BE ATTITUDE FOR GAINS

CHAPTER 7 WILL BE A FULL 3D-ACTION RPG THEY'RE GOING TO DO PLATFORMING AND TALES OF COMBAT ok i'm joking but like at the rate this fucking thing is going i wouldn't be surprised if they really do push the upper limits of the engine and force some fucking fully 3d segment in this thang. susie's gear's 'ready for run and gunning' < they're going to do a run 'n' gun sequence using the same visuals they had for the queen giant robot fight ok? The platforming shit might’ve well been halfway there hah.

Anyway, in a less joking tone, I’m always impressed with the development team whenever a new chapter drops: they’re packing so much shit into this. They’re always breaking what you’d expect a chapter to be. I guess at this point you expect a chapter to have a central gimmick but like, while they make it work I think it is stretching the game a bit thin. Set the precedent that each chapter will have a gimmick and you move further and further away from what it was. I mean it’s part of the whole but you do wonder why it needs to be the case? You see a little bit of the seams with this new perspective shift (like you can visually see when a room is going to be shifted because there’s this line around the edges of some floor tiles. I think it’s neat to see this isn’t a complaint I like seeing stuff like this) and it feels fairly smooth enough that I have very little complaints (Kris’ attack hitbox is fairly generous compared to some other stuff I’ve played). I wonder how much it has added new features to the gamemaker engine… (if it has…)

I really am struggling to sum up my thoughts on this chapter. I ended up enjoying it a hell of a lot more than I was expecting, like I came out of ch.3+4 thinking ‘yeah I’ll just wait for the rest’ and seeing the way ch.5 was being pushed as ‘one last adventure to smile to’ kinda stuff was like whhhhyyyyy do we need to pad it out? But I’m glad it did…. This feels like an ‘essential’ chapter to my eyes, and it’s brought me back board pretty strongly with the game. The dark world here was just sooooooo... I def feel like this carries a through-line with ch.4 and strengthens the stuff laid out in that.

Ok I have to talk about the flowers because if I don’t talk about the flowers this shit is never going to be finalised: they’re super fun! Big ol’ grin on my face every time they showed up. I do think they will only appear here, which is why we have something like the cafe convos and especially why they are so one-note in actual character. It’s fine that they are though because I found that there was undertale baggage I brought over and projected into their characters… they are not the humans from that story and yes, they do reflect those things that are our only context clues for those implications of characters (the equippable gear, which makes a re-appearance here too) and it works here. I feel like with Flowery they actually showed a lot of restraint not making any of his attacks reflect flowey’s or azzy’s, which makes sense but like, to invoke the image of the souls floating around to give the power… .ahue :’D nah it was good. “Thank you for watching our dream.”

Speaking of Flowery. Love him! I did like his gimmicks and everytime he spoke I would say ‘I need him to shut up’ which then made me laugh even more because raslei usually would follow up with ‘hey reminder you can shut him up in the settings’ and like, of course I didn’t actually want to, because the voice lines were a hoot. Anyway his position as ralsei’s foil really does create some fascinating points specifically everything that ralsei has the capabilities of and how they choose not to use those which empower the player and their position in the game. The bit where they went ‘we don’t have time for this [puzzle]’ and just kicked it all off the screen was a great mix of humour and showcasing this. And the way this all blends into the prophecy stuff - ralsei praying every chance they get to prevent it... but technically… well, the way I see it is for as much as they fear the outcome (which we still do not know! Susie and ralsei do, and their attitudes and behaviours differed so strongly in this chapter to previous ones because They Know) and do not want it to pass, they fear not adhering to it more, which is why flowery works. Which is why flowery needs to say what he says. And does what he does.

Anyway weird that this entire shit was place: japan like ok. Putting one volume of manga behind the tv to denote why it’s place: japan is. Well. It’s not doing anything. You can make touhou references without that, I think. Soured because of recent comments on not wanting to translate to other languages. You pay other people to do that work because they know how to do that work and you gotta trust they know what they’re doing to deliver the game in another language. Anyway.

I am afraid to say though that I ended up enjoying the platforming a fair bit more than I was expecting…. It smoother than I thought it would be but I sort of dislike how it breaks up the levels/level structure. The hardest (as in I literally could not do it and just palmed the controller off to my sister to complete) was the pink coin that’s just after the plaforming challenge to get to the pink door. I hate hollow knight style platforming challenge 😂 no I really do dislike that ‘hit thing to bounce to move to location to bounce off of next thing – here it is a little less taxing because I don’t have to hold down to attack the [thing] and then try to hold [direction] I want to go. Like it was smoother than I was expecting but like the climbing… this is surely something that’s going to appear again isn’t it……………..

Small things:

the shit going on with catti, noelle and kris – it’s nice to see a little bit more there

there is a really minor bit in-between ralsei’s bullying of orange where after she punches the gang: susie tries to interject and support them and I love taking what gerson did for her and trying to put it forward to someone else

SUSIE!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAUUUUUUGHHHHHHHH !!!!

also blue is the only other flower from flowery who gets a face (dialogue box) sprite?

something something we know -making choices where only two people can be chosen and there’s three so someone will always be excluded- the devil

this is like suuuuuper minor but ralsei is always represented with a lime green type colour in the ui but in asgore’s story of What Happened asriel is denoted by the same green as like ralsei’s clothing. Huh?!

asgore and carol are in cahoots which makes me believe that carol is not in the position I previously thought her to be – I think she knows just as much as asgore does and their weird arrangement is to their benefit but she has no fucking, or rather minor involvement with the knight and kris… in replaying the chapters I do think the spoken dialogue with the “mantle” (it was all in darkness anyway) was from the knight itself (not the mantle – I think theirs is the black text you need to walk behind) and I def think they are working together but to what end… ? Unclear to me.

anyway did you notice after flowery joined the party, there kinda was a permanent space/slot just right of ralsei in the status menu... :^]

the fuckiiiing ace attorney segments WHAT DOES THIS GAME WANNA BEEEE - anyway kris swapping between franziska and edgeworth was great but trudi ralsei is #wise

i think it's neat how you are kind of introduced to the charge mechanic in flowery's fight via the running sections and through the tropical starwalkers (it's like a loose connection though).

sylvie rpg

angeline era

ringlorn saga and ringlorn saga gaiden

hyper bun buster: rocket hammer action

X-YZE

sylvie rpg

angeline era

ringlorn saga and ringlorn saga gaiden

hyper bun buster: rocket hammer action

X-YZE

Pixygarden, a 1999 Playstation game by Escot. 

I can find almost nothing about this game in English, but it seems to be a sci-fi/fantasy take on an aquarium-sim where you raise groups of fairies on different planets, adjusting temperature and growing foliage. I’m not sure how playable it would be for someone who can’t read Japanese though.

Youtube only has an upload of the opening cutscene, but I did find some gameplay footage on Nico Video. 

Worth noting that there’s also an early PC-98 game by the same name that seems to have a similar concept, though from what little I’ve seen I’m not completely sure if the PS1 game is a remake or something else entirely.