VN Talk: even if Tempest - Part 3: Tyril

I probably should be glad I'm writing this two years after release instead of immediately after, because I'm sorry Tyril fans, he just didn't work for me. When I first got the game I thought he might, because his relationship with Anastasia has so much potential.

Tyril is an inquisitor whose job it is to ferret out witches and mete justice upon them. He's an uncompromising individual and known as the best in his organization. Since Anastasia's knowledge of future events due to her Fatal Rewind ability can make her seem like a witch, conflict between her and Tyril should be ripe with tension. If he found out, would he believe her? Or would he follow his duty and treat her as a witch?

While that fear is there from Anastasia's side of things, Tyril is entangled in an entirely different mess that ultimately did neither his route nor the main plot any favors. In fact many of the items I'm going to discuss in my later "dropped plot" thread originate in Tyril's route, and the result was that his route is very busy with details that end up going nowhere. And ultimately I had to question his competency as an inquisitor at all.

VN Talk: even if Tempest - Part 2: Crius

I struggled over how best to write my Crius entry since I knew I wanted to discuss him as a character without making it specifically about his route. Part of it is because of how his route ends. I was flabbergasted and given the timelooping nature of even if Tempest I wondered if somehow we might pick up again from that ending and then move on to a happy one.

But how? Would there be a new story branch ahead where Anastastia could make a different decision?

As you probably know from my overview post or having played the game yourself, Anastasia experiences every rewind. Regardless of whether a given timeline still exists, she remembers it, and Lucien's route, being the final one, wraps up the overall story--for everyone.

So while I normally do a critique of each love interest's route, it just doesn't make sense for even if Tempest, and I knew that would be the case as soon as I finished Crius's ending. Spoilers ahead, but I have to say that dang I loved the end of his route.

VN Talk: even if Tempest - Part 1: Overview

In which I talk (write) about visual novels from a storytelling perspective...

Platform: Switch
Release: 2022

I was originally skeptical about playing even if Tempest because writer/director Ayane Ushio is the same person who wrote and directed Norn9: Var Commons, which struggled with its overly ambitious narrative, so I didn't pick it up until it was on sale. Now that I've finished it, I have to say it may well be one of my favorite visual novels of all time, with the caveat that I can still see signs of what were likely aborted plot threads.

Thankfully most of those are easy to overlook due to the strong central narrative, so I'll save the bulk of them for another post. For now, I'll just leave it at this: The story definitely changed during production, and the signs are there if you look, with the biggest indication being the fact that the title screen prominently depicts a monster holding Anatasia that never appears during the game itself. This is the title screen which you will see every time you start up the game, and a heck of a thing to leave in if it was never supposed to play a role.

But despite whatever changes may have been made, even if Tempest is an excellent dark fantasy of revenge, sacrifice, and discovering the truth no matter the cost. Though Anatasia's ability to rewind time by dying is occasionally played for a dark laugh, the deaths of others are never taken lightly, even if she theoretically can revive them if she rewinds far enough. In fact one of the burdens she carries is making sure that any sacrifices made can be corrected by the time she finally pulls free of the meat grinder she's trapped inside.

Why Unpacking Didn't Work for Me

I finished Unpacking recently. It was an indie and critical darling, wearing so many awards on its Steam page it'd rival a military general. I'd wanted to play it for a while, but found the list price too steep for a 3-4 hour game, no matter how well reviewed.

Still, I really liked what I'd heard about it. I'd read reviews where journalists were impressed by the game's subtle storytelling and how the player would learn about this girl/woman's life from the things she unpacked as she moved to different places in her life.

I like good storytelling. I'm a writer after all. And I like seeing novel forms of storytelling in games that can't be accomplished through conventional fiction. Learning this woman's story through her possessions sounded up my alley.

When I started the game, I quickly realized that the person whose belongings I unpacked was clearly a person of her own and not me. Though you can turn it off, by default there are only certain locations an item can be accepted. So you can't leave a book under your bed's pillow even though the game will physically allow you to put one there. (I can't be the only kid who slept with a book under their pillow…)

It was a little jarring at first. Since I was unpacking a child's belongings I figured I'd unpack it as I probably would when I was a kid, but the game's demands made it clear this was not me.

Though this is a "cozy" game I actually found it rather stressful as the game increasingly has this unnamed person move to ever larger habitations with more rooms and a more complex set of belongings. I didn't like to end a play session in the middle of unpacking. I wanted to finish.

And I think that's where Unpacking started breaking down for me.

The act of unpacking dozens of rooms, the actual moment to moment gameplay, wasn't that appealing. You open a box and you can't see what's inside of it. Items come out one at a time and you have no idea if there are ten books in there or one, because our unnamed woman accidentally packed something in the wrong box. It annoyed me finding something in the wrong box. I'd be unpacking living room items and suddenly find something for the bathroom. It'd make some logical sense if it was at the top of the box, maybe she forgot to pack it and needed to find a place for it really quick, but lots of these mispacked items would show up in the middle.

As a result I found the unpacking tedious instead of relaxing. By the end I was trying to optimize my placement time rather than trying to put things away based on aesthetics, so the only thing that held my interest was the story and the novelty regarding how the story was told.

One of the things that really got my attention in an early review was a scenario when the woman moves in with a boyfriend after graduation. It's clearly his apartment when she moves in, because his stuff is already in place and the dresser drawers are haphazardly used. At first glance, there's not much space for her belongings, but with some work you can get everything to fit sensibly. Except for her college degree.

There is no wall space. Her boyfriend has used up all of it and you are not allowed to take down his things. You can rearrange, but 100% full is still 100% full even if the game did allow you to pick up and swap items. There are, in fact, only two places the degree can be hung; over the toilet in the bathroom (which the game will tell you is not an acceptable location) or under the bed.

