More action? Or more slice of life / romance?
My favorite stories are the ones that do a good balance of the three, but if I had to choose between them I'd say slice-of-life.
A strong cast with a good dynamic is the main thing I need to enjoy a story, and you're more likely to those in games with slice-of-life segments.
Playing Senren * Banka!
This VN has a very different story structure than what I'm used to. Most games tend to ramp up in the later parts of the story, adding tension and focusing more on action, but this one goes in the opposite direction and cuts most of the action in favor of slice-of-life moments and romance. It's unusual but not a bad thing, and shows the developer's commitment to the romance theme.
So far I've completed 3 of 5 routes:
I'm currently playing Lena's route which has been a very positive surprise - she had very little involvement in dealing with the curse on the first half of the game, so I never expected her route would be the one to give us its backstory and origins. Plot-wise it's easily the best route so far, but the romance parts are not as good as Mako or Murasame.
After that there's still the Roka/Kohahu shared route, but I'm hoping to finish this game in a couple more days.
I think the next game I'll play will be Loopers which is another short Key VN.
#3 because I like Estelle way more than Rean.
I generally rank the Cold Steel games the lowest of the series - I did enjoy my time with them but I also think they're the games where the flaws of the series are more obvious.
Second favorite of the "first games in an arc" so it's #2 out of 4. That sentence may have ended up more confusing than I expected. 😅
Though if I sit down to rank all the games Daybreak would still end up quite high in the list.
Finished The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak!
The first half of the final chapter dragged quite a bit and that's the main reason I'm putting this below Trails from Zero as my favorite "first game in an arc", but overall I had an excellent time with this one.
Van is easily the highlight of this game, and while my initial impression of the playable cast was underwhelming I still ended up getting fairly attached to them. There's some characters that need more work in future games (Feri, Risette, Bergard), but others like Judith and Aaron more than make up for this.
Also, while individually there's some clear weak points in the cast, I really liked their progression as a group, their interactions with Van in the final stretch of the game were excellent.
Finally, the new battle system has a lot of good ideas and feels like a step forward for the series. Looking forward to Daybreak 2 in 2025.
Character interaction discussion, mild spoilers for the final chapter
The game brings up Van's self-sacrificial tendencies more than once, and I loved seeing him try that near the end only for the rest of the team go "nope, you're not pulling that crap on our watch". 😄
Finished Planetarian: Snow Globe!
Planetarian is classic Key VN that I played a while back and enjoyed, and they recently released a physical version which I could not resist picking up for my collection.
Snow Globe is a very short (~1h) prequel story that comes bundled in the physical version, which shows a bit of Yumemi's life and coworkers in the past. An interesting read and a nice bonus, but not something I'd recommend as a standalone purchase.
Finished Harmonia!
Another short Key VN I had on my backlog, but this one was decidedly "mid". It has a similar structure to Lunaria with a boring start then getting a lot better when the "real" plot starts rolling halfway into the game.... but unfortunately I found the main "twist" in this one incredibly predictable and figured it out in the first 10min of the game. 😕
I'd say the best part of this one was the setting, there were some very interesting ideas there but sadly not enough time to explore them.
Playing Senren * Banka!
Resumed this one and reached Chapter 3, the foreigner Lena got introduced as the last main heroine. So far Mako is still my favorite, but now that Yoshino's getting more friendly I'm starting to like her a lot too.
The manga for this one is surprisingly solid despite the overused premise. There's a lot of work involved into building Elma (and Luce) into powerhouses, so a lot of battles are very close with them barely scraping by due to good team work.
If the production is solid this will definitely be a fun watch.
Favorites for this season are Pseudo Harem ED, Oshi no Ko S2 OP and Tower of God S2 OP.
Honorable mention to the Nokotan OP for the memes, and for the evolving credits for Tower of God S2, really like how they are a "season so far" summary.
Alexander is really good, one of my favorites. I prefer to make it with Brandy/Cognac like the recipe I linked, but you can also make it with Gin for a different, stronger flavor.
Grasshopper looks and tastes like chocolate mint ice cream. If you like that flavor enough to want an alcoholic version then go for it.
Playing The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak!
This may sound kinda random, but one of my hobbies is mixing cocktails.
Why am I saying this? Because it's fun seeing the adult cast of this game going out for drinks and actually recognizing what they are asking for 😄. Van's sweet tooth definitely affects his taste for alcohol since he keeps asking for cocoa drinks like Alexander or Grasshopper.
Anyway, back to the game, I'm now on Chapter 5.
