#very curious to see how this ends up

[sasaranurude]

Okay. I've been playing Tokyo Debunker today, since the release happened to catch me on a day when all I'd planned to do was write fanfiction. I just finished reading the game story prologue (it was longer than expected!), so here's a review type post. If you're reading this post not having seen a single thing about this game: it's a story-based joseimuke gacha mobile game that just released globally today. It's about a girl who suddenly finds herself attending a magic school and mingling with elite, superhuman students known as ghouls. If you look in the tumblr tag for the game you'll see what appears to be a completely different game from 2019 or so: they retooled it completely midway through development, changing just about everything about it due to "escalating competition within the gaming industry."

I'll talk about how this looks like a blatant twst clone at the end.

Starting with the positive: The story is charming. I enjoyed it thoroughly the entire time and am excited to read more. The mix between visual novel segments and motion comics was really nice--it broke things up and added a lot of oomph to the action or atmospheric scenes that visual novels generally lack. I like the art in the comic parts a lot. the live2d in the visual novel parts is... passable. Tone-wise, I think the story was a little bit all over the place and would like to see more of the horror that it opened on, but I didn't mind the comedic direction it went in either. The translation is completely seamless. The characters so far all have unique voices and are just super fun and cute. Of the ones who've had larger roles in the story so far, there's not a single one I dislike. It's all fully voiced in Japanese and the acting is solid. (I don't recognize any voices, and can't seem to find any seiyuu credits, so it seems they're not big names, but they deliver nonetheless.) Kaito in particular I found I was laughing at his lines a ton, both the voicing and the writing.

He's looking for a girlfriend btw. Spreading the word.

The problem is like. The gameplay is the worst dark-pattern microtransaction-riddled bullshit I've ever seen. Hundred passive timers going at all times. Fifty different item-currencies. Trying to get you to spend absurd amounts of real world money at every turn. There's like five different indicators that take you to various real-money shop items that I don't know how to dismiss the indicator, I guess you just have to spend money, wtaf. Bajillion different interlocking systems mean you have zero sense of relative value of all the different item-currencies. I did over the course of the day get enough diamonds for one ten-pull, which I haven't used yet. Buying enough diamonds for a ten-pull costs a bit under $60 (presumably USD, but there's a chance the interface is automatically making that CAD for me--not gonna spend the money to check lmfao), with an SSR rate of 1%. BULLSHIIIIIT.

There's like a goddamn thousand-word essay explaining the dozen different types of character upgrades and equippables and equippables for the equippables!! Bad! Bad game design! That's just overcomplicating bullshit to trick people into thinking they're doing something other than clicking button to make number go up! That is not gameplay!

In terms of the actual gameplay, there is none. The battle system is full auto. There might be teambuilding, but from what I've seen so far, most of that consists of hoping you pull good cards from gacha and then clicking button to make number go up. There's occasional rhythm segments but there's no original music, it's just remixes of public domain classical music lmao. I'd describe the rhythm gameplay as "at least more engaging than twisted wonderland's," which is not a high bar

At least there's a cat in the rhythm bit.

And like, ok, I gotta remark on how derivative it is. Like I mentioned in my post earlier, this game is unabashedly aping twisted wonderland's setting and aesthetic. (That said, most of the stuff it steals from twst is magic school stuff that twst also basically stole from Harry Potter, so...?) However, it isn't exactly like twst: in this one, the characters say fuck a lot and bleed all over the place and do violence. Basically, the tone is a fair bit more adult than twst's kid-friendly vibe. (Not, like, adult adult, and I probably wouldn't even call it dark--it's still rated Teen lol. Just more adult than twst.)

Rather than just being students at magic school, the ghouls also go out into the mundane world to go on missions where they fight and investigate monsters and cryptids. Honestly, the magic school setting feels pretty tacked-on. The things that are enjoyable about this would've been just as enjoyable in about any other setting--you can tell this whole aspect was a late trend-chasing addition, lmao. So, yeah, it's blatantly copying twst to try to steal some players, but... Eh, I found myself not caring that much. Someone more (or less) into twst than me may find it grating.

