Month: February 2014

1492: The Alchemist of Arland, Reprise

I’ve been enjoying Atelier Rorona for the past few days, so I thought I’d talk a little about what I like about it. I know that Atelier Rorona isn’t the best of the three …of Arland games on PS3, but my completionist nature (from a narrative perspective, anyway) insists that I play it thoroughly first before moving on to the supposedly superior Atelier Totori and Atelier Meruru. And while I was originally intending to wait for the revamped version of Atelier Rorona before I played it, there’s still no confirmation one way or the other of whether it’s coming to the West. I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t, but either way, I decided I couldn’t wait any longer. I started playing it a while back — June of last year, in fact — but only got about ten hours in due to a combination of Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory, Time and Eternity and Tales of Xillia. Now, no more interruptions!

So what the hell is Atelier Rorona and why should you care? Well, it’s… I guess it’s an RPG? It certainly has all the trappings of a typical RPG — hit points, experience points, levels, skills — but it’s not at all your usual “band of plucky heroes saves the world” affair. No, instead it’s a rather smaller-scale affair in which you play a young girl called Rorona who is tasked with saving the alchemy workshop in which she works by fulfilling a series of increasingly unreasonable requests. These all come from Meredith Alcock, the head of the Ministry of Arland, who is keen to stamp out alchemy in favour of industrialisation for his own, presumably greedy reasons. Failure to meet the requirements of the assignments brings your game to a premature end; successfully completing them means you’re immediately presented with another one until you reach the conclusion of the game.

Amid all these assignments are numerous visual novel-style narrative paths that are woven throughout the course of the game, and which you can advance by improving your relationships with various characters by performing additional tasks for them. There are numerous endings to the game, and it’s designed to be replayed several times. I haven’t yet decided if I’m going to attempt to play as much of Rorona as possible before moving on to Totori, or if I’m going to cycle around Rorona, Totori and Meruru several times in sequence. Either way, I’m presently enjoying the experience enough to want to try and see as many of the endings as possible.

It’s not necessarily the narrative that is the biggest draw in Atelier Rorona though. No, this being a Gust game, the emphasis is very much on an in-depth crafting system, which is excellent yet enjoyably distinct from that seen in Atelier’s stablemate Ar Tonelico. In Ar Tonelico, crafting was a means of seeing various interactions between the characters and getting to know them a little better — plus getting some great items out of the experience in the process. In Atelier, meanwhile, the crafting system is the core of the game: it’s the way you complete most of the assignments in the game, and the solution to most of the quests you’re presented with to earn money or improve your relationship with other characters.

The reason it’s so interesting is because it’s a lot deeper than simpler systems seen in other games that require you to do nothing more than combine specific items to get a brand new item. In Atelier Rorona, you have to take the quality of your ingredients into account — and things like organic ingredients spoil over time — as well as the various “traits” they have attached to them. In many cases, these are nothing more than flavour — if you make a metal ingot that is “stinky” it doesn’t affect the stats of any items you subsequently create using it, for example — but in others you can do things like boost the base effect of a healing or attack item, improve the stats on equipment and improve its quality beyond that which its component items would normally provide.

There’s a lot of number-crunching involved to optimise your alchemy, and you can’t always count on having perfect ingredients available, so sometimes you’ll have to improvise somewhat. The ability to do this is reflected by some ingredient items for recipes being a generic category rather than a specific item. For example, when making a “Spring Cup” item that contains liquid, the exact liquid you put in there is up to you — it could be water, it could be tree sap, or something altogether more unpleasant. The items you choose to put in there will affect the final quality of the item, and experimentation is often very rewarding.

Key to doing well in Atelier Rorona is managing your time effectively, because everything you do causes the in-game clock to tick away, counting down towards each new deadline. Whether you’re crafting something or going out into the field to gather ingredients and fight monsters, everything takes time, so if you want to optimise how you’re playing the game — which is presumably important when going for some of the endings — you’ll need to plan your time well. Probably better than I’m doing right now, but I’m fine with just seeing which ending I get first time, then specifically attempting to pursue one or more of the others on a subsequent playthrough.

If the other two …of Arland games are as enjoyable as Atelier Rorona I can see myself spending a hefty amount of time on this series. It helps that Rorona has an amazing soundtrack — I shouldn’t expect anything less from Gust after Ar Tonelico’s magnificence in that regard — but the gameplay is rock-solid too. I’m looking forward to crafting a whole bunch more pies, bombs and mysterious liquids over the next few weeks, and I don’t doubt I’ll report further on my progress as I continue.

