songs going forward. Overall, I was quite satisfied with the volume of content given that I paid $25 for a used copy #cheapogamer.
The weird cone shape is actually fancy gelato, I saw it in Sunshine City. Miku is so hipster!
As for the gameplay, I'm by no means a professional musician but I play a pretty mean sax and terrible at the piano. I can pretty much only play Moonlight Sonata (the first movement only of course, or as music snobs will tell you Op.27 No.2 Mov.1, cause Mov.3 is a clusterfuck). Anyway, I'm just trying to say I dabble in the musical arts and I know I'm repeating myself when I say that Project DIVA is not exactly the best series of rhythm games. And yet for some reason, I can't stop playing them and DIVA F 2nd is probably the most "rhythm-y" game in the series so far.
I didn't try playing the same keys as the PV but they look legit to me.
I usually turn off the sound effects because they are not part of the music (DJMax shoutout!) but this time, they introduced different sounds for each mechanic and I really liked that satisfactory long note pop, like the one they had for Project Mirai on the 3DS.
Try dem graphics on the 3DS. You suck Nintendy! #consolewhore
Besides the skins (DLC cash in) and challenge items, the only major gameplay change is they took the star "scratch" mechanic to the next level, introducing "W" double scratch and these really annoying connected stars that are hard to time unless you remember how it matches the music. I mentioned that the whole touch mechanic in the previous game didn't really bother me as it was an easy way to rack up points. Well, this time, I had weird issues where my swipe didn't take and I actually ended up using two fingers just in case. Meh.
Freakin' stars, you're blocking my view!!
Now that we talked about the main game, it's time to dive into the goddamn trophies. I fully understand that riajuu who only play games as a recreational activity to have fun (whoa, crazy concept!) probably don't give two shits about trophies. If you're one of these sickening people probably with friends IRL or god forbid, in a relationship, the story ends here.
Ofc there's a riajuu app. There's an app for everything now
But if you're a "REAL" gamer or alternatively, a cheap bastard who wants to make sure she's getting full value from the enormous amounts of money she wastes on an unhealthy game hoarding habit (hypothetically speaking of course), then it's time for me to talk about the Diva Room and the FUCKING clock.
Fuck you Sega, respect my time!
The Diva room was a fun distraction in Diva f from the main point of fucking playing the rhythm game. At no point did I ever think, "oh I hope they REALLY beef up the Diva Room features instead of oh I dunno, adding more new songs?" and yet here we are. You can't just rub heads until they're satisfied anymore, you have to stop just before this new heart meter breaks. You can't just shower your Divas with presents, you have to wait in game time (so just coming back later does nothing). Oh, was unlocking random calligraphy and sketch events annoying? Let's add a whole bunch more random item events and change it so you can't repeatedly give the same present to make it EXTRA time consuming, yay!
There's a 50% chance of getting this event. Ya having fun yet?!
The final fucking straw was the goddamn clock, which requires accepting 78, SEVENTY FUCKIN EIGHT requests. Say hello to hours of head rubbing, presents, waiting (in game time), and fucking patty cake after patty cake as you grind your way to your fucking precious trophy, ya loser.
If you're worried about memorizing patty cake, let me assure you, you'll fucking memorize it
If you noticed that this blog post seems to have a lot more screenshots than usual, well, it's because I was fucking waiting for the next head rub or present, jumping from room to room to room, again and again.
Score: 3.5 Couldn't find any panchira this time but I hope a SJW investigates to see if there's any camel-toe textures like PUBG out of 5 (51 hours for platinum)
In the end, if you don't care about trophies and especially if you skipped all the PSP games, this is probably the best Diva game in the series so far. It's so fun to play around with the modules and accessories and while the scratch swipe was a bit annoying, I got used to it. You can also configure scratch to use analog to match the PS3 but I found it was not sensitive enough for me.
Glad I don't work with her, sexual harassment waiting to happen
I will be sad when I run out of Project Diva games to play so I'll probably take a break for a while. Maybe I'll play some of the other Vocaloid games that came out around this period.
I got a lot of these fucking screenshots while rubbing head so here ya go.
