Samantha Lienhard's Blog, page 27

Ys X Coming West This Fall

This year’s shorter Celebrating All Things Romantic event is at an end, the contest winners have been contacted, and now we have some news to catch up on.

Earlier this week, NIS America announced that Ys X: Nordics will be coming west this fall for Switch, PS4, PS5, and PC, with both English and French translations.

A Limited Edition will also be available, although preorders aren’t up yet.

We talked about Ys X when it was first announced over a year ago, and I’m even more excited for it now than I was then. It looks great!

I’m a little surprised NISA announced this on a random day instead of saving it for a showcase, but maybe they have other things in store.

My history with the Ys series has been odd. I started with Ys I, came back six years later to restart it and finally finish, and then played Ys IX. I keep intending to play Ys II, but who knows if I’ll have gotten there by the time Ys X comes out. Either way, I’m looking forward to it!

Are you interested in Ys X?

Also, how did you feel about Celebrating All Things Romantic 2024 only running until the 14th? I thought it worked out well, but I’d like to hear your thoughts.

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Celebrating All Things Romantic: Jack Jeanne

Happy Valentine’s Day!

For our final review of Celebrating All Things Romantic 2024, I’d like to talk about an otome game I was intrigued by ever since its localization was confirmed in 2022, Jack Jeanne.

Jack Jeanne came out last June, and with how big my backlog is, you might guess it simply got pushed aside for other games. However, you’d be wrong.

I actually started Jack Jeanne shortly after it came out. My first route took as long as some whole games I’ve played, and I realized that playing routes back-to-back would probably lead to burning out. So instead, I took a break after each Jack Jeanne route to play another game before returning for the next.

Jack Jeanne is long. Now, it’s about 80% common route and you can skip already-read text, but the structure of the game means each playthrough will still take a considerable amount of time.

You play as Kisa, a girl who gets a chance to fulfill her dream of attending a prestigious male-only theater academy on the condition that she keep her gender a secret. Since this is an academy where boys play both male and female roles, and many students use feminine appearances and mannerisms, Kisa can mostly act like herself – which is an interesting direction to take an otherwise familiar trope and allows for the matter of her secret to come into play more with specific performances and developing relationships.

It follows a calendar, with each weekday devoted to raising one of your six stats. I was worried about this aspect, but it isn’t really a traditional stat-raiser. Each stat is associated with one of the six love interests, and you basically just need to focus on the stat for the love interest whose route you’re pursuing. Of course, the story also progresses during the week as well, as Kisa and her classmates prepare for performances.

Then on the weekends, you have free time you can use to hang out with an available character for a short scene. In addition to the love interests, side characters are occasionally available as well.

You continue in this fashion until you reach one of the performances. For these, Jack Jeanne is a rhythm game. There are two styles of rhythm game, one for songs and one for dance numbers, and the music is all so catchy! Not only that, but the quality poured into these performances is incredible. I was already impressed when I first realized the character sprites would appear in-costume for the performances, but even more so when I saw the dance numbers had 3D character models for the main cast.

(In the game, the rhythm game buttons would overlay the scene, but you can watch the scenes themselves in the gallery after unlocking them.)

You can see why even with the ability to skip through story scenes in the common route, subsequent playthroughs still take a while. Nearly every weekend will have new scenes with whichever love interest you’re pursuing, and there are also random short scenes that pop up between days. After playing each major route, I had seen most of these, but occasional new ones still appeared even on my ninth time through. And that’s not to mention that each character route keeps the calendar structure, so while I spent each weekend with the love interest whose route I was on, there were always several other scenes I could have seen instead. The amount of content in Jack Jeanne is massive.

At first, I was disappointed that each route doesn’t have its own unique final performance, just variations on the same basic story, but considering the amount of content in the game I can hardly complain too much. It did feel a little odd in routes where the circumstances were noticeably different, but aside from that it makes sense.

Some players feel Jack Jeanne isn’t romantic enough, but I disagree. The story covers almost an entire year’s worth of time, week by week, during which time the characters slowly become friends and then move toward romance in the individual routes. This means it takes a long time for romance to blossom… but as a sucker for slow-burn romances, I loved it.

This is one of those rare otome games where I loved every love interest. I liked some more than others – no one will ever beat Neji, who is chaos incarnate and stole my heart from the beginning despite not being my usual sort of character – but none were bad. Some of the side characters also have mini storylines that progress if you spend each weekend with them, as well as one who has a unique bad ending.

I’ve played Jack Jeanne for over 70 hours. There’s still optional content I have yet to see, but my time with it is drawing to an end. And it’s one of those games where the thought of setting it down for good makes me feel like I’m saying farewell to treasured friends. No fandisc or sequel exists for Jack Jeanne yet, but I really hope one gets made so I can spend more time with these characters and hopefully get routes with the side characters who deserve full routes of their own.

