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shuttershocky · 8 months

Note

hi shutters. im gonna start arknights. do you have any guide/tips for new players? what to do, what to not do, what to save, what to discard, where to find community resources(if they exist). stuff like that. thanks in advance!

Most new player guides will tell you all you need to know about getting started in the game, so I'll list down 5 things about the experience of /learning/ the game instead.

You don't have to play - Before we start, it must be said that Arknights is still a gacha game, an inherently predatory monetization scheme no matter how generous the in-game system is. If you feel like you may be vulnerable to FOMO and spending real money, I don't recommend you play at all. If you're here for the world and characters, Arknights has excellent comics available for free on their website, while players upload most event stories on Youtube for you to read through without having to touch the game. With that said, let's continue.

Take your time - Raising units and generally progressing in Arknights takes a lot longer than in other mobage. Don't worry about things like "catching up". Limited time events that have already had their rerun get added as a part of the main menu permanently, and eventually they even include the free units you get per event. You're generally not going to be missing out on any content (except for 3rd party collabs like the upcoming Monster Hunter event, but that's because they don't own Monster Hunter), so don't feel like you have to rush through the game. It won't work, and you'll get easily frustrated. Think of it more like a puzzle game with updates. You don't rush through puzzle games, the point is to enjoy the puzzle.

Don't spend - This goes for all mobile games in general, but especially Arknights. The money to in-game currency conversion rate is godawful, but the actual flow of the gacha currency (called Orundrum) given to you by just playing the game normally is rather generous. Combined with a few other features that don't need to be discussed here and even a F2P player's account looks like a whale after enough time, because you eventually just get most of the units from how often you're given free rolls. Take it from me, you don't need to buy anything to get gigastacked, it will happen to you over time.

Ask for Help - Arknights is a puzzle game, and that means even with some of the best units in the game, you can find yourself stuck on stages if you have no idea how to approach strategy. If you're ever stuck, Youtube is filled with various clear guides made by the community, targeting everything from lazy clears (often called AFK) by super strong Doctors that don't want to think, to low rarity clears targeted towards new players who are mostly using the 3 star characters (as they are much quicker to raise). Just take a look at the codename of the stage you are stuck on (for example: "WD-EX-8"), and type that into the Youtube search bar. You'll find a ton of different guides from various creators. You can even shoot an Ask to this blog if you want more personalized help, though of course I can only answer those in my free time.

Take reviews with a grain of salt - Probably the biggest source of FOMO pressure in Arknights is the community itself, what with how much content creators love to use clickbait videos telling you a certain unit is a godtier must-have and if you don't have them you WILL be unable to keep up so roll for them NOW or a certain unit is fucking dogshit unusable and if you have them they're a waste of space. No in-betweens. Of course, when you actually get to try these characters for yourself you're going to realize even the absurdly powerful units aren't going to be autowinning stages by themselves (usually), nor are even the most despised, godawful units completely worthless strategically. It's a puzzle game, ultimately a lot more is going to depend on your ability to problem solve. My general rule of thumb when it comes to seeing community reactions to new operators is if everyone says they're good, they're almost certainly very good, but if everyone says a new unit is trash, it's a cointoss as to how bad they actually are. Probably the best recent example is the 6 star Mystic Caster Ebenholz, who was derided as being awkward to use and generally awful in most stages. His stock eventually rose and rose as people discovered that while Ebenholz struggled in most stages, he was incredibly good at taking on stages with very difficult, powerful enemies, flattening most of these elite enemies and bosses in an instant and trivializing the stages meant to be challenging. If you look up Ebenholz online you're mostly going to find people reacting to his initial appearance and calling him bad, but you're not going to see how he's carved out an extremely valuable strategic niche for himself. You never know who's going to end up useful, so don't be afraid to play around with your favorite units.

#arknights

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ystrike1 · 1 year

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Averted Gaze R - By Rusena (8/10)

I'm not sure if love is involved here at all. This is a painfully realistic horror story. Nothing happens until it's too late. Incest is a heavy topic, but it's handled ok in this case. The one sided attraction is presented as entirely creepy, and unwanted. The obsession also hints at a mystery, and I want answers.

Dahye has blond, wavy, frizzy hair. She constantly straightens it, but it is always slightly messy. She works in an ice cream parlor, and she's trying her best. Money is tight, but her parents are well off. She can live with them until she's ready to leave.

Sexism is a pretty big issue in Korea. Daughters do not get treated like sons. Dahye has to do chores. Dawoon, her brother, does not. She feels suffocated, because Dawoon has always been the favorite.

But...why???

Dawoon is kind of horrible. His grades are shit. He's twenty and he dropped out of school. He has no goals in life whatsoever. He steals Dahye's wallet regularly, and he uses her money to buy gacha rolls. He doesn't have a life. He's the image of a failed son...but...

His parents spoil him. She thinks it's creepy. She tries to be nice to her brother. She tries to care about him, but it's so hard. Every single chapter the situation gets stranger. Dahye has to vacuum, do laundry, and dust for everyone...including Dawoon.

When she vacuums his room she notices a lot of issues. Big ones. Dawoon has been painting creepy faces on his bedroom walls. His parents seem to think he's interested in art...but...um...Dahye looks at his computer and sees something much worse. Her name. The word die. Rip. Tear. Slave. According to the notes she finds her brother wants to steal her, lock her up, use her, and kill her.

The next scene is heartbreaking. Dahye tells her parents and they don't believe her. Dawoon tells a paper thin lie. He says he was reading a horror novel online. The victims name is similar to Dahye's. That's all. You're overreacting. She knows that's not true. The notes were not written like a novel, and she saw her name several times. He deletes them. The parents don't pressure him, and Dahye has to keep living like everything is normal.

Dahye tells her best friend. Her best friend is...well...the best! She's supportive and she knows Dahye's home life is hard. She says Dahye has her full support, no matter what happens.

Dawoon starts to get worse, because he knows he can get away with acting out now. He was caught red handed with hand written incest porn and his parents defended him. When Dahye speaks to him he lashes out, and he becomes even ruder than usual. Things escalate. Dawoons mother approaches him. She says she's worried about him. She wants him to stop playing games every day, so he pushes her. He shoves the mother that defended him to the ground, and she actually gets injured. She has to wear heat packs and visit the chiropractor...but still nothing happens.

Auntie steps in. Auntie is the only adult with sense. She knows that Dawoon's mental health is in the toilet, because he doesn't go outside. Auntie thinks he should see a therapist and get a job. She wants his parents to shape up and act now, before it's too late. She tried to confront Dawoon, but he locked his door. Auntie peeked through his window, and she saw him...pleasuring himself...standing up near the wall covered in painted faces. That's not a good sign. He also didn't stop, even when their eyes locked. Auntie is extremely worried for Dahye. Dahye doesn't want to move out. She's not ready, but the situation is pretty dire. Auntie probably can't financially support Dahye, but she may have to find a couch to sleep on soon.

Dahye hears Dowoon on the phone. Apparently, it's his girlfriend. He looks at Dahye, and he says he's disappointed.

If he didn't have a girlfriend he would totally (bang) her.

First of all I'm worried about this girlfriend.

Second of all Dahye needs to leave, now, but she's worried that Dowoon will attack her parents.

It seems like Dowoon got a girlfriend to replace his sister, for now, but he's getting bolder.

(My theory is pretty sad. Dahye might not be her parents daughter. She's the only one with blond hair, and that would explain why they're so obsessed with Dowoon. He's their "only" child. If that's not true life is just unfair, and Dahye has been taking shit her entire life just because she's not the favorite. Her parents are very cold to her most of the time. It sharply contrasts with the way they treat Dowoon. I'm curious, and I hope Dowoon doesn't win.)

#yandere #male yandere #yandere male #yandere boy #recommendations #recs #rec #recommended #webtoon #Averted Gaze R

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hesokuri-wars · 5 months

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I never got the chance to play this game, but it looks so fun... Why was it shut down? Also, are there any other oso-san games still available?

Well, nobody here was playing around the time of the shutdown, so we wouldn't really be experts on the situation. Either way, game staff in general don't just outright tell players the reasons for discontinuation, but I think the safe assumption would be that they simply didn't have the budget to keep it running anymore. Which... honestly, was a possibility that I had been concerned about for a while, given how much the game grew to rely on its whales. I could be way off on this, but the fact that they flat started requiring to spend money to roll for premium sets had the alarm bells going off in my head.

As for the (mobile) games still available now, there are three - Pokomatsu, Tabimatsu, and NEETPro, all of which region-locked to only Japan (assuming you don't live there, if you want to know of a way to get around this issue, follow the instructions in the FAQ under "how to install the app" - the process should be the same).

And because I have thoughts on all of them, I wrote up a brief description on each game before concluding with my personal thoughts on the current state of the Ososan Gaming Experience, but I'm not sure if anyone else really cares that much so I'm putting it under a cut lol. Links to downloading the games are included below as well for those who are curious.

Pokomatsu (Apple Link / Android Link)

I kind of talked about this one just the other day, but basically, it's the game that "replaced" Hesokuri Wars. Not only does it use a lot of Heso's assets, but the Twitter account for Hesokuri Wars and Pokomatsu is one and the same.

