Otome and Gal Games: The Fallout. Kinda. But there’s still hope!

  

 

It’s been roughly two years and nine months since I last played an otome game; and you’d be forgiven for thinking that I ditched the genre entirely. Truth be told, I genuinely didn’t feel like indulging in the genre for all that time; but a couple of weeks ago, the otome itch came back with a vengeance, begging to be scratched immediately. Ni une ni deux, I purchased a bunch of Switch otomes and started playing with gusto… only to be slapped in the face with two unexpected issues. 

 

 

The first issue is the content of the involved games. I played Lover Pretend, Charade Maniacs, Radiant Tale, Winter’s Wish and Birushana; and I ditched them all before clearing a single route — sometimes before clearing the first chapter. I ditched them all for the exact same reason: these games lack a solid story, a compelling game world and endearing and relatable characters. They are really just good ol’ romances, taking place between paper-thin characters in a papier mâché décor. Do I really have the nerve to blame otome games for featuring romance, you may ask? Nope; I’m just saying that I don’t fancy such a pure, unadulterated focus on romance. 

 

 

I realise now that all the otomes and gal games I dig — Bad Apple Wars, Our World is Ended, Norn9, World End Syndrome, Nightshade — are really just solid Visual Novels with some romance on top. More precisely, the romance in these games is not handled — and handed — like emotional porn; instead, it is used to advance the story and underline narrative elements, and it’s always presented in a way that respects the characters — and thus the player. The romance serves the story and the characters, not the other way around. 

 

 

I kept ploughing through my pile of Switch otomes, hoping to encounter a gem of the variety described above; and joy and glory, I finally found it in Olympia Soirée! No kidding: this game totally has the potential to become a Cult Classic of mine. And yet, I ditched it at the beginning of the 3^rd route; and I ditched it for no other reason than my second current issue with otome games, i.e. the way I play them. Or more precisely, the very dire admission that I don’t play them my way, and I haven’t played them my way for a very long time. 

 

 

Rewind all the way to my first otome game: Amnesia:Memories on the Vita, way back in November 2015. I had a blast with that game; and one of the major reasons I enjoyed myself so much is the way I played A:M. I played it by ear, so to speak: I just picked the paths that seemed interesting, and the answers that suited my real-life personality best. Heck, I played that game like a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ book: laughing, gasping and marvelling at the twists and turns the game threw at me, and being just a good sport that didn’t take things too seriously. That light-hearted and playful approach disappeared pretty quickly though, to be replaced by a typical gamer’s mindset. 

 

 

Basically, I wanted to win these games, which in my mind translated as getting the good endings — preferably while avoiding the bad ones, and without a walkthrough to top it off. This narrow focus on winning nearly made me swear off Bad Apple Wars, just because the good endings didn’t feel rewarding enough. This focus also made me play the entirety of the mindfuck that is Piofiore, just because I wanted to be that smartass who escaped the game unscathed. That darn stupid focus made me play some otomes entirely and suffer through shitty routes full of crappy fellows, instead of just zeroing in on the routes that truly resonated with me. And heck, that royally sucks. However, I’m not gonna dwell on it any longer: instead, I’ll change my way of playing otomes and gal games and bring the fun back. Right now, I need a break from the genre in general; but watch out for my grand return! 🤩

  

2 comments:

1. 

Anonymous26 January 2024 at 10:50

Wow, your blog is now over 10 years old. Great that you are still around!

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1. 

Isleif29 January 2024 at 05:53

Thanks a million for the kind words! It's great that you noticed the milestone ^^

Gaming musings: The backlog pressure

  

 

Backlog pressure can take many forms, and mix various subtle feelings. My own backlog pressure feels like a persistent grinding (how ironic) on my gamer’s mind; it’s not overwhelming, but it’s nagging enough to dampen my gaming enjoyment at times. It often translates as guilt — but not just any guilt. One might think I feel guilty every time I purchase a new game — because dear Arceus, there are so many waiting already! — but NOPE! No matter how many games I own, I always get this delicious kick when I get my greedy paws on a new game. My guilt is all about the way I play my games — or don’t do so. I feel guilty about not playing games I bought ten years ago, about playing a game in depth at the expense of others, about tackling a N^th Pokemon solo run when there are so many unplayed games waiting in line.