My dream Jack Jeanne fandisc would feature stories for each of the 6 love interests, plus new routes for Kasai, Mare, Minorikawa, Otori, and above all else, Chui.

Click for Jack Jeanne spoilersDespite initially being presented as an antagonist and almost an inhuman force of nature, Chui shows in so many routes that he’s not really a bad guy and is capable of growth and change, and that his extreme talent is isolating him and leaving him lonely, and you’re telling me the closest he gets to a route is a short bad ending?? On one of my replays of the final route to wrap up the sub-routes, I had a conversation with Neji where he says he wants Chui to hold onto hope of finding a partner who can match him so he doesn’t drown in loneliness. You can’t just say that about a character and then never give him a route!

Since Jack Jeanne is such a large game, a fandisc or sequel on the same scale would probably take quite a while to develop. So I’ll hold onto hope that one day it will be made!

In the meantime, I’m so happy I played Jack Jeanne, which is both one of my favorite otome games and the perfect game to wrap up this year’s Celebrating All Things Romantic event!

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Celebrating All Things Romantic: Date Warp

A few years ago, I picked up a bunch of visual novels in a Steam sale, including the short otome game Date Warp.

Date Warp follows a young woman named Janet who is on her first date when they end up stranded. They take refuge for the night in a strange mansion after being offered shelter by its inhabitants, but in the morning they find that a mysterious force field has trapped everyone inside.

The force field is related to something being done in the basement, and all they can do is wait.

There are five love interests, and the choices you make determine whose route you end up on. Your choices during the route then lead to different endings for that character. All fairly standard… except for the choice-making mini-game.

Yes, that’s right, choice-making mini-game.. Every choice brings up a mini-game where you must rotate wires to create a circuit between a power source and the choice you want to select. It’s simple enough, if somewhat of an odd inclusion. On subsequent playthroughs, you can skip the mini-game and simply pick any choice you previously selected (although if you want to pick a new option, you still need to play the mini-game).

Subsequent playthroughs also allow you to skip already-read text, including scenes that overlap across different routes – a welcome feature. There are still a couple of scenes that are basically the same text but in a different situation, but for the most part this feature avoids that.

While Date Warp is a short game with a brisk pace, there were enough character interactions leading up to a route to keep the romance from feeling too rush. Some parts did feel like they might have benefited from being longer, but in general the narrative was tight enough to avoid problems. The one exception is that the right combination of choices can make you stumble onto a route without seeing many of that character’s scenes first, probably because there’s no “no romance” route.

Once you’ve seen all of the characters’ regular endings, one final ending is unlocked to resolve the overall plot in a satisfactory conclusion.

I quite enjoyed this one. It’s short, and I wish I’d gotten to spend more time with the characters, but it was an enjoyable few hours and it was fun replaying for all the different endings before the final one. If you’re looking for a short romance game with some crazy science going on in the background, Date Warp is worth a look.

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Celebrating All Things Romantic: Steins;Gate: My Darling’s Embrace

Steins;Gate is not only one of the first true visual novels I’ve ever played, but also one of my all-time favorites. I absolutely loved it.

Despite that, I never got around to playing Steins;Gate: My Darling’s Embrace, a lighthearted spin-off/fandisc with more of a romantic comedy approach.

So what better time than now, during Celebrating All Things Romantic?

If you’re at all familiar with Steins;Gate, you know that the basic premise kicks off when the main character Okabe and his friends learn they can send emails into the past (which they then refer to as D-Mails) and change the timeline through these messages. My Darling’s Embrace begins with Okabe finding himself at the other end of a D-Mail change where they’ve begun to develop new gadgets to sell… although he sent so many D-Mails that he doesn’t quite know what one caused this.

Things quickly spiral out of control when he and Kurisu end up stuck wearing a new gadget that shocks them whenever they argue. They prepare to send a D-Mail into the past to change it… and your choice there determines which route you end up on.

There are six routes, and each takes the story in a different direction focused on one of the characters. A couple of the routes (mainly Suzuha’s) hint at romance more than showing it, but most have the growing relationship as a core part of the route. They’re all sweet and funny, an entertaining look at how Okabe’s relationships could develop under other circumstances.

I especially enjoyed Moeka’s route, which was so wholesome and nice to see.

Click for Steins;Gate spoilersAnd unlike in the main game, Luka is still a guy for his route this time.

