Operation Backlog Completion 2026

Higurashi When They Cry Chapter 3: The Mysteries Deepen

 Reviews, Video Games  2 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Jul 172023
 

Look at that, I actually continued Higurashi without letting another year pass me by again.

So far, each chapter of Higurashi has felt quite different. The first episode was a slow build-up to intense paranoia. The second episode played out like a mystery, with surprises waiting just when it seemed everything was resolved.

That brings us to Higurashi When They Cry – Ch. 3 Tatarigoroshi.

Like the previous episodes, the third entry begins with a slice-of-life section in which everything seems lighthearted and fun. This time, those fun days are cut short by sadness, with an unhappy section of the story that retains the slow pace but sees the main character falling into despair as he’s unable to do anything to help a suffering friend.

The tone felt much more somber than the previous two episodes, and then it took a darker turn in a much different way.

And from there, things start getting strange – adding even more mysteries on top of those from the first two episodes. As I played, I started to develop theories about what was actually going on, only for later developments to throw those theories into confusion again. The ending, especially, left me with more questions than ever.

That’s about all I can say without spoilers.

Click for Higurashi Chapter 3 spoilers
Right now my two major theories that I keep being torn between are “Keiichi is an unreliable narrator with false memories” and “there are parallel timelines and Keiichi jumps between them sometimes,” but neither of those has an explanation for the creepy footstep.

The story Keiichi’s friends tell about him being with them at the festival seem to overlap with what happened in one of the previous chapters, which is why I started to wonder if they could all be running parallel to one another. And the previous chapter, like this one, had people being alive when they were supposed to already be dead; it can’t be all just delusion.

It feels like each chapter carefully builds up to a plausible rational explanation for the curse, only to pull the rug out from under you with an inexplicable incident.

Then there are characters like Ooshi and Takano, who seem to be more sinister in each new episode.

This wasn’t my favorite chapter, because of how long it took for things to really start happening, but the questions raised once they did were worth it.

Higurashi When They Cry – Ch. 3 Tatarigoroshi was sad, disturbing, and confusing all at once, and I’m really curious to see how this will all be wrapped up. Maybe for this October, we’ll actually get through the whole series to see how it plays out!

Winter’s Wish: Spirits of Edo – An Unexpected Rollercoaster of Emotions

 Reviews, Video Games  2 Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Jul 052023
 

Back when Winter’s Wish: Spirits of Edo was announced back in 2021 (alongside a ton of other exciting otome announcements), it was one of the newly-announced titles I was most excited for.

It’s a fantasy story with a historical setting that follows a young woman named Suzuno who has the ability to see people’s emotions. Although she lives an isolated life since the villagers are afraid of her, she’s recruited by the shogunate to join a secret group trained to fight demons/yokai known as blightfall.

That premise appeals to me, so I was looking forward to it, but I generally expected Winter’s Wish to just be “fine.” Something that would have some sweet moments, some nice routes, and nothing that would especially stand out… but I was surprised by just how much I ended up enjoying it!

Winter’s Wish has an interesting structure. Instead of a single common route that leads to the character routes, the common route itself splits into three branches.

There are six love interests who work in pairs, and after a short common route to set up the story and characters, you pick which pair to join. Then you have a common route focused on those two characters before your choices place you on one or the other’s route.

It also employs a clever means of locking routes without making it obvious from the start. Any character’s route can be started, but some will only let you play a certain amount before locking you out if you haven’t met the requirements yet. They’re effectively the same as locked routes, but a bit more subtle about it.

Anyway, each route focuses on a different central conflict related to the love interest of choice. It’s one of those games where drastically different events occur just based on who you’re working with, which always seems a bit unnatural to me from a narrative perspective, but since all the important details remain consistent across routes, it didn’t bother me too much.

In addition to the external conflict of each route, the romances have an additional element of drama due to the love interests being Vessels, artificial constructs created specifically to the fight the blightfall, who have their hearts sealed so they can’t feel emotion.

Click for Winter's Wish minor spoilers
They also make a big deal out of how if a Vessel regains his heart, he’ll need to be destroyed immediately, but since that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense (a Vessel with a heart is just like a regular human), it felt a bit forced. Fortunately, it took more of a back seat compared to the other conflicts.

The first few routes I played were indeed just “fine,” like I had expected. As a diehard fan of kuudere characters (the serious, seemingly-emotionless sort), Genjuro won my heart due to his personality and all the funny/cute moments in his route, and the others had some exciting moments. But the final two routes took me by surprise with how exciting they were! They ratcheted up the intensity and hit me with some twists and plot developments I never saw coming.

Overall, I quite enjoyed my time with Winter’s Wish: Spirits of Edo. While not every route was as memorable as others, some parts had me invested in the story much more than I expected.

Sympathy Kiss, My Next Life as a Villainess Otome, and Tsukihime Localizations Announced!

 Video Games  3 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , ,
Jul 032023
 

We were hoping for exciting news from Anime Expo, and a few announcements certainly stand out to me as a visual novel fan.

While there was no live stream of Idea Factory’s panel, fortunately Twitter was working again so I could wait for tweets about the news, since they’d teased at least one otome announcement.

They turned out to have not one, but two otome localizations to announce. The first one announced was Sympathy Kiss, an office romance about a woman who starts working for a mobile app developer. Sympathy Kiss has gotten some criticism from fans because the protagonist has an eyeless design presumably intended to make self-insertion easier. She also has no written dialogue, only dialogue indicated through the narration.

Despite this, fans who have played it in Japanese says she does have her own personality instead of being a complete self-insert. It sounds interesting enough that I’ll probably try it.

Sympathy Kiss will be out in early 2024.

Idea Factory’s other announced otome title will be out even earlier, with a winter release window, and that is My Next Life As a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! – Pirates of the Disturbance.

This extremely long title is because it is based on the anime My Next Life As a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, which I know little about except that it’s a reincarnation isekai “otome” anime that has little to do with actual otome tropes, so it’s ironic that an actual otome was developed based on it.

I’ve seen people say the game is a good comedy, so I’ll be keeping an eye on it (and looking up whether or not I should have greater knowledge of the anime before playing it).

As I mentioned, it’s set for winter 2023, so the second half of this year is even more stacked than it was before. Idea Factory has Limited Edition pages up for both titles, so it seems both Sympathy Kiss and My Next Life As a Villainess will receive Limited Editions.

Meanwhile, let’s swing our attention away from Idea Factory and toward Type-Moon, as it was announced that Tsukihime: A Piece of Blue Glass Moon will be released in the west for PS4 and Switch in 2024.

The original Tsukihime came out in 2000, and this is the first half of a two-part remake. (That’s right, Final Fantasy VII isn’t the only game getting a multi-part remake.) Apparently it was rewritten for the remake, with new characters and additional content that brings it to 45+ hours despite being only the first half.

After Witch on the Holy Night received an official translation (which I quite enjoyed) last year, I wondered if more Type-Moon visual novels would follow… and it seems the answer is yes! Who knows, one of these days we could be discussing an official Fate/Stay Night localization.

There might be more exciting news yet to come, but as a visual novel fan, these three announcements already have my attention. Are you interested in any of the three?

 Older Entries  Newer Entries