Operation Backlog Completion 2026

Muv-Luv photonflowers* is an Enjoyable Collection

 Reviews, Video Games  No Responses »  Tagged with: , , ,
May 172019
 

Muv-Luv photonflowers title screenThe Kickstarter campaign for the localization of Muv-Luv and Muv-Luv Alternative also included a couple collections of side stories.

The first of these is Muv-Luv photonflowers*, which became available for Kickstarter backers in March.

Just like the main Muv-Luv series is split across two universes, the short stories here are also divided, with some stories from the Extra universe and others from the Alternative universe.

The Extra stories feature an extended epilogue following the Sumika ending, as well as six short stories (roughly 15 minutes each) set before Extra, from the points of view of each of the five main heroines. There are six stories because Meiya’s story is told in two parts.

Alternative’s stories are two prequels featuring characters from Alternative, along with three short stories giving additional perspectives on the war.

As you might expect if you’ve read the Muv-Luv visual novels, the Extra stories are cute and funny, while the Alternative stories are bleaker but also more interesting.

It took me about 9 hours to go through all of Muv-Luv photonflowers*, and it was definitely worth it. I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoyed Muv-Luv and Muv-Luv Alternative and wants more from their universes. (If you haven’t read them, though, you shouldn’t start with this. You can find my review of Muv-Luv Extra and Unlimited here and my review of Alternative here.)

I especially enjoyed the Sumika epilogue from the Extra half and the Alternative prequel about Marimo. It disappointed me a little bit that there wasn’t an epilogue following Meiya’s ending, but the two-part story about Meiya was probably the best of the other Extra stories.

I don’t know when Muv-Luv photonflowers* will be released to the public, but it shouldn’t be much longer. If you’re a Muv-Luv fan, keep an eye out for it.

The Phoenix Wright Trilogy is Now Out on All Major Platforms

 Video Games  2 Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Apr 102019
 

If you’ve been interested in the Ace Attorney series but didn’t have a platform to play it on, you’re in luck!

The Phoenix Wright Trilogy, which includes the first three games in the series, is now available on pretty much everything (except Vita).

That’s right, it was just released for the Nintendo Switch, the PlayStation 4, the Xbox One, and Steam.

This means a new audience can now enjoy the Ace Attorney series for the first time!

Will it end with the first trilogy? Hopefully not. The old rumors about the Ace Attorney Switch games seem completely unreliable when you consider the time frame, but a second collection containing Apollo Justice, Dual Destinies, and Spirit of Justice would be a great way for all of these new fans to catch up on the series in time for the next game.

Speaking of which, where is the next game? We’ve been waiting for Ace Attorney 7 news for a while now. Soon we’ll be coming up on three years since the release of Spirit of Justice.

Meanwhile, I’m still hoping that the theoretical future compilations include an Investigations Duology that will finally give an official localization to Gyakuten Kenji 2, and I still hope we’ll see localization of the Dai Gyakuten Saiban games eventually… maybe in 2023 when the final Sherlock Holmes stories enter the public domain.

Are you planning to pick up the Phoenix Wright Trilogy on one of the new platforms? Do you think another Ace Attorney collection will follow? When will Ace Attorney 7 be announced? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Neon Tide Demo: Intriguing, Yet Confusing

 Video Games  2 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Apr 032019
 

Recently, the developers of Neon Tide contacted me to tell me about their Kickstarter campaign and ask if I’d be interested in playing their demo.

Neon Tide is a cyberpunk visual novel set in a world with sentient AI and a virus known as the “Neon Tide” that is affecting robots.

The visual novel itself is almost completed, and the Kickstarter campaign is so they can add voice acting as well as a Japanese translation.

It’s clearly an ambitious project, with character models instead of the typical 2D sprites used in visual novels and a mixture of still shots and animated scenes. The cyberpunk aesthetic is visible throughout the game, including its menus, which gives it a nice flair.

However, I feel like it could benefit from a bit of traditional visual novel storytelling as well. The silent scenes in the demo, while impressive, were a bit hard to follow. I found myself hoping for a bit of narration to give more context to the game’s events.

(Then again, maybe the ambiguity is intentional, especially if it’s the start of the game.)

Neon Tide’s demo tosses you into the fray with two characters. One is a sentient hologram whose motives are unclear aside from hating AI, and the other is an AI infected by the Neon Tide trying to escape some sort of robot facility.

I was intrigued by what was happening, but again, I wanted a bit more context. Similarly, while the hologram character (Beta) had a few moments of internal narration, it wasn’t quite enough yet for me to connect to him as a character. He seems like the main protagonist, but I was more interested in what was going on with the robots.

According to the Kickstarter page, the fully-infected AI wants to rule over humanity while the partly-infected AI wants the two groups to live in harmony, and it sounds like Beta will be swept up in trying to learn the truth about the Neon Tide.

Neon Tide has an intriguing premise and an ambitious vision. The demo left me just a bit too confused to be sold on its storytelling, but I’ll be keeping an eye on it as we go forward.

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