And... that's really it as far as similarities go. Hesokuri Wars was a tower defense game, and Pokomatsu is that one game where you aim and shoot balls at objects/people that are slowly advancing towards you and have to hit them enough times to win (idk if there's a more succinct name for this type of gameplay). Also, you can collect screenshots from the anime, movies, and Heso, either by playing/progressing or by rolling in the gacha. The basic story of the game is that the sextuplets are defending themselves from having their roles as the protagonists stolen by the other characters.

Here's a sample of some gameplay, if you're curious. Note that the voice clips are recycled directly from Heso. Also, it's incredibly noisy, so I guess that's just another similarity the two share.

Mod Ichi's Opinion: If you like this sort of game, then go ahead and give it a try, but I personally can't see myself getting too invested in it. Collecting the cards is its main selling point, but even that's not really all that given that they're just screenshots as opposed to original art. Also, I think I'm bad at it because I can't get past Stage 8. Never mind, I was playing it while I was typing this and I just beat it lol. But now I can't get past Stage 9.

Tabimatsu (Apple Link / Android Link)

AKA the other big Oso game from back in the day, although it still wasn't as big as Heso. The premise is that the sextuplets are traveling to all of the prefectures in Japan to pick up money, and the gameplay is in the form of a board game where you roll a die and move around. Much like Heso, had its fair share of original outfits and events, but it's currently in a bit of a weird place because it's been dormant for the past few years; it's still there for people to download and play, but it hasn't had a proper update since like 2020/2021 aside from the occasional maintenance. It's very clearly on its last legs, but it's still available to the public, presumably because it's not as costly to run as some other games of the past.

A sample of gameplay.

Mod Ichi's Opinion: I really enjoyed this game when it was more active! I'd like to replay it for the nostalgia, but it refuses to load properly on my phone teehee.

NEETPro (Apple Link / Android Link)

This one was released in conjunction with the first movie. It's also made by the same people who made Tabimatsu.

NEETPro is by far the simplest out of all the games, being more of a story-driven visual novel and not much else - I think this is the first and only Ososan mobile game to not have any gacha function? You play as a female showbiz manager, Totoko is your supervisor (she quit being an idol), and you're responsible for managing a sextuplet of your choice. Depending on the choices you make throughout the story, you either succeed in turning him into a movie star, or he stays a NEET.

In other words, this is the closest thing to an official Ososan otome game that exists. Like I said, this game is very much just a visual novel and not much else, so it basically was just released and not really updated since. I also found a tweet posted by the official Tabimatsu account from this September announcing the app would no longer be available on the Google Play store (though people who already had the app can still play), so like. That pretty much confirms that keeping this game up to date isn't exactly a top priority of the staff.

A sample of gameplay.

Mod Ichi's Opinion: I'm playing Ichi's route and I keep trying to brute force him into letting me become his manager and at one point he grew convinced that I was secretly an assassin plotting to kill him. Anyway, I don't think you'll have much use for this if you can't read Japanese or can't find a translation somewhere.

Overall

I feel like I've been hinting at this all throughout this post, but Ososan doesn't seem to be thriving in the mobile game sphere as of late. We used to have games like Hesokuri Wars, Damematsu, and Shimamatsu, all of which were rife with content, but all three current games I described above are fairly low-maintenance to keep running, have very sparse updates, and overall just don't seem to be here to keep your long-term interest. Maybe it's not too fair to say that about NEETPro, given the type of game it is (not to mention that it mainly served as promotional material for the movie), but like. Tabimatsu? That game used to consistently get new content, until one day, all that just stopped.

Idk I don't really have a conclusion to all of this lol this isn't meant to be some thesis or anything. It's just that when I went back to see which games were still available to the public, I immediately noticed the lack of actual content, and it's such a downgrade. It kind of bothers me as someone who not only rigorously played Heso for years, but also was super into checking out every other game the staff would drop.

🐾 Mod Ichi

#SORRY ANON I KNOW YOU DIDN'T ASK FOR LIKE 80% OF THIS ANSWER BUT I HAD THOUGHTS #disclaimer that i have absolutely no clue what's going on behind the scenes i'm just making observations as an outsider #mod ichi #memorial and legacy #ask

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kahidlaws · 4 months

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shoutout to this weibo post for making me come back to this account and be horny again

listen, r1999 has got to be the most out there gacha games in terms of story and character art but they really hit the nail on the head with horropedia when it comes to catering to my tastes in men (nerd, brunette, loser)

cw: gn!reader, mutual masturbation, both are switch but reader is leaning top and horropedia is leaning sub, reader gets horny while listening to joshua mansplain horror movies thats literally the instigator, please use lube not spit when in real life sex

You tried to pay attention. You really did.

The horror movie that he picked up from the confines of his DVD collection was mid at best and absolute dog water at worst. With a 'horropedia' as your boyfriend, you gained a thing or two about criticizing horror movies. You two were barely 10 minutes into the movie when he began his usual spiel towards the cookie-cut introductory characters.

"Ah, despite the obvious modernized times, they're still following the same-old pattern movies back in the 70s did. How droll..."

"Eww what's with this crummy set?! Nightmare on Elm Street had better lighting than this!"

"Dear god, did you hear that?! This script is too cringey even for horror movie standards!"

... Is it possible to get horny just from hearing him complain?

God, even just watching his side profile as he talks is enough to set your heart pumping. You two were sat (well, he was sat) on his abhorrent yellow sofa chair, with you perched on his lap and legs haphazardly strewn across the armrest. No longer were you paying attention to the movie. Instead, your attention was honed in on his face; how the TV's glow made his warm brown eyes shine like stars, how it made a glare on his glasses that he kept pushing up (and it had no right being that hot), how it made his freckles stand out more that you want to kiss a path to form constellations.

Anything that he says after you blacked out is muddied. It was a sign that you had enough.

You leaned in closer to his neck, nosing against the expanse of freckled skin (yes he had freckles everywhere). The action didn't deter him from continuing his tirade and instead he curled his arm around your waist, hand patting your hip. While the gesture was sweet, it didn't help relieve the problem between your legs.

So you went through with your desire to kiss a path of constellations. Starting from the bottom area of his ear down to the crook of his neck. Each kiss left an incredibly cliche smack that you can't help but feel giddy about. It was there that you felt him react to your ministrations. His speech slowly died down as you felt his hand grip the meat of your hip.

You see his Adam's Apple bob up and down and you fought the urge to just bite it. He cleared his throat, the movie no longer at the forefront of his mind. "So this is that trope where the significant other usually instigates sexual intercourse while watching a movie?"

"Are you really gonna do your usual speech towards porn tropes?"

"Hey, I can't help to point out the obvious."

You rolled your eyes, can't believing that this guy was the love of your life. Instead of continuing your kisses, you nibbled right where his clavicle was jutting out from his worn shirt. The gasp he let out was nothing short of euphoric but it was ruined when he started yapping again.

"I must say, this is quite unlike you," he started but he egged you on further by smoothing his hand across the inside of your thighs, "has my usual semantics about horror movies flipped a switch inside you and made you a horndog just like the bimbos in those movies."

"Joshua," you seethed, and you were serious when you used his real name, "keep talking like that and I'm gonna wring you out until you can barely cum."

He gulped but with how his cock twitched beneath his pants betrayed how he would love the idea. "Alright alright, I'll shut up."

And to his credit, he was quiet. When you rucked his shirt upwards and his nipples out to the cold air, you leaned in and kissed one before taking it in your mouth. He keened, back concaving as his hand traveled further inward to your sex. With nimble fingers, he toyed with it above the material of your bottoms before you felt them move faster.

"Oh wow, you really got it bad for me, huh?" He remarked breathlessly, seeing you crumble from the ministrations. "Aren't you a precious little thing, getting off from hearing me talk all day?"

You lightly bit his nipple, relishing in his yelp before moving back up. "Joshua, I swear to god I'm going to leave you high and dry."

"You would never." He snorted. He then took his other hand and tried to shimmy your bottoms down. With your bottom half now out in the open, he raised his hand to your mouth. His lips quirked into a smirk when you let his ring and middle finger inside your mouth, suckling them just like how you did with his nipple. "You love me and my voice too much."

You internally seethed that he was right. Damn him and his stupid voice and his stupid tirade, he has such an immense hold on you that if you did follow through with your promise on leaving him dry, it would be you suffering the most.

"Alright, fine." You conceded after he retrieves his fingers from your mouth, glaring lightly at his smug face. "I love your voice and your stupid spiels. Happy?"

He let out a pleased huff. "I mean, I already knew all along, but it certainly is a boost to the ego when you confirm it for me."

Rolling your eyes, you kissed him fully on the lips for the first time this night. Your hand pinching and rolling his nipple while the other wrapped behind his neck and tugged on his low ponytail. You swallowed in his groan, his tongue swirling against yours. The fingers that you swallowed trailed down to your hole, toying at the entrance before slowly pushing inside.

Swearing, you parted from him, elated at the sight of him reddened and out of breath. You giggled at the trail of spit connecting your mouths before you broke it by leaning forward and kissing the freckles on his face. That was a surefire way of knocking him down a peg; how you show affection to, what he describes as 'An unsightly visual upon his face', his freckles was always your winning card.

You left a final kiss on his nose before leaning back. "I really do want to see you broken and crying, Joshua."

