Still playing Touhou. My latest cleared danmaku challenge: MoF Momiji to Aya pacifist. Otherwise known as the Momiji hyperbolic time chamber.

This was really, really hard lol.

I've been continuing to play Touhou. Currently working on some danmaku challenges, like this Green Storm Ultra timeout.

This one took me like five hours split over several days.

Galleria is an easy recommendation for anyone who enjoys yuri, lengthy epic VN storytelling, and/or complex drpg gameplay. The only one of those things I truly enjoy without reservation is yuri, and I still feel like I got something from the game.

It really is so long tho lol

I'm not too keen on DRPG gameplay in general, and I actively dislike managing large parties, but the first half of Galleria is still a pretty neat quasi-metroidvania experience with a lot of focus on exploration.

I'm glad I had a guide to rely on for the late game...

The scene to scene writing is also very strong - the text is really good at expressing its characters via a powerful grasp of character voice and a keen sense of individual goals and incentives for every actor in every scene. This contributes to Nachi x Yuri being so good!

After 125 hours -spread out over a year real time - I finally finished Labyrinth of Galleria. I can't say that all the disparate parts of the storytelling gelled together into a cohesive and effective whole, but the Nachiru and Eureka Dynamic is very, very good.

same

don't get too excited though, I rarely post these days. It's just that Yuzumori-san and Tai Ari Deshita are topics worth posting about

Yuzumori-san is the greatest and everyone should read it imo.

Tai Ari Deshita even retains some of that Yuzumori-san flavor thanks to the wonderful character of Arisa.

My Ender Lilies plushie just arrived. Delighted to see a plush toy designed with realistic play action features like this.

Embodiment of Scarlet Victory - EoSD 東方紅魔郷 LNB YouTube video by Kefit

Full video of the run, featuring live voice commentary:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Roqb...

After many years away from Touhou I returned to the grind and finally got that Embodiment of Scarlet Devil aka 東方紅魔郷 LNB I always wanted.

An incredible run - for me, at least. This may have taken me 15+ years, but I couldn't be happier with the end result.

Traditional FromSoft bleak stoytelling does very little for me, but games like AI Limit and Dolls Nest twist that bleakness into a shape I find compelling by adding just a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel. It'd be nice to see more takes like this on the souls genre.

AI Limit is somewhat marred for non-CH players because both its ENG and JP translations are lackluster, but the translations maintain coherency and I think the strength of the setting and characters still shine through.

Shirley is very moe no matter the language you see.

Since I'm in a posting mood, I'll also share that I played AI Limit and really enjoyed it. It's an anime soulslike with great combat, excellent area design, and surprisingly effective storytelling. Injecting a little anime pathos can work wonders for a bleak souls style narrative.

Finally got the chance to watch the fourth Princess Principal movie. This is one of my favorite TV anime and movie franchises of recent years, so each new entry is an exciting time for me. Detailed thoughts attached.

I wonder how long the wait will be for movie 5...

100%'d Gentoo Rescue. An extraordinary puzzle game, up there with giants of the genre like Baba is You and Paquerette Down the Bunburrows. Simple initial mechanics gradually escalate into a rich puzzle tapestry filled with meta twists and astonishing surprises. Brilliant game.

It's comforting to know that no matter how old I get, no matter how much the aches and pains of middle age set in, impossibly bad cooking in anime will never ever change.

And somehow it's still an amusing bit after all these years.

The Watatabe anime continues to bless us with the wonders of Miko, this time featuring an incredible delivery of クソ席！！！ from Fairouz Ai.

The voice acting in this adaptation is everything I ever could have asked for as a fan of the manga. Every line of dialogue is a treat.

Shuumatsu Touring 01:
No one is ready for combat android Renge Non Non Biyori.

Well produced with very nice bgm. The concept is intriguing - basically Non Non Biyori meets Apocalypse Hotel - but it's impossible to tell if it will actually go anywhere. Good enough to watch more.

There is a concerning lack of animation in this episode, but that's not necessarily a huge problem since this isn't an action series or anything. Hopefully at least the character art quality remains strong as the anime goes forward.

Watatabe 01:
Animated and voiced Miko is a joy to behold, and Reina Ueda's performance as Hinako is exceptional. This adaptation makes effective use of excellent bgm and sound direction to replicate the slow, thoughtful atmosphere created by the manga's paneling.

Cute and excellent ending to the Bad Girl anime. I'm glad that yuri media still believes in the power of osananajimi.

I wasn't expecting much from this show, but it ended up being my anime of the season. Cute, consistently amusing, and devilishly surprising. Hard to ask for anything more.

anyway I'm going to go look up hornet x lace yuri now and you can't stop me

Though strangely, I have strong disagreements with some other gamers about what the difficult parts of the game were.

I blame my use of the wanderer crest. Wanderer is love, wanderer is life. I wouldn't be surprised if wanderer pogo'ing just kind of breaks some bosses, lol.

While Silksong's combat gameplay and room design are not as complex and demanding as some of my other favorites in the genre, it still provided enough resistance to be consistently engaging. Bosses usually took me a couple tries, and a few standouts gave me some real trouble.

My biggest complaing with HK1 was that the setting and narrative were so ephemeral that they were lost on me. Silksong fixes this by delivering a cogent and effective narrative set in a rich and flavorful world. It always knew exactly how much dialogue was enough for a moment.

Finished the true end in Silksong. As someone who thought HK1 was a good but not quite excellent game, I have to say that Silksong blew me away. It is unmatched in the field of metroidvanias when it comes to exploration feel and overarching game world scope/design.

Got inspired to get my first DCSS ascension in about a decade.

DCSS has gotten much better over the years. Most of the tedious grind aspects are gone, and the rest of the game has become a complex, dense, and engaging experience. Though newbies might find it inaccessible now...

The storytelling is as sparse as you'd expect from a Souls game, but I nonetheless found the ending very striking.

The combat is admittedly simplistic and unexciting once you figure out the basics, but I think the rest of the game more than makes up for this.

While the production values of the game are clearly limited, it manages to do a lot with a little. Many of the areas absolutely ooze with atmosphere. It even manages to make a really cool darkness based area, and that's a true rarity in video games.