It's probably not surprising that the relationship doesn't work out, and the next move is back into her childhood home.

I loved this. I loved seeing all the small details. The girl has dreidel toys, so I wondered if she was Jewish or had simply gotten them as part of a lesson in school, and then later in life I unpacked a menorah, confirming her religion. I know that she's an artist, but worked as a store clerk just out of school, and that she likes to add plush chicks to her chicken collection. She's a gamer with an affinity for Nintendo platforms, moving about with a GameCube when she's younger and adding a Wii when she ages up. When a new girlfriend moves in, I conclude she's Asian, likely Chinese. Those details are great.

But those are details. They're not a story.

When I got the game, I wondered how it would end. How long would we follow this woman? Would our final unpacking be a retirement home? Or would the final unpacking actually be a bookend to her life with perhaps her grandchildren packing up her belongings after she passes away?

Those are both end of life scenarios, but that's the problem. Where should Unpacking end? Since this isn't an endless game of randomized unpacking scenarios, it has to end at some point, and it does.

The problem is, the ending is not telegraphed. I finished a particularly long and complicated unpacking late at night, so I figured this was a good stopping point. The game transitioned to the photo album interface with the right arrow button highlighted to turn the page to the next unpacking, just as it always does, but I decided not to hit it and turned off my Switch.

I came back the next day, ready for another round, and clicked the arrow to continue. The credits rolled. It was one of the most anticlimactic starts to a play session I'd ever had.

In retrospect, I can see that the multi-story house with a baby on the way was clearly going to be a transition point in our woman's life, but all her moves have been transition points. Why was this move in particular the last one? Families move all the time. Is it because she's now a home owner and this is the place she intends to live out her days?

That would be fine if there was some inkling that was going to be the case. It would probably be difficult to telegraph that in the unpacking itself, but she always concludes each move with a note in her photo album, and she doesn't say anything that suggests that this is a final move. It's looking forward to the baby, which is appropriate, because it's another start for her, but for the player it doesn't signal an ending. So, I expected the story to continue, but it didn't.

And that has left me with a rather grumpy feeling.

The gameplay didn't do it for me, and because of that ending, the story left me unsatisfied as well. It wasn't horrible, just disappointing. That the mechanics didn't click with me wasn't really the issue. I knew this was a short game so I wasn't worried that I'd eventually chuck the game out of irritation. It was just how anticlimactic the ending was. Here are the credits! Here's a look at the backsides of the happy couple as they start their new life with a baby! But I thought I was going to do another unpacking…

Generally a game, or any creative work really, wants to go out on its best foot, to leave the audience with a favorable impression. Surprise credits isn't the way to go, and the way I came back to my final "play" session is an impression of Unpacking that is never going to leave.

Half a Year Later and I Need to Rethink Radiant Tale

I usually don't spend much time thinking about a game after I'm done blogging about it. The writing itself is a way to let all my thoughts and feelings out, and even the things I didn't say usually exist in notes and excised paragraphs (since I like to keep posts to about 2000 words each). If Radiant Tale had been a one and done title my post would probably remain another mark checking off a game I had wanted to play.

But Radiant Tale Fanfare! is coming out at the end of June so I need to reckon with what I thought about the original. Fair warning, spoilers ahead.

The original Radiant Tale interested me because of the noblebright fantasy setting, but also because writers Nao Kojima and Sachi Arino were half the writing team for Code:Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth~, which I consider my gold standard for the genre, and Kojima had also written part of Cafe Enchante, which I still think fondly of.

So I was buoyed by expectations for how the story would work based on their past projects, which are particularly notable for their themes around found family, where the protagonists and her various love interests support each other through thick and thin. I like when the guys who aren't currently in a romance with the protagonist get to play an active part in the story and become buddies with the other men. It avoids looking like a harem situation when everyone has a reason for being there and it's not because the protagonist turns them on.

Radiant Tale was my most anticipated title of 2024. Perhaps unfairly, I had expectations. It didn't need to be perfect, Cafe Enchante definitely had things I didn't care for (like what happened to Kotone in Misyr's route), but I did expect the highs to outweigh the lows.

And overall I think they did, which is why I'm fussing over Fanfare. It's more like there are pieces of Radiant Tale that I really like, but it doesn't come together.

For instance, the found family thing. While Radiant Tale does have a reason for everyone to be together besides the protagonist (since Tifalia joins an already established group), and they do help each other when the chips are down, it feels more like a group of coworkers than found family. If you like your coworker you'll help them out, you might drive them home if they're sick, or do other things that are regular acts of kindness. But that doesn't mean you're both going bowling on Friday night.

And that's kind of what Radiant Tale gives us. After the halfway point when CIRCUS is finishing their first tour, they even expect to go their separate ways, never to reconvene again, and there's little to suggest their attitude changes after the actual end of the game. They send a few letters, but the band is not together nor planning to get together (barring Vilio's ending since he has the golden route that solves everyone's problems and caps it off with him and Tifalia getting married months later during one of their performances).

They're not a bad group of characters, I can't say anyone bored me, but they aren't as tight knit as I originally expected them to be. And to be frank Ion's good ending pissed me off with his possessiveness of Tifalia where he didn't want her spending as much time thinking about his friends as thinking about him (and I had liked him up until that point). Jealousy just ruins the found family dynamic when the intention is to restrict one family member from seeing the others.

And it's not just that. I disliked Paschalia's route because everyone in CIRCUS made potentially invasive plans to save Paschalia's life without running any of it by Paschalia himself. As someone who has survived two different cancers I was so mortified for the guy. I'd like to think if they really cared they would have let him decide the way he wanted to approach his illness; present the options but not push. A family should be supportive, rather than deciding support.

