audikyu

[audikyu]

Maebashi Witches

Just watched episode 10

I'm gonna cry so hard, you can't do this to meeeee, my poor, fragile heart 😭😭

Anyways, watch it :(

[audikyu]

I kinda like Roguelikes a bit too much

To me, roguelikes are experiences that can be enjoyed in short or long sesions depending on what you want, and can be dropped anytime in the middle of a run without losing much (unless it's that legendary run with everything that you wanted to get hehe). In a lot of these you kinda embrace randomness and see what you get to advance, you're a scavenger making things on the run, sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you are screwed and have to win out of pure willpower.

Outside the most popular ones like The Binding of Isaac, Hades, Balatro, Slay the Spire, Dead Cells and Enter the Gungeon; I have some personal favorites that I don't see a lot of people talking about, and I, as an avid player of the genre, recommend a lot

BlazBlue Entropy Effect

I also like to play fighting games sometimes, so first, someting like that. A pretty cool game, based of the fighting game series, in this one you get a base skill set and win "potential" to make that base kit better, giving you the possibility to do more combos, you also get pasives to give some sort of effect to said kit, like freezing on basic atacks or summoning a rotating blade on active skill use.

In stages with small enemies you won't fully see your combo potential, but bosses can be stuned with enough damage in a certain amount of time, in this state if you can maintain the combo, the boss is good as dead. Runs are like 30-50 mins, and can be left in the middle and continue them afterwards.

My favorite character in this game is Es, I love the cutting crest mechanic she has, here, a tiny clip of the game

Es my beloved

The Void Rains Upon her Heart

I talked about this one in another post so it can be redundant but in short, Bullet Hell - Rogulike - Boss Rush. Has multiple game modes, It gets updated constantly.

Rabbit and Steel

A cute bullet hell roguelike boss rush about bunnies, this one can be more challenging than the last one.

The special thing about this one is you can play it with friends! Bosses have different attack patterns depending if you're playing solo or with friends, ideally you play with friends, as part of the idea of these bosses are that your positioning in relation to your friens is important, as some attacks target one ally, but will only damage enemies, or you will have to get close to a friend who is being targeted as the starting point of an atack.

In this case you have to maintain your distance to not get hit, it gets harder as you advance.

Other than that, you have loot to get stronger, you can steal your friends chosen loot if you're lucky. And if you want a more vanilla experience, just play solo as it's as fun as with friends.

Runs are like 30 mins. Dancer rabbit is the best, love my % chance to do things

Tiny Rogues

This one is more simple, in aspect and gameplay, it's also generally easy, in this one you choose a class, with some pasives and active skills and go.

Here, your runs will be won depending on your weapon, they scale with a stat that you upgrade with food. There are a looooot of cool weapons, and it's a sweet and easy game where you can turn off your brain most of the time

Runs are like 20-30 mins. I like going "lucky" builds.

Gunfire Reborn

Now, a shooter roguelike, a very fun one. You choose a character with a kit that gets a special grenade, an active skill and a set of unique pasives, get your gun, get some scrolls to win general pasives and kill, with friends! if you can.

The power of your run can be because of your guns or your skills and pasives, some characters like the bunny, the fox or the squirrel have it easier to win only using ther skills (given that you get good scrolls and pasives), while others depend more on the gun side of thing as their unique pasives and kit are more of a support kind (or depend on your guns itself, like the tiger or the dog).

In lower difficulties it's easy enough, but in higher difficulties it's very VERY challenging and you have to be careful around making a build to win, as enemies can easily destroy you in seconds.

Very fun game, enemies are cool. Runs can be like an hour or so. I liked the Fox at the start, but eventually the squirrel became my favorite, their skill makes them an ink squirrel and you run around damaging enemies

One Step from Eden

How can a list be complete without a deckbuilder?

This one is old, and it goes: you choose a class with some unique pasives and "active atacks" and go on your way to best them all. You and your enemies move on a grid, you use cards with different effects, damaging areas and cost. You can get more pasives or cards every battle or in the shop, the fun part is building some cool decks based on a couple of cards, or you can go all in and build the deck based of the "identity" of the character, like the gunslinger that has an atack to deal more damage the more money you have, and if you kill with that you get more money.

The decks I like more are the kunai spam, the poison deck, money gunslinger and jam deck.

Runs can be like 30-40 mins and go to infinity if you want. Selicy my beloved, she is cute

PD: I was also thinking of talking about the Legends of Runeterra roguelike-ish mode (the pve) because it's fun to abuse some mechanics but it is grindy as hell to get more champions or upgrade them to try harder adventures, I would not recommend it to new players as the grind is painful, very. Love both lux decks, the gwen, eve, eddy, voli and veigar ones too.

