Recent reviews by Aqua

Game reminds me of Fire Emblem, in a good way. Maybe it's a bit *too* similar to Fire Emblem, including some critical animations. I'm a bit worried for the devs if Intelligent Systems sees this

That being said, it's been really pleasant playing this on Steam Deck. Yeah sure, games like Tactics Ogre Reborn, Triangle Strategy etc. are also on Steam, but I'm someone who, despite skill issue, loves this genre. The more the merrier

If I had any criticism, the characters aren't as immediately endearing as the cast of various FE games. Branching class trees are amazing, but maybe making them a bit more intuitive would be nice. Though part of that is really trial and error and player experimenting with units too

If you love Tactical RPGs, get this one. Yes there are many like it, but this game's great all the same

Uwwoooooo... Whatever

You know, there's a similar game called Neural Cloud, and admittedly while this game is orders of magnitude, no, infinitely more popular and alive, I can't help but compare the two. Anyone who's played Neural Cloud first will find this game to be better at explaining itself yet paradoxically about as AFK for lazy people. Blue Archive is a top down rpg that's autochess-esque, but you need to be proactive when using your skills. Yeah you *can* watch your students do the work for you... But you aren't much of a teacher then are you?!

There's a wonderful video by Causew about this game, "the meta no one told you about" that helps articulate the concept of reading what your units do and learning how they interact, the most effective way they can crush enemies etc. that is true for all games. Even something like Stardew Valley requires some reading to know when best to plant your crops and how best to impress NPCs. So it's best to follow that advice: yeah you can use guides and look up who's the meta student right now, but you'll never really understand what characters do and why they're considered specialized in something unless you research them specifically. But honestly, stick with PVE. This game's PVP happens to be less merciless than that of some other gachas, but it's still quite demanding. And if you're a part-time, substitute Sensei like me, no, death awaits if you even try, just stick with PVE

There are a lot of nice stories in this game. Yeah yeah some of your most vocal coworkers are best avoided like the plague to preserve your sanity, and they've cultivated a certain mindset... But you're better off shutting up about negativity and accusations if you do interact with them, or do the smart thing and avoid them altogether if you don't want to figure out what's going on. Like an inside joke, you gotta be there, and to be there you need to read the room.

Above all else, this game has excellent music, which is a very high bar when other gachas like Arknights, Reverse 1999, and the recent EN release of Uma Musume also have excellent music. Many of the stories are wholesome, especially Volume F... Though yeah yeah if you want to just look them up online you probably should

As a gacha game it has its pitfalls like any other, which further emphasizes the point of only playing PVE, but if you stick with it you might end up enjoying the experience.... Or just look up music and recorded story / visual novel style segments like the rest of us... Good luck, Sensei

Turns out you need to set up a symbolic link if you don't want this to install on C drive.

Otherwise, I mostly play mobile. This game is surprisingly addictive, while it feels like RNG the way you train your horsegirls can gradually show results.

Outside of the obvious music and art, the fact that the devs did their homework about the race horses really makes this immersive. I end up spending quite a bit of time looking up various horses... And it's ironic that my favorites generally had tragic irl fates.....

Be sure to hug your Rice Shower. And I'll keep trying to make my Suzuka the strongest I've seen. If you go down this rabbit hole, trainer, be ready to embrace it!

This game should have been preinstalled with the Deck, it helps familiarize you with the important buttons and doesn't overstay its welcome. Fans of Portal 2 and TF2 enjoy little references too!

It's really a shame that songs exclusive to FeMC, like Way of Life, Wiping All Out etc are not in Reload.

The people making the FeMC mod are doing good work, honestly, many of this game's strengths should be in Reload

I do like the Isometric style of older games, maybe it's just me. Reload certainly has its own charm, and yeah it's inevitable that Reload would be forced to measure up to this game.