And then there was general plot stuff like the scripting at the scene of Balto's murder, Vilio's half-assed common route, what exactly were the circumstances around Radie's amnesia, etc.

I'm not here to nitpick individual instances, since most of this can be found in my 6-part VN Talk series, but the thing is my opinions of a game can change with time and perspective. I left Radiant Tale feeling that it was the weakest sibling of Code:Realize and Cafe Enchante, but would still probably make my Top 10 list of otome. I wanted to feel like I had enjoyed it. Now… I'm not so certain.

And with Fanfare coming stateside this summer, I need to figure out whether I'm going to get it. It used to be I'd clear my gaming schedule for a Code:Realize fan disc (what you'd probably call a stand alone expansion in another genre), and I would have done so for Cafe Enchante if it'd had one, but with Radiant Tale it's not that I hate the original, so much as I find myself disappointed.

I was listening to the even if Tempest soundtrack while working on my blog posts for it and it got me pumped, remembering some of my favorite parts of the game. Cafe Enchante's soundtrack was more hit or miss, but still there were very good tracks that reminded me of the best moments of the game. When I played Radiant Tale though, I just felt… bored. I like the opening song "Michi no Sekai e Fanfare," but none of the instrumental tracks sparked anything in me unless they used "Michi no Sekai e Fanfare" as a leitmotif. While that could be a fault of the composition, it also means that scenes never felt powerful enough to connect with the music.

I can't point to any one thing as a key factor that let me down, but in general I suppose it's more the sense that the package did not come together in a greater whole, and I'm not entirely sure if that's me and my outsized expectations or the game itself. I suspect that if I hadn't known the writing pedigree my expectations would have been lower, but I would likely have complained about the same things.

For perspective, I think Cafe Enchante, despite its problems, ultimately sits comfortably in my Top 5 otome because I felt the game came together well enough to overlook the flaws. Radiant Tale didn't have the magic to keep it together.

It wasn't all bad. Lack of a found family dynamic (and spotty plotting) aside, I liked Zafora and Vilio's story arcs. I liked the worldbuilding and how old tales used as parts of CIRCUS's performances later became critical lore for the final route. But I did dislike the ending to Paschalia and Radie's routes, and the jealousy line in Ion's. When I put it that way, I suppose I liked "half" the game, and I'm not sure that's enough to enjoy a fan disc, especially when there will be After Stories for the endings I didn't enjoy as much.

A fan disc is generally full of low stakes post-game epilogues and side stories so there's less of a chance the game will trip over itself with continuity errors or questionable plotting. The worst case is that it could be boring. And when it comes to it, I might not be interested in seeing what happens next. I could be proven wrong. I didn't like Impey's route in the original Code:Realize, but he won me over in the fan discs, so there's hope.

After writing all this, I think my conclusion is that I'm still interested, there are aspects of the game I'd like to revisit, but I'll wait for a sale. Which likely means I won't be covering it on my blog any time soon, but I've got plenty of backlog so I'm not hurting for material.

X-Men '97: Morph is Back!

I watched the 90s X-Men: The Animated Series back when I was in school with no knowledge of the comic books. While I haven't rewatched it so I can't vouch for how it has aged, I remember that at the time I really enjoyed it for having one of the few things animated television had at the time; an ongoing storyline. As it turns out, many of those story arcs were adapted from the comics, and eventually formed the basis by which I would judge every X-Men adaptation to follow. Also, as it turns out, the character I most fell in love with, was largely made up specifically for the animated series.

More specifically, since it was his job to get killed off in the first two-parter, they reinvented an old Marvel character who wasn't being used anymore and gave him the new code name Morph.

Yes, I managed to fall in love with a character who died in the first two episodes. I was really into shapeshifters so Morph naturally played into the character type I'd root for the most.

The show was still interesting enough though, so I kept watching. And then season 2 happened, and Morph returned as a mind-controlled antagonist. He later got freed from mind-control, but was still mentally messed up. And so going forward generally each season would have a Morph episode I'd look forward to as he dealt with his trauma, and then he'd be gone until the next one. I really liked those check-ins, even though by the final season I knew that a large part of the reason he was kept on the sidelines was likely that he didn't have a comic book equivalent that took part in many of the story arcs they were adapting.

Still, he was included in the send-off of Charles Xavier in the series finale, which made me happy to see that he was still considered in-universe as a core part of the X-Men.

Now, getting close to 30 years later, we have X-Men '97 which rather than reboot the series simply picks up where the original left off. Xavier is gone and the world entrusted to those left behind. (Though I notice they leave it as the Professor has passed away and not that he sailed away in a starship with his alien princess girlfriend as a way to try to preserve his life.)

I figured I would watch it at some point, since it looks like the animation team did an excellent job of recreating the feel of the 90s cartoon as we remembered it rather than what it actually looked like. The side by side opening comparisons on YouTube are a little unfair as the original opening was incredibly good and when you look at actual episode footage from the older show you can see it's much flatter than the new work by Studio Mir, best known for the Avatar series and the Voltron remake.

X-Men '97 was going to remain in the "at some point" like a lot of things in my viewing backlog, except that I did watch one of those opening comparison videos and noticed that there were two additions to the cast. The original X-Men, perhaps realizing they were dealing with a large cast of characters and an audience who are probably unfamiliar with most of them, had a neat opening sequence that would showcase a character (and their powers if possible) along with their name. This allowed viewers to gradually pick up everyone's names over time.

Morph, as I later realized, was not in this line-up, since he was introduced with the intention of being killed off, but since everyone was new to me, it was hard to recognize that his name was not among the deluge before he died.

But he is in the opening of X-Men '97. (And Bishop. Which I have a slightly harder time accepting for story reasons, but don't want to get into here.)

