DS Dengeki Bunko Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu II（DS電撃文庫 イリヤの空、UFOの夏II）

You may be wondering, hey eminent Jhipster, if part one of Iriya no Sora DS was soooo boring, why in the world would you waste your time with the second half? Well, you must be new to this blog. If this Jhipster doesn't play through these games, who else will inform the greater English-only internet what they're missing out on? Sure, you can waste your money on one of those A-Z Patreon funded books cause I'm sure those authors are fully fluent in Japanese and actually played through all those games they throw in there with a token synopsis and some screenshots that you can google yourself in like 3 seconds.

Uh huh, yeah, sure. Whatever you say.

Anyways, Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu II is one of those perfect examples of why you shouldn't shit on a game you never finished (*cough* Jason Schreier *cough*). Though in my case, they split the story into 2 games so I technically finished the first game. Needless to say, the snail's pace of the first 2 volumes of the light novel rapidly speeds up in this game and some shit finally happens! For example, Iriya changes up her hair.

I'm pretty sure I know what white looks like and that's not it (screenshot from Nintendo's site)

Kidding aside, I finally realize why this light novel is regarded as highly as it is. It definitely went in a direction I didn't expect and it becomes clear that this is not a happy-go-lucky story as suggested by the first game. I don't want to get too much into spoilers but there might be a rape scene in there (sorry if this triggered you).

The main character is as spineless and useless as always so at least his character is consistent. But now that shit's starting to hit the fan, you do feel for the poor kid. After all, he is just a snot-nosed middle school boy.

He's just a boya (Ha! Get it? I'm here all night folks!)

The setting with the war, UFO, aliens, etc. was not really explained at all but it's merely just the backdrop for the love story. It's a very immature love story about a normal boy and a mysterious girl, a bit touching at times but also tragic. I thought it was worth the read even though it took a while to get to the interesting parts.

As for the rest of the features, they removed the multiplayer card game (oh noes!!) and that annoying feature of touching words to unlock cards. Now, you can just enjoy the story and play the mildly entertaining side-scrolling shooter, at your leisure.

Hidden gem shmup (check my $100 eBay listing, great deal!!) 

You can play as the fighter plane in the air or jump down to shoot enemies on foot Contra-style. I was quickly able to beat 4 stages but then it just starts over at a harder difficulty and that was good enough for me.

Score: 3.5 Cero D for sexual content? But it's just words, you guys didn't even illustrate it! out of 5 (16.5 hours to finish)

I'm not sure if this sound novel is above-average in general but it certainly got me hooked enough to finish it much faster than the first part. Also given how boring the first half was, averaging the two scores gives it about a 3 average which is around what I would score for the entire story overall. You never know how you'll feel about a game until you finish it all the way to the end. Good thing I have a real job that doesn't require me to poop out a diarrhea review in time for the release date.

In any case, it was good enough for me to be interested in picking up some of the other DS Dengeki Bunko games. All right, look like it's time for some SHOPPING!!!

Time to open up my monster amazon.co.jp wishlist!

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

DS Dengeki Bunko Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu（DS電撃文庫 イリヤの空、UFOの夏）

Continuing my public service to the internet by providing witty prose about Japanese only games that no other English speaking person in his/her/popular-gender-neutral-pronoun right mind would play, here's part 1 of Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu. Fucking finally! I managed to slog, mostly half asleep, through this game, part of DS Dengeki Bunko series aka "oh wouldn't it be cool if the DS was like an ebook reader?" (The answer: not really.)

Kindle? Pfft, not nearly enough moe

While I normally play all my DS games on my New (not actually new) 3DS LL (Jhipster for XL), for games in TATE mode, the heavier model puts too much strain on my delicate gamer wrists so I usually bust out my regular 3DS for these occasions. For those not up on gamer terms, TATE is the weeb term for vertical screen（縦画面）primarily for shooters or shmups as the expert Youtube "gamers" (hoarders) call em. Speaking of shooters, this game comes with one in the form of a mini game that uses the touch pen to target enemies.

Extra weeb cringe if you pronounce TATE like Tater tots.