Many people these days harp on about graphics, how games look, and quality of life. P4Golden feels like a slog gameplay wise some times even though I love its story and characters the most, and Portable doesn't seem to be that different. Makes sense, Portable is older than Golden. My playtime is quite low but I've seen cutscenes and cleared Reload twice, I hear some content from Portable and FES was censored or changed for Reload, and thus it's probably worth playing Portable to see that content

In the end, an hour in and I like what I see so far. It just feels so bad because Reload should have had these things already. Fandom had to make the FeMC mod when a "definitive" version of P3 should have had FeMC in it, but I get it, it's a lot of work, and all we can do is cope for a DLC

In the meantime, P3 Portable is an enjoyable game. It is unfortunate to hear about graphical downgrade to fit on a portable device, removal of The Answer etc but hey there are always trade offs. Kotone's story is just as meaningful and impactful as Makotos, with unique characters in her tale (mostly social links to be fair) too. I just wish for a day when Moonlight Daydream can be in Reload's graphics to give Portable the tribute it deserves

This is coming from someone who enjoyed Reload. Play Portable for the other story. And feel just as bad that Reload doesn't get Kotone's story...

TLDR: The longer I play this game, the more I understand why a lot of people hate it. It's more of a social simulator than a 4x game, and if you want a 4x game you won't like this. This review used to be a thumbs up, but I gradually realized that Koei half-assed this game too much

It's truly a love-hate relationship, and after some more realizations, I am forced to join team thumbs down

But this game has its strengths. If you're the kind of person who loves grand strategy games, but wants to try the "I'm just a dude in the Three Kingdoms era who is destined for greatness one way or another" sandbox, play ROTK 13. Be warned that that game has a dumb meeting system where you might be posted in northwest China but have to run all the way down to Southeast China in an over two month trip because your lord wants to argue whether we should go farming or yell at our soldiers to police our neighborhoods better.

I liked ROTK 13 overall, it has easier combat than this game. But this review was initially a thumbs up for a reason: it's a different experience from your typical ROTK game. It feels like a social simulator but not a fully realized one: being a free officer is much less immersive than ROTK 13 (post PUK / Expansion Pack though, that is the typical issue with ROTK games where the Expansion Pack is a necessity). You can't be a literal homeless nobody in Three Kingdoms China, you are destined to be a somebody, whether it's the head of a vagrant army or a grunt who gets promoted up to Viceroy. If you want to play Ruler, yeah that's a solid option but all the ruler based games are there for you too

I never played the original ROTK 8, so maybe that helps with my ambiguous enjoyment of this one. If you came here for the conquer China game, the AI is actually useless. It is overall a lot less aggressive than it should be, even when amping up the aggression. Instead, you spend your daily activity points to flirt with girls or be even more manly and assertive with your boys (and vice versa)

Meetings are at the end of a season where you decide what to do next, and during those end of season meetings you can focus on developing cities. Compared to ROTK 13 and the others it is less intuitive to figure out city development and all the domestics, but it's still there. Diplomacy is also the bare bones thing it's always been, throw enough money into your offer and your opponents will usually accept. Honestly, this game took too many wrong lessons from ROTK 12. Look I liked ROTK 12 too, I felt it was a remake of ROTK 4, and frankly ROTK 8 is basically officer play ROTK 12 with some more bells and whistles.

If what you wanted was a 4x game, this is not really it. And I understand that a lot of people are mad at this game because it is not really a 4x game. But as a visual novel, character dialogue and interaction enjoyer I really like this game. It just isn't what people expect from a ROTK game

People might keep praising ROTK 11 as the greatest game in the series until the heat death of the universe. I understand why, and for those people 8 remake is not going to make them happy. If you are one of those people, be warned, but if you'd rather just "chill," but still not be able to, like, be a simple fisherman in the Three Kingdoms era since Koei still managed to half-ass this, you might find this game's approach to the formula a bit novel.

I'm glad I got this on Fanatical, where it was on sale, instead of paying full price. I ended up paying less for this than for ROTK 13 initially, even with inflation taken into account, so you're better off if you similarly hunt for deals instead of getting this full price. See? Ambivalent. I like this game yet I do realize that Koei screwed up yet again, I'm probably never buying their games again if they're like this. Nobunaga's Ambition Awakening and Sphere of Influence and Sphere of Influence Ascension were good games but clearly they ate up all the resources that could lead up to a half-decent ROTK game.