The new opening credits first show Morph as how we knew him back in the older series, before turning him into a blank slate looking humanoid rather like a doppelganger from Dungeons & Dragons, which has been a "I'm a shapeshifting creature with no actual identity" marker in other media before, so while I missed the more human look, I wasn't thrown by it.

It also looks like Morph is now non-binary. Not a problem, since being a shapeshifter able to assume either gender likely makes gender irrelevant, but it was a little jarring that I found out through the informational boxes played during the ending credits and not from natural dialogue (so far as I noticed).

I felt a little like Morph's long journey out of PTSD and back into the land of ready for action was glossed over, though I vaguely remember their return to the manor in the original series was also rather abrupt so this might not entirely be X-Men '97's fault.

Because Morph was introduced and killed off so quickly, in a way, X-Men '97 is the first time we're really seeing them when they're not dealing with trauma, and I'm not entirely sure they would have been my favorite now if I was a kid watching this for the first time. They're a little weird and a little inappropriate with their humor, but it's nice that having them alive gives Wolverine a buddy. The two were supposed to be good friends in the original, so failing to save and actually saving Morph were big character moments for Wolverine, but it was something that was said rather than told.

X-Men '97 makes sure Morph and Wolverine hang out and get to be the buddies they're supposed to be. Which is great.

But watching the two launch episodes also gives me another reason to understand why Morph was likely left to "recover" for the majority of the series. Now that they're part of the active team again, it's pretty obvious that Morph isn't that great at combat in a series where the majority of the showcase mutants are living weapons.

There are moments where they get to use their shapeshifting to great effect, turning into the mutant Archangel in order to fly, and others where it seems a little more forced. Basically, to make Morph combat-worthy, the writer uses them as a source of Easter eggs mimicking various characters from the old show, often giving them their powers as well. While this makes sense for Archangel, who has wings, it was stretching my disbelief a bit to see Morph turn into Psylocke and use her psychic blades, since this implies it's not just a physical mimicry but one that goes all the way down to the genetic level. At that point, what's stopping Morph from shifting into a double of Magneto and using all the power of magnetism?

(This actually reminds me of one of the old Morph episodes when Wolverine tries to hunt them down and a mentally unstable Morph turns into a rhinoceros while fighting him. Once the shapeshifting stretched beyond humanoid forms, one of my friends called bull on the writing.)

Still, I'm glad Morph's integration into the cast gave me the impetus to watch X-Men '97 since it was an enjoyable return to memory lane and I look forward to seeing what the rest of the series has for the season. I know there are a lot more characters than room to give all of them story arcs (hence retaining an updated version of the opening credits that lists all the key players in the cast and seems to be updated with every episode), but I hope Morph gets a bit of a spotlight for themselves. I feel like we still have a lot of catching up to do.

And also, I just really want to see Morph on an infiltration mission of some kind. That's what shapeshifters do best!

(Next Day Addendum: I ended up watching the 72 episodes in 35 minutes recap over on Screen Crush which does an amazing job of touching on every single episode of the original X-Men and I'd completely forgotten Morph had shapeshifted to use other mutants' powers in the past, and that they pretty much solo-ed Master Mold in one of their return episodes, so I take back that they would have been baggage for lack of combat ability. Now it's more of a question of why wouldn't you throw them at every enemy you've got?)

even if Tempest is a Fabulous Mystery Game

I love mystery games, as you may have noticed if you've spent any time reading here. My introduction to visual novels was the Ace Attorney series and since then I've enjoyed titles such as Danganronpa, Raging Loop, and Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happinesss. I also enjoyed Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments, which if it hadn't been in 3D may as well have been a visual novel. Getting to the bottom of a crime-laden mystery is something I enjoy.

But when I heard that even if Tempest had trials where you use evidence to ferret out the culprit, I assumed it would be a half-baked mechanic, mostly because it's otome. Perhaps that's an unfair assessment, that media aimed at women would phone it in, but most otome games that come to the US are visual novels and if there is any gameplay beyond making choices, it's a relatively easy activity so the player doesn't get frustrated when the main point of the game is playing out a romance.

Both Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly and Collar x Malice require the player to shoot a gun sometimes, but one is extremely forgiving and the other is more of a matter of having good timing than good aim. As someone with notoriously bad shooter skills, those examples were not a downside for me, but being a mystery lover, a half-assed murder trial would garner a sigh of boredom at best and ruin my immersion at worst.

I needn't have worried.

After I finished my first high tension witch trial, during which I was afraid I'd screwed up so badly my protagonist Anastasia was going to be burned at the stake, I was actually discombobulated to come to the next scene and be greeted by Anastasia's love interest. In the midst of all the investigation, sussing people out, and going through my evidence list at the trial itself I'd somehow forgotten which genre of game I was playing.

After the initial surprise, I realized that this is a game that feels particularly geared towards me. I like Anastasia as a heroine. She's willing to do the years of hard work to forge herself into the person she wants to be. She plans ahead. She knows the object of her revenge and how to expose him, and she is willing to do whatever it takes to save the person closest to being family that she has.

So when Anastasia needs to bring down the Witch of Ruin as part of the bargain for her friend's life and her revenge, she barrels into the witch trial like hell on wheels.

Which is to say, she's a lot more action oriented than most otome protagonists, and clearly takes the lead in the investigations, even if her current man is tagging along. This makes her work well as the protagonist for a mystery game and she's just as motivated as the player to get these murders solved.

And from a game mechanics perspective, I was pleasantly surprised. Unlike Ace Attorney and Danganronpa, which also allow the player to visit a variety of locations, there is a limited amount of time to hunt down clues, which prevents the player from starting the trial with a full suite of information. You have a set of suspects marked by the Witch of Ruin, but only one of them has been turned into the witch's plaything, and I was given 11 hours until the trial began (appropriately at midnight). Each avenue of investigation had a time cost associated with it, so I wouldn't be able to follow all of them before the trial began, which as a mystery game veteran was rather unsettling.