Chapter 4 and the Intermission were a huge boost in my interest in the playable cast. I've gotten very curious about Risette's backstory, and Aaron's chat with Van during the intermission was excellent and gave me a much better view on him. Also, Judith who was one of my favorite characters so far has officially joined the party.
The story escalated really quick after that, and right now I've reached a section where you can align with different factions depending on your choices during the game. I experiented a bit with the options I had available and they all seemed fairly similar in structure, but liked the idea overall.
Faction choices
I ended up going with Heiyue. Felt more appropriate for Van to cooperate with a "gray" faction, plus I really liked the scene/backstory between Rixia and Judith.
Really curious how the scenes with Ouroboros go, it's a choice I most definitely did not expect to see but sadly I didn't have enough alignment with Chaos to try that one.
Not going to read any of that, to stay from any spoilery content.
FYI, I'm trying to avoid story discussion and talking mainly about characters, gameplay, and overall setting of the game. So hopefully no significant spoilers in there in case you read it by accident.
In summary, are you enjoying it?
Definitely. Can't praise the MC enough (my favorite since the Sky trilogy) interesting gameplay ideas that are also good QOL improvements, darker tone that pushes some boundaries from the series.
The main thing I'm not "sold" is the new team, maybe because the MC set a high bar? But side-characters in general are excellent and memorable, so I'm hoping the other party members will get more development over the game.
Playing The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak!
Finished Chapter 3 yesterday.
Van is really great, one of my favorite MCs in the series. He's this hard-boiled investigator with the perfect amount of silliness mixed in, I love the gag of him getting "bribed" into troublesome jobs by expensive sweets.
But the rest of the playable cast so far has been... kinda mid? Agnes is the demure, prim and proper female lead that I'd usually rank very low in preferences, yet she's probably my favorite of the playable cast because Feri and Risette are just there, and while Aaron does have more personality his constant rudeness really irritates me. I'm hoping they'll improve over the game, because there's plenty of room for that.
What makes this extra weird is that the secondary cast in this game is fantastic, I'm really interested in Elaine and René's relationships with Van, recurring side characters like the informers Dingo and Bermotti have plenty of personality, there's Judith being absolutely hilarious every time she's on the screen, and even some minor characters like the film director from Chapter 3 are memorable.
Another thing that I'm positively surprised is how they're trying to push some boundaries for this series, this game is significantly bloodier with named character deaths happening often, and there's even some raunchier scenes like the one where Van visits a nightclub - all of which fits very well with the "underworld" theme of Daybreak.
I went overboard with VN purchases in the last month, so I'm probably going to keep focusing on those for a while.
Finished Senren * Banka!
Last week I commented about the first three routes, and there were two left:
Overall I had a good time with this game and might be willing to try more Yuzusoft titles in the future.
Finished Loopers!
Had one last short VN from Key in my backlog.
It has a very interesting premise - it's about a group of people stuck on a "groundhog day" loop, repeating the same day endlessly, but instead of dealing with the loop itself it's more about their day-to-day lives as they try to keep themselves happy and sane in this situation. It also has a very nice and colorful artstyle that was one of the things that drew me to the game.
Sadly, I think the game is way too short to properly explore this premise or develop its fairly big cast - it has twice as many characters as another similar-length Key VN I played recently (Harmonia). There's also some very questionable story choices, like some out-of-place horror segments in the early parts of the game or focusing too much on the treasure hunting theme.
Not a bad game, but I think it had the potential for a lot more.
Finished The Fox Awaits Me!
A fairly obscure VN I picked because the art and themes looked interesting, and also my first time playing a Korean VN. And I liked it way more than I expected.
It starts with the MC awakening in a bamboo grove with no memories, and he ends up getting involved with a magic fox, a mountain deity and a grim reaper as he tries to piece together his past and figure out what was exactly his previous relationship with the heroines.
One of the most interesting things about this game is how well it maintains tension, even during the more chill segments. You know the heroines are hiding things from you and it's hard to tell how much you should trust their words, plus it's clear from some scenes (including some rather bloody bad endings) that danger is around and you shouldn't relax. There's also the writing of Shua, the titular fox - she's clearly obsessed with the MC, and you often wonder if she's about to snap and do something crazy.
The production values were great, with a good OST, nice backgrounds and animated sprites. The english translation could've used a bit more QA though, I've spotted a few typos and mistakes, and there's bugs like text occasionally going outside the screen. Nothing gamebreaking, but annoying.
Playing The Fox Awaits Me HANA (Link to Japanese eShop)
Direct sequel to the game above.
It has full english support and was originally planned for a US/Europe release, but it was suddenly cancelled with only some vague statements about it.
Decided to play this one first because it's supposed to be shorter than other VNs I have on my backlog, hoping to finish it over the weekend.