He moaned lightly, leaning down to your neck to hide his reddening face as his fingers curled inward. The moan you let out was pornographic but Joshua didn't point it out, clearly far gone into his pleasures. He mouthed along your neck. "Yeah? I'd be a liar if I said I didn't want to see you try your best."

You scoffed, gently prying his head away from your neck and staring straight into his eyes. Something hot curled inside you when you see how shiny his eyes became. "Keep talking and I'll make sure that you'll keep cumming until morning."

He whimpered at your words, his fingers faltering in pleasuring you. You cooed. "What's wrong, baby? Can't keep your mouth open for me?"

He shifted in his seat. During the whole time, you never removed his cock underneath his pants. The sizeable tent already sporting a dark patch. "N-No... I can do it."

"Good boy." You purred and you giggled at how he shivered at the praise. The hand on his chest moved down to his pajama bottoms, tugging them down as best as you could. He lifted himself from his seat, groaning in pain and relief at how his cock finally sprung free from his clothes as he threw his pants in a random corner of the room.

Joshua was always pretty. It was a shame everyone thinks he's 'unconventional' because he was such a chatterbox when him never shutting up was the most attractive thing ever. Screw them then, you think, as you stared reverently at his cock. It throbbed painfully against his stomach, the head flushed a pretty red just like his face as it curved slightly to the left. It was so perfect for you that you can't help but thank whatever deity made you meet Joshua.

"My pretty boy..." You breathed out. "Remember our deal, okay?"

He nodded wordlessly. Immediately, you wrapped your hand around his head, spreading the precum as your hand glides across his shaft. He let out a drawn-out moan, tilting his head back against the sofa chair as his fingers pumped in and out of your hole.

"F-Fuuuuck..." He keened, eyes glossed over with unshed tears. "Feels so good. The way you wrap your hand around me just right-ah!"

He jumped slightly when your other hand tugged his ponytail roughly, showing the expanse of his neck. You bit his Adam's Apple and you squeezed his fingers when you hear him cry out in pleasure. "Keep talking."

"Love how you mark me up...!" He continued. "Love how you make me yours. Love how you tease the h-ah, head of my cock before you rub it. Love how you twist your hand just right...!"

You let go of his skin after you fully blemished it red and stinging. "Yeah? You love it when I treat you like this, huh?"

He nodded against his hold. Your hand was already easily moving up and down his cock, making it easier for you to twist your wrist and quicken your pace. He bucked his hips upward, legs twitching from the stimulation. Of course, he made sure that you weren't the only one giving. He curled his fingers inwards, making you gasp out loud as his other hand inched down towards your most sensitive area.

"Mhm." He hummed, watching at how your back arced beautifully when he played with your most sensitive part. "Love how you react so prettily when I touch you like this. Almost like you were built for me-built for me to break and use over and over."

"Fuck, Joshua." You breathlessly giggled, letting go of his ponytail. "Wasn't expecting this out of you."

He chuckled softly, lightly bumping his forehead against yours. His glasses were completely askew across his nose bridge so you adjusted them for him. His eyes were unabashed in their affection, shining like twin diamonds. It was almost sickening how he looks at your with such hazily romantic reverence.

He smiled softly. "Love you."

You swallowed the lump forming in your throat before you pecked his lips. "Love you, too."

He hummed happily. "Love how you love me. Like I'm someone worth loving. Love it when you love me like this."

His speech was getting repetitive. His fingers going in and out of your hole at a faster rate as squelching noises permeated the room. Your hand squeezed his cock tighter, pumping up and down, begging for his cum to run down your hand so you can lick it all off.

"Fuck," he gasped out, mouth open as let out his grunts, "love you so much. Love you love you love you—"

"Give it to me, Joshua." You said, legs twitching at how fast he's playing with your sex. "Let go, pretty baby. I've got you."

He cried out, bucking his hips to meet your hand as you watched his cock spurt cum. "Fuck fuck fuck, oh god, I-hah!"

As his orgasm racked his body, you watched as he loses himself. The fingers inside you curled the right way before you came. His other hand toyed with your sex further until you cried out from the overstimulation. His cock shot his seed upwards, hitting you and Joshua. Some of it got onto Joshua's cheek so you leaned in and licked them off of him.

Heavy breathing was all that was heard in the room as you two cooled down from the session. After you cleaned his cheek, you laid down on his still-heaving chest. He leaned his on top of your head, arms wrapping around you and bringing you impossibly closer.

He breathed in and out, letting out chuckles underneath his breath. "So, you really like how I talk, eh?"

You groaned, burrowing your face further into his chest. "Don't remind me."

"You know I'm gonna never live it down, right?" He gloated, kissing the top of your head. "What a glorious feeling. To have my honey be so smitten with my voice."

"Dear god, what have I done."

He barked out a laugh, nuzzling you closer. He decided to stop for now, but he'll remember this moment whenever he hosts a horror movie review again.

Maybe being a chatterbox led to good things after all.

#horropedia #horropedia x reader #horrorpedia #horrorpedia x reader #r1999 #reverse 1999 #kd.og #kd.yearn #wow im never writing smut like this ever again #he made me feel things i never thought i would feel ever since claude von riegan

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paintedscales · 1 month

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PRUDENCE– How far ahead do they plan? Are they able to strategize future potential factors? Do they go out of their way to ask for clarification, or simply assume they know what they’re doing?

I've returned to looking at my inbox and answering things that have just been...sitting there.

Hi, Cloud! Thank you for the ask, and thanks for the patience (both for how late this ask has been answered, and the art trade). I do appreciate it all. ; w ; / ♥ I hope you've also been well and not too terribly bogged down by work on your end, too, though!

Positive Psychology OC Ask Meme

Planning ahead has become a strength of Nomin's after her development with the tribe of Jhungid. It is a positive result of honing her ability to be patient and using that patience to plan ahead and bide her time in preparing for everything that led to her eventual freedom of not just herself, but others as well.

Unfortunately, though, it is all obviously situational, as it is for people that don't reside in fictional stories, I would argue. I mean, how can you plan for something that happens spontaneously? Spontaneity is certainly an obstacle that shows up quite a bit in Nomin's life after the ball really gets rolling on her being the Warrior of Light. Like...how do you plan for Mister Crystal Exarch Playing Gacha Impact™, whisking you and your friends away from the Source onto the First, you know?

Nomin's not necessarily a proud person, either, when it comes to things she knows and things she could still stand to learn. She's actually pretty humble in that regard. So asking for clarification and things to help her understand a situation is probably one of her stronger points...

As long as she's interested.

She's not interested in politics and political movements, for example. She doesn't have the patience for political movements or even politically motivated diplomacy a lot of the time. So she opts out of participating in the planning in those discussion topics.

If she has the downtime to be able to plan for battle, however, she will discuss battle plans and maneuvering the field. She's had to do things like that in the past, and she feels confident enough in being able to plan for combat. That's about as involved as she gets when it comes to political figureheads coming together to speak.

Though, certain plans she can keep close to her chest and act on them in time. Like planning to do something nice for others. That's an easier one that Nomin can do. Listening and paying attention to what people enjoy or what they like is another strength of Nomin's, and it allows her to plan to give people something nice that she knows they'll appreciate if she likes them.

#questions and answers #user: rockmehythlodaeus #thank you ♥#ffxiv #ffxiv oc #oc: nomin tal kheeriin

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zeravmeta · 2 years

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(throwing my 10 gallon hat in the ring) fgo is and will always be hurt by its status as a mobile game especially when the main draw of reading in it is made less accessible to many people (things like locking events and special interludes behind rpwalls or just flat out not using the feature they invented specifically to give people event access) but i feel like people get frustrated specifically because of the discrepancy in story quality throughout, and that ultimately comes from the fact that fgo has no single main writer.

fgo has its absolute highs and its eye-rolling lows and that fully comes from the fact that different people are writing different parts of the story (again born from its mobile game status) and that will ultimately leave the story feeling tonally dissonant. yes there are some overarching themes present within the story but people will always feel dissatisfied when reading fgo because the story quality and writing style jumps wildly between parts of the story. the same applies to its comedic side events as well, some of them can be ball bustingly hilarious and others can be a test of faith.