It's okay to proceed without all the clues? I can't have all the clues? What madness is this?

And then the trial itself isn't really about establishing evidence or pointing out the flaws in another person's logic, though that can help. The witch trial is decided in the court of public opinion so even if you're completely correct, it won't mean anything if Anastasia is pissing off the 300 jurors so much that they're unwilling to believe her.

Though I don't think the trials are as freeform as they initially appear, I found I loved the format. Knowing that the right answer might not actually exist in my evidence because I didn't do that investigation added an edge to the presentation, and presenting the wrong answer usually doesn't result in the player being thrown back to the evidence list until they find the right answer. Instead, most of the time the game will acknowledge you chose poorly and the trial will move on, with failure being the result of multiple decisions over the course of the trial rather than a failing to present an obscure piece of evidence five times in a row at a single point in time. (I do like Ace Attorney but I don't like feeling obligated to save right before presenting evidence because I don't know which item out of twenty is the one I need.)

The trial even has decision points where you can choose to focus the debate around a particular person, and there is more than one option that will satisfactorily end the trial with the correct culprit being identified. As long as Anastasia does enough to shift the blame where she wants it to go (because it's court of public opinion), it's a win.

There are only two things that bothered me. The first is that when the game transitions to the evidence list, it doesn't let you back up and read the last line of dialogue regarding what you are trying to prove or disprove. Since most of the time the penalty is just a reputation hit and the trial moves on, it's not horrible, but being able to read the last line of dialogue lets you compare the evidence to what was just said and that's not possible here. Most other games with a trial system will let you do this. Worse, on the rare occasion you really have to pick a specific piece of evidence before the game will move on, you might find yourself stabbing in the dark for your second or third picks because you can't remember what you're supporting or disproving.

The second issue is that I think it's actually possible to hose yourself going into the witch trial on Zenn's route. (And spoilers ahead for the rest of this paragraph and the next.) I often went into witch trials with missing pieces of evidence, so I didn't think anything of it when I entered the Zenn route trial with the intention to falsely convict Crius of being the Membrum. But the problem was, I got far enough that Anatasia was ready for the killing blow that would "prove" his guilt and I didn't have anything. I kept trying one thing after another and none of my evidence seemed to be working. After about five tries using increasingly absurd pieces of evidence (eiT is not as obtuse as AA can be) and taking constant reputation hits, I finally gave up and loaded an older save.

I think there are only two ways to falsely convict Crius, either by revealing that he knew the first victim, or providing a motivation for killing the second. There are only four investigation leads at this point in the game, and the player has time for three, so in theory there's no way the player can leave without at least one piece of evidence to earn a conviction unless they purposely stop investigating early, but it's possible to do one of the investigations and not get the evidence based on a dialogue choice, which is what I'd done. I don't mind not having all the evidence necessary for a perfect trial, but having to restart the game from an earlier point in time because I can't finish the trial at all shouldn't happen.

End spoilers.

When the witch trials came to an end, there was still more story to go, but I realized I was a little sad that it was not likely many fans of mystery games (who aren't also part of otome fandom) would bother to play this game. The non-linear trial system that accepts multiple answers and provides multiple investigation routes without losing the thread of the story is quite frankly an amazing experience and I hope to see something like it again in another game. Unfortunately, with even if Tempest being an otome and the story wrapping up so witch trials will no longer happen, this is not a case where we would expect a sequel with those mechanics back in action, and Voltage, the publisher and developer, has never developed anything outside of otome so it's unlikely this mechanic would return in an unrelated title.

If you're interested in a game that will give you three solid trials and a pretty engrossing mystery that sometimes has romantic overtones, then I absolutely recommend this. It's a novel spin on the investigation and trial system.

Ten Trials of Babel: The Doppelganger Maze

Platform: Windows (also on Mac)
Release: 2023

Most otome that finds its way into English is of the visual novel genre. Otome itself is more of a story/demographic categorization, involving female protagonists romancing male love interests, but the gameplay itself can be a rhythm game, a visual novel, or an RPG. Some people will even include games such as Fire Emblem and Dragon Age which are not restricted to female protagonists but nonetheless have a strong romantic component to them.

That is to say, there is a reason I'm not including Ten Trials of Babel: The Doppelganger Maze in the usual VN Talk series even though it is otome. This is a puzzle adventure game and if you're not using a walkthrough, you're probably going to want a notepad near you to work out some of the puzzles. But if you want an assortment of guys to fall for your protagonist, that's all there.

Ten Trials of Babel: The Doppelganger Maze is probably the gaming mash-up of my dreams, being otome crossed with a survival game and for something as short as it is, I was pleasantly surprised by how big it went with the worldbuilding. At first I thought it was too much for a game that I knew was going to be limited in scope, but it manages to make it work for reasons that I'll get to. But first, it just launched in English last November, so be warned there are SPOILERS after the break, including the ending.

Ghost Trick: An Underrated Gem

Platform: Switch (also on DS, PS4, XB1, Windows, iOS)
Release: 2010 (DS), 2012 (iOS), 2023 (Switch, PS4, XB1, Windows)

Ghost Trick is a stand alone project helmed by Shu Takumi of Ace Attorney fame that originally came out in the heyday of the Nintendo DS. I never got around to picking it up back then, perhaps because what I really wanted was another Ace Attorney game, and largely forgot about it until the Switch remaster.

