Garden Mint

The last 15ish years have seen so much ink spilled on the Vanillish line, on gen 1 designs, etc etc, but I think it bears repeating how easy it is for a Mons game to stick to charismatic animals like mammals and birds and dinosaurs and pets. And pokemon does have that (we have, what, six cat lines? more if you count regional meowths) but it also makes sure to add, like. A crinoid. A bagworm. A bell. Creepy humanoid mushrooms, a sand castle, a big iceberg.

The structure of the game manages to hit a remarkable number of features that folks who think "RP forward" actually means something and isn't just a marketing phrase would typically regard as categorically excluding a system from being "RP forward", while looking nothing like the kind of game you'd tend to picture based on those features.

You don't want the mechanics sticking their nose into every little thing? Chuubo's is so intensely preoccupied with mechanising the mundane that forming intentions to do things is a rules-mediated action. There are specific target numbers for stuff like "do it correctly", "look like you actually know what you're doing", and "be happy with the result", and without a relevant skill or resource expenditure, the best outcome you can ordinarily achieve is "make everything worse".

You want to do stuff because it "makes sense for your character", and not because it gives the most points? As far as Chuubo's is concerned, those are the same thing. Just living your everyday life is framed as a kind of quest, with milestones and XP triggers and whatnot; this is a game where you might actively look for excuses to "have a conversation in a poorly lit place" or "gaze contemplatively over a large body of water" because your personal quest line awards XP for doing that.

You want a game that will let you make up whatever character you want and doesn't expect you to faff about with "classes" and "levels" and such? Not only does Chuubo's effectively have both of those things, it's so strongly opinionated about what sorts of characters are appropriate that it recommends you use pregenerated characters until you get a good feel for the milieu. One of those pregens has a character sheet that's twenty pages long – and you might assume that means most of it is just a big tedious lore dump, but it's not.

Reimu: "Uoooh the weather is so good to laze about and sip tea, I am confident today will be a fine, calm day."

Yukari: "Think again. You are the brown and white Shrine Maiden now, in case you didn't notice."

Reimu: "What in the world are you talking abo--

Reimu: "--oooh, yeah, huh? Actually, where did the color Red go?"

Yukari: "That's what you will be figuring out today, Reimu dearest. This is an Incident, the missing color Red. Remilia is having an existential crisis now that Sakuya started calling her Reimilia Beige. Reisen's kinda bummed out that she has Brown Eyes of Mild Irritation now. You yourself will only be known as the Brown And White Shrine Maiden of Paradise if we let this go on."

Reimu: "Which is. Not terrible? I actually kind of like this. But, sure, it does hurt my marketing in the Human Village. What's my gear gimmick this time?"

Yukari: "Take these glasses, they temporarily return Red to the world around you when you wear them, letting you see things as you normally would... But maybe they will obscure other things only visible while Red does not exist."

Reimu: "Sounds conveniently geared towards danmaku trickery! Well, do we have any leads?"

Yukari, with a smile so bright that it could make the sun burst green with envy: "Absolutely none."

Reimu: "Standard procedure, then! See you later."

*Reimu heroically picks a random direction, rolls up her detached sleeve, and starts beating the tar out of absolutely everyone in the way, including Brown Sekibanki who was the midboss for some reason*

Minor Youkai: "Hiiii! Whatcha doing around these parts?"

Reimu: "I'm trying to find out where Red went. Do you know anything?"

Minor Youkai: "Ah! You are on her trail, I see! I see a lot of people pass through here, given my ability is to detect movement flawlessly in a large radius and poison it conceptually so that my target's movement quite literally dies, so long as we have eye contact. I'm told... Not to let anyone go after her for today!"

Reimu: "I see. But I don't know who 'her' is, and that doesn't really help me, so,"

Minor Youkai: "Hah! You can't fool me! Wait, what those long and cruel needles for?"

*Reimu beats the absolute tar out of this youkai with a suspiciously insane ability by dragging her face across every single surface in a 40 meter radius*

Minor Youkai: "Owwww ok ok I don't know where Red is but I heard the lake west to the Human Village has some weird stuff going on!"

Reimu: "Good enough!"

Obscure Youkai: "Not so fast, Brown and White Shrine Maiden."

Reimu: "Not my name, but who are you?"

Obscure Youkai: "I heard from the people you've been ragdolling that you are looking for my mistress."

Reimu: "No, seriously, who the hell is your mistress, I have no idea--"

Obscure Youkai: "A deft attempt at subterfuge, Brown and White! But a futile one, as well! I will never give away my mistress' location! You know too much, and for her sake, you must DIE."

Reimu: "I don't know a damn thing, my girl, also not my name."

Obscure Youkai: "My ability is that I always know exactly how many steps there are on a staircase or a ladder! Now, have at you!"

Reimu: "Psh, that sounds silly."

*Reimu barely survives an outrageously difficult battle against the most nothingburger ability in the world with a well placed Yin Yang Orb Concussion*

Reimu with a purple brown eye: "Ok! Maybe not so silly! Holy hell."

Mastermind: "I should've known you'd figure out my ploy, Brown and White... Heh. Well played!"

Reimu: "Where. Did you come from. I have no idea who you are. And not my name."

Mastermind: "Hah...! Playing the bumbling fool until the end! Formidable! My name is Ishihara, As In, The Color Blindness Test!"

Reimu: "Hold up, are you the one that stole Red?"

Ishihara: "Indeed!" *the absolute hardest and most climatic track you've heard in your life starts playing* "And no one, not even the STINKY Brown and White Shrine Maiden of Paradise, can take it back!"

Reimu: "Not my name! And that changes things!"

*Ishihara launches an entire arsenal of spellcards with an optometrism and color blindness theme danmaku, like Deceit Sign "Green Blind Perdition - Deuteranopia"*

*But Reimu picks her up by the legs and slams her left and right like Bamm-Bamm in the Flintstones until she explodes and the screen goes white*

*Cut to Ishihara, Obscure Youkai, Reimu, and Komachi for some reason sipping tea at the Hakurei Shrine; the color Red is back if you 1cc'd*

Reimu: "So you are telling me you stole Red because of apples?"

Ishihara: "Indeed! I love the taste of red apples, but I like green apples more aesthetically, so I was wondering, huh, if I seal away the color red, then delicious red apples will look more like beautiful green apples!"

Reimu: "Right, that's pretty reasonable. But never do it again."

Ishihara: "Even though you wear a lot of red, you are pretty interesting, Shrine Maiden... Maybe I ought to pay a visit more often."

Reimu, knowing full well she has no say in this matter: "Don't."

Komachi: "I, too, am in this episode."

Aunn: "Aunn."

Marisa in her route: *Made at least one new girlfriend with the Stage 3 or 4 boss.*

Obscure Youkai, the Stage 5 boss: *doesn't become playable for years.*

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