1491: The Wiz

There’s a board game group here in Southampton that meets regularly — most weeks, from the sound of things. I’ve never quite mustered the courage to go along, what with the whole social anxiety thing, but tonight Andie thought it might be a good idea for us to go together. I agreed, on the condition that she was the one who said hello and introduced us to begin with — that’s always the hardest part of meeting new people, after all.

And, against all the irrational scary thoughts my mind throws at me when confronted with a social situation like this, we both had a good time. We didn’t even “need” to stick together; Andie went and played some interesting looking card games, while I joined in on a five-player bout of a game I’d heard of but never played: Wiz-War.

Wiz-War, in case you’ve never come across it, is a relatively simple idea, executed beautifully well. You play a wizard, and your goal is to attain a target number of victory points (two in our first game; three in our second, for we played twice) by either pinching one of the other players’ treasure chests and returning it to your own starting location, or by killing your rival wizards.

The mechanics are simple and elegant. You can move three spaces per turn, and you can perform one “attack” per turn, which may either be a simple melee attack (or slap in the face, as it came to be referred to) or an offensive spell. Aside from that, you’re free to cast spells from the cards in your hand at any point in your turn, and this is where things get interesting. The spells are far more than simple attacks, in many cases. Some allow you to set traps; others allow you to temporarily control the minds of other player characters; others still allow you to impact the board in various ways such as rotating its various sections or applying environmental effects. Taken as standalone events, most of these spells can have an amusing impact on another player, but when you find a great combination of things — or when something backfires spectacularly — that’s when this game gets really amusing.

It’s a brilliant game for griefing one another, with tons of the spells seemingly built for the express purpose of being a bastard. One great example in our game involved one of the players backing himself into a corner, casting a “Prismatic Mist” spell, which enveloped two spaces in a magical effect that had random, mostly unpleasant effects when stepped into, then casting a “Swap Places” spell on me, causing me to be the one stuck behind the Prismatic Mist. (Fortunately, I had a Dispel spell in my hand, so it caused me few difficulties, but the setup was most entertaining at least.)

I’d be interested to play it again; I feel it’s something that my more regular gaming group would probably respond well to, particularly as it’s a purely competitive game. It’s dripping with theme but also has a decent amount of strategy to it, so it’s something I may well look into trying again — or nabbing my own copy — in the future.

1490: Bros Before Titans

As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve been playing a bunch of Atelier Rorona this weekend, but tonight I decided to play through something a few people have been bugging me to try: Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. And it proved to be the perfect antidote to the endless Titanfall chatter there’s been on social media all weekend.

For those unfamiliar, Brothers, as I shall refer to it hereafter, is a game about the titular brothers going on a quest to find the cure for their sick father. It sells itself as a “single-player cooperative game” and that’s not actually a bad description in mechanical terms — using both thumbsticks on a controller, you control both brothers, and use the triggers to make each of them interact with things. Big Brother is stronger, taller and older; Little Brother is more agile, smaller and more childish. Most of the game’s puzzles revolve around working out which brother is the most appropriate one to use in a situation, and whether or not they need to work together, which they usually do.

But mechanics are probably the least interesting thing about Brothers. Where the game really shines is in telling a compact, emotional story whose characters are introduced, undergo some serious, well-paced growth and bring the story to a fitting conclusion… all without saying a word. Or not a word in English, anyway; I’m not entirely sure if the language the characters speak in the game is real or just a Simlish-style made up language, but it doesn’t matter — the meaning is got across through a combination of context, body language, facial expressions plus other presentational elements such as music. The game packs a seriously powerful emotional punch by slowly building up these characters and giving you a chance to get to know them before throwing them into harrowing situations that will tax the emotional constitution of even the most hard-hearted soul.

I cried three times over the course of the game, but as we’ve probably established in a number of posts over the last 1,490 days, I am somewhat susceptible to this sort of thing, not to mention a lot more willing to allow my emotions to leak out through my eyes if something affects me strongly. I’m not actually sure if game makers have genuinely got better at emotional storytelling over the past years, whether I’ve become more susceptible to emotional manipulation, or something in between. It doesn’t really matter too much, I suppose; the fact that a game like Brothers can have a legitimately emotional impact is something that’s worth celebrating and praising in itself — it doesn’t necessarily need to be compared to anything else.

