They get better honestly. 3rd dungeon is awful. The one with the bank puzzle? Yeah its terrible. I tend to do them in one go.
Oh goody, thats where I am lol. I am enjoying the highs of this game but they are so long inbetween. I started following a day to day guide because I do not find the ālife simā enjoyable at all. I look forward to the actual story with the voice acting and the dungeons but the rest and the really monotonous dialogue at times has me fast forwarding to it. Like anytime I am āreading a bookā or anything like that all that text is just meaningless filler.
Edit: Yeah I might put it down for a bit, it just feels like such a slog right now. Might use it as a parlance cleanser in between games.
Amazingly, Xbox may be getting a visual novel next week:
Kemco will a release The witch of the Ihanashi for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Switch on April 28 in Japan for 2,860 yen, the company announced. PlayStation Store wishlisting and Nintendo eShop pre-orders are available now.
The witch of the Ihanashi first launched for PC via Steam, Booth, DLsite on August 19, 2022.
Hereās overview of the game, via Kemco:
The romantic comedy x fantasy novel adventure game that was popular on PC debuts on consoles!
ćStoryć
Hikaru Nishime lost both of his parents at a young age. During the spring of his first year of high school, his aunt who raised him sent him off to live with his grandfather. The one-person ferry ride took him to Toyajishima, an isolate island in Okinawa with a population of less than 1,000 people. And so despite his anxiety, he visited his grandfatherās homeā¦ only to find out that he had moved overseas.
He reached out to his aunt to ask what was going on, but never heard back. At the high school he is supposed to have transferred to, he is told there is no student by the name of Hikaru Nishime enrolled.
Cast away by his auntās family and lost, Hikaru wandered the sugarcane fields at night, where he met a girl in a mysterious outfit named Lilun.
Hikaru is a former first year high school student with no means to fend for himself. And Lilun does not seem to have a sense of Japanese normalcy.
Together, the two cooperate to get by on the small island. However, Lilun has a reason for coming to Toyajishimaā¦
ćSpecial Contentć
In addition to the game setting materials implemented in some of the PC versions, the novel included in the āAppendā booklet distributed at Comic Market 101 are included in the game in the form of a digital book.
4 Likes
And a turnabout for the books, a metrovania which was previously announced for Playstation and Switch has now been announced for Xbox!
Developers CreSpirit and GemaYue have released the first official trailer for Metroidvania / side-scrolling action game TEVI, as well as confirmed that the game will launch for Xbox Series and Xbox One alongside its previously announced PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Switch, and Steam versions in Q3 2023.
Hereās overview of the game, via its Steam page:
Step into the pixelated world of TEVI, an action-packed 2D adventure that seamlessly blends Metroidvania, bullet hell, and spectacle fighter elements. Traverse a vast interconnected world marked by strife and uncover hidden secrets. Encounter a diverse cast of allies and enemies featuring angels, demons, and cute animal ears. Upgrade gear and collect new ones to enhance your abilities. Customize your build to suit how you want to play. Slash, dash, shoot, and execute flashy combos to vanquish bosses in epic showdowns.
3 Likes
If you dont enjoy the life sim. Youll struggle with this series. Part of the charm is the non traditional jrpg structure and more social reality based activities.
Looks pretty nice.
This is one Iām very excited for and was happily surprised to see it add Xbox. The developerās last game Rabi-Ribi was a master class indievania. The nonlinearity it allowed for was (and still is) unmatched. It was also absolutely packed with content, it wasnāt a metroidvania you finished in 8 hours, far from it. Absolutely tons of bosses hidden in the map, and the boss fights combined 2d sidescroller combat + bullet hell very well. The game also pretends to end like 4 times and the āpostgameā just keeps expanding 
. It even got updates and DLC support for years (even very recently they added the TEVI protagonistās outfit to it).
I trust this one to deliver completely 
2 Likes
Kemco never missed a release for Xbox, did they?
Finished this game. Iād estimate my actual playtime without idling was about 80 hours, so it is a really long one.
I may be writing this from a honeymoon perspective but man what a once in a lifetime ride this game was. I paused every other game I was playing just to keep playing this. An easy 10/10 if Iāve ever seen one. Thatās not to say I didnāt have 0 problems with it, but this gameās high points are so incredible that the 10 stays.
The negatives Iād say are that the game is still slow to start despite continuing directly from Mask of Deception (there is not nearly the same amount of slice-of-life/filler scenes though), and that the ātrue villainā was not that great (and their lackeys were just outright annoying in a negative way).
Once the plot gets going thoughā¦ It doesnāt stop. You basically get 50 non-stop hours of just awesome setpieces, plot twists, character development. Characters I didnāt really like in Mask of Deception, like Anju, shine a lot better here.