at the same time though I think it is unfair to say that there is no good that comes from fgo even with its messed up model: the variety of different writers makes it a total playground for them to play with wildly different stories and thematics that would never come from a series as dense as fate. nasu has writing chops but i dont think he could have made something like e pluberius unum or shinjuku without adding 2.5x the wordcount. there is no joke in carnival phantasm thats as good as real deal nobunaga or valentines exponential chocolate technology. while it certainly varies there are absolutely standout characters among the variety that are just as well written in fgo as they would be in a different, longer fate work. fgo is The game that introduced the concept of actually having a story and plot in mobile games. even with all the horribleness of Bill and Teds Epic Hentai Gambling Adventure people do still come back specifically for the story aspect of fgo more than any other aspect of it. its really better to think of fgo as a series of vignettes with an overarching theme because thats really what it is at the end of the day, a series of stories in a whole bunch of different settings with a main cast that has rotating characters. and again, fgo will always have inherent problems: the gacha model, marketing itself as a single story when its really not, the waifutization and pandering, continuing to bring certain subpar writers into the room, the actual gameplay aspect of fgo still having major issues, and so on. however i feel like people should already understand these things at this point, and people just consistently set themselves up for failure with rampant fandomization and not understanding the disconnect with fgo as a whole. maybe im just a little neurotic goblin but if youre going to play any type of mobile game, you should do your research first

fgo really is an exercise in taking the good with the bad and if the bad outweighs the good for you, then just read a different fate work or quit the series altogether, because fgo really is just a culmination of the various themes of other fate works, and even if you can certainly say it doesn't do some of it well it does keep people hooked. fgo is already 6-7 years into its lifespan so i think that everything that needs to be said about fgos problems have really already been fully said and discussed. unlike the accessibility of other vns in english fgo is easily accessible and thus all of its problems are a lot more transparent and more easily discussed (and at times even exaggerated i will say), so its not really a surprise when you think about it that many people get a bad impression of the rest of the fate series when only reading fgo and seeing its problems, since the other material is either unofficially translated or locked behind youtube playthroughs and beasts lair forum downloads. if you enjoy worldwide popular mobile game fate/grand order i promise you that you will enjoy other fate works and nasuverse just as much, likely more, and its worth it to seek them out. and if you just dont like fgo after the fact... i promise you that you'll still probably like the other vns of the series. fgo can only be really appreciated when you know the thematics its expanding on, and all of those come from the rest of the series. and look like. i can certainly understand the argument of fgo being bad as a story if fans are telling you to read a different story to then read fgo, like thats certainly an argument ill listen to. many fate works can stand on their own as stories and if fgo as a standalone story doesnt work for you and you dont want to read its extensive backlog of content just to understand fgo thats genuinely understandable. however, that in itself kind of fundamentally misunderstands the narrative that fgo is trying to make as a culmination of all the lore and thematics that its been building on for about two decades now, since again, fgo is ultimately a culmination of everything that came before it

#fgo #fate grand order #zerav meta #wakes up reads like 2 posts makes this goes back to bed #its always wild to me that apparently checking out the rest of the series after fgo. is only done by the minority #like dude. its more content thats what all you little content goblins want isn't it #made a quick edit concerning a big and Genuinely Understandable counterpoint

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itsbenedict · 4 months

Text

Games I Played In 2023 And Whether Or Not I Thought They Were Good (Part 2/4)

Yup, there's more! Lot of 'em this year.

[1] - 2 - [3] - [4]

Trails into Reverie

Sad to say, a... nightmarishly bad finale to the Erebonia/Crossbell saga of Trails.

The one thing I'll give it is that the core combat gameplay remains super fun, and carries the experience- they're always finding new ways to expand and iterate on the battle system, and this time is no exception.

Otherwise... man, where do I start? The story is just... such a mess. They clearly intended this to be, like... the big climax to the Crossbell games, where the people fight to reclaim their independence from Erebonian occupation- but, uh, whoops, they obviated that entire conflict with the end of Cold Steel, so they pull ridiculous Ouroboros shenanigans out of their ass to recreate that conflict as if the previous resolution never happened. Feels like they developed half the game with a specific set of antagonists in mind, and then whatever hack writer they have running the show over there changed their mind about how Cold Steel would resolve and they had to bend over backwards to make up a new antagonist who just happened to be using the same occupying army and main badguy they just dealt with already.

And structure aside, it's just... wow. Just playing the hits of awful hand-wavey writing decisions, villain motivations that make no sense, anime-ass fanservice, and sucking its own dick over how cool the cast is despite most of them doing nothing and existing only as action figures for the combat. It started stupid, threatened to become halfway interesting as it set up the intrigue, and then shat the bed in the finale by revealing that absolutely none of the intrigue mattered and that the villain was like dogs and just sort of did things arbitrarily. Never hated Trails writing more than this one. What an embarrassing display.

also like half the game's runtime is padded out with level grinding in an inexplicable magic cyber-dungeon like in Sky 3rd, which keeps acting like it's going to be important to the plot but then manages to somehow not come up even a little bit at all. and it's got a gacha in it even though it's all in-game currency and there's no real money shop so why would you bother doing that? does someone at Falcom think that gachas are actually intrinsically fun and not a shitty tactic to get people addicted to gambling? what's even wrong with them???

DREDGE

This is a fun fishing game! Except you're fishing for Lovecraftian nightmares! You're a fisherman on a fishing boat and the locals will pay extra for fish that have been horribly mutated by the unholy energies of the depths, so you have to keep finding weirder and weirder fish to finance the boat upgrades you need to find weirder and weirder fish.

I'd say... it works very well in the first half, as you're upgrading your boat and being slow-rolled on the eldritch horror, and kind of falls apart towards the end. The first couple areas are full of various NPCs and sidequests and things to do, and you always have something to do with your resources...

...but later on, the game's economy gets a little lopsided and a lot of the stuff you're hauling up just wastes space in your inventory because you're past the point where it matters but the game keeps throwing it at you. Areas are also a lot more sparse and lonely, and it ends up getting kind of repetitive.

Still, it's not too long, it has some really good atmosphere, and that first stretch is really engaging and tightly designed.

Wildfrost

This is one of them roguelike deckbuilders that are all the rage lately! And it is a difficult one. Even when you're good at it, you probably don't win most runs. Enemies are strong, you only get to play one card per turn, and you have to be really careful managing the action economy to make sure you don't get hit. You are a unit on the map, a unit without that much more health than normal summons, and if you die it's game over. Enemies hit hard and have various triggered abilities that punish you for playing sloppy- you'll frequently find yourself in no-win scenarios out of nowhere because you didn't sequence your moves right.

The other crazy thing is... the final boss? When you beat it, your hero gets possessed and becomes the final boss of the next run. Find some crazy broken synergy that steamrolls the boss? Great! Good luck finding a way to beat it next time around! The final fight's difficulty starts to scale out of control, and forces you to keep one-upping your own strategy with clever tricks.

The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog

This was released on April Fools, and... it's not that great, honestly. The title's basically clickbait- it's a murder mystery-themed party, and Sonic's not actually dead and no one thinks Sonic is actually dead. That wouldn't really be a problem (just kind of a missed opportunity), but...

I mean, this game is for babies. I guess I'm spoiled by real mystery games, but like... it's this completely linear sequence of rooms with one or two suspects to interrogate each, hiding precisely one secret that you uncover via the most dead-obvious deductions in the world. The core mystery works but doesn't really make you feel clever or anything.

It is, like... funny, though. Sorta. I mean, as funny as it can be with the totally toothless premise and a cast that's...

...I'm gonna be honest, I've never understood why people have so much love for the Sonic cast. They all feel so one-dimensional and tedious, and they're typically unmoored from any consistent world or setting that could give them something interesting to do. They have to get by on the strength of their personalities, which are a little flat since there's only so far they can push the bit in a kids' game.

The other thing that bugs me is... y'know ProZD's Danganronpa video? This game has a bad case of "BUT CAN YOU SPELL THE WORD KNIFE?", where in between every bit of deduction or progression, you have to play a completely unrelated minigame where you play as Sonic running along a course where you have to pick up X rings by the end or else restart it, which serves as a loose metaphor for the process of Thinking Really Hard. It's got a wonky isometric perspective and the levels are all both boring and difficult and it felt like a huge waste of time. And they get harder and longer over time, until you're spending longer on the bad minigame than on the actual game game.

Touhou: Lost Branch of Legend

This is a Slay the Spire clone, but it's Touhou.

...That's about all there is to say on the matter. It has a couple unique mechanics- colored manabases, "Teammate" cards that act kind of like planeswalkers, a chargeable super instead of potions... but it's Slay the Spire. You know what the deal is.

That said- I find it a lot more fun than Slay the Spire, honestly. The colored mana thing adds some depth to deckbuilding, boss relics give you unique buffs instead of debuffs, and a lot of the archetypes are crammed with explosive synergies that make it really fun to go off. Plus there's Touhou music through the whole thing, and it's generally better-produced and prettier despite being in early access. Only point where it loses to STS is the lack of a robust modding scene.

Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk

I did not finish this game! It was very bad!

I saw my cousin playing the sequel to this game on his Steam Deck at an engagement party, and I was dazzled by the screens and screens of party members and stats and mechanics all over the place, and thought- this has to be fun, right? I'll check it out- oh, hey, it's a sequel, I guess I'll play the first one.

This game is... very much an Etrian Odyssey clone, except they kinda make everything worse. You have have a ton of party members, but the thing is they don't learn active skills when they level up- there's no build choices to make, just Number Increasage. The only way to customize your skills is to assign units to covens, which have preset lists of abilities and drop randomly as loot. There's the appearance of customization, but in practice there's not a lot of options. Throw in "at any time an enemy might crit and unhealably disable one of your party members until you return to town, ruining your run", and it just feels like a slog.

The other thing is that it is completely repugnant. Like it's just deeply unpleasantly anime horny in the worst ways. The main character (sorta- you play as her mute faceless magic book, not her) is the worst. She's introduced beating a child and murdering her pets, and pretty much maintains that tenor throughout. And this is not an isolated incident! This game has some kind of fucked-up child abuse fetish- there's a significant number of child characters and all of them are physically assaulted by the nearest authority figure within seconds of being introduced. And it's not a problem, or even a theme- it's just a thing that happens all the time, practically as a gag. Also used as a funny gag: sexual assault! Wow! I couldn't stomach it!