I’m being deliberately vague about details of the plot here because I believe that if you’re reading this and have access to some sort of gaming device on which you can play Brothers, you should definitely give it a go. It’s a short game — it took me just under 3 hours to get all the way through — and not a particularly challenging one either, but it’s not about challenging the player (in mechanical terms, anyway — it’s definitely emotionally challenging). Rather, it’s about telling an interesting, compelling story in a somewhat unconventional and interactive way. It’s the kind of story that might work as an animated movie, but which has a whole lot more power added to it by virtue of the fact that you’re the one in control.

Grab a copy for PC here. And if you’re planning on playing it, I recommend not reading up on it at all beforehand. It’s an experience best had with beginner’s mind, and one best had in a single sitting. So set aside a few hours, grab a controller, turn out the lights and enjoy a fantastic story.

1489: Championing the Underdogs

If you’ve ever wondered why I talk so much about lesser-known games and visual novels I come across that I end up loving, Twitter today is the reason why. Specifically, this is the reason why.

For those unfamiliar with the way Twitter works, that’s a search page giving a snapshot of the number of people using the words “Titanfall beta” at any given moment — at the time of writing, there are approximately 30 tweets every minute on the subject.

Titanfall, the new game from Respawn Entertainment, the studio set up by the guys who created the astronomically popular Call of Duty series, one of the biggest names in gaming for the past few years, is going to be a big hit, it seems. And this is lucky not only for Respawn, but also for Microsoft, who are counting on Titanfall being a system-seller for its so far disappointing Xbox One console. We’ll have to wait and see whether Titanfall shifts Xbox One systems, but if interest in the beta is any indication, chances are good.

But I don’t want to talk about Titanfall. I haven’t played it and thus can’t comment on it in any great detail. I have registered for a beta key because I’m interested to see if it can change the mind of someone who finds Call of Duty utterly mind-numbing, but I’m not going out of my way to get one, and frankly I’m sick of hearing about it.

It’s this latter point that ties in with what I said in the first paragraph. Any time something “big” like Titanfall comes along, any smaller developers attempting to promote their work may as well just pack up and go home, because the big game is all anyone’s talking about. This is how marketing works, of course; EA and Respawn want Titanfall to be as big a seller as possible, so it’s in their interests to ensure as many people are talking about it as possible, and what better way to stir the pot than a steady flow of beta keys being released into the wild?

But what of the poor souls who, like me, have pretty much zero interest in Titanfall? There’s nothing stopping us continuing to go about our gaming business, of course, but it’s frustrating if it just happens to be this week that we find something really cool that we want to share with people. It’s also frustrating if otherwise great games come out, but news of them actually being great is drowned out by everyone stampeding to play the beta for the latest manshoot. I fear for Bravely Default and Danganronpa, both of which are fantastic games that deserve a far greater audience than they will almost certainly get — Michael Pachter would probably brand them “failures” if he had any idea either of them existed — and titles that are competing against Titanfall’s beta test for the attention of gamers worldwide.

I certainly don’t begrudge anyone who’s enjoying the experience of the Titanfall beta; by all accounts, it sounds like something that someone who enjoys competitive team-based multiplayer shooters will have a lot of fun with, and that’s great. But at times like this, it’s easy to feel a little cynical about the games biz’s apparent inability to acknowledge the existence of more than one Good Thing at a time. As ever, the game that’s likely to make the most money gets the majority of the spotlight attention, leading to swathes of articles from diverse sites all writing very similar things to one another, providing validation to those who were probably going to buy the game anyway and continuing to alienate those who are more interested in more niche, specialised titles.

At times like this — and I’ve said this before — I feel as if the games press needs more specialised publications. We’re starting to get this to a certain extent with indie-focused websites, but we need to go further. There needs to be an acknowledgement — or more of an acknowledgement, at least — that gaming isn’t just about the latest, biggest-budget game out there, and that games don’t cease to be relevant after their “opening week”. The latter point in particular is something that infuriates me no end; if a game doesn’t sell a zillion copies in its first week, it’s instantly branded a failure by analysts and press alike — meanwhile, it’s extremely rare that people like, say, me buy something the moment it’s released.

What have I been playing today, for example? Atelier Rorona, a PlayStation 3 game that came out in 2010. Are the experiences I’ve had with that game today irrelevant due to the fact it came out four years ago? No, of course not, but you might be forgiven for thinking that if you took a look at Twitter today.

