It’s not often I keep up with seasonal anime. Sometimes I’ll watch an episode or two of something, but usually I’ll fall off due to getting distracted by other things. It has nothing to do with the quality of the shows, but rather when I have to wait a week for a new episode, not to mention finding a way to watch said episode, I tend to get lazy/forget about it.

I picked up Lazarus after hearing it was from the same guy who did Cowboy Bebop and was being associated with Adult Swim (not sure if they helped finance it or what) Right from the get go, you can kind of tell they were trying to go for another Cowboy Bebop thing. A team of misfits with one cool Spike like guy.

I have to admit that I’m somewhat disappointed. It wasn’t bad by any stretch, but it felt a bit undercooked. I was really digging it for a couple of the episodes, but about when I learned it was only going to be 13 episodes (I think around episode 8 or 9) it felt like they were cramming things into episodes to get to the end faster.

It feels like a waste because I did think the cast was quite good and had some interesting dynamics together. There was a lot of room to flesh them out more into a really loveable cast. However, each member of the 5 member team gets only one episode exploring who they are, apart from the main guy Axel who has his circumstances told slapdashly in the last couple episodes.

I do really feel like they had a good series on their hands. I think it just needed more. A full 26 episode season (or I guess that’s two seasons) like Bebop and Champloo had. Make you really love the characters, and then they could really raise the stakes with the last couple. They wouldn’t even have to change much, though I do think they really could have made how everything resolved better (Too many coincidental stuff)

I wound up getting into Alan Wake after buying Alan Wake 2 on sale for super cheap. The first game, which was also super cheap through Steam, was a fun time. I didn’t care much for the gameplay, but I was intrigued with where the story went. I held off on starting 2 after I finished it though because I was going to try to get the entire lore (which involved playing a different Alan Wake game and Control) However, I decided to abandon that as I was not enjoying the other Alan Wake game (American Nightmare) and wanting to close the book on Alan Wake for a while (I’ll play Control sometime for its own merits)

Alan Wake 2 was a let-down.

I didn’t mind the idea of Alan Wake 2 getting darker than its predecessor (to start leaning into the horror idea) but the game relies a bit too heavily on jump scares. During particularly tense moments of the game, it can give you these flashes of people screaming. Sometimes you can predict them, but the times when you’re really invested, they can just pop you up and take you right out of it (Nothing usually happens after you see those scenes) They just feel crammed in to try and make the game feel like it’s scarier than it actually is.

Gameplay is not especially smooth. Clunky is what I’d describe it as. Even playing on the easiest difficulty, I felt like it was tripping me up more than enhancing the experience.

The story, where it goes, leaves a lot of stuff open. What worse is that you need to apparently finish it on New Game+ to get an ending that explains things a bit more. While I generally liked a lot of the ideas, the atmosphere, and the characters, it just felt anti-climatic in the end. More questions about this world they’re in and what’s really true. I could accept that maybe it’s not the end of Alan Wake’s saga but it really doesn’t even feel like an ending for the second game until you beat it again (Which I feel is kind of bad) There’s a reason why they do it that way, but there are better ways to do it than making people play through the same game again for only a few bread crumbs.

My overall grade for this would probably be a C. I was thinking I might play Control right after while playing, but now that I finished, I’m sort of Remedy’d out for a bit, I think.

I was first introduced to eroge in the late 90s at the precocious age of 14 via an old IRC chatroom I used to visit (that ironically was made for RPGMaker but mostly became a hangout for people who liked RPGs) They were often passed around and referred to as “hentai games” From there I sought out every “hentai game” I could find.

Among them was a game called Divi-dead. Despite not being a big fan of horror (I’d been freaked out by very mild horror films/games before) I found the art enticing enough that, despite it being over 100 megabytes (in an age of dial-up), I ended up downloading it as soon as I came across it.

Make no mistake, it was a pretty creepy and gory game, but I found comfort in the visual novel interface. Being able to control things made it much easier to stomach the unnerving parts, and thanks to that I was actually allowed to become interested in the story itself. A story which was pretty wild.

Years eventually went by and I forgot most of what happened in the game. Somewhere in the mid 2000s I looked it up again to find out that apparently the translation had been pretty bad, and when I started learning Japanese, I thought it might be fun to actually reread it to see if I could get a better handle on the story.

Well that’s exactly what I did. Now I cant claim I understood everything 100%, but I did read through it again recently (obtaining all endings)

It was good. I can’t say it held up as well as it did when I was younger, simply because I’m not as driven by hormones (Back in the day the art was pretty enticing) Though I do really like one of the concepts behind one of the endings (which I believe ultimately inspired stories I would write later as a teenager)

The game does kind of suffer from the whole “Check everywhere for the spot you need to go for the next scene” loop. It also has no previously read text feature. Thus, I ended up forgoing a completely blind playthrough and instead followed a guide for all routes.