It was ok, about as good as you'd expect for a mini game hidden in a sound novel. I wouldn't exactly rave about it as some awesome shmup "hidden" gem to BUY NOW BEFORE PRICES SKYROCKET!! Or actually maybe I'll do exactly that as I'm looking to purge this one out of the collection. Anybody want my copy for the super fair price of $99.99?

There's also an annoying quiz mini game with questions about the story. Making even ONE mistake requires you to start over and while you can skip 5 questions they come back around again basically requiring you to memorize every single question anyway. Getting a 100% perfect completion is a fucking ordeal but it unlocks an extra side chapter. I know this because I played through the stupid quiz more times than I'm willing to admit to do a perfect run.

I actually read the whole thing and completed this quiz. Yes, I have no life.

All of the mini games are unlocked by finding cards that are hidden by tapping certain words of interest in the story. The cards naturally can be used for a card battle game that apparently supports up to 4 player multiplayer competition action. I would guess that 4 people with 4 copies of this game unlocked all the cards and got together to play against each other probably exactly zero times in this universe.

As for the meat of the game, which is the book, you can read it for yourself free, provided you're fluent in Japanese of course. I did like the artwork which is primarily the reason why I bought this game in the first place (yeeaah, I need to stop buying shit based on the cover). Unfortunately, the music and sound effects are unremarkable and totally forgettable. In fact, I forgot about them already.

I should've checked Metacritic first (pfft, ya right)

While the reviews are pretty good overall, personally this story was just not for me. It was perhaps too slow paced or maybe a bit too unrealistic for my tastes. I don't know what it is but it did serve as an excellent way for me to knock myself to sleep faster than popping some Benadryl. I really wouldn't recommend this one unless you want to waste 20 hours of your life. Or you can just watch the OVA anime through the magic of Youtube. (Content ID so totally legal, right?) In the end, I really regret wasting my time on this... Alrightly then, onto part 2!!

I'm not sure if I was awake the whole 18 hours...

Score: 2.0 but does it support TATER tot mode?? out of 5 (18 hours to complete)

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

TRUE REMEMBRANCE ～記憶のかけら～

TRUE REMEMBRANCE (yes, all caps once again) is a sound novel for the PC that is pretty good for being totally free. Feel free to download away to your heart's content from the author's website, no shady torrent site needed (you know who you are).

Personally, since I'm made of money, I decided to plunk down some serious change (500 yen) to get the 3DS version on the eShop for the convenience of a handheld. It features new art and some extra scenarios with chibi characters and whatnot.

The non-free 3DS art style. Yeah, I'm RICH BITCH!!

While the art is new, there is no voice acting nor any branching paths. So it's actually like reading what us old dinosaurs refer to as "books". I'm sure there's a kid's react video online somewhere if you're unfamiliar with the concept.

Anyhoos, the main character in this game is Kurome, who works in a town setup by the government to treat some new form of depression. The treatment for the disease is to seal the bad memories away, a process which is not really described in depth. Not that it really matters. This is a simple story about the two main characters and how we deal with life shit (or more often, how we don't deal with it). It's definitely going for that melancholy vibe.

I played this game several years ago and as my first visual novel, I thought it was pretty darn long. Of course, now that I've slogged through hours and hours of some monster-size games (*cough* higurashi *cough*), it does seem to be a fairly short story. It took me less than 10 hours to finish.

Given the premise of erasing your memories to deal with life's hurdles, you can probably guess at some of the themes and plot points that are presented, much like how you can expect certain things from a time traveling or robots (ugh Asimov law AGAIN?) story. There's nothing mind blowing here, just a melancholy story that is done fairly decently. I personally did not shed a tear but maybe you will.

Music was not bad, very sound novelesque?
Score: 2.5 man I totally forgot what this game was about, maybe somebody sealed my memory of it? out of 5 (9 hours to beat)

For the entry price, I thought this game had a pretty good story and presentation. It has atmosphere and might be a good entry point if you want some reading material for your Japanese studies. That or the Jhipster wannabes can go check out the fan translated English version. Ultimately however, putting aside the price, the game itself is ironically forgettable. Definitely worth checking (cause FREE!!!) but I wouldn't exactly call it a masterpiece.

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