This might explain the Cero C rating but then why was it B on the PSP? #Localization
I'll troubleshoot your computer problems ANY time
Can't think of a clever caption here cause all the blood for my brain went uh somewhere "else"
Yeah, so this game is pretty much a Dark Souls ripoff but with music
If they ever make the swimsuits DLC, I'm gonna fucking boycott #entitled
Thankfully, the cat ears are NOT DLC
This is when Miku becomes a god in our alternate timeline
How I feel when I get a PERFECT
This rainbow skin requires clearing a song with each character 50 times which was annoying cause fuck Kaito.
You can see many pantsu in edit mode *wink wink*
No, I didn't buy these skins. It was free at one time. Sorry if you missed out!
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
While Project Mirai on the 3DS was cute and all, let's go back to the REAL Miku games on Playstation; not that I want to get into the whole asinine console war nerd fuckery. I'm a vendor agnostic gamer connoisseur goddammit, not some Sony fanboi. Just because Sony is superior is every department and two faced Nintendy somehow gets a free pass when they whore themselves for money with DLC and Gacha microtrans "oh kids, it's not gambling!" family friendly facade... wait, what was I talking about again?
Let's rewind back to August 2012 to get a picture of how awesome Diva f was for its time. The Vita was just released probably at some ridiculous price 9 months earlier and Diva f came out along with a special limited model which I wanted but didn't get because no way was I gonna spend that much money. Yes, I still had a trace of constraint back in those days.
In retrospect, it's probably better that I didn't buy this.
This poor cheapo bought the budget re-release which thankfully doesn't have that god awful puke yellow "Best" label. It only took me over 4 years to finally finish this sucker so that might give you a vague idea of my backlog. (#hoarder) But anyway, if you were willing to shell out the cash, Diva f had mind blowing graphics compared to the previous PSP games. It really makes me wonder what ParaPhray was thinking when they released Megpoid the Music♯ almost a whole YEAR later.
Oh, how cute GUMI, you got a game too? Tee hee!
As a rhythm game, the Diva games are fun enough. In this iteration, they took advantage of the touchscreen to add a scratch mechanic ie swiping on either the front or back. It's no Beatmania of course, but I liked the new mechanic as the scratch timing is far more permissive than the regular buttons so it usually turns out to be an easy way to rack up points. It's a bit more clunky on the PS3 using the analog sticks so I definitely recommend the Vita version as it was originally intended. I also liked how they used the stars to good effect on some of the songs particularly at the end of Black Rock Shooter.
Not my favorite song but still fun to play (but maybe not EXTREME...)
And that leads right into the best part of this game: the video production values (thanks intro LIT 101!). I mentioned that Diva extend has some of the coolest looking videos in the series and it's obvious that Sega or whomever had honed their skills through the 3 PSP games and once again delivers great music videos with next gen Vita graphics (oh sorry, I mean previous gen old shitty specs, god bless the Switch!). The extra effect they added when you hit the big star was a really nice touch as it adds something unique to familiar Vocaloid songs.
Golly, what will they come up with next?!
Of course, not everything is all rainbows and Miku kittens. The song list is pretty good and has a fair amount of volume but I wouldn't say it's exploding with content exactly. At least they stopped recycling songs from previous games like they did in Diva 2nd and Extend. The PS3 version has a few more songs that you unfortunately have to buy as DLC for the Vita. As you can see, the good ol' days are coming to an end as DLC is starting to get more pervasive. No more free Haku module for you! You cheap ass freeloader who only wants to buy just the game by itself!
Only 309 yen for 3 modules? WHAT A DEAL!
Speaking of the times, I don't know if the graphics just got too good or what but gone are the days of wonton panchira starting from this game. They did a pretty good job of making sure you couldn't see up there in both the edit and photo mode. Despite the fact that the PSP games were a lot more lax about this kind of thing, this game got a higher Cero rating of C tagged with that "Sexual Content" icon. I guess those panty pixels just got too detailed or maybe it's the enhanced boob physics? Who knows? Who cares? Jesus, you gamers are so fucking creepy! #Losers
I'm not a creepy gamer who would watch a PV for disgusting panchira. In fact, I have no idea how this image got here.