Best-girl is Sachiko

It’s been a while since I last updated the media thread on here. While I can attribute some of that to my usual laziness, most of it is because it’s been taking me longer to finish up a few things that have been sitting on the back burner. Sakura Moyu is one of those things

To give you an idea of just how long Sakura Moyu has been on the backburner, all I can say is that I stalled it around the time I started Final Fantasy XI back in December. I couldn’t tell you when I started, but it was around then I was maybe a little under halfway through the true route. I didn’t pick it up again until after I finished Expedition 33.

Sakura Moyu is a VN from Favorite. The only other Favorite VN I had played prior to this was Hoshizora no Memoria, which I found to be good, although I can’t say I remember a whole lot about it (I played it back when there was a fan translation and before I knew Japanese) I picked up this one from the numerous acclaim it was getting from people (lots of people rating it 10/10 and calling it kamige)

It took me a while to really get into the title. While I’m not unfond of moege/slice of life in visual novels, my interest in this one lay less with the heroines and more with the fantasy side of the story which involves magical girls that vanquished a great evil to have their wish granted. Something that gave me heavy Madoka vibes in a way.

Though I hadn’t been drawn to it for the heroines themselves, I will note my initial interest ranking: Hyori > Haru > Kuro > Chinatsu because of the contrast in how I eventually found their routes.

I remember it taking me a long time to hit my first route. I chose Chinatsu first. Both because I thought it best to get my weakest interest out of the way, and because it was the first option at the main route choice.

Chinatsu surprised me. I didn’t expect to like her as much as I did, and I had no idea she’d become my favorite heroine. I don’t know if it was my lower expectations or that I found her backstory to be more moving than the others (probably a bit of both) However, it definitely stood out a lot to me. Kind of long, but I could forgive it by the end of it given how much it made me tear up

Hyori’s route, on the other hand, was a huge letdown for me. I loved her personality and voice, but everything about her route and any of the affection she had for the MC felt undercooked. Not to mention there’s a large part of her route spent dealing with a different character that only has a little relation to her. It just felt like there needed to be so much more

Haru’s route was a lot better, thankfully. It did the thing where it dealt with other characters similar to Hyori’s route, but at least in this case it felt like she was more involved. Her backstory was also pretty strong and tragic

The true route was somewhere between Chinatsu and Haru’s route for me. While I liked it overall, it drags on for way too long. Though I really enjoyed the epilogue.

I decided I didn’t like my initial write-up of Expedition 33 and have decided to rewrite it.

The game is excellent.

My first time through, I rated it well, but honestly, I didn’t truly get it. I dodged most of the time, and character battle mechanics only half meshed with my brain. It was enough to reach an ending, and while I enjoyed it, I felt like I had to keep playing.

When I started my second game, I decided to parry only, and from there the experience actually went from a “good game” to an excellent one. It’s hard to explain why, but trust me when I say that if you’re not doing parry only, you’re not really experiencing the best the gameplay has to offer.

Up there with the best JRPGs, unironically

Blue Prince was sold to me as Myst meets a rouge-lite. Who exactly sold it to me that way, I can’t recall. I just started seeing a bunch of media talking about it, and shortly after that started watching some Youtubers play it before I decided I needed to experience it for myself.

That all said, I’m not really huge into Myst. I’ve never beaten it. In fact I’ve never even got very far into it. Partly due to it coming out when I was too young to understand how to figure out the puzzles, but also because I was scared away from playing it (Long story short, don’t play atmospheric games with your friend at a sleepover at 2 am)

On paper though I’ve always liked the idea of Myst and having an interest in plenty of rogue-lite games, it definitely sounded like something I needed to check out.

I will admit that I didn’t solve many (if any at all) puzzles. A big part of that was watching Northernlion play a good chunk of the game, although once he stopped his playthrough (to move onto other games) I wound up using internet help. Most of my enjoyment came from the rogue-lite parts.

I know there’s probably some people who would frown at that, but I still enjoyed the game. I think it’s a masterpiece. Well at least up until you reached room 46. The stuff you can do after that starts to plummet in enjoyability to a more “normal game” level. Not bad, but it gets to the point where I started to feel like what I was doing was not working towards a resolution of the main mystery that becomes clear to you over the course of playing.