Iāve mentioned before about the gameplay just being āthereā in these games, but here, the gameplay itself does actually get more engaging towards the end. You do start actually feeling like āoh shit, I can actually lose if I donāt pay attention hereā lol. The final setpiece/boss fight is a very long endurance test, talking like 2 hours here (and is one of the best final boss setpieces Iāve seen, I think, epic way to end the trilogy.)
Iāve mentioned that I do think there are some flaws with the writing but this game really does know how to make you emotional, tons of scenes that stuck with me, especially the ending. Top notch characters as well. Haku has definitely cemented himself into one of my all time favorite protagonists (his voice actor, Keiji Fujiwara, passed away in 2020. This game would not have been the same without his performance)
If I had to compare this game to another, I think Iād say this game gets very Xenogears-y, in MANY ways. Iāll have to keep thinking about it past the honeymoon period, but it may well join Xenogears and Trails in the Sky SC as one of my all time favorites. Again, a solid 10/10.
Iāve written my thoughts on the other two games in the trilogy on here already, but to shortly recap:
Prelude to the Fallen - 7.5/10, good game, shows itās age of being written as a standalone game in 2002. Good pacing between slice-of life events and setpieces. Characters are okay, some plot points get outright dropped, antagonist is the most forgettable character in the whole series. Has many strong story moments and a great protagonist and is overall good at introducing you into the world
Mask of Deception - 8/10. Better narrative than Prelude. Better characters, but much slower pace, a bit too much slice of life events and ācalmā. Starts to pick up near towards the end, goes non-stop for a little while and basically gives you a taste of what Mask of Truth is going to serve you.
Anyway, this might be be for the next little while 
:
4 Likes
Beat the second palace in persona 5 last night and really liked the story developments at the end. Itāll take me months before I finish this game but Iām enjoying it at a slow clip.
Yeah I am officially done with Persona.
The fact that you can romance a pedophile when the entire first dungeon is stopping a gross pedophile isā¦something
Who is?
Your home room teacher you mean?
Yes Edit The main story touches on really dark themes but like immediately forgets it at times. Kamoshida especially. He was a pedophile, perv, sexist and generally disgusting person. Ann goes thru a lot. Then like right afterwards you can start romancing your teacher maid, everyone and their dog starts to freaking creep on Ann ESPECIALLY the party members. Like I get if they wanted to have other people still do it but the part has seen what she has gone thru or at least heard about it. Yusuke tried blackmailing her into letting him paint her nude, Morgana creeps on her constantly too. The main story is all about adults abuse youth, or at least a ton of it is. And then half the confidants play off these people abusing Joker for a laugh. Itās so disjointed that it feels like its written by 2 entirely different teams.
1 Like
The Xenoblade 3 DLC is fantastic and better than the main game lol. Better characters, extremely rewarding exploration, with a system with challenges to complete that rewards you with skill points to strengthen your characters, and well hidden fun to find items to unlock more accessory slots and skill sets. Tons of great callbacks too, besides the presence of Shulk and Rex. I put just under 20 hours into it so far and still have a lot left to do, not even done of the story yet.
Big con though: This never happened to me on the main game. Sometimes when you fast travel the game just goes black and loads for a long while. The first time, I actually thought the game froze, but it eventually pulled through. Hope this is happening for everyone and itās not my Switch dying lmao.
I also decided Iām going to give this a try. I never played Genshin Impact or any other games from Mihoyo. I got interested in this because itās turn based and I read an interview where they were gushing over the Trails games 
2 Likes
Is this an optional romance or actually a part of the story? If this is unavoidable Im pulling the game off.
I had installed it on my Odin but was really struggling with the touch controls and couldnāt really come up with a useful touch mapping. Iāve since installed it on my PC and will try streaming it. I really donāt understand why they seem so resistant to controller support on mobile. Android still doesnāt have it in Genshin.
Tales of Vesperia is $7 on Xbox right now and its a great JRPG, great characters, cool combat, the only Tales Game I actually finished
Also its the definite ediiton which has a bunch of content the original 360 game didnāt have
3 Likes
Not sure if Star Railās been added yet, but the best way to play Genshin on mobile is with Geforce Now.
I have an Odin Lite and itās damn near flawless 1080p, 60fps and controller support.
The last time I tried Geforce Now on the free tier I queued for 5 hours and still didnāt get in, so Iāve basically given up on it. I was using it back when the beta first opened up and it was really good, I just canāt justify the sub when I have a passable PC and Xbox Series X. My home internet/network is pretty good and my PC is mid tier-ish from a few years ago, so it should be okay.
I looked into gerforce now the other month. Literally had 1 game out of the dozens i wanted to play in my steam library. Hard pass.