Above everything else, My Darling’s Embrace reminded me of how much I love the Steins;Gate story and its characters. While the main story might become an intense thriller, and that’s still one of its biggest draws, it was nice to relax and read some lighthearted rom-com antics with this cast.

So if you’re a fan of Steins;Gate and want to some more romance-focused routes with its characters, check out Steins;Gate: My Darling’s Embrace!

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Celebrating All Things Romantic: Belong

While looking through games for this year’s romance celebration, I came across a visual novel called Belong that I had picked up in a bundle.

Belong lets you customize your protagonist and pursue routes with three love interests, two male and one female.

While it starts out with a short prologue to introduce the protagonist, it then asks you to choose which route to follow before you even have an idea of what the characters are like. I would have preferred to get to know all the love interests naturally in the story first, but unfortunately that’s not how it’s set up.

Once you pick a character, the route begins. Chapters are extremely short, only lasting a few minutes. This was probably done so that each route could have 10 chapters, but I think it would have benefited from fewer chapters with a longer runtime to not feel like the already-fast pace is even more accelerated.

Unfortunately, that fast pace is seen in the writing, as well. Routes progressed so fast that sometimes I was surprised by conflicts because the build-up only occurred in a couple lines, or confused by a sudden emotional scene because of how quickly it cropped up. One route in particular had several moments that were very cute and would have worked really well if it had slower pacing.

There aren’t too many choices within a route, only a couple that lead to worse endings. After finishing a route, if you play it again, you can find stickers that unlock new scenes from the love interest’s point of view, as well as trivia.

These alternate POV scenes were the most interesting part to me, and I wish they had been included naturally in the route instead of requiring a replay to find them. They felt like they had much better pacing than the main routes, and they fleshed them out nicely.

I was hoping for a cute romance story with Belong, but the pacing held it back from what it could have been. Nevertheless, it at least had some nice moments on each of the routes.

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Celebrating All Things Romantic: 9-nine-: New Episode

Its been over two years since we discussed 9-nine-, the thriller romance visual novel about a group of teenagers who awaken to special powers.

In the time since then, a fifth episode was released that contains after stories for the main game’s routes, which makes it a perfect choice for our romance celebration.

9-nine: New Episode begins by wrapping up the one branch that was left unresolved in the original, with a satisfactory conclusion, and then an after story is unlocked for each heroine.

Don’t expect these to be fandisc-length stories or have the same high stakes as the full game; rather, they are short epilogues that have a little plot resolution but mainly focus on telling a cute story between the protagonist and that route’s heroine.

They’re sweet, funny, and a pleasant way to follow up 9-nine- if you want to see the characters in a more peaceful situation.

While each after story is quite short and the whole thing only lasts a few hours, I was pleasantly surprised that they don’t all follow the same formula. Although they have the same starting structure (immediate aftermath of the route, followed by a short timeskip), they develop differently from there.

To be honest, you could get by just fine reading the original visual novel without ever seeing these epilogues, but if you enjoyed 9-nine- and want more of the romance side of things, 9-nine-: New Episode is enjoyable enough.

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Celebrating All Things Romantic 2024 (Lasts Until February 14)

The start of this year left me with a dilemma.

With so many anticipated games coming out in such a short period of time, what in the world was I going to do about our annual celebration of romance games?

So I decided to make an adjustment to the usual structure. Instead of running all month long, this year’s Celebrating All Things Romantic will end on Valentine’s Day, February 14. I had already considered making that change to coincide with the holiday, so this felt like a great year to try it out.

Unless something crazy happens like, say, Ace Attorney 7 being announced (please), each post in this shorter time frame will follow the Celebrating All Things Romantic theme.

And of course, we have a contest!

Celebrating All Things Romantic 2024 Contest

All you need to do to participate in the contest is to participate in the event by leaving comments! Every comment will earn you a point, and the top three point-earners after Valentine’s Day will be able to choose a prize!

Rules:

No purchase is necessary.Only comments made between February 2, 2024 at 1:00 PM EST and February 14, 2024 at 11:59 PM EST will be counted.1 non-spam, non-anonymous comment on any Celebrating All Things Romantic blog post (including replies) = 1 point.You must use an email address or website URL (or include another way of contacting you) in your comment so I can contact you if you win.The top 3 point earners will win prizes.The person with the most points will get their first pick of the prizes. The person with the second most points will pick second, and the person with the third most points will pick third.In the event of a tie, tied winners will be contacted at the same time. A tie for third place will allow for more than 3 winners. If tied winners choose the same prize, duplicate prizes will be possible.The winner will be contacted by February 16, 2024.

Prizes:

LoveKami -Useless Goddess- (Steam code)Ascendant Hearts (gift sent through Steam)The Last Act (gift sent through Steam)Nekopara bundle (gift sent through Steam)eden* (gift sent through Steam)$15 sent through PayPalYou pick a game for me to review!