[audikyu]

Of endings and unfinished business

Recently on my deathbed (had tummy ache) I thought about manga that I read a long time ago and didn't finish, be it because I forgot or it got dropped in it's time.

And, the thing is, some of those manga were axed, wich made the artists take one of the hardest decisions you can make in that situation, have a rushed ending or leave it altogether.

I read a lot of manga becuase I tend to travel a lot, and I'm no new to this experience, but it makes me sad. sometimes we cannot give support to an artist (given that not every manga comes to the west) or our support is not enough; the manga industry is a competitive enviroment and it is bound to happen, but it is sad to see some gems that you like go away in that manner.

Sometimes you can go to their original source, as a lot of manga nowadays are an adaptation of an existing novel or webnovel and that can be relieving to me at least, as I read a lot, but I know not everyone is willing to find and sometimes buy the novels (and that's okay).

Thinking about ways to end, wich one could be better?

A rushed ending, were the artist gets to choose how to end the story, but it may feel unsatisfactory, as a lot of things do not get "closed", some character arcs don't get ever finished, and sometimes you get a jump in time for like 4-6 pages and it feel like you missed a looot

Or no ending, just leave it there, sometimes it happens at the end of a story arc or sometimes happens in the middle; maaan this one hurts, you are left abandoned with no chance to know what will happen

The first one i feel it cheap sometimes, it happened to me twice in recent memory, in one I was expecting a looong and angsty romance full of misunderstandings, but then it got axed and maaan, the central conflict of the story got solved in like 4 pages. The other one was very painful, and just kinda jumped to the future, the story was sooo good I loved a lot the first chapters, just look at this cutie (manga is "I love you as a friend")

The other one happens most of the time with independent artists, were they leave the story for one reason or another, and I kkinda understand them, sometimes it's hard to continue or sometimes you get blocked, it can be disheartening; but this one pains me the most because I think more about the artist and the painful decision to leave the story. But, it can be worse, it could be some unexpected reasons, the one I think the most in this "category" is berserk, and I know a lot of people are sad even today because of its abrupt end.

The above can also be said about stories in hiatus, as sometimes this can become a veeery long or an eternal one (I miss Nana, its been a long long time).

To any creative people who is in the middle of writing or "making" any of your projects, I hope you can finish your story as you like, in the way you would like to be finished. Stories are the best when they are left withouth regrets or "unfinished business". BUT if part of the story is leaving some things unexplained or "unfinished" that is very cool as well, but sometimes you can easily tell when a story ends hurriedly.

Have any of you experienced any of these abrupt endings? on wich manga?

Bonus: I didn't know a thing about uma musume until recetly until that meme about matikane, now I'm all in and kinda really want to play the game (wich will come in a couple of months or so), wonder wich one will be my favorite in one year from now; maybe I should watch the anime. Here, I drew the chibi

[audikyu]

Bullet hells and games that like but I'm bad at

The first bullet hell I remember playing was the aero fighter series, I liked them but I was veeery bad at them, hardly reaching the last stages only to die miserably unless i had infinite credits or continues, at that time I had no idea about the genre itself.

Then, with time, I discovered Touhou because of the music, probably because of that one night of nights remix, my curiosity led me to discover the origin, the bullet hell games, I tried them, and I liked them a lot, but again, I was baaaaad, the music and attack patterns were cool, those were the main point that I liked about the games itself (not counting the characters). The thing is, I discovered the genre and I guess I liked it, because being bad at them did not stop me trying a lot of diferent games of the genre.

The genre is niche, I imagine mainly because it can be veeeery hard, especially for people new to them, nonetheless, I would encourage people to try some of the games even if you die a lot. In the microcosmos of the genre i have two personal favorites.

"Ikusaaaaan!" is a touhou fangame, heavily inspired on them, but very different at its core, this game is more intense than the touhou games, you are constantly ravaged by a lot of enemies and bullets, to survive that you don't have the button to move slowly and evade, you have a button to go into fever, go inmune and face everything head on.

I like this game, but I can't finish it on normal difficulty, it's veeery hard, I can only do it on easy, but that is no problem, it's a fun time even if I lose a lot, the game has inmaculate vibes and music, I loooove the boss fights and the encore stages, you can even experience them in easy mode!

Next one is my absolute favorite in the genre

This one is a gem, it combines two genres of games that I like roguelike and bullet hell.

The game goes like this, go into a mode (there are 5), you choose a character, look at the boss cards, choose a boss to fight based o the one you prefer or their rewards, win, get rewards and repeat until the end of the run.