By this time I knew it was regarded as an underrated title, so I decided to pick it up, and I'm really glad that I did as it may well be one of Shu Takumi's best written games. Since the ending wraps up the story completely and it would be hard to narratively justify a sequel, that's likely why Ghost Trick slipped away into the realm of being an underappreciated classic, but now that the remaster is available on multiple platforms (most importantly Steam), it'll be easy for players to find for years to come.

In Ghost Trick you play as an amnesiac ghost, recently deceased, who discovers he can manipulate objects around him, much like a poltergeist, to influence the actions of nearby people. Additionally he can travel from place to place via land lines (this game is clearly pre-cell phone era) as long as he knows the destination phone number, and most importantly, he can rewind time to 4 minutes before a person's death and by using his abilities it's possible to change their fate, resulting in a new timeline.

Using these "ghost tricks" results in a fun bit of puzzle solving which absolutely ties into the plot itself, but what we're really here for is the story. So there will be spoilers for a 13-year-old game after the break!

My Top 5 Blog Posts of 2023

Though I expect most of my blog visitors are here to read about the various games I've played, oftentimes which one rises to the top in a given year is a bit of a surprise. Most of the posts are weighted towards the first half of the year, which is expected given that they've been out longer, but coming out earlier did not automatically mean that a given game (or anime)'s post was read more often.

That said, here are the Top 5 of 2023 along with a little speculation about why they're here:

#5 - Frostpunk - Yes, There's a Story Here

Frostpunk has been out for over five years now, so I'm a little surprised by the traffic with this one, but figure there are liking two reasons for this. First, 11-bit Studios ramped up their media push for Frostpunk 2 so there is likely renewed interest in the first game, and second, I talked about the story and the emotional journey taken by the player, which is not usually discussed when talking about a city builder game. It's mentioned so little that I didn't know there was a fixed scenario format when I first started the game.

#4 - Anime Talk: Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke's Mansion

This one surprised me because I came to Raeliana late and didn't write about it until several weeks after its run ended. Perhaps I'm not the only one hungry for a second season, or likes to read commentary after having watched a show. I'm still hopeful that we'll get the remainder of the novels/manga animated.

#3 - Ambition: A Minuet in Power

I feel a little bad about this one, since I spent a chunk of the post talking about all the flaws in Ambition (especially since the more you play it, the more apparent the problems become, and I played a lot to finish the game with every possible love interest). But that said, I can see why this post would have attracted attention, since Ambition is an indie title and it wasn't a breakdown hit so hasn't been much written about it. It's for smaller titles like this that I try to play and write about an indie or two every year. A high society sim on the eve of the French Revolution is just not a game most people would make, and for that if nothing else, I'm glad Ambition exists.

#2 - OPUS: Echo of Starsong

I'm a little surprised that this wasn't my most popular post last year, since it's a relatively recent indie title, though admittedly one that had already gotten a fair bit of press compared to most so I'm hardly the first person to have covered it. I really enjoyed a number of games last year, but if I had to pick one, OPUS: Echo of Starsong would be it. I know I bounced through a number of reviews before picking it up, and if my own post in turn convinced someone else to play it, that would be worthwhile indeed.

#1 - AI: The Somnium Files - nirvanA Initiative

For some reason my AINI gripe-a-thon must have struck a nerve since it was head and shoulders above anything else even though it went up about half a year after the game came out since I'd taken so long to finish it. I'm guessing I wasn't the only one with a mixed reaction to it. When I finished I was such a ball of frustration that I also sought out the writings of other people to see if I was the only one who felt the way I did. I'm a bit disappointed that my top post of 2023 is one where I had to force myself to focus on just three gripes or I'd spend pages and pages complaining, but perhaps it was a useful exorcism.

And that covers my round-ups for 2023. Next post should be the first of several covering some of the games I ran through in the final months of last year, giving me a bit of a buffer while I figure out my first game for 2024!

My Favorite Games of 2023

Last year feels rather strange to me in that I didn't complete any RPGs and I'm not entirely sure how that happened, since I usually manage at least one of them. That said, it felt like such a good year for enjoyable gaming. I only list games I liked enough to finish, which usually means I felt they were good or very good, but great games are fewer and further between.

I usually designate these great games as my Top 3 picks each year by marking them with an asterisk (*) and I was pretty sure that I knew what my Top 3 were going to be as we went into November as I'd played what I thought was a shoe-in for my third stellar game in October, but even if Tempest slid in at the end of the year and blew me away, so I'm going to call out Ghost Trick as an honorable mention. In another year it probably would have made Top 3 and it is still a solid game I highly recommend.

With that said, these are the 12 games I liked the most out of the ones I finished in 2023, in the order I played them. If the game is available on multiple platforms, the one I played on is listed first.

OPUS: Echo of Starsong (Switch, Windows, Mac, iOS) *

More often than not, I find one of my favorite games of the year at the start of the year, and that was definitely the case with OPUS: Echo of Starsong, making it one of the few linear games where I dove back in immediately after I finished. Told from the perspective of an elderly Jun Lee, he reflects on the short period of time he knew Eda and what being with her meant to him. If you want an intimate piece of space opera with deep lore and some far future Chinese flavoring, all wrapped up in 12-15 hours of gameplay, this is a must-have, but bring tissues. That's not a spoiler. The frame story makes it clear that Jun and Eda are deprived of any happy ending.

Ambition: A Minuet in Power (Switch, Windows)

When Yvette arrives in Paris on the eve of the French Revolution, her fiance mysteriously does not pick her up, nobody seems to want to associate with him, and he's left her paying for the rent and the maid at what would have been their home. Refusing to return to her village, Yvette forges a new life in Parisian high society, and the player can decide whether she reunites with her fiance or discovers a new love entirely. With a tight calendar system and selling gossip for money, Yvette can nudge the tensions in Paris one way or another. Probably more fun if you like French Revolution stuff, but also good if you just like being a schemer. You can make Yvette somewhat upstanding if you want, but there are a lot of options to play as an awful person.

