Thanks for the feedback on Gears of Dragoon 2, seems like I might give it a try after all.
Tried reading a bit of
はにかみ CLOVER up until the second masturbation scene. Other than the character art and my favourite VA being in the game, I didn't really like it. Might come back to it later to read a route or two but right now, I think I'll pass.
Now I'm going to try out
働くオトナの恋愛事情 as it seems to be getting favourable feedback so far.
Edit: A few hours in and already 3 unmissable one night stands without any sprites... Oh man.
Oh man indeed... I had high hopes for both of these but I guess I'll skip them for now.
I just finished the true end of
凍京NECRO, it was certainly an interesting ride. More than anything, the game had a good number of surprises and plot twists I didn't manage to read beforehand, that's one of the main reason I like Japanese productions and Nitroplus especially. What I thought to be Kiriri's route ended up being Kon-Su's (sort of), but they both share a lof of elements and a large portion of their story before diverging. Iria and Mitsumi's routes shared some elements as well, but I felt there was more variation between these two.
Kon-Su's route was quite interesting overall, but the technical explanations of the inner workings of Necromancy in it felt really off. It did feel strange that a simple "medicine" injection could all of sudden make 90% of organs unneeded, but the reasoning behind it, honestly, would have been better not explained at all. Just like the characters themselves, I have much doubts any of it's possible. Still, it was nice to see Souun and Echika get used to their new fighting style, it makes for quite some humorous action sequences.
Kiriri's route is probably the one I liked the least, if solely because one of the characters that normally (that is, in the other routes) is pretty decent suddenly turns into a complete jerk. And the character I hated the most, Rourushaha, the number 1 rape/torture vector, suddenly gets cooperative (sort of)? Given it shares a lot of plot elements with Kon-Su's route, the damage at the end is pretty extensive, but contrary to Kon-Su's route I find things settle down too fast : at most a couple lines in the epilogue for what should have been a massive problem.
The true end itself was short compared to the other route, and it kinda overlaps with Iria's route, but it was very nice to see some events from a different perspective and get some background on sub-characters that otherwise have few opportunities to talk. Still, as usual with games that offer a true end, it tends to lower the impact of the other endings. Personally, I really liked Mitsumi's route and ending, and to see it more or less denied felt like a small betrayal by the author. I find the common strategy of true ends to make everyone happy just doesn't resound well with the rest of the game, the central theme is more or less about accepting loss and going forward. Nevertheless, there was some really moving parts in it, and it confirmed the growing suspicions I had witnessing the title screen evolve as routes got cleared.
The 3D animated fighting really helped action sequences spring into life, though I wish I had a better laptop to play them in all their shader enhanced glory. I suppose I could have played the game on my gaming computer but I wouldn't have been able to sink so much time into it, nearly 40 hours in a week. Overall while the fighting is nice, my main interest in the game remained the plot and the character interactions. On that front, I wasn't disappointed : apart from very few personality changes between routes it's very interesting to learn more about each character. What was especially interesting was that each character's motivation is explained in different routes, and it sheds light on their behavior during the others.
Apart from a few exceptions, I found the ecchi in the game to be at best unneeded and at worst unwanted. The first times with Iria and Mitsumi were the only scenes I found decent, that's 2 out of 12. I'll admit I don't find any interest in yuri, and can't stand sexual torture scenes (that includes hard SM play) but depending on your preferences, your appreciation may vary. I would have been 100% fine playing the game without any of them. It might even have earned a 15+ rating as the violence is not really that bad, and that's playing with the gore filter off.
Music wise, it was more or less spot on, with a few of the action themes really sticking out. I'm not too much a fan of Substance-Concept hashed up voice but it was fine still. I don't usually listen to techno but I really liked 愚連隊 and Survival Strategy, and just listened to the beats for a few minutes each time they were used. Too bad the game didn't include an OST.
I have a week's sleep to catch up on, but once that's done I'm probably going to start
恋のハニトー. Even though the super motemote MC genre is not my favorite thing by far...