As for the other features, I guess they're a fun enough distraction if you're a trophy whore. The AR features are just a gimmick as usual. My budget game did not come with the AR cards so I had to print them from the website but actually I just got the trophy from the equally gimmicky Live Mode on the PS3. Also, a lot of head rubbing went down in the Diva Rooms (I guess that's what they call it nowadays). I probably would have ignored most of that stuff if not for the trophies.
Way to promote violence Sony. Why don't you take some lessons from Nintendo?
I sleep in my underwear too! Umm... you wanna do a sleepover?
Score: 3.5 thank god we progressed as a society to treat women with the respect they deserve #ConfirmKavanaughNow #NotReally out of 5. (37 hours for platinum)
Overall, Diva f is a great looking game when moving to the next gen still meant a huge noticeable difference in graphics. While not the best rhythm game out there, there's a lot to enjoy, especially the Vita version, which looks way better than some of the video captures on Youtube.
Some bonus screenshots for the post-Trump apocalyptic Miku bible, our new Lord and Savior.
Jesus, where are these mysogynistic images coming from?! #ILikeBeer
The image gallery trophy was a pain as it's totally random.
This song came included as DLC so stop buying used, ya fucking cheapskate!
Yeah yeah, it's not 60fps though so totally garbage
I've seen enough. Time to go grab some curly cheese fries.
+1 yet another reason why Japan is the best place on Earth #weaboo
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
So given that I'm finally starting to make progress in the Megaten series by beating the first 3 games, I figured I should mix it up by playing something more modern like Devil Survivor Overclocked. Naw, who am I kidding, time to play Last Bible!
So who REPROGRAMED GAME? I can't tell.
I checked out both the Game Boy Color and Game Gear versions of this game and not shockingly, the Game Gear version looked far better in every category including graphics, monster design, sound, and even the ending which I'll get into very vaguely later (no spoilers).
I'm going to be perfectly honest here and admit that I don't own a Game Gear nor would I want to destroy my eyes with those amazing color graphics on actual hardware. Did I ever mention that the PSP is the greatest system ever made? Just saying...
No pesky Nintendy censors here!
The game starts with you, chosen along with 2 others to become a Gaia Master. You kids part ways and you grow up to 15 or whatever the standard ridiculously young age for JRPG adventuring is (insert obligatory reddit/resetera thread complaining that no JRPGs have mature protagonist here). Of course, the first thing that happens is monsters appear out of nowhere and attacks the town. Pretty standard stuff.
Oh sheeit, that kancho laced with Gaia is gonna hurt REAL bad.
To be honest, I really didn't get the story maybe because this is a pretty short and minimal game without too much dialogue. It was also confusing how your master's name is Zodia and there's some other guy called Zodo. At one point, Zodia suddenly brings out another student from nowhere called Morgan and you kill him immediately for some reason... yeah, I dunno.
Thank god I'm used to Kana from PC88 games!
Anyway, I didn't expect too much from an RPG originally released for the Game Boy. The game play isn't really anything to write home about. You can save anywhere and you merely lose some money if you die. The demon recruitment is a huge pain in the ass as they ask so many damn questions. Fortunately, you can pick up some bones and resurrect some real good zombies. Just like all the previous games in the series so far, I mostly used Auto battle.
There's better designs than this man boob Medusa
Speaking of the battle system, unlike the Nintendo version, the monster designs are probably not what I would call um... Cero A. While the Game Boy version is all cutesy and fun times for kids, some of the monsters in the Game Gear version were like dayum, better make sure no kids are around.
Awww, look at that pretty flower!
Overall, I feel like the Game Gear version is the true game that Atlus really wanted to make. While the original game has a Gaia (Chaos) vs Force (Neutral) type of ending, things don't end in quite the same way in the remake. There's a whole extra dungeon at the end that you reach after 3 blue stones turn red and umm... well let's just say those 3 blue stones were REALLY important.
This is not Kansas I'm pretty sure.
Score: 2 my schwartz is bigger than your gaia out of 5
Overall, I kind of enjoy these simple, early portable RPGs to kill some time. There's not too much to think about, they're pretty short, and the dungeons in this one were super tiny. Yeah, maybe there's a ton of better games I could play. You're totally right. I probably should be making better use of my time... Ah fuck it, time to play Last Bible 2! Too bad there's no GG remake of the sequel.
Eh, I guess this game was aight
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