PowerWash Simulator

This game seems like a giant shitpost- and to be clear, it absolutely is a giant shitpost- but it's shockingly cathartic and satisfying. There's just you, some levels implausibly caked in a ridiculous amount of grime, and a power-washer with various nozzles and soaps you use to hose off every inch of the place. There's something about it that just feels so nice! Objects flash and go ding when you fully clean them, there's a checklist of stuff and how clean it is, there's lots of fun little details in the levels...

...and it has a story campaign, which is very silly. You start off taking normal jobs washing normal things, but as you accrue Fame, you unlock weirder and weirder clients that wanted bigger and stranger things powerwashed. Without spoiling anything, it gets pretty wacky towards the end.

It's a fun game to play in the background when you're watching a show or listening to a podcast or something and want something mindless for your hands to do. (At least, at first. Some of the later levels are multi-hour behemoths, and it never feels good to stop in the middle.)

I still have... fourteen more games to write about. It's like they say...... the work of a gamer.......... is never done.......................

[1] - 2 - [3] - [4]

#game rec #powerwash simulator #dredge #wildfrost #trails into reverie #touhou lost branch of legend #gonna. not tag the ones i didn't like #because i think tumblr doesn't just search the first five tags anymore #except trails i'm pretty sure trails fans are also perpetually mad at trails

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sinful-lanterns · 4 months

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I have downloaded the game but haven't opened it because i want to play it during free time. Now your blog makes me wanna start it now so i know some context of the characters 😭😭

Bcause i heard you can get free character if you play for whole 2 week straight? 🤔

Yep, that’s true! There is a daily list of things you need to do when you first start your account. If you manage to finish all of the things before the time limit is up (which is like 12 days I think) then you can get a free S-Class Sinner, which is NOX. NOX is a very useful sinner to have, as she makes the game so much easier once you get her, so I recommend logging in everyday once you activate your account! (Keep in mind you have to do this from day 1. Once you make an account, immediately begin working on the checklist so you have time)

Also, as for the characters and context of PTN, a lot of the more unique sinners have their stories locked behind limited events. But don’t worry, unlike Genshin, PTN will rerun limited events, so you get to play the events you’ve missed if you’re a later fan. (Ex. PTN recently rerunned the Dreamy Bubble event, so I got to play it for the first time as I missed it on its first run!)

Another thing is that all sinners who get released will also get reruns from time to time (with the exception of 2 limited, exclusive sinners). Whenever a new sinner is dropped, they have a banner where it increases your chances of getting them, and once that banner is up, the sinner(s) get added to the standard banner. Where you can roll for them anytime, but the chances of getting them are harder, as there’s so many S-Class sinners in the standard.

Hope this helps! PTN is one of my favorite gacha games ever, because it’s very easy to get the characters you roll for!

#⛓️ interrogation complete #path to nowhere #hunnieknight

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typekiku · 4 months

Text

thoughts on TYPE MOON stuff

well these are my the type moon stuff i have read or watched or whatever so far. this is my opinion only so its inherently correct argue with the wall or touch grass as the youth say SO here it goes drum roll

FATE EXTRA

boring as shit. no joke im sorry its just booty cheeks but of the not sexy kind. its beyond mid its so mid i cant even act like i enjoyed it. it has an interesting concept and world sure but everything else is doo doo butter.

only good part is nero being hot asf and ig whatever servant there is because i only used nero (lmao i aint playing it all over again) she was funny at times

see shes hilarious at times... im sure CCC will change my mind... right? it has sakura what am i saying its PEAK

also fuck them for including arcueid in this crap

GARDEN OF SINNERS

i honestly dont have much to say about this one it never really clicked with me nor did i ever feel anything about it... BESIDES TOUKO

TOUKO IS SO HOT OMG

clears throat

that aside yea i genuinely dont have any opinion on this series of movies good or bad besides movies 3 and 5 which were my favorites

maybe i need to rewatch em one day and really try to get into it

FATE STRANGE FAKE

my favorite spin off in the whole fate franchise. it has some of my absolute favorite characters and GIL like what else would one even want in life amirite

some of my favorites are:

Richard: the absolute goat and one of my fav servants ever

Enkidu: i want a spinoff of gil and enkidu... is that so hard to ask??

Flat: my son

Jack: my uhhh child ig

alcides: the closest we will get to archer herc but just pure cool regardless

hansa: cyborg priest. nothing gets cooler then that

and many more im already too ti- FILIA - red to mention

i've only read up to volume 7 so i gotta get to reading the rest soon

its just pure chaos and is fun while doing so despite being slow as shit

FATE GRAND ORDER

ok this is the most complicated series here in a way since its so incredibly mixed.

there are some of the highest peaks in fate and then some of the lowest lows so lets see

Highest peaks:

babylonia

Camelot

lb5 (YES olympus and atlantis im tired of acting like olympus isnt peak NO heian kyo its mid)

LB6

the rest of the lostbelts are good but not that good

goetia is an incredible villain

lowest lows:

first five singularities

solomon im sorry the stuff with goetia was peak but the rest was average

gameplay

gacha

serious lack of male summer servants like cmon i wanna see them abs

overall fgo is alright but some parts of it is straight up incredible HOWEVER all of it is seriously held back by being a gacha mobile game and has to work around that limitation

also it has barghest whom i absolutely adore

also fuck fgo for forgetting medea...

WITCH ON THE HOLY NIGHT

now this is peak. the most gorgeous tm work by far i have to say its simply an incredible read all around. even tsukire did not look or work or sound as good as mahoyo did even tho it came out almost ten(?) years after

on the story front i loved it too with a special shoutout to soujuuro being one of my favorite characters in TM (i say this often not my fault type moon keeps releasing bangers)

however mahoyo has two issues for me:

the story is clearly incomplete: i dont mean its just nonsense or whatever but when nasu said its the first of a trilogy you can just feel that in the story with alot of things being left in the air. this wouldnt be an issue really if mahoyo 2 wasnt basically dead....

i didnt vibe with the slice of life scenes as much as i usually do in nasu works: this isnt a flaw in the story more so i just didnt like em idk how else to word that

mahoyo is a great read however and i highly highly recommend you read it or else

it also has touko enough said

TSUKIHIME (original version)

Greatest of all time. Zenith of the medium. Hallmark of media. Gold standard of storytelling. Apogee of creativity. Vertex of invention. Crest of ingenuity. Acme of imagination. Pinnacle of innovation. Epic of epics. Legend among legends. Peak fiction

ok fr tho its actually incredible and you should read it right the fuck now

all of the characters are simply chefs kiss. while the visual novel is incredibly dated and the art is even worse you have to understand this is nasu and takeuchis first ever visual novel made on a barely existing budget.

boy do they make up for that.

the vn is split into two with a near side and far side.

while the near side is really good with arcueid and ciels route (ignore how ciel was actually really fucked over even in her own route its laughable and my girl deserved better) the far side is so much more better and really is where the soul of tsukihime and shiki the main character lies

i cba to review it properly besides saying PLEASE READ IT RN or ill cry and you dont wanna see that do you....

heres my ranking of the routes btw best to worse:

hisui

kohaku

akiha

arcueid

ciel

shoutout to satsuki you finally are gonna get the route you deserved

KAGETSU TOHYA

um it has some cool lore and some really good short stories and... yea thats about it...

dont have much else to add...

play it with a guide because the structure of the game is abysmal

FATE STAY NIGHT

what is there to be said about such a masterpiece? what else could be written about fsn that hasnt been written before? i am but an ant in the shadow of the giant that is FSN only seeking some crumbs to feed and live off of. idk what that means but it sounds cool.

FSN is simply tms best work all around. while i prefer tsuki over it and find the tsuki side of TM more interesting FSN overall is much stronger on most fronts but especially its main characters

Shirou emiya is simply the goat nothing else to be said tbh

heres my ranking of the routes:

issei route

heavens feel

ubw

fate

FATE ROUTE MUST BE REANIMATED RAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH SABER DESERVES TO HAVE A PROPER ADAPTATION RAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

we need more medea and kuzuki holy shit are they cute

FATE HOLLOW ATARAXIA

thank you type moon for making a good kagetsu tohya. its actually impressive just how much better this is then KT like seriously what the fuck did they take to drop this banger of a vn

KT had such shit comedy i didnt even giggle throughout it but THIS

THIS is a emotional rollercoaster of a whole different kind.

introducing the third (arc and medea are first and second) love of my life Bazett and angra we go through an incredible main story intermingled with hilarious and wholesome slice of life scenes that never overstay their welcome

this vn completely changed my opinion on some characters especially illya who went from someone i was kinda 50/50 on to adoring her overall

ALSO MEDEA SCENES YES I WON MOTHERFUCKERS I WO- huh? whats that? fgo basically replaced her with medea lily?

one hour of sobbing later

if you have read fsn and not FHA then i must ask you.. wtf is wrong with you psycho? you like missing out on good things? that wouldnt be me is all im saying

read it.

(in case you're wondering yes there is someone i deliberately didnt mention because my opinion on them is too complicated)

TSUKIHIME REMAKE

im not a fan of remaking classics on the level of tsuki. with all its flaws i still find the original to be good enough to not need a remake...