Sigh. I’m pissing in the wind with this, of course, and it’s far easier to just get on with what I’m doing, talk about the things I’m enjoying and hope people who feel the same way might gather together with me. I just felt the need to express some frustration, and I’ll start taking my own advice tomorrow, I think.

1488: Veeday

Andie and I are having a night away because like the good person I am I booked a nice evening in a hotel with a nice meal. Andie’s currently somewhere between falling asleep and watching the morbidly fascinating spectacle that is the ’80s gameshow 3, 2, 1 on Challenge TV, while I’m… well, writing this.

I don’t remember ever watching 3, 2, 1 as a kid but I’m sure it must have been on at some point in my childhood, since it seemingly ran until 1988. I knew of its terrible, terrible mascot — a dustbin called Dusty Bin — but not what format the show took. Having somehow watched half (at the time of writing) of a single episode, I’m still a little bewildered. Oh well.

Besides watching questionable (though apparently ludicrously popular) ’80s TV, we also had a go at the new Pandemic expansion In the Lab earlier. This adds some interesting new mechanics to the base Pandemic game, namely a separate Lab board in which you have to process samples of the four types of disease and make use of several different pieces of processing equipment to sort them into appropriate dishes. To treat a disease, you must then collect a specific combination of cubes, categorise the disease, test the cure and finally produce your medicine.

It’s a really interesting twist on the base Pandemic mechanics because it totally changes the flow of play. It also slows down your actions significantly, which puts you significantly more at risk of losing the game through running out of cards. After just one game, I haven’t quite grasped what you need to do differently, but I’m intrigued to try it again, either with other players or with the new solo rules that are also introduced in In the Lab.

Pandemic and its two expansions probably make up one of my favourite games in my collection, and one of the most interesting things about its fully-expanded form is how flexible it is. There are lots of different “roles” for the players to play, each with their own special abilities, and several different variants to try out. There’s even a competitive mode where the team as a whole competes against a “Bio-Terrorist” player who moves around the board invisibly, somewhat similar to Mr. X in Scotland Yard. I haven’t yet tried the latter form of the game, but I’m keen to give it a go the next time it’s my pick at games night, I think.

Anyway. It is late and 3, 2, 1 is still burbling its surreal nonsense all over the television. I feel I should probably see the peculiar show through to its conclusion now, then tomorrow we’re off to see the house we’re currently in the process of buying. Scary.

Hope you’ve had a good Valentine’s Day, regardless of whether you’re in a relationship or not. If you are, I hope you had a good time with your partner of choice. If you’re not, I hope you found something entertaining to do with your time. (I hear the Titanfall beta is quite good.)

Good night!

1487: Uchikoshi’s Last Reward

Kotaro Uchikoshi, the creator of the two Zero Escape games 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward, opened an English language Twitter account today, even despite his own admission that his English is not all that great. Still, he felt compelled to communicate directly with his fans since, surprisingly, it seems the majority of the Zero Escape fanbase is actually in English-speaking territories — and that neither 999 or Virtue’s Last Reward sold well enough in Japan to make a third and final installment in the series possible in the immediate future.

This is… distressing to see, frankly. Uchikoshi’s Twitter feed is heartbreaking to read. Even through the occasionally slightly broken English — his English is certainly better than my Japanese, mind — it’s clear that there stands a passionate man who would like nothing better than to realise his grand vision for his magnum opus, a man constantly frustrated by the realities of the modern games biz — key word “biz” — and a man who genuinely feels bad that he’s letting his fans down. I find it incredibly sad that someone doing such wonderfully distinctive things with interactive storytelling has been put in such a position in this, an age where story-centric games such as Gone Home, The Stanley Parable and numerous others can be held up and celebrated — even declared “Game of the Year” in some quarters of the Internet. Surely the modern industry is diverse enough to support both the Titanfalls of the world and a third installment in the Zero Escape series?

999-pic

Perhaps it is — in fact, given the outpouring of support I’ve seen for it today, I know it is — and Uchikoshi simply hasn’t yet found the right route to market. Despite the bleak, apologetic nature of his tweets, it’s clear that he hasn’t given up hope as yet. Following a heartfelt plea for any prospective investors to contact him directly via Facebook (I’m providing the link there on the off-chance that anyone rich is reading and feels like funding Zero Escape 3) he attempted to reassure fans that Zero Escape 3 “will definitely be released somehow, someday!” And I’d like to believe that he’s right.