I looove the system, the bosses have levels wich determine the intensity of their attack patterns, there is also variants of some bosses wich change some tiny mechanics of the fight. The game has 3 difficulties and those determine the level of the bosses (the range or starting levels because they go up anyways during the run). Also, the fact that you get items during the run gives the chance to play in harder difficulties even if you are bad at bullet hell games (namely, me), if you're lucky enough.

This also comes with some tiny negatives (that I can think of), as it is a boss rush, people who like the stages itself of bullet hells won't have them; also, the first hours of the game can be a bit of a pain for people as boss and item cards appear as "unknown" unless you get them once and "radiate" them with a currency wich you gain playing. Also, some bosses can only appear at certain levels, so, if you play only on easy you won't encounter some bosses, wich is also a negative as some unlocks are tied to achievements on a specific boss. Even so, the game is lovely, some bosses are very cool, and I played the game a loooot; also, the dev is a very cool person, they update the game like once or twice a month! There is a lot of content, like +100 bosses, 8 characters and like a gazillion items.

This may be a tiny spoiler of unlocks but i looove love some of the bosses/characters, heliola is cute, vitrea is cool and the echo fight is hard yet satisfying.

(They cute!!)

Some games can be kinda hard, and this can push people away. For some people this can be because it's not fun to them an for some it's because being bad at a game can make them feel lesser when comparing themselves to others, especially if they have to play in the easier difficulties to finish the game or have some fun.

Do not feel bad if you are bad at a game or you play in easier difficulties, you aren't bound to prove something to other people, you just have to have fun in your own way in any way (as long as it's not anoying others). I think it's almost impossible to be good at every game, people hace things they are better or worse for, in my case, i'm not very good at souls-likes or shooters, I played the dark souls games and suffered al the way through, but I had fun anyways, and I think that is more important than anything.

Ironically I'm arguably good at "The void rains" because I typically play on harder difficulties (ups), but maybe I'm just lucky enough, though not lucky enough to complete my dream of a full critical hit build.

Try those two games, I want them to be more popular!!

PD: I wanted to add one of my drawings related to the games i talked about, like of a touhou character or a character of "The void rains" but I got shy lmao

[audikyu]

A small RPG that I love and perfection

There's this indie game with touhou characters, a turn based RPG with a unique mechanic that I never saw before (idk if it's been made before on a similar fashion) where you can "program" the actions of the characters based on conditions you can edit, this makes the combat basically automatic, but it's really fun to edit the tactics as you advance in the game. The game is on steam, called "Three Fairies' Hoppin' Flappin' Great Journey!"

One thing about this game is that they put the auto-combat system as "optional", as you can tecnically advance without having to engage with it, but the thing is combat is in real time, as you choose what to do enemies are making their moves, in the late game this makes impossible to not use the auto-combat because enemies get really REALLY fast.

But i really like the programming of the auto combat, it starts simple with a few commands, conditions and objectives to choose, as you advance you get more and more, giving you more options and, at the same time, harder fights. Next you can se an image of the system itself in early areas.

This system makes the fights more of a puzzle in general than a reactive combat were you have to optimize resources, especially in bosses.

The thing is, this auto-combat, the genre or the artstyle are not for everyone, and that's okay, not every game should be for everyone, and, as I would love that this game was more popular, it's okay, games should try more things, be more unique.

I really like this game and I would like to see more games with a combat system like this. Even more, I would like more games trying thing even though they are not for everyone.

This game has a couple of problems, namely, the fact that you can (intentionally or not) ignore the auto-combat or the game could get too hard for people (especially in late game, as fights become more of a puzzle than a stat check), also, the equippable items are crafted with drops of enemies in the area, sometimes this can be a grind, and it will be boring for a lot of people. Personally i suffered this, as my small lizard brain wanted to have 3 copies of every item and I had to oblige.

Nowadays, I think people are a little too obsessed with perfection in media, if something isn't perfect, it's not good enough and sometimes people hate on it; or people ignore the faults of the game, start calling it perfect and get hurt if someone point the flaws on the game. Not everything has to be perfect to be good or be enjoyed.

Be more open to try weird games or media, acknowledge it's flaws and enjoy it all the same, if it's not for you it's okay, not everyone is the same and not everyone should like the same.

Give this game a try, I hope you like it. Even if the game is not perfect, it can be very fun

PD: In my free time i have been writing a guide for the game as it can be hard or have kind of obscure mechanics, this game has a guide for the boss rematches, but not a guide for the story itself, I hope the guide can help more people to enjoy the game in the future