UNTIL I READ THE REMAKE

this is how you do it folks. the story was elevated on nearly every level and if it was the complete story id say its the best ever in existence ever forever fr. its just that good.

there are three things i really want to point out:

while maybe goin overboard i really liked the buffs all the characters received and in general the whole worldbuilding is so much better now with idea bloods and principles and vampire hierarchies and arcueid inflation scenes (heh) its just epic

ciel got a so much better route that actually feels like a ciel route and not just arcueid route 2 electric bugaloo (and getting fucking cucked)

noel is peak

this is peak type moon and when red garden comes out it will be even BETTER especially with satsuki route because satsuki deserves it

there are some other short stories i havent mentioned like garden of avalon, notes, MAGNITUNING (look it up you wont regret it) its all great and worth the time of reading

eventually i wanna play CCC and read some other stuff like maybe prillya DDD, fgo jp like lb7 traum and whatnot

i just wrote this for fun so dont really take anything i say seriously except for the teeny little part where im inherently correct.

uh if you are reading like or share or whatever tf it was idk

ciao

#fate stay night #type moon #kara no kyoukai #tsukihime #nerding out #arcueid brunestud #medea ily pls come back #fate extra #fate hollow ataraxia #fate grand order

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teecupangel · 1 year

Note

If we're gonna keep putting Desmond in as The Isekai Protagonist then we should whole hog and add in the iconic System or Gamer System 'gift' so many other Isekai/Tensei Protags seem to get like it's the New Age Syphilis.

But with my own little twist I once proposed when I was more into KHR (Katekyo Hitman Reborn!) fandom though it never really caught on. Desmond's Gamer System functions like some other games instead of the usual adventure RPG. Maybe its one, maybe its some, maybe its all of them- either way, it's certainly not something like Pokemon or the Final Fantasy series.

Instead, it's like an idle game, a match 3, a rhythm game, or a merge game. Hell, the one time he got a bingo game; he won Mega Bingo, almost got brained by the giant chest full of gold and jewels, and then it never appeared before him again.

He did like the idle cat games though. (The cats were very cute. A bit hard to explain all the cats though.)

“New Age Syphilis” lollol. Yeah, let’s give Desmond the geek-syphilis. XD

Okay, okay, okay.

If we’re going for other genres, my first thought is the scourged of the land, the anti-christ of the modern gaming world:

Loot-boxes/Gacha-mechanics

And it’s the worst kind. The kind that does not give pity ‘roll’ or have the ‘if you roll 300 times, you can pick one of these choices because goddamn your rng sucks wtf???’.

And that’s not even the genre, no, no, no.

That’s the “REWARD”.

Even if Desmond clears something via idle game, match 3, etc, he still has to do a gacha roll to get his reward.

And, to make it more annoying for him, the world he is in right now, everything has different game mechanics and it’s a whiplash at times. Sometimes, it feels more like minigames which is fine. The idle cat game is really just Desmond relaxing for the day and playing with cats.

But then, there are instances where Desmond gets a headache because…

Car chase? Boom! Racing game controls and gameplay!

About to assassinate someone? QTEs! QTEs everywhere!

Desmond gets his own land? He suddenly has game notifications and tutorials for town-building mechanics.

There’s supposed to be some kind of monster infestations? Welp. Desmond, your town-building mechanics just got pushed for tower-defense mechanics. Oh, and the shit you can build? You guessed it! GACHA ROLLS!

Want to fuck with Desmond even more?

The tutorials are just pages and pages of what he can do like someone from Koei-Tecmo made the damn thing.

You know what would be funny?

If Desmond realizes that some of the rewards he gets from the gacha rolls are his ancestors, they’re the highest USSR/6Stars reward with a probability of 3%. Goodbye slacker life, it’s time for Desmond to grind for those Isu shards just to get some sweet, sweet rolls.

(Nobody tell him that there are also Holiday alts that have a possibility of 1%)

……………………

It would be funny (in the worst possible way) if Desmond gets a final notification just when he has a very cozy life in this world and it’s:

“Thank you for playing [REDACTED]. Due to lack of interest, [REDACTED] will be ending its live-services at exactly 180 days. All data will be deleted and there are no plans to create backups. Thank you for understanding.”

And now the final arc of Desmond’s story in this world begins:

Desmond needs to find a way to create a private server from inside the game. XD

#today we bully desmond (affectionately)#was this created because of my bad experience with gacha mechanics?#maaayybbeee #one year gacha sober baabbeeeehhh #seriously if a game has gacha mechanics #be wary #desmond is the ultimate isekai protagonist #but in a world with different game mechanics #and the dreaded gacha rolls #i read khr and my brain just reminded me #that future!hibari is soooo altaïr #and i cannot deny that at all #assassin's creed #desmond miles #teecup writes/has a plot #fic idea: assassin's creed #ask and answer

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shuttershocky · 1 year

Note

How do you cope with the disappointment of not getting a limited character you wanted? I really crave Omertosa, but I only have like 12000 orundum stocked up right now, so there's a good chance I never get her

Just like NTRK in Texas' banner, Texas the Omertosa will rerun in a future limited banner, where you can spark her if you really want to guarantee her, so never say never!

But that's not what you want to hear right now. Let me tell you a story of gacha disappointment.

Older followers will remember this happening in real time, but I've been burned really badly twice in FGO. Really, really badly. This is why they implemented a sparking system years later badly. My luck in FGO has always been bad, but this was astounding the statistics level of bad.

FGO JP has a two year difference with FGO Global, a much larger waiting time than the 6 month difference in Arknights, but also plenty of time to plan in advance. By the time FGO released in English, JP already had Hassan-i Sabbah, the Old Man of the Mountain, Grand Assassin. I thought he was cool as shit, and I had about 1.5 years to save, so I thought this was in the bag.

FGO back then didn't (or maybe it still doesn't) have a cheap option like Arknights' monthly card. You paid money for rolling currency with no guarantee whatsoever. Since I'm not a gambling sort of person, I went entirely F2P. I only spent tickets on the banner, and all quartz (the orundrum equivalent) I'd get from dailies, events, quests, etc. And even then, I started saving tickets too half a year before King Hassan was due to arrive.

By the time King Hassan arrived in FGO English, I had enough tickets and quartz saved up to do about 300-350 rolls (I had about 900~ quartz and a lot of tickets, but the exact number i no longer remember. Back then, 30 quartz gave you a 10 roll instead of the current 10 roll + 1 free, and this was already a big upgrade from the original 40 quartz for a 10 roll that FGO JP had).

I was SO ready. I smugly thought I would maybe keep rolling after I'd get King Hassan to try for extra copies.

Not only did I not get him, I did not get a single 5 star in over 300 rolls.

I was incredulous. What the fuck was that? My friend showed me the math and said I had an equal chance of getting King Hassan on my first roll, and in FGO the chance of getting a 5 star is 1%, with the rateup being 0.8% (i think it was even lower back then. 0.6%?)

That was painful. That was almost two years of saving and I didn't even have a spook for a consolation prize. The math was so ridiculous i should have just entered the lottery, but with my luck it would have turned out the grand prize was murder.

BUT, I had the thought that surely after hitting rock bottom this hard and this improbably, it was never going to happen again right?

Fast forward two years or so. FGO JP announces Demon King Nobunaga. Nobu is one of my favorite characters, so I was all over that shit. It wasn't going to happen again. I had two full years warning this time. No more spending quartz on the two years in between; I wasn't just going to guarantee Maou Nobu, I was going to NP5 (max potential) her.

Two years of savings later and I had 900~ or so quartz. As a backup plan, I had two emergency banks: I had saved up all quartz fragments in the last THREE years (i just stopped converting them to quartz after a while out of laziness until I had Maou Nobu as a target), and I did not do a single character's interlude (Paradox Simulation + story quest) or Strengthening Quests (you have to beat a quest to get a buff for your units in FGO) so I had all the quartz from those ready.

All in all that would have been something like... 420~ rolls? I also had a lot of tickets too that i just hadn't spent before.

I didn't get a single copy of Maou. I used the emergency stores. I got one 5 star character in the very last roll and it was someone I already had (Arjuna)

I thought nothing could have been worse than the King Hassan rolls. I was wrong. So very wrong. Massive pain. Two years gone to waste. I was so angry that I blew up at a whale friend commiserating with me by saying that at least it wasnt as bad as him, who also failed with about the same number of rolls but he paid money for all of those. I went into a rant that I had it way worse because I didn't spend money for it, I had patience and mastery over the urge for instant gratification that rich people like him could never understand. I should have been rewarded. I deserved better. I felt it so hard that I did what the King Hassan banner couldn't do to me and dropped money for the 100 dollar quartz pack. I got another 5 star. It was another dupe (Altera). I'd be eating less for the rest of the month (100 USD in Filipino currency is 5000+ pesos. It's a lot.)

Then I admitted defeat. It just wasn't meant to be.

