Big post this time, since I’m combining updates from the last two weeks and I’ve been getting good progress - had to take two 16h trips last week which gave me a lot of use of my Switch.

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Finished Anonymous;Code!

A sci-fi visual novel with great presentation and interesting themes. It’s fairly short, fast-paced and action-packed, making this a good starting point for players players new to this genre.

However, it lacks some of the emotional depth that makes the games in this series shine. There’s very little slice-of-life content which helps the pacing, but at the same time it makes the characters feel underdeveloped - even the protagonists suffer from that, in particular when compared to protagonists from older games in this series like Takumi from Chaos;Head or Okabe from Steins;Game.

But despite these flaws it’s still an excellent VN that I can easily recommend to others.

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Finished Master Detective Archives: Rain Code!

It’s very clear from the start that this a game from the same people who did the Danganronpa series. The designs use a similar style, the cast is very colorful and unique, and it’s a dark mystery story revolving around murder investigations. But it does change things enough to stand on its own and not be just “Danganronpa 4”.

In this game you play an amnesiac member of the World Detective Agency (WDO) - an organization of super-powered detectives - which after a bumpy train ride arrives at Kanai Ward - an isolated region under control of a corporation where there’s been constant rain for many years, and is tasked to work with other detectives in finding out the secrets of this region.

My favorite thing about this this game is the overall “mood” of Kanai Ward. The constant darkness and rain, tall buildings with neon lights, all this combined with the excellent OST does a really great job in creating the oppressive feeling of a dystopian city under corporate rule.

The first half of each case is an investigative segment where you talk to people and collect clues, followed by something called “Mystery Labyrinth” - a surreal dungeon created from the mystery itself that the MC is able to access thanks to a supernatural entity called Shinigami that aids him. There’s several minigames involved in exploring this labyrinth, the main one being the “Reasoning Death Match”, a RPG battle-like segment where you have do dodge the enemies attacks until you can find the right statement to “counter”. I found it a lot more fun than the class trials from Danganronpa, and while the first dungeon is kinda bland, with you spending a lot of time running through a corridor, they keep changing and improving the formula for the subsequent dungeons making them way more interesting to explore.

Overall I had a ton of fun with this game and I’m hoping to see we’ll see more of this series in the future.

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Started Witch on the Holy Night!

AKA “Mahoutsukai no Yoru” or “Mahoyo”. I believe this is the first VN from Nasu Kinoko (Tsukihime, Fate Series) to get an official english release.

So far I’m impressed. This is another VN with exceptional presentation, but while A;C shined on the technical aspects, with animated characters and cool interface details, this one just keeps throwing you a non-stop stream of beautiful artwork.

I’ve only started it so I can’t comment much on the story, but I’m already hooked thanks the protagonist - Aoko is the type of strong, confident and sarcastic female lead that I always enjoy reading. I’ll try to comment more about the plot of this game next week, assuming I don’t get stuck playing Mario Wonder - I got home yesterday from my trip to find my physical copy waiting for me.