Character-wise, eh, sure, yeah, they're a bit derivative in that aspect too, but it's a joseimuke game, the characters are always derivative. Thus far the writing & execution has been solid enough that I didn't care if they were tropey. If I were to compare it to something else, I'd say the relationship between the protagonist and the ghouls feels more like that of the sage and wizards in mahoyaku than anything from twst. There's some mystery in exactly what "ghouls" are and their place in this world that has me intrigued and wanting to know more about this setting and how each of the characters feels about it. I have a bad habit of getting my hopes up for stories that put big ideas on the table and then being disappointed when they don't follow through in a way that lives up to my expectations, though.

So, my final verdict: I kind of just hope someone uploads all the story segments right onto youtube so nobody has to deal with the dogshit predatory game to get the genuinely decent story lol. Give it a play just for the story if you have faith in your ability to resist dark patterns. Avoid at all costs if you know you're vulnerable to gacha, microtransactions, or timesinks.

[happistar]

Curious to see where the fandom stands on this.

Knowing ALL the consequences…

[detransraichu]

hiiii gyns i have a date on SUNDAY!!!!! :D her name is precious (adorable!!) and she's soooo cute she's a writer like me and an anime lover too and just seems like a total sweetheart! it'll also be her FIRST DATE EVER????? 0w0 she has never been with anybody ever????? so the pressure is on for sure omfg... i want to make it super special for her even if we don't work out!! we're going to my fave froyo spot and then anime & weed back at my place!

she's also british and she sent me voice notes and her accent is SOOO ATTRACTIVE AAHHHHH and she's only looking for a serious relationship which is super attractive too!!! <3 we'll see how it goes, but either way we both agreed to be friends if the vibes aren't gay!

[ribbononline]

New fic by @silverjirachi out wahoo wahoo! Go support it!!

[rabarbarzcukrem]

"Noé" being the name of the biblical savior of all life.

"Vanitas" meaning vanity, futility, something that is ultimately meaningless and doesn't last. I am unwell.

[bloodydeanwinchester]

and when i say "typical" and "good" i mean what is the average for you to get written when you aren't having like an off day or something. not what you write on your best day...just like a normal day.

also do you consider yourself to be a fast or slow writer???

[skitskatdacat63]

Boy King Seb :D

[todayisafridaynight]

So Allegedly Infinite Wealth is 100 hours... not that you can't already spend that long on the games if you really want to, but I'd say it's the first time that could be said to be the base experience rather than a time only hardcore completionists are likely to get.

Yokoyama was talking at length about wanting to make the game worth the price tag since the team is incredibly conscious about the value of the players' time and money. They essentially feel they owe players ten times what they paid, so they're aiming for "an enjoyable 100 hours, but also an unforgettable 100 hours."

If they pull it off, I personally think it'd be 100% worth it and not just a "well other studios are doing it so we can get away with it too" price hike... I'm at least happy to know that's not the intent, and I'm intrigued to see how everything pans out and what the ratio is between story and side content

oh yayaya i saw that article this morning!!! 100 hours is actually so unfathomable to me in terms of an rgg game- i mean y7 was At Minimum around 45~50 hours but when i think of other RPGS that easily dip into 70's and 100's of hours, i'm not too surprised to see LAD start to climb towards those numbers now. it'd be such a jump in rgg's terms tho, so i'm TRULY curious to see where the nearly doubled gameplay hours comes from..

i really appreciate yoko's respect not just to RGGS but also to its customers: they want to make a great product, but they also don't want to sacrifice what they want to do to do that in the process

[zukkaoru]

turns out lesbians having a radar for trans women before they come out is real. and it happened to me.