The question is “how?” Uchikoshi claims that he’s considered crowdfunding but was concerned that it wouldn’t be “persuasive” enough, but this may partly be due to the fact that crowdfunding is still yet to make a huge impact in Japan; it’s still primarily a Western thing, with the exception of a few Japanese developers like Nigoro (though still in collaboration with Western publisher Playism, I might add) turning to the platform to fund projects such as La-Mulana 2. I would have thought that Kickstarter would be an ideal solution for Uchikoshi to clearly solicit and demonstrate fans’ support for the Zero Escape series, but this may not help the situation in his native Japan, which is where the problems really are. I’m assuming there are some sort of rights issues involved with developer Spike Chunsoft that prevent him from striking out on his own and making Zero Escape 3 as an independent developer, or releasing 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward (and Zero Escape 3) on PC, or…

Well, anyway. Sadly, I don’t have the power to do anything about the situation. But it will be absolutely criminal if someone with as clear an artistic vision as Uchikoshi isn’t able to realise his creative visions due to matters of “business”. This is something I hope that the industry as a whole can solve together; regardless of whether or not you liked 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward, you can hopefully agree that the gaming landscape is a richer place with titles like them in it. Creative, interesting games should be encouraged and rewarded; instead, if we’re not careful, we’ll drive people like Uchikoshi away forever and be stuck with an vicious cycle; an endless of soulless but profitable games, and no-one wanting to rock the boat by doing something a bit different.

Zero-Escape-Virtues-Last-Reward-Review-Topper

That’s a Doomsday scenario, obviously, and unlikely to happen, particularly while the Western indie space is flourishing to such a degree. Now we just need the East to follow suit.

I wish Uchikoshi the best of luck in his endeavours to get Zero Escape 3 into the hands of those of us who really, really want to see it, and would urge you to support him in any way you can if you believe in interesting, distinctive games that do some truly creative things with the medium as a means of interactive storytelling.

1486: Funny Ha-Ha

As I type this, a Dave broadcast, repeat, whatever (probably repeat) of a Frank Skinner stand-up show has just finished. It made me laugh rather a lot. I haven’t watched a Frank Skinner show for quite some time and I was pleased to see he doesn’t appear to have changed all that much — he still primarily tells imagery-heavy stories about sexual encounters, and in doing so paints quite the vivid picture with his words.

Catching this show got me thinking a bit. I haven’t watched a whole lot in the way of stand-up comedy for a long time, whereas it used to be something I really enjoyed doing. I think part of this is due to the fact that I don’t really know who’s good these days — and the little modern stand-up I have seen doesn’t really appeal all that much. This may partly be due to the fact that you tend to catch stuff like this on Dave or BBC3, the latter of which in particular is aimed at young and stupid people.

Comedy goes in cycles and phases, and the comedians who are popular at any given moment give a good snapshot of culture at the time. A few years back when Eddie Izzard was popular, for example, that kind of fast-paced, clever humour was fashionable — everything tying together. Today, it seems that one fashionable style of comedy is the string of unrelated one-liners, one after another — funny, sure, but it doesn’t quite “click” with me as much as the intertwining threads of something like Izzard’s comedy.

I haven’t seen a lot of musical comedy of the the kind best exemplified by Bill Bailey and Tim Minchin recently, either. This is a real shame, because both of these performers are clearly very skilled musicians as well as witty comedians. Both still occasionally show up on comedy panel shows — a good means of catching favourite comedians long after their standup isn’t seen quite so often on the television — but, you know, I’d pay good money for a new Bill Bailey show.

I saw Bill Bailey live when I went to the Edinburgh Festival from university, and it was a magical experience. I, and many of my companions who were also in attendance, immediately fell in love. Many of us were familiar with Bailey’s work on TV shows, but perhaps not his stand-up; after that, meanwhile, it wasn’t long before all of us went and picked up all his DVDs.

I don’t really have a point to all this. Perhaps I’m asking in a roundabout way whether there are any good comedians out there who are worth seeking out. For reference, I enjoy stuff like Bill Bailey, Eddie Izzard, Dara O’Briain and that sort of thing. (I’ve even been known to enjoy Michael McIntyre, though as I recall you’re not supposed to admit that sort of thing. But ah, fuck it.) Any must-see comedians out there that I’m missing out on?