It didn’t stop me from doing all there was to do, and it wont probably stop me from picking it up again if new content was introduced. Though for most others I would recommend just focusing on the getting to room 46 and calling it there

Going forward I plan to make individual posts for pieces of media I finish (whether that be entirely or if I drop it) However there’s a lot of things I’ve played in the past several months that I’d like to also say something about, which is why I decided to make a media round-up post for those.

Games:

Final Fantasy XI (Dropped)

I went back to playing Final Fantasy XI toward the end of last year and in the beginning of this year. My reasons for doing so was feeling nostalgic and I was seeing a community for it start up on Blusky. I thought it would be great to play it again, but with people this time (unlike the previous couple times I’ve revisited and pretty much played entirely by myself)

The fact I didn’t quit after a month like I usually do should be telling. It was quite an enjoyable experience. I even met a few people I really enjoyed talking/being with. The problem was, as it always was with FFXI, is that eventually the stuff to do in the game turns into endless grinding for a fraction more power. You can delay it by working on other things, but eventually you reach this point where the only things left to do is put in these hours to the same activities.

I don’t know if I’m doing justice to explaining it. I know there’s probably someone out there who might say “Isn’t that how it always is with ongoing games?” or “Isn’t that how it’s always been with FFXI” It’s hard to explain. Other than to say my excitement just wore off, and while I’d love to stick around for the people I met (and even tried to for a bit) I realized it was keeping me from doing other stuff.

First Berserker Khazan (Complete/cheated)

After FFXI, I picked up First Berserker Khazan. It was the new souls-like that was getting critical claim from people. Being someone that generally enjoys souls games (apart from the recent Elden Ring DLC), I decided to give it a shot. It having an anime aesthetic also didn’t hurt.

I quickly (game progress wise not actual time spent) gave up on the game when I reached the stag boss, I forget their name. After spending close to a couple days on the boss before and then spending several hours with the stag boss, I just felt tired of it. I went down to normal and eventually just used cheat engine to push me through the rest of the game.

There’s a few different things I didn’t like. My biggest criticisms boil down to not enough enemy or location variety, randomized gear, and your efforts generally not contributing much (ie: If you allot a bunch of levels to one stat, it’s probably not going to do much in helping you kill a boss quicker) The story was also pretty weak despite having an interesting premise.

Suikoden (Complete)

Replayed through this as part of the remastered edition release. Despite being a huge Suikoden series fan, I actually hadn’t played the first game more than maybe 2 times (Unlike 2 and 5) It was interesting to see where the series began again.

My general thoughts about the original is that compared to the titles that followed it, it’s the weakest. I would say on the same level as IV (which is practically the most disliked) There’s too many areas where the story and characters could use a bit more fleshing out, and systems that I was disappointed the remaster didn’t try to improve (Despite II already having improved them)

It kind of made me soften on my opinion of Eiyuuden Chronicles. Originally, I didn’t like the game much, and while I would still say I think it misses a lot more than it hits, it feels a bit reminiscent of what the original Suikoden was. Essentially something that needed more time in the oven.

I guess you could argue rather than softening my opinion of Eiyuuden it probably should have made me dislike the original Suikoden more. That would seem more logical. The problem is, I love Suikoden so much that it’s hard to make that judgment

Shows:

Squid Game Season 2 (Complete)

I loved Squid Game season 1 (like most people it seems) Although, I have to admit I was quite sick of it about a month or two later after everyone started doing Squid Game related stuff (There was some multiplayer game made as well as that stuff that went on with Mr. Beast) I knew a season 2 was planned, but after a while I just started tuning out anything that mentioned Squid Game

Imagine my surprise when I find out that season 2 dropped. At first, I wondered if I remembered enough about the original to be able to enjoy a continuation, but time being something I was in short supply of then (I was balls deep in FFXI again) I chose to forgo that and jump right back into it.

Thankfully it didn’t take me long to get back up to speed again. Not that the show really did anything to facilitate that specifically, but from the plot threads of the show I could connect it back to some vague memories and get the general idea.

The show was good. Really good. However, I felt that they did it a disservice ending it on the cliffhanger they did. If this had been a movie, I might have been more willing to let it slide, but for a TV show follow up people had been waiting several years for, I felt like they could have held it off for this year and made season 2 one complete season instead of being in two parts.

I get why they did it that way (money I’m guessing) but to me it just makes the entire thing not feel as strong as it could be. Instead of remembering it as a show with two really strong seasons, I’ll always remember that break now.

86 (Dropped)

I picked this up as an anime to watch while doing my workout (exercise bike) It’s not what I would call a bad anime, by any metric, but I just couldn’t vibe with it after 6 episodes. Also learning that it wasn’t a complete adaptation probably killed whatever interest I still had in it.