 

For many years, I was totally immune to the backlog pressure; I was happy and proud about that immunity, and even paraded a bit and flaunted it at times. So what tipped the scales and allowed backlog pressure to worm its way into my gamer’s mind? I thought at first that the sheer accumulation of games was the main factor, which prompted me to devise the New Classics Project. Now that the deed is kinda done, I realise that the situation is more complex. See, as I was discarding games like my life depended on it during the New Classics Project, the backlog pressure didn’t abate like I thought it would. Bet you didn’t expect that plot twist, hey! 

 

After a bit of soul-searching, I’ve come to realise that all my backlogging woes can be blamed on a single factor, which is none other than loyalty. More precisely, an excess of it; or an extension of the concept in places where it shouldn’t exist. See, I feel a duty of sorts towards my games. I feel that I should give them all a fair chance to shine, and that I shouldn’t discard them before giving them said chance; and I just as strongly feel that I contracted that obligation the very moment I purchased them. 

 

The whole thing is just over-the-top, and completely out of place. Loyalty is fine in relationships with fellow humans, or living beings as a whole; but loyalty towards objects is just plain unpractical and pointless. I’m basically chaining myself to stuff, and creating obligations for myself out of thin air! When one considers the timing and rationale behind every gaming purchase and realises that circumstances may have changed wildly since said purchase, this clutching to loyalty becomes all the more absurd and counter-productive. Case in point: I purchased Tactics Ogre for the PSP back in mi-2013, at a time when I only owned the PSP, the DS and 20-or-so games. Ten years later, I own six systems and hundreds of games, and I’ve come to realise that I don’t fancy SRPG that much. Forcing myself to play Tactics Ogre despite all that was a complete waste of my loyalty.

 

But wait, I hear you say, didn’t you want to play Tactics Ogre? What about your gaming instinct? Well, that’s the trick: that loyalty of mine towards every game I welcome into my Collection superseded my gaming instinct. Or, more precisely, my gaming instinct operated inside the confines of my loyalty towards my games. It speaks volumes that in all these years, I never did any sort of background maintenance of my collection: it’s been the same since the very beginning, just growing ever larger. It would have made sense to, let’s say, ditch this game I bought on a complete whim, or that game that belongs to a genre I don’t fancy; but such natural occurrences never happened. They never happened because they couldn’t happen: until I uncovered that blinding, binding loyalty of mine, I was simply unable to ditch a game before playing it. Hence the darn backlog pressure.

 

Does this mean that I am now able to ditch a game without playing it first? I honestly don’t know at that point. Identifying the cause of my backlog pressure certainly removed a lot of said pressure; the consequences of that epiphany on my Collection remain to be seen, and will probably take some time to unfold. One thing is abundantly clear, though: the New Classics Project is now officially defunct! My gaming instinct will run the show from now on; and it will do so without being hindered by my overbearing loyalty. This will be some sort of permanent maintenance, like a software running in the background; and I just cannot wait to see how my gaming instinct will fare ^^ 

 

One last question for the road: what does make a game a Cult Classic? For me, it’s always a natural and effortless gelling between several elements. It’s the way a game scratches just the right itch, while inserting itself perfectly into my life at that moment and generating tons of emotions and memories. This is something that cannot be engineered, nor reproduced at will; it can happen with perfectly crappy games, and not happen with undeniably excellent ones. The New Classics project reminded me that you just have to breathe, relax, and let things happen. Just play it your way, baby! 🤩

Pokemon Y: The Lucario Solo Run

  

 

Let’s be honest: I’ve never been dying to run solo with Lucario. However, years of having a Lucario forced on me by Korrina in X&Y slowly but surely made me amenable to the vulpine creature; throw a mega Evolution on top, and you have a very interested little me.

 

Of course, I wasn’t going to wait for Korrina’s Lucario. I bred and hatched Riolus in my dedicated X cartridge, until I found the perfect critter. The Lucario line normally boasts higher Attack than Sp.Attack, which doesn’t quite align with its learnset that mixes Physical and Special moves; however, my Riolu was blessed with a Rash Nature, which meant boosted Sp.Attack — and thus making the most of the line’s learnset. 

 

 

One trade and a few steps later, my little Jaspe was all hatched, and ready to cruise Kalos! Riolu’s evolution being based on Friendship level, I couldn’t know when Jaspe would evolve; as it turns out, she evolved at lv. 34, right at the end of the fight against Grant. In terms of levels, it’s way later than what you’d expect; that kinda makes sense though, given that I had a double XP boost thanks to the combination of the Lucky Egg and Two Hearts in Pokemon Amie. 