1485: Trigger Happy Havoc

I’ve been refraining from talking about it until I put my review up, but now that’s safely filed, I feel I should enthuse somewhat about Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc.

For the uninitiated — and all the people who constantly claim they have no idea what Danganronpa is — allow me to explain.

ADOOOOORABLE.
ADOOOOORABLE.

It’s a visual novel-cum-adventure game from Spike Chunsoft, the developers who brought us the Zero Escape series that consists of 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward. Its concept is something of a cross between Corpse Party and Zero Escape: a disparate group of individuals are kidnapped, trapped in an enclosed environment (in this case, a twisted, not-quite-right version of a school, hence the Corpse Party comparisons) against their will, and then presented with a series of challenges between them and their final escape. In Zero Escape’s case, this was a matter of solving puzzles and choosing the correct path to the end; in Danganronpa’s case, meanwhile, it’s a little more complex.

The game’s Zero-equivalent Monokuma — a far more in-your-face and sinister antagonist than the largely hands-off Zeroes — challenges the game’s cast to a “killing game” in which anyone who successfully gets away with murder graduates from the twisted school and gets to escape; meanwhile, everyone else gets “punished” by, well, being killed. Conversely, should the “Blackened” murderer be found out, they get punished, but the remaining students don’t get to escape — they just have to continue their school life.

The game unfolds over a series of chapters, each of which involves the surviving members of the cast investigating the mysterious school, trying to get to the bottom of what is going on and then, subsequently, investigating a murder that happens. This is then followed by a “class trial” in which everyone argues and yells at each other and, if you’ve done your job correctly, the culprit is identified and punished. In between these phases, you get short periods of “Free Time” in which you can hang out with the remaining characters to build up your relationships, which subsequently unlocks “skills” for use in the trial segments.

Ooh, I know, I know. It's... [SPOILERS]
Ooh, I know, I know. It’s… [SPOILERS]
The trials themselves are a far cry from Ace Attorney territory. The majority of them revolve around a mechanic called “Non-Stop Debate” in which the characters continue speaking their lines whether or not you’re ready to continue, and you have to shoot down “weak points” in their arguments with the “truth bullets” you gathered over the course of your investigation. On the default difficulty, for the majority of the game you’ll only have to identify which statement to shoot down with a single truth bullet; on harder difficulty levels (and at certain, critical moments on normal difficulty) you’ll also have to choose the correct truth bullets to refute the statements you think are false. This then gets even more complicated as the game progresses as people start shouting over the top of each other, represented by irrelevant “noise” statements floating across the screen and getting in the way of the things you actually want to shoot down.

This Hangman game has a lot more at stake than a stickman's life.
This Hangman game has a lot more at stake than a stickman’s life.

These arguments are supplemented by Hangman-like sequences in which you have to recall specific pieces of information by spelling them out, rhythm action sequences in which you struggle to make yourself heard over someone’s constant objections and, at the end of each “case,” a Trauma Team-style summing up of exactly what happened by assembling a comic strip depicting the events leading up to the murder, and what happened after that.

It’s a fascinating game; perhaps not as “clever” as 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward, but that’s no bad thing — while 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward specialise in bending your brain around complicated narratives with peculiar structures, Danganronpa’s relatively straight line to the finish still manages to have plenty of surprises, twists and turns along the way, and has no qualms whatsoever about killing off its main cast with alarming rapidity.

In short, my review has hopefully already made this abundantly clear, but if you have a PlayStation Vita and the slightest interest in intriguing, compelling murder mysteries, you should abso-posilutely pick up a copy of Danganronpa this week. No, I don’t care if you’re already playing Bravely Default. No, I don’t care if you’re getting stuck into Lightning Returns. Danganronpa is fantastic, and I don’t mind admitting that I want as many people as possible to play it so we continue to see more and more games like this in the West.

1483: Virtue’s Almost-Last Reward

I will finish this game. I will finish this game. It’s been 40 hours. It’s a matter of pride now.

There may be mild spoilers for Virtue’s Last Reward in this post. There will almost certainly be spoilers for 999. I haven’t quite worked out what I’m going to write yet; I just feel like I need to do something like a brain dump in order to try and work out what on Earth is going on.

Putting in a “read more” tag so those casually browsing the front page don’t run into any spoilers… see you after the jump if you’re continuing to read.

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