Buried Stars (Switch, PS4, Windows)

Mystery/suspense visual novel in which a group of aspiring k-pop stars and their floor director are trapped inside a collapsed building. Despite the unusual choice in cast (I never thought I'd be putting on my detective hat with a pop star as my protagonist), the mystery is effective and had me on the edge of my seat through much of the main game. The game's UI is a little misleading in regards to how the story will actually play out, and there are some obvious translation errors, but despite the bumpiness I think this will end up one of the more memorable mystery VNs I've played. Saying why would be a spoiler, but I talk about it here.

My Sweet Bodyguard (iOS, Android)

Part of the Love 365 library app. A college student discovers she's the long lost daughter of the Japanese prime minister and is threatened by unknown forces who want to influence her father. Fortunately she has a crack team of bodyguards looking out for her in what is a surprisingly upbeat and light-hearted romance adventure. It also gets really silly on some routes, so don't come here for any realism. Each route may as well take place in a different reality since plot points and villains generally don't cross over.

Frostpunk (Windows, Mac, PS4, XB1) *

Brutal survival-based city building game. After a deep and potentially neverending frost settles over Victorian England, you play as the captain in charge of a new settlement that strives to survive heading in an unknown future. Though it is possible to make a relatively comfortable life for your people once you know how the game works, I think most first time playthroughs will either end in failure or with barely anyone alive (and you might end up a despot on top of that too). I like how the game makes you consider which lines you'd be willing to cross in order to allow your city to survive, and if you fail, was it because of poor planning or because you valued your morals?

Piofiore: Fated Memories (Switch)

Liliana has grown up as a ward of the church, but for reasons unbeknownst to her, she is extremely important to varying factions fighting for control of a city in 1920s Italy, thus sparking a journey with various men from one of the city's three mafia families or an agent of the church. It's otome, but darker than usual because none of the guys can really say they've walked away without killing someone, though they're generally presented in a nicer light if they're Liliana's current love interest. While I bought this as a fan of anime takes on mafia, it's worth mentioning that Liliana is a civilian, so even if she's present during the action bits, she's usually a non-participant, and some of the heavy decision making by the men happens in scenes when she is not around.

Detective Di: The Silk Rose Murders (Windows, Switch, PS4, XB1)

Series of murder mysteries in the style of the old point-and-click pixel adventure games, starring a fictionalized version of Di Renjie, more popularly known in English as the protagonist of the Judge Dee books/movies/TV series, but was a real historical person. This Di is portrayed as relatively young and new to his work, though historically he would have been pushing fifty by the time of the game, which mostly involves solving a series of murders on behalf of Empress Wu Zetian. It's a fairly short game, with some of the usual point-and-click genre problems of not being able to figure out what you missed, but otherwise a fun bit of intrigue. Good if you don't have a lot of time or want a quick palate cleanser before diving into something else.

Radiant Tale (Switch)

It took me a few games to realize that found family is one of my favorite tropes in otome. I love when the entire cast is a group of friends who support each other through thick and thin, so when I realized Radiant Tale shared staff with Code:Realize and Cafe Enchante I knew I had to get this. Tifalia joins a performance troupe called CIRCUS and gains a wacky surrogate family that includes personalities as varied as a fun-loving dragon, a flashy noble, and possibly the world's most unfriendly clown. They're on a JRPG-eque quest to free the kingdom's prince from the spell that has frozen his body and heart in time, and only by literally bringing joy to the world can they heal him. Despite the overly bright and optimistic theming, some of the routes can get unexpectedly dark.

Ghost Trick (Switch, PS4, XB1, Windows, DS, iOS)

HD remaster of the underappreciated mystery solving puzzle game for Nintendo DS. You control an amnesiac ghost who has a number of "tricks" he can perform in order to manipulate the environment and the living around him in order to figure out who he is and why he died. Without spoiling too much, I think pet lovers will enjoy this game. It's not too long, but not too short either, being the rare game that is just the length it needs to be and no more. Fans of Ace Attorney will recognize writer/director Shu Takumi's brand of character writing, though Ghost Trick is less episodic since there is only one central mystery that covers the entire game.

Ten Trials of Babel: The Doppelganger Maze (Windows, Mac)

Indie puzzle adventure game where humans and various fantastical races are unwillingly placed in a survival game where the winner can ensure the continued existence of their race. English translation is usually pretty good, which makes it more obvious when it's not. Puzzles will give you a pretty good workout if that's your thing. Best played with a pad of paper next to you in order to make notes. Though it's probably possible to reach the best ending without romancing anyone, Xixy needs a certain level of friendship with her main three party members to open the way to the true ending.

even if Tempest (Switch) *

I was truly blown away by the narrative in this game, which is marketed as otome, but aside from affection-related dialogue options, plays out more like Raging Loop since it also features one love interest per timeline and a protagonist who tries to abuse timeloops in order to solve a problem. The worldbuilding is fantastic and Anastasia is one of the most engaging female protagonists I've ever had a chance to play, getting to be both strong and vulnerable, vengeful and kind, and rising from a childhood of abuse to being the person she wants to be. She is willing to do whatever it takes to save the ones she loves, and some of what she does is truly heartrending both for her and the player. There are witch trials which will likely appeal to Ace Attorney and Danganronpa fans, with the unique twist that they are playing out in the court of public opinion in which judgment is less a matter of truth than what the jury comes to believe.

