Operation Backlog Completion 2026

Our First Ever “Celebrating All Things Romantic” Event

 Celebrating All Things Romantic, My Games, My Stories, Video games, Writing  13 Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Feb 032020
 

You overwhelmingly asked for it in my poll, and so here it is: our first ever Celebrating All Things Romantic event!

While I might have most of my publications in the horror genre, I do write some romance as well. One of my first fiction publications was a Christmas romance story called “A Special Present” in the anthology Love Under the Mistletoe.

It really became my niche in the indie game writing world, however. Most notably, I wrote the script for Ascendant Hearts, a romantic comedy visual novel available now on both Steam and the Nintendo eShop.

I also wrote the scripts for several of Genius’s mobile romance visual novels, the most recent of which are My Time Traveling Girlfriend, My Ninja Girlfriend, and Gossip School: Romance Otome Game.

As you’ve probably guessed, Celebrating All Things Romantic is going to be a lot like Celebrating All Things Spooky, which we do every October, except focused on romance games instead of horror games. Since this is the first time, it might not run as smoothly (can I play & review as many romance games in a month as I do horror games?), but let’s get down to the details!

2020’s Celebrating All Things Romantic Contest

That’s right, I’m doing a contest as usual, and the available prizes are:

  • Ascendant Hearts (gift sent through Steam)
  • Hatoful Boyfriend (gift sent through Steam)
  • Steins;Gate (gift sent through Steam)
  • Muv-Luv (gift sent through Steam)
  • $15 sent through PayPal
  • You pick a game for me to review!

If you choose the review option, your chosen game must be something I either own or is easily obtainable, which you can discuss with me beforehand. It must be a single game, not a collection (although the chosen game can be part of a collection). I will start playing it in March.

Rules and Scoring

  • No purchase is necessary.
  • Only comments made between February 3, 2020 at 1:00 PM EST and February 29, 2020 at 11:59 PM EST will be counted.
  • 1 non-spam, non-anonymous comment on any blog post here = 1 point.
  • 1 non-spam, non-anonymous comment on a Celebrating All Things Romantic blog post = 2 points.
  • You must use an email address or website URL (or include another way of contacting you) in your comment so I can contact you if you win.
  • You must have at least 10 points at the end of the month to win.
  • The person with the most points will get their first pick of the prizes. The person with the second most points will pick second, and so on, until all prizes have been given out.
  • The winner will be contacted by March 2, 2020.

Once again, I’m pretty much following the Celebrating All Things Spooky format. Any questions? Ask in the comments!

Now let’s see if we can make this celebration a thing.

New Final Fantasy VII Remake Trailer, Kingdom Hearts: Dark Road Announced

 Video games  No Responses »  Tagged with: , , ,
Jan 312020
 

A new Final Fantasy VII Remake trailer came out today, and it’s pretty awesome.

The new trailer includes a lot of stuff.

It shows the flashback conversation between Cloud and Tifa, several new scenes of crossdressing Cloud (they must know fans have been anxious about that), another scene with the new character Roche, and a confrontation between Cloud and Sephiroth.

All of these scenes look fantastic. I’m not sure how they’ll work in the new stuff with Sephiroth, but it has the potential to be interesting if they handle it well. I’ve also been concerned about how Roche will fit into the story, but he doesn’t seem bad in the trailer.

The trailer also gives us our first look at Reeve, Scarlet, Palmer, Red XIII, and Hojo.

They all look great, too. Seeing each new character was a delight. I’ve been especially looking forward to seeing what the remake would do with Hojo, and I’m pleased. He looks great!

Great in a Hojo sort of way, that is.

Finally, the trailer features what appears to be a battle against Jenova, confirming that there have been some definite story changes. Some fans have pointed out that Red XIII doesn’t appear in the party window even when he’s seen on-screen in battle scenes in this trailer, so he might not be a full party member in the first Remake game.

For Midgar to become a full-length game, they pretty much had to change some story details, so while it could potentially feel off compared to the original, I’m optimistic that they’ve made good decisions about how to handle these elements.

The entire trailer left me feeling more excited than ever for the Final Fantasy VII Remake, and I only wish it was still coming out in March instead of April 10.

Moving on to Kingdom Hearts, the official name for the Xehanort mobile game has now been revealed as Kingdom Hearts: Dark Road. (I was so close with my “Dark Fall” guess.) I’d hoped we would get more information about the game right away, but we’ll have to wait until mid-February for more details.

I’m still holding out hope that despite being mobile, Kingdom Hearts: Dark Road won’t be a gacha game.

So, how do you feel about the newest Final Fantasy VII Remake trailer? What do you think of Kingdom Hearts: Dark Road? Share all your thoughts in the comments!

The Latest Resident Evil 8 Rumors

 Video games  No Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Jan 292020
 

Hot on the heels of the Silent Hill rumors we discussed on Monday, we now have new Resident Evil rumors to take a look at.

These rumors are about Resident Evil 8 specifically and come from the site Biohazard Declassified.

They say they received an email stating that the next game (which will not be called Resident Evil 8 but will have a “clever title”) will be another first-person game with Ethan from 7 as a playable character, and Chris Redfield will be involved. Regular zombies will return, along with new “wolf-like creatures” and a shadowy enemy that follows the player and disappears when shot.

According to the rumor, the setting is a snowy environment and it starts in a village leading to a castle.

Despite a lot of people discussing “werewolves” in regards to this, it doesn’t look like that was specified, just that the enemies are wolf-like. Details such as the shadowy stalker enemy and the castle have also led to fans speculating that they might use elements from the early “Hook Man” build of Resident Evil 4, which was rumored in the past as well.

Now, this rumor comes from a random anonymous email, which doesn’t lend it a lot of credibility. Eurogamer backed up the report that it will be first-person, but not the rest. Meanwhile, AestheticGamer (the leaker we discussed in regards to the Silent Hill rumors) says it’s not the final Resident Evil 8 but a scrapped version.

And in (possibly) unrelated news, Capcom is recruiting Resident Evil Ambassadors for another playtest starting at the end of February and running through March. The email doesn’t specify which title this playtest is for, so it’s possible they’re testing an unannounced Resident Evil game.

So what do you think? Are the Resident Evil 8 rumors true? Is the playtest for an unannounced game? Share your thoughts in the comments… and I’ll do my best to play Resident Evil 7 before 8 comes out!

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