Recent reviews by SwiftShadow

it's just so peak

It's a good VN. According to others, it's Smee's best title, and although I haven't played their other games as of me writing this review, I really like the comedic theme of this VN, along with the fact that most of the heroines are adults instead of schoolgirls.

However, reading this particular version of the VN has been a miserable experience for me so far. I keep getting random errors that destroy my reading experience. It mostly happens a few scenes after you use the jump feature. You could argue that I should just not use it in that case, but that's a game feature that shouldn't have any errors in the first place.

It also would've been helpful if the errors were meaningful, but 99% of the time, it's just some random garbled text.
Here's an example:
https://cs2bus.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3107933158

I love this VN. All the heroines have interesting backstories and Yuuji (the protagonist) is a well-written character imo. The VN starts off with SOL which is pretty long before it eventually gets to the routes.

The way the choices are offered, people that aren't using a guide will most likely get Makina as their first route, which is not an ideal pick if I'm being honest since it's more action-heavy compared to the other routes. A better first route would be Michiru's which focuses more on her character and her relationship with Yuuji.

Other than that, all of the heroine's are top tier and fun to read, except for maybe Amane's route which may turn off other people due to the amount of seggs that route has (which also gets explained later).

Not a VN I'd recommend to someone trying out the medium for the first time though because they will most likely get bored at the common route and drop the VN.

I played this game back in 2011 so I downloaded it again for the nostalgia but you get paywalled after the first few main quests

The sub costs $10 which sometimes goes on sale for $5 but I feel like this game isn't really worth that much money. There are better games out there for that price

The optimization leaves much to be desired, with frequent FPS dips in almost all areas, resulting in an unpleasant experience.

Really good VN with an enforced play order featuring the story of an amnesiac merc and the aftermath of a tragedy.

This version of the game is Dive 1 and Dive 2 combined. Both of them take about 60-100 hours to complete, overall giving you a playtime of 120-200 hours. Very worth it for the price IMO, especially if it's on sale

Art is very solid thanks to Kikuchi Seiji, and the OST is pretty good and fits the theme of the story
Translation quality is also pretty good and accurate to the Japanese text.
There's also gameplay sections which is literally crack because of how addicting it is

Two complaint I can give is that it can sometimes be a little repetitive, especially when starting a new route.
You also can't skip parts that are repeated in other routes even though the text is the same.

Overall a solid 9~8.5/10 VN

One of the best VNs you can read right now

Had a really great time reading this VN thanks to the personalities of the cast and the overall humor of the VN itself. If you used certain patches, you can restore H scenes and the missing voices of the supporting cast (they are voiced by big VAs, which meant they needed to be removed to cut down costs)

The best part about this series is that almost every girl gets a route, but the base game mainly focuses on the Kazama family, but you need to read this one before reading Majikoi S anyway. (Majikoi S and the A series are JP only for now unless you use patch)

If you've only seen the anime, this version is way better than that garbage. Do yourself a favor and read this VN

A free and open source software that is extremely useful for lots of different situations.

The software has an extremely steep learning curve, but you will be rewarded in the end. You don't really need to learn everything, so it's not as bad as it sounds

Aokana's best girl finally gets her EXTRA in English!
If you enjoyed the base game, you need to get this game right the F now!

I've already read it in JP, but if they haven't changed anything, then I highly recommend this VN. The focus is entirely on Misaki and the way it ends is more satisfying than every other ending on the base game.

The experience of going through Misaki's route on the base game will probably be better than the experience of going through EXTRA 2, but this is still a very good read nontheless. It also expands on FC as a sport overall compared to (BASE GAME SPOILER)Asuka's unga bunga shoe safety off ending

Now we wait for Minamo route which hopefully doesn't take a billion years. Madoka, Satouin, and Saki route too but that's copium territory at this point

EDIT: This game is still hard to recommend to other people, it's hard for new players to catch up, which means that they will be carried 99% of the time when playing with randoms, which is a depressing way to play the game

Even if you build up some characters, they become irrelevant in a few months because the newest character will almost always bring their respective elements to the top. When it's your element's turn to be the top again, you have no choice but to bench your older unit that may be A6 (Frigg A6 gets destroyed by Icarus A0)

For reference, getting an A6 character costs $300-$500 if you whale for it, or months of saving + the monthly pass ($5) and the advanced pass ($20)

The global version of the game is also published by Tencent, which means that the stuff they put out doesn't feel like it went through any kind of QA and the game will be super greedy with packs and top-up resets just like how KR and TW server (different publisher) got top-up reset while Global got shafted and received nothing.

I just can't recommend it to new players. Yeah, I still play it, but that's basically sunk cost fallacy at play.

If there was a midpoint between recommending this game and not recommending this game, my opinion would be somewhere in that area, however, I'm still leaving a positive review since I love this series' worldbuilding, characters and art, but the writer (Kinugasa Shougo) just can't make proper endings to their routes.

Similar to the first game, there are lots of plot points that just feel like it's too short or just make you ask more questions instead of answering them. The romance is also incredibly bad to the point where it's literally almost nonexistent, with Ryoko's route (if you can even call it her route lol) barely including Ryoko at all, in fact, it feels like she's just there for the sake of being there.

I also did Ryoko's route before Fuyumi's route, and I thought I was gonna get a slightly modified version of the events of Ryoko's route in Fuyumi's route, but nope, it just ends a few moments after the hotel scene which of course made me go "Wait, that's it?"

Even though it fails in romance and anything related to concluding a plot point, Ruka (The MC) and his interaction with pretty much everybody is hilarious and I think this game is still worth the purchase just for these interactions alone even though the routes feel incomplete.

Here's some of my favorite dialogue in the game:
https://cs2bus.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2831640979

https://cs2bus.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2831933110

https://cs2bus.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2831932317

https://cs2bus.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2831933084

https://cs2bus.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2832419428

Akinashi Yuu's art is just eye candy. The CGs look amazing, the HCGs are like angels descending upon my eyes. The music is nothing special, but it is noteworthy that Buddy!! is stuck in my head.

If you hate cliffhangers and unsolved plot points, I don't recommend this game yet and I would advise you to wait until the other remaining parts of the series get released, then you can research for yourself if it has properly concluded, but if you don't really care and just want to laugh at something, then this is a pretty good purchase.