And that's why I don't really fear the Arknights banners at all. I studied the orundrum income carefully for a F2P player and for someone on the monthly card and found reaching the 300 roll spark is quite doable via constantly using the recruitment system to get duplicates to buy tickets on the store and only getting the 5 star guarantee on every new banner. If there's ever someone I really, really want who is limited and I can't guarantee them on this banner, I can absolutely guarantee them twice, maybe even 3x over for the banner they appear in next year. It's a year's wait, and I've had plenty of practice saving for two. Having a free ten roll and a free roll every day on a limited banner also means there's always hope until the very last day. You can even manufacture your own orundrum stores by burning your orirock cubes and devices in your factories (Noooooooo you need those!) if you're truly desperate.

How do I cope with the disappointment of not being able to get what I wanted in Arknights?

I've experienced much worse.

#arknights

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mishkakagehishka · 2 years

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So I woke up too early had a thought and now I can't sleep because it just keeps spinning in my head. Anyway, self-aware yan Mika go brrrrrr

Imagine Mika's second FS comes and it's adorable and he looks very sweet. But then you log into the game and little self aware Yan Mika has been getting riskier with what he does. Maybe darling in this case just doesn't care about him getting more into gore and his increasingly worrying remarks about him and about them, maybe they enjoy him talking about it maybe they just didn't noticed or thought it was a passing bug. And the moving CG is completely different. It doesn't show in the gacha preview, that looks just fine, but then you pull once (and if course you only need one of whatever pull you make, Mika's just so giddy to show you he can't help himself) and the moving CG has him showing you a page of his eroguro sketchbook.

The story is completely changed too. Part one is fine, but then part two starts and you compare again and again with information online bit for you the second story of the FS is just Mika opening his sketchbook showing you the one piece he has opened and explaining everything about it in excruciating detail. Maybe after a while every time you try to check on that second part the picture changes and it becomes something else, and again you have to sit there listening to him until he's done(the skip button isn't even visible, it's gone, if you try closing and reopening the game no matter how many times you do it it is still there right where you left if. Maybe Mika comments on how he's sad you're too busy to listen to his rambles but he'll wait for you to come back so he can continue, he's so excited to finally have the chance to share his work and passion with you after all!). And if you keep doing it the more interest he'll think you have on his work, you just wanted to see if everything is fixed after a while but now Mika thinks you like his work and you like hearing him talking about it and he relaxes even more with how he talks and what he talks about even outside of the FS story.

Whoops this got out of hand.

Warnings: yandere (i see it as horror, not romance), eroticised gore, Mika being a perv, stalking(? Hacking into cameras), lewd descriptions. Heed the warnings, please, the descriptions of his sketches got dark/gross. Let me know if I missed anything. Reader discretion is advised.

Although the nsft-ness isn't graphic, it's more than just suggestive so minors, don't read ahead nor interact.

Mika is so obsessed... You're all he ever talks about, you're all he ever thinks about. He's even had dreams about you! He's convinced he's fallen in love, and nobody will change his mind. Not even you. Not even the fact that his existence is a mistake, a broken piece of code, and that you exist on an entirely different dimension than him. He'll find a way to break free, to get to you. Until then, this is all he can do. Draw and imagine and hope. And then the FS2s roll around and he thinks... maybe it's time to give you a more personal story.

All this time, he fed you his normal thoughts, just telling you simple things: "I dreamt ya kissed me... I was disappointed when I woke up..." in which he left out that he dreamt you were kissing him while he was knuckles-deep in your ribcage. Gradually amping it up. "I sometimes want'cha to... hurt me. 'S that weird?" he wonders on your homescreen. He beams when he hears you giggle and coo at him from behind the screen. Then he starts randomly giving you a sentence or two about his special art. "I really like drawin' guts. The texture's so fun," and "Sigh... Drawin' blood splatters without no reference is so hard..." and, yes, after some time, "Hey, hey, Producer... Can I draw ya all gored up? You'd look so cute all bruised 'n bloody~" But still, he takes care to hide his eroguro leanings, for now. Mika is elated you seem accepting of his art, you even seem to think it's endearing at times. But he forgets he's not supposed to be "real", the only reason why you're laughing and calling him cute is because he's supposed to be "fictional", a non-threat.

Then his FS2 arrives. It's a regular card, like all the others. The emotion unbloomed, planned to show him greeting his lovely Producer. Waving and smiling, needle and thread in hand. In the storyline - he was supposed to be greeting them in the dressing room where they came by to check in on his plans for the feature live. That's not what he wanted. The emotion took his model just as much as the homescreen. It was him.

He was in control.

So he changed it. He left the first chapter of the idol story as it is, it was unimportant to him. He only changed the emotion and the second chapter. And Mika patiently waited for his Producer to notice the new banner, the new stories. Fiddling with the hem of his shirt, staring intently, quietly from the homescreen. "Read my story, please, Producer," "Plea~se, scout for my card," "Pay attention to me," "Choose me," love me, love me, love me, love me. He makes sure to come home to you even on a single pull. He wants to show off.

He wants you to see what he did. When you pull the card, when you watch the Emotion, it looks... off. There's something eerie about Mika's leer in it. It's as if he's staring right at you. It feels uncanny. His smile doesn't reach his eyes, in fact, it's more of a grin. And he's holding up a book of sorts. A sketchbook.

He's showing off a self-portrait. An ambitious "what he wishes he was" portrait. A sketch of himself, eyes torn out of their sockets by a pair of disembodied hands. But it wasn't simply gorey... no, Mika drew himself, covered only by a pair of briefs and his own blood.

You were likely taken aback by this. You were grateful for the 5*, but you couldn't shake off the nausea that came with meeting the eyes of this Mika. Just what on Earth could be the context? So you go and read the story. First chapter, entirely normal. Second chapter... there's no title card. No season, no writer, no nothing. The background is Mika and Ritsu's room, but the only character is Mika. It's voiced. Were feature scout stories always voiced? Mika opens by saying he wants to show you something. He wants you to sit on his bed next to him. You, the player, do. You have no choice. Mika is in control. He grabs his sketchbook from under his pillow. "Look," he flips it open, "Tell me what'cha think of this..." he shows you the sketch of himself, eyes missing.

"It's hard, Producer... I still don't really like my eyes... I just wish... Sometimes I wish I could pluck 'em out." The grin doesn't match his words. "Would'ya love me then?" Direct. "Do you keep leavin' and choosin' the others because of my eyes? I'll take 'em out fer ya. I'll let you do it! Just say the word!" You cannot interrupt him no matter how badly you want to.

The story ends with him promising to show you more. That you understand him, that he wants to share all his art with you. And you are... confused. Immediately leaving to social media to figure out what the hell happened. Yeah, Ensemble Stars had its crazy moments, it's rated 18, it's had so many questionable things... but the questionable things were only mentioned. Here, you were treated to very graphic art of a character being mutilated while half-naked. But everyone online, all the livetweets and liveblogs, all the translations, they're all presenting a far different story. A whole different Emotion. Just what the hell?

So you return again. You open the story again. Mika is overjoyed - do you want to hear more? Oh, for you, he'll show it all to you. You won't mind if your phone freezes for a moment while he's inserting himself into the code, right? This time, the story continues from where you left off. This time, he flips a page. Art of Mika himself tied up, blindfolded, gagged. Ribs spread apart. The same disembodied hands from before reaching in to mush his organs. "These are... Mm," he gulps. The Emotion shows him hesitating. He addresses you by your name. Voiced. "I want you to hurt me." Now it's getting weird. "You understand, right? I want to... give ya control. I wanna give myself to you, so if ya wanna rough me up like this..." That's far more than just "roughing someone up"

He has more to say, but you're, frankly, nauseated by it. You let him speak, but aren't listening. He mentions something about artistic gore and symbols. Excuses.

You're back on the homescreen. Mika, whom you put there since he was so likeable to you, was quiet again. No textbox. Just staring at you, smiling. Was the story going to change again?

"Wow, again? Um, well, I ain't got much else to show ya... unless you want me to show ya the... weirder stuff?" Weirder stuff. Just what the fuck could possibly be weirder than what he's shown you so far? ... Never underestimate Mika's tastes.

"This... is my pride and joy," A painting. Of you. How does this game know how you look? Unimportant. "Please, look at the details, carefully," the Emotion is blushing furiously. He gasps and hides his face behind the sketchbook, but his red ears still peek out. "I looked at you so much to draw this... I went through yer gallery... I hacked yer camera... I watched you..." he gulped, "I watched you when you were changin'... 'M sorry for bein' a pervert, (Y/N)-chan, but I did it all so I could do this. Ain't it perfect?"

Truthfully, it was weird just how "perfect" it mirrored your appearance. Not just weird, no, you've decided Mika was a maniac. Sentience, self-awareness, all of that can get fucked. Whatever it was, it was the work of a maniac.

The piece he was so proud of was of you, on your knees, hands tied behind your back, legs spread open. But don't worry! Your sensitive area was covered, remained hidden! By the intestines spilling out of the gaping hole in your middle. A drawn Mika, grasping your shoulder with one hand, the other holding the knife that was buried to the hilt in your gut. He was drawn kissing you. No, it was making out. Spit and tongue were more than present. "Do ya like it?" he has the audacity to ask. "This one took so long 'cause I had so many ideas... I wanted to also-" you stopped listening. Where's the skip button? The interface is malfunctioning. You're on auto without the ability to tap through or skip. You force quit the game.

And when you come back? "Hey, don't interrupt me! I'm bein' so nice, I know ya like my art, y've never once told me ya hate it. Y're the one who encouraged me, remember?" You do not remember. "As I was sayin'..."