 

 

For that last Gen VI run of the summer fall, I decided to spice things up a bit — and man, the Lucario line was more than willing to humour me! We’re talking about them moves: in all my years of Pokemon solo runs, I don’t think I’ve ever wielded combinations such as Normal-Fighting-Ghost-Ground, or Poison-Fighting-Steel-Dragon. So very exotic! Talking about Steel: as you can see below, Flash Cannon became part of my arsenal. How could that be, when Flash Cannon only becomes available after the credits roll? Simple answer: I cheated, folks. I sent Jaspe to my dedicated breeding X cartridge, taught her the move, and sent her back to Y. A seldom-used move, with a STAB boost cherry on top — sweet! Never mind that I had to cheat, it was totally worth it. 

 

 

 

My ultimate Elite Four move pool.

 

After a whole run of delirious one-shooting and glorious blazing through Kalos, it's time to talk about the Elite Four! That final showdown was all the more thrilling as it was pretty much the only time I used Mega-Evolution, bar the Lysandre fights in Team Flare’s Secret HQ in Geosenge. Why not use it more, you may ask? First, because regular Lucario is badass enough already; secondly, because using ME would have required dropping the Lucky Egg, and I really wanted Jaspe to hit the big 100 before the end without extra grinding. That plan succeeded beyond my wildest dreams: not only did Jaspe reach that coveted Lv.100 right on time for the Elite Four, but she reached it during the Victory Road fight against Veteran Gilles — a.k.a. the very last trainer before the Pokemon League. Talk about pitch-perfect timing! 

 

 

 

 

With that said, on with the report of a most interesting Elite Four showdown!

 

—      Malva: Aura Sphere for all bar Chandelure, which got a nice serving of Dragon Pulse. Needless to say, everybody went down in one clean, devastating hit.

—      Wikstrom: I unleashed Aura Sphere on Klefki, which left me with a nasty case of Torment as it bit the dust — talk about spite! I had to use Dragon Pulse against Probopass, who stomached the hit comfortably and survived with half of its HP. Fair enough, I finished it with Aura Sphere. Aegislash got a serving of Dig, Scizzor got a serving of Aura Sphere, fight over.

—      Siebold: Despite ME, things nearly went south against Clawitzer. I unleashed Flash Cannon on a whim, only to discover that it wasn’t very effective; that allowed Clawitzer to lash back at me with a critical hit, nearly wiping Jaspe out. Siebold produced a Full Restore, forcing me to redo the whole thing; fortunately, a single Aura Sphere got me rid of the armored shrimp. Gyarados went down with two Dragon Pulse — but not before Siebold spent his two remaining Full Restores on it. I was actually uber lucky, because Gyarados used Dragon Dance on the first turn instead of taking advantage of my depleted HP bar and finishing me with an offensive move. Super effective Aura Sphere on Barbaracle, two serving of Aura Sphere for Starmie — and I was lucky once again, as the latter used Light Screen instead of taking advantage of my still depleted HP bar.

—      Drasna: Flash Cannon, one-shot for all. Nuff said! Actually, no: using a Steel move on Drasna’s posse wasn’t the most strategically sound option, because none of her dragons are weak to Steel. Had I really wanted to steal the show, I should have used super-effective Dragon Pulse; but hey, no need to kick a mon when it’s down. 

—      Diantha: Critical Flash Cannon on Hawlucha. Flash Cannon on Goodra, which survived with a microgram of HP and retaliated with an offensive move that Lucario skilfully avoided; Diantha’s Full Restore did nothing to help, as Goodra went down the next turn with Dragon Pulse. One-shot Tyrantrum with Dragon Pulse. Tried to one-shoot his evil twin fellow Aurorus with Dragon Pulse as well, except it survived; Diantha didn’t use a Full Restore, which allowed me to finish Aurorus with Flash Cannon. A single Flash Cannon on Gourgeist, and a glorious single Flash Cannon on Mega Gardevoir. 

 

Them final stats. Not sure I've ever had a Mon with equal Attack and Sp. Atk at lv. 100 🤩

The timer at the end of that thrilling showdown indicated 9:50, which is totally one of my shortest times — if not the shortest time — ever for an X&Y solo run. I’ll sure try that again, baby! Until next time, dear fellow gamers, keep doing your thing and take care!

 

  

2 comments:

1. 

Night Crows Diamonds2 April 2024 at 08:26

An electrifying solo journey with Lucario! Your strategic moves and clever training tactics made for an exhilarating read. Looking forward to your next adventure! Keep shining, Trainer!

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Replies

1. 

Isleif2 April 2024 at 08:27

Thanks a lot for the kind words, mate ^^