This week's loot (1st April 2018)

Cleared Valkyria 4 and SRW X.

Valkyria 4 is basically just the first game again, except with more variety (but not TOO much like 2 and 3) in the gameplay and better writing. Straight up the best game in the series.

The gameplay in SRW X is a bit more fun than V's thanks to the new EX action and dogma stuff but the writing ultimately falls short. The characters that do get screentime are handled well enough but a lot are just in the background doing nothing for the whole game, the villains are terrible, and most of the series' stories are fumbled if even handled at all. Not bad, at least.

This and last week's loot (5th March 2017)

Cleared SRW V. It was okay. Writing wasn't exceptionally bad, but isn't at all good. Can't help but feel that the Z series was written better, even with its horrible original enemies.

This week's loot (16th November 2015)

This week's loot (25th October 2015)

Alpharide has been very disappointing so far. I stopped playing it after the game froze FOUR TIMES on a single stage and am hoping that they'll patch it soon.

This week's loot (13th September 2015)

Also cleared my first playthrough of Suparobo BX. It was eh.

This week's loot (23rd August 2015)

Fire Emblem if: Anya Oukoku

Cleared the second part of Fire Emblem if. Byakuya route was roughly 17 hours, Anya 12. Same number of story stages, but Anya is shorter because you can't mess around in free battles = waste time raising and customising your characters. That being said, gameplay in Anya is way more fun with most stages having unique gimmicks (though some are kind of annoying and a bunch of earlier stages are slogs).

The gameplay is okay.

The story isn't.

For one thing, it's clearly incomplete. I've seen people claim that each route's story is complete on its own. They're lying through their fucking teeth. Literally nothing is explained. The characters are kind of shallow too, mostly due to the short length of the game(s). It wouldn't be so bad if these two parts and the third which isn't out yet were sold as one game, but the gall one has to have to sell each part on its own is way beyond my comprehension. Ugh.

I thought the gameplay was terrible before I started on the Anya route though, so maybe- just maybe- the third route will manage to save all this. Maybe.

Anyway, the usual:

Fire Emblem if: Byakuya Oukoku

Cleared the Byakuya route on Monday and am currently past two-thirds through the Anya route. My people from the end of the Byakuya route:

To be honest the game isn't that good. It's not BAD, but Kakusei was just better in pretty much every way. Of the new features the one I like most is the social aspects (the build your own castle thing) but a LOT of the problems with other stuff stem from the inclusion of it. The writing seems a bit stunted, the characters shallow due to the whole multiple route thing limiting the amount of time they get in one route. The customisation is bit limited compared to Kakusei yet skills are easily gotten through the social stuff, and either way a lot of the motivation to raise characters (for me, at least) is sapped away by the fact that you have to start over from scratch in the other routes. The gameplay in the Byakuya route is terrible too, being way too easy for most of the game (it's not even Kakusei easy, it's clear stages on FUCKING AUTOBATTLE easy). The Anya route on the other hand (so far) does a very good job of limiting your resources and then tempting you with optional objectives that reward you with much-needed resources, and cool stage gimmicks, but quite a few of the stages are too tedious, and there are one or two that are plain bullshit unfair at times.