The Last Matches (Windows, Mac)

Indie visual novel based on The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen. It's very short (about an hour to play through), but felt like a fitting title to close out the year given that it takes place around Christmas. Both the original tragic ending of the story and a happier one are available for our protagonist. I liked the sad ending better, perhaps because it pulls from the original and works better thematically, but also because the happy ending feels surreal, like I can't tell if it really happened. Still, it's a nice little package if you want something quick that will pluck at the heartstrings.

My Favorite Anime of 2023

Normally I'd start off with my year's favorite books, but I somehow managed to not finish any last year, and I wanted to wait a week on the video games since there are some extras I still need to play through for one of them and it might impact my Top 3 picks. So we're starting with anime for my favorites of 2023!

Attack on Titan finished last November, which means I finally get to include it! Normally I don't like including anime that are likely to get additional seasons since there are a number of series that I'll end up dropping as they go on, making them something I'd rather not recommend, so all of the anime listed below have either wrapped up so there will definitely be no future seasons, or they have not announced any further seasons so I feel I can evaluate them based as they are.

The nine series below are the ones I liked enough to finish, presented in the order I completed them. My top three picks of the year are marked with an asterisk (*).

Summer Time Rendering *

This one was a sleeper release in the US, being that it had been a Disney Plus series in Japan but is definitely not a good fit for Disney Plus in the US, so it came out on Hulu with no fanfare whatsoever, which is too bad since this a fantastic time loop thriller, where the loop restarts a little further in time each time our hero dies, leaving him less and less chance to make any changes, and the villains are aware of the loop as well. I found this an extremely bingeable ride, and finished the entire series in less than a week, which is incredible for someone who usually can't sit through more than a half of TV at a time (which is part of why I like anime and its shorter episode structure).

Psycho-Pass: The Movie

Thanks to the Funimation-Crunchyroll acquisition, I finally got to watch Psycho-Pass: The Movie which takes place after the first two seasons of the anime. It's a stand alone story covering what happens when someone tries exporting the Sybil System to another country and also covers what Kagami has been up to since he left Japan. Much better executed than the second season, but lacks the philosophical punch of the first.

Tomo-chan is a Girl

Romantic comedy about a tomboy who tries to confess to her childhood friend that she likes him as more than a friend, only for him to reply that he loves her too, but clearly in "I love you man!" bromance way as he seems to have never realized that she's actually a girl. At least that's what she thinks, since as the series moves on it's apparent he does realize she's a girl, but is afraid of how their relationship would change if it turns romantic. Both Tomo and Jun are not the sharpest tools in the shed, so most of this is played up for comedy, but that's part of what makes it appealing. We don't have many romances involving two dumb jocks.

My Home Hero

Modern day crime thriller starring an unassuming husband and wife who will do anything to protect their college aged daughter, even if it means committing murder to preemptively stop their daughter's abusive boyfriend from killing her. But when the boyfriend is the son of a prominent yakuza boss, and the police can be dissuaded from offering assistance, the two parents have to get creative to keep their family life intact. Lots of cliffhangers made this a must-watch every week, and I love that even though the husband is usually our POV character, his wife is part of the team and quite capable in her own right, so they can complement each other's strengths and weaknesses. The only thing I don't like is when Tetsuo gets the occasional lone wolf streak and tries going solo since Kasen's escapades are thrilling in a different way from his and I want her along for the ride.

My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999

College student Akane gets dumped by her boyfriend after she started playing an online game just to spend more time with him. Angry, but still interested in playing the game, she ends up meeting a guildie, Yamada, at an IRL event. Yamada initially seems like he couldn't care less about her, he's blunt, he doesn't seem to care about people's emotions, but over time she realizes it's not that he doesn't care, but that he has a different way of looking at things. They are very close in age so in a few years the difference won't matter, but fair warning Yamada is still in high school.

Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke's Manor *

This is the one I fervently wish for a second season, as manwha readers have praised this thing to no end ahead of the anime's release and the release did not disappoint with the exception of the choice in the season ending. Given that there has been no announcement of a second season, it would have been nice if we hadn't ended in what appears to be the start of another story arc. But that said, this is one the best reborn as another person in a game/book/other world series that I've ever watched, as there is a mysterious reason for why Raeliana was reborn in this world and why the heroine of the book itself has yet to appear, leaving Raeliana in love with a man that she knows belongs to another woman in the "real" story. You've got mystery, politics, murder, and romance. What's not to like?

Undead Murder Farce

As the title suggests, this is pretty much a case of interlopers jumping in and showing a bunch of baffled people how there's all this fakery going on in the mystery currently plaguing them. Aside the first episode, which is all backstory setup, the season is divided into story arcs covering one particular crime that our protagonists Aya and Tsugaru work together to solve. Since Aya is a disembodied head, Tsuguru serves as her arms and legs as they unveil thieves and murderers and continue their search for Aya's missing body.

Gene of AI

Interesting anthology series in a setting where humanoids are robots that are virtually indistinguishable from biological humans. Think Blade Runner, but in a society that accepts humanoids as regular citizens. Each episode focuses on a moral quandary when the person involved is artificial. Is restoring a backup personality a form of murder/suicide when the humanoid's brain is reformated? If a humanoid has feelings for a particular person that isn't reciprocated, is it okay to remove that part of themselves to move on? The execution is not always perfect, and the animation is just okay, but the premise of some of the episodes are quite good.

Attack on Titan *

The 800 pound gorilla for the past 10 years has finally ended. Was it perfect as a series? No. But it would have been impossible to meet the standards of so many fans after such a long time. The final special episode was good though, and with creator Hajime Isayama's input, smoothed over the bumpiness that came with the manga version of the final chapter. I usually don't prefer the ending of the anime to the manga, but I think the anime stuck the landing. It may not have been what we expected when Titans first broke their way into Wall Maria, but all the characters remained true to who they are and did what they could to secure a better future.