If you choose the review option, your chosen game must be something I either own or is easily obtainable, which you can discuss with me beforehand. It must be a single game, not a collection (although the chosen game can be part of a collection). I will start playing it by March.

So let’s enjoy some romance games over the next two weeks as this year’s Celebrating All Things Romantic begins!

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Fate/stay night Remastered Announced With an English Release

Half a year ago, I said, “Who knows, one of these days we could be discussing an official Fate/Stay Night localization,” and now the time has come.

Yesterday, Type-Moon announced that Fate/stay night Realta Nua is being remastered for PC and Switch, with English and Chinese translations available for the first time.

No PS4/PS5 version was announced, oddly enough, even though Witch on the Holy Night did and the upcoming Tsukihime remake will as well. I prefer to play visual novels on the Switch whenever possible, so that’s fine for me.

If you’re asking yourself “What is Realta Nua,” because the Fate franchise has so many entries a title like that could easily be mistaken for a spin-off, it’s the later version of the original Fate/stay night, which removed the sex scenes and replaced them with new content.

(So anyone asking if the sex scenes will be censored or cut should know that this is a remaster of the version that had already removed them.)

I’ve been interested in the Fate series for a while, since I’ve played a couple of spin-offs as well as Witch on the Holy Night from the same universe, so I’ll definitely be getting this! I know a lot of fans were hoping for a full remake, but I’m happy enough with a remaster.

It only has a 2024 release window so far, which I believe is the same for the English release of Tsukihime. Presumably Tsukihime will come out first.

So here we are, yet another “will never be localized” game being localized. It’s gotta be Bandai Namco’s turn with the untranslated Tales games one of these days!

And don’t forget, we have a State of Play tonight and an Aksys showcase tomorrow. This could be a great week for exciting game announcements! Are you interested in playing Fate/stay night Remastered?

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State of Play Announced for January 31 (Stellar Blade Confirmed)

The first State of Play of 2024 has been announced for this Wednesday at 2 PM PT / 5 PM ET.

It will be 40 minutes long and cover both PS5 and virtual reality games. Rise of the Ronin and Stellar Blade have been confirmed to be among the games shown.

States of Play are usually pretty hit or miss for me (the one where Like a Dragon Ishin was announced being a notable exception), but I’ve been interested in Stellar Blade, so I’m looking forward to seeing that. I’ve got my fingers crossed we’ll see the Elden Ring DLC, too.

So we’ve got a State of Play set for Wednesday and the Aksys showcase on Thursday! All we need now is for the Nintendo Direct to occur soon, and the start of the year will be packed with announcements.

What are you hoping for from the State of Play?

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No AA7 Tease Yet, But Capcom Says the Ace Attorney Series Will Continue

The Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy is now out, bringing the 4th, 5th, and 6th mainline games to modern platforms at last.

Sadly, my hope that the secret artwork unlocked for completing all three games would actually be an Ace Attorney 7 tease came to nothing… and I didn’t even have to play the games to find out, as Capcom just straight-up showed the art in a trailer.

They’re even selling the art prints, although the price is a bit steep for me.

Anyway, while that hope might have been dashed, we have a different reason to be optimistic for Ace Attorney’s future!

Not only are things looking better than ever, with high sales numbers and even a physical release of the Switch version in North America, but Capcom has officially confirmed that the series will continue.

In a recent interview with 4Gamer, translated here by Nintendo Everything, Apollo Justice Trilogy producer Kenichi Hashimoto wouldn’t give specifics, but said, “I can say that the Ace Attorney series will not be stopping, so in that sense I think you can look forward to what is coming.” That’s as good a sign as any – if they had no intention of making a new Ace Attorney game, they could have given a simple “nothing to announce at this time” response.

(You know, like how they did back in the day when I used to email Capcom asking about Ace Attorney Investigations 2.)

Some fans have still taken this to mean that we’ll just continue to get remasters and ports and nothing else, but it was just a few years ago that it seemed like we’d never get anything but the original trilogy, so Ace Attorney’s situation has already improved quite a bit.

I’m more optimistic than ever for the Ace Attorney series, and I believe we’ll get news sooner rather than later. Will it be in a Nintendo Direct, like when the Ghost Trick remaster was announced? Will it be at a Capcom showcase, like the Apollo Justice Trilogy? Or will Capcom simply drop the news randomly on Twitter one day, like they did with The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles? However they choose to reveal it, I think we’ll actually see a new Ace Attorney game announced soon… dare I hope it will be this year?

When do you think the next Ace Attorney game will be announced?

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