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[A²]

So I realized I could afford gamefly, signed up for it, and loaded up my list with games that planted their ass firmly on the "It looks cute but is it worth $60" territory.

Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland was first to arrive, and it's cute as hell, and encourages you to explore and muck around with what's apparently a superdeep Alchemy system. I say apparently because the deadline was so bad that I had to run around in the same forest rearranged a few times, buttonmash through turnbased combat, and then run back with collected ingredients and I had one day left and I still got the game's version of "Good, but you can do better" for it.
So in short it's cute, but the deadlines hurt it and it's kind of shallow

Then I got Ar Tonelico Qoga, which many chatters have seen me ranting about. It is a dating sim stapled onto a subpar RPG. I mean it works. There are monsters, you swing your sword, they die, but it's very obviously programmed as an afterthought to the dating sim. Escaping is literally pausing and choosing it from a menu. Inns are free. Save points are always places to rest (And chat for more talk points wai wai~) also for free. The Superboss gets around the ability for you to chainspam healing items - which the game gives you in shovelfulls - by just spamming attacks so fast the game can't register you mashing the pause button.

myew also shows up in the game in the Cosmosphere, the game's version of "Poke around in girl's minds, make them like you"
Ar Tonelico Qoga - Feel these nipples!
yes I am aware it's a base-kitball quote.

It is also extremely nsfw
Uninstalling with Soma Ar Tonelico Qoga Knell of Ar Ciel

And they spent maybe 90% of their budget on the music, which is just downright fucking incredible and has it's own fucking language: http://conlang.wikia.com/wiki/Hymmnos
Ar Tonelico 3 EXEC_FLIP_ARPHAGE/. with English lyrics

I feel like I'm missing something, because the last third of the story seems to be just a constant reference to AT1 or 2, which I never played or touched.


Also arriving in the mail soon: Hyperdimension Neptunia

[Cthulhu-chan]

...have you wronged someone?  Is this penance for some misdeed?


Actually I did grab that alchemist simulator game, but likewise the deadlines started to piss me off.

[PhoenixUltima]

In ATQ's defense, a lot of the sketchy stuff is played more for laughs than jerkoff material, usually having a tone of "Haha embarrassing things are happening, look how embarrassed everyone is!" and/or "Man, isn't all this innuendo completely wacky?!" Also the game does have a competent story, a compelling setting, likeable characters, and (as always for Ar Tonelico) consistently amazing music. Which is good, because it's still a game where every battle revolves around stripping underage girls down to their underwear in order to win, which tends to be hard to explain to people who aren't already familiar with the series (or Japan in general), and being able to say "it has actual good reasons to play it, it's not just Japanese anime pedophile wank-off material I swear" is very very helpful.

[A²]

In ATQ's defense, a lot of the sketchy stuff is played more for laughs than jerkoff material, usually having a tone of "Haha embarrassing things are happening, look how embarrassed everyone is!" and/or "Man, isn't all this innuendo completely wacky?!" Also the game does have a competent story, a compelling setting, likeable characters, and (as always for Ar Tonelico) consistently amazing music. Which is good, because it's still a game where every battle revolves around stripping underage girls down to their underwear in order to win, which tends to be hard to explain to people who aren't already familiar with the series (or Japan in general), and being able to say "it has actual good reasons to play it, it's not just Japanese anime pedophile wank-off material I swear" is very very helpful.

This. The game seems remarkably self-aware, if anything. A talk topic about looking for porn in the male lead's room (Cut short by him saying he lives alone, why would he need to hide it) ends with a riff on the fact that he is now surrounded by women who want him, why does he need porn.

Two characters busting out Bohemian Rhapsody when I do Item Synth is also pretty funny.