[svtskneecaps]

i still haven't gotten real baghera and rivers interactions have i........... like the barest of interactions......... a drought........... i was so fucking curious...... i am still so curious............ twenty minutes of conversation and i would be fed forever............ i'd never ask for anything again.... baghera wasn't even there when bolas was doing the whole hostage situation she was off doing her own thing.......... i'm so curious........... i want to know..... what would the dynamic be........ how would they interact............ i'll never know.............. crying...........

[funzige-gedachten]

I am currently trying to pick up drawing again and bc its a special day im drawing our princess kris guštin but in medieval style and im having a hard time😭

[divinesouldariax]

have i mentioned i finished The Path We Walk here yet?

[icewindandboringhorror]

my personal Media Genres tier ranking and also Neopets Species tiers. put together in the same post just due to being adjacently related because they're on the same website lol

links to the specific tier makers: Media Genres --- Neopets

[yeonban]

This ends me every time I come across it bc it's THE most fitting Tobias statement in existence. I very much think that if he wouldn't have had to save himself time and again throughout his entire childhood, he would have had no issue with being one of L's men! Hell, he would've probably even been fine acting as a 'bodyguard' the way Watari did and would've paid no heed to the idea of sacrificing himself for L's safety like a lamb to the slaughter if need be, because he'd have liked L as the symbol of justice and he always returns favors/pays people back for what they've done for/to him (whether good or bad).

The issue is that he was NEVER ONCE in his life helped by law enforcement nor anyone related to it. If anything, he saw several people from the 'good side' partake in egregious dealings with his family and absolutely none of them spared a single thought to maybe helping the kid slowly bleeding out to death in the house every other time they came around. What did save him was acting the same way his enemies (parents, as part of the mafia) were, which set him out on a similar path. At that point people would've still had a(n albeit tiny) chance to 'set him right', but instead of a good samaritan taking him in & raising him like a normal kid, it was Watari who found him. And for a while it went well - he learned the people who took him off the streets were L's people and he used to hear about L from his parents (they hated him, obviously); they didn't abuse him (well. to his standards; I'd say Wammy's is very much a house of neglect); they allowed him to be around kids his age and make friends; they gave him the best education in the world - but all that stopped being a thing 'good people' did the first time he realized what the purpose of the House is and, in his eyes, Watari didn't help him for selfless reasons - it was to gain something from him, and maybe if it had been something else he would've been fine with it, but it was his identity; the only thing Tobias had. Then after his disillusionment he kept noticing worse things (how each letter being handed down to them means the one who held it prior died, which means several dozen of children/young adults from the program; how they were allowed to leave and die out in the streets if they felt like it etc), and then years later came L's famous shattering of hearts where he told the orphans that he doesn't do things for justice, that he too could be considered a criminal in the eyes of the law if they heard of some of his dealings.

All things considered, Tobias became a far more well-adjusted person than could have been hoped for sb in his circumstances. He appreciates the House for the opportunities it brought him, but he simultaneously has resentment for it and the staff (+L) attached to it. He doesn't care about how they do things, but his vision of justice is wholly different from theirs. He finds fault in their approaches, and unlike L you can expect Tobias to help you if you ask or beg him to even if he doesn't have any interest in your 'case'. While L is busy taking care of the most heinous cases that haven't yet been cracked, Tobias takes care of the actual evil entrenched in the system; from politicians, to the army, to the mafia, to practically every facet of society you can think of; aka the sides that he was abused by and the ones he's certain are of much more importance to the regular person than some far off genius criminal from the other side of the world. The people abused by law enforcement; the people taken by the mafia; the people accused as scapegoats; they're all people that Tobias willingly helps by taking them out of their situation and giving them enough $ to be set for life afterwards. If someone like him had been there for him when he was a child, he would've had a normal life. But there wasn't, so he's become it for everyone else in his former position/a similar position to the one he found himself in almost two decades ago.

[m-a-d-e-l-e-i-n-e]

When I’m listening to music on shuffle and a Lovejoy song comes on