We probably won't get our ROTK 10 remake, as that one might be different. But if Koei is going to do the bare minimum again, then no, might as well not make that remake. I feel bad editing this review but in the end I have no choice: even the Midway Ending where you supposedly conquered China doesn't give you much in unlocks, and this game's biggest strength is you can clear regional endings that let you not have to play it anymore. Love Hate Relationship... What a shame

TLDR: If you like experimenting with units and discovering kits on your own, most gachas are not for you, and this is no exception. I learned that the hard way: DO NOT BUILD YOUR 4 STARS AND BELOW. If you like good music, there are other gachas that also have great music. But if you want an uncommon card merging battle system with a gradually improving script, really memorable visuals, and good music, that's this game.

So I actually quit this game as a day one player about two months after it released, and have returned only recently. I quit because this game wasn't what I thought it was, but even with that disappointment, its core strengths: really bizarre and special visuals, great music, and the card merging rpg system were unforgettable delights.

My other main gacha at the time was Arknights, and for a time that game allowed for different units with their own quirks and strengths. You know, Reverse 1999 actually isn't that different in that regard, but the problem is at launch endgame content requiring Insight 2 level max and Insight 3. Various events seem to still require characters to be that well built, and while that's expected, the issue is your 4 star and lower characters just can't get that strong. Oh sure, 4 stars at least can reach Insight 2 level max, but they'll always be more fragile and have something weaker about them compared to 5 and 6 stars. In short, don't build your four stars and below EVEN WHEN the game's tutorials try to convince you that the lower rarities all have neat stuff about their kits.

So why am I still keeping this at recommend? Well if you don't make the same mistake I did, you might get to enjoy the music and visuals of this game. Yeah sure, only 5 and 6 star units are worth using, and that's a pain in the neck, but the characters have their quirky lines and, even though the game pivoted hard to having more anime women instead of the bizarre dog and sputnik and talking radio and floating gentleman apple, this game still has enough weird and wonderful things to experience to make it worthwhile!

If this qualifies as corrupting a game, we need more games corrupted like this. Risk the roguelike (with even more gamba!), Monopoly the Roguelike where the local mob can attack you if you own the property, and even if you don't! Checkers the roguelike and so on and so forth!

People said this game is similar to Balatro. I think that's wrong. Games like Balatro and Aotenjo are amazing, but they don't really incorporate the initial game fully. This game is Blackjack 4.0, Blackjack with a massive expansion pack. Even Aotenjo isn't truly Mahjong in the same way. Dungeons and Degenerate Gamblers is so faithful to the original game, frankly too faithful, you literally are still playing blackjack, just with new rules, new mechanics, bells and whistles, but the base game is still intact. Try playing Poker with Balatro, you can't

I hope to see some references to each other though. Aotenjo has an artifact that involves Jimbo from Balatro, and hopefully we see a mahjong tile OR Jimbo himself as a poker card. If he is in the game I haven't seen him yet, and if he is here then this game is even better than I thought. Granted, low playtime, but I played the demo for a bit

If you're looking for an experience completely different from blackjack, where randomness AND scoring are the main points, that isn't this game, it isn't Balatro. But if you already like Blackjack, or even if you haven't played Blackjack before but are willing to learn, frankly, you should pick this up! Blackjack the Massive Remaster that is almost a completely new game is a blast!

I loved Dark Duel Stories as a kid. I'm reminded why early game was a slog. The dice monster games were easily worth $20, but Konami got greedy with this price. Not translating a game feels so bad!

But we need them to release more older games and jp only releases... If only Steam had a maybe option. Wait for a sale (got it on Fanatical myself).

At least parts of this work were released for free before, at least as demos. That's why I was able to skip parts of it, but a genuine reading should take about half an hour for each chapter? Maybe like 2 hours at most for all of it.

3Diddly wasn't kidding when they said it just become more depressing. In an older release, in the first chapter's run away ending, iirc The guy starves to death alongside his wife instead of losing her again. Granted, it's not like it's less miserable from a happy fulfilling life standpoint, but at least he doesn't die alone.

It's a bleak and rather bizarre series of stories. The writing isn't great, I'm convinced 3Diddly's first language isn't English, but it's the intensity of the scenes that get to me. Maybe that's why I'm offering a thumbs up. If you're looking for good writing, you won't find it here! But if you want something memorable, get this on sale though plenty of trashy novels are like $8 so it's up to you.