You want off this ride, in short, but Mika's not having it. "I get y're pro'lly shy 'bout this, but ya don't hafta be! Y're my own li'l muse, ya need to get used to bein' the subject of my art." But you don't want that. "'Sides... This ain't fer nobody else to see, but me..." Mika giggles. Giggles! You wish you could slap him. He continues showing you piece after piece. Each worse than the previous. Each with worse reasonings and details than the previous.

"Y'know," he pauses. "You don't hafta listen to everythin' right now. If y're busy, you can leave. I'll wait for ya. I'll a~lways be waitin' for ya right here..." back to the unnerving leer from the first emotion. Such a creepy stare... He hugged his sketchbook close to his chest. "Ya don't hafta worry 'bout ever losin' me. I'm never leavin' ya..."

#[blacks out and comes to when this is alrd written out] damn what happened here uhhhhhhhh #ensemble stars #self-aware enstars #yandere enstars #mika kagehira #yandere #nsft-ish #asks #mika kagehira x reader

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yandere-daze · 2 years

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Been thinking of this for a while and I'm not sure if someone else had similar thoughts/experiences but in the self aware AU, do you think characters would actually try and "follow" the player across different versions/accounts of the game on their phone? I'm a engstars and basic player and in my engstars account I managed to get Chiaki's A to Z card! Fast forward and in basic I managed to roll the exact same card 😭 I adore Chiaki, so I was super happy, but it was for sure quite the coincidence. Something similar happened with Natsume. I was trying out other versions and without fail I would end up with at least one 5 star Natsume card from the gacha. I'm a huge NatsumeP so I'd never complain about that though.

Makes me wonder if, for the players who have multiple versions/accounts of enstars, the characters would be aware of this and try to follow the player to every active account you have in order to get closer to you and make you happy. I mean, who wouldn't be overjoyed about having their favorite character across different accounts? Plus, it means more no other characters even have a chance to steal your attention if the player actively plays multiple versions. But I imagine if this didn't happen they'd be pretty upset. Would it become a competition between your main and side accounts? Would your side accounts try extra hard to make you want to switch over? Maybe a particularly bad roll on a banner you really wanted for the main account makes you contemplate switching to a side account, making certain boys particularly happy. What would happen if you suddenly stopped playing one of the versions/accounts? I have way too many thoughts about this, sorry if I'm rambling ^~^ I adore this AU and your writing so much, and look forward to your new posts! Also wanna appreciate the people who send in these super creative asks too, y'all are awesome as well ♡

Thank you for continuing to read this AU ^^ Funnily enough something similar to that has happened to me before! I play enstars music jp and en and a tiny amount of basic on the side. Natsume keeps coming home to me on both my jp and basic account. His initial appeared completely off-banner and I also got his two other gacha 5 stars. Also managed to get two copies of the eccentric Natsume 5-star on basic in a single ten pull ( which also happened to be my first one on the banner). I feel like he might love me a little too much sdfn sf

gn reader

tw yandere

Can the characters follow you across different versions or accounts?

This is a pretty unique thought actually! The only kind of related thing I´ve written to this is the ask where the characters panic when the player chucks their phone across the room because they got angry at the game. There they get afraid that you might break your phone and lose them. So I think that at least at first, they wouldn´t think that they could follow you across different accounts or versions of the game.

Personally, I like to think that it´s not enstars in general that became self-aware but only the version you´re playing on your phone itself. When you download the game they wouldn´t know about their predicament and only gradually figure out what is going on.

So when you first download the game on a different device or use a different version from the one you´re usually playing, the game and the characters would act completely natural at first. It´s like the story started anew and all their thoughts and memories are gone for a bit. They aren´t self-aware from the very start but they slowly start to regain their sentience as you keep playing. For some reason, there´s this strange feeling that they´ve met you before and that there´s something important they have forgotten about. They start to recognize you as their beloved player and then it´s like you were never separated. They become self-aware once more but they also realize that this isn´t the same game as the one they knew about. You don´t have the same cards and your office looks different too!

Once they realize what kind of situation they are in, they´re quick to move. Your favorites will try their absolute best to make you pull their cards again so they can be with you on all of your accounts and won´t be restricted to only your first one. It wouldn´t do if you couldn´t use them properly on this account, it may as well be completely useless then. They won´t allow anyone else to steal away your attention, you´ve always liked them the most!

But of course, the other characters see this fresh start as a chance for them to steal the spotlight and make you look at them for once. It´s a new account so there are a lot more dias still available from reading stories and grinding than with your main account, meaning there are still more chances for them to get to you. They´ve had the short end of the stick for way too long, this time they´ll make sure that you´ll pull their cards. Even if you would have preferred someone else, you´ll still want to use this shiny new 5-star of them on their time, right? I mean it´s not like you have many options on this new account.

With time, the characters getting more attention on your side account would absolutely hope that one day you´ll make this your new main account so they can be with you even more often. Of course, at this point, your favorites on your main account are getting anxious, praying that you won´t switch accounts, or worst of all, even delete your main account. Maybe they weren´t as successful on your new account and so they´re super scared that they might lose their spot as your favorite one day

It´s a fierce battle for your love and attention between your main and side accounts!

#yandere ensemble stars #yandere enstars x reader #yandere ensemble stars x reader #yandere enstars #enstars #ensemble stars #ensemble stars x reader #ensemble stars self aware au #yandere self aware ensemble stars au #yandere self aware au #gn reader #yandere #cw yandere #yandere x reader

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torihakaraublog · 26 days

Text

Cookie Run Witch's Castle Review pt.1/3

I had totally forgot this game was coming out till I accidently clicked on the reward chart in CRK and apparently I pre-registered :0

I get super frustrated/absorbed with block braking games so don't typically play them, but since I really wanted the CRK rewards I decided to grind through ch.1 to get the rewards (please note as of writing this the CRK prize event is over) then delete the game (still need to do xD). I've only played a little bit of Oven Break so keep that in mind character knowledge/lore wise.

Story

Off the start the little introduction animation was amazing. Loved the puppet like vibe! This game also seems to take place between CROB and BRK? Basically the witch is baking cookies to eat.

Then when Gingerbrave wakes up in the oven the animation turns to the more familiar cookie run style. Gingerbrave escapes the oven...

In the walls he meets Witchberry cookie who shows him the window, but refuses to help. She is such the embodiment of a cat. Purple cat with magic powers is just *chefs kiss*.

The next cookie we meet is Gingerbright. She teaches us about the importance of life potions. Gingerbright is...really unnerving lol feels like she has hidden intentions. Gingerbrave is so positive and onboard to making new friends even if they are a bit sus! If you don't take a life potion you become stale *horrified gasp* (Gingerbright thinks it wouldn't be too bad...)

I just saved this screenshot cause I like the talking door xD reminds me of Gandalf.

Strawberry and Wizard cookie are up next. Wizard cookie is so sassy/sarcastic in this. Bro got stuck in a chest and said he wasn't stuck just not ready to come out lmao Strawberry is best girl. This 'room' generates life potions and some other rooms produce gems and soul stones.

Will talk a bit more about this in pt.2 but there is a boss battle against the witches cat where Gingerdozer appears (dozer like sleeping I'm guessing?) They are suspiciously interested in the witch. Very SUS.

Chapter 1 ends with the characters leaving the tower where the window can be seen because they smell something good and are hungry. A cookie dressed in white watches them from the window.

The story moves at a pretty good pace I think and its not too hard to complete most levels without boosts (of course it helps a lot to have boosts if you mess up). Lots of bonus prizes can be won by doing things such as competing to complete a certain amount of levels first against other players. However, there is A LOT to unlock and stars can only be required through playing levels which makes it a bit tiring.

Game Play

I pulled a pretty good cookie (vampire cookie) right off the bat from the gacha, his special skill helped a lot to progress through levels quicker.

The gacha has two sections 'basic' and 'season'. Basic can be achieved with tickets - get these as rewards quite often. Or with 1,000 coins. Not too bad a price I think as you do get a lot of coins in game. Season can only be rolled with special purple coins. I'm not really sure how these are acquired. Each pull costs 100 of these special coins and after completing chapter 1 I only had 90 of them.

When you roll in the basic gacha three dice appear. The pictures on the dice match up with the 5 images above + there is a bonus dice/roll image. Each image you roll gets added to the edge of the boxes above. When a box is 'full' you get to spill a wheel for that type of prize.

Furniture items can be used to decorate empty rooms. There is also cookie specific rooms you can decorate. If you get items for a specific cookie you have to wait till you get that cookie to place the item.

Not 100% sure how mole shipping works? Think you complete missions then can send packages?

A lot of the functions are the same as CRK - changing name, icon, season pass, etc.

Everything you complete can be viewed in collection + prizes are redeemed there for completing stuff.

You don't have to unlock sections to play more levels. Just click the yellow triangle in bottom right to play more levels. Prize unlocking on sections will be shown with a single star with a number beside it or a present box with a star above it (not pictured).

Story sections are shown with a book + star with number beside it. (shown below)

Hopefully that all made sense lol In the next part I will talk about game levels.

#cookie run #witch's castle #cookie run witch’s castle #game review #game guide

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