????? ?? ???? the math ain't mathin. it's not even possible for me to have played that much in less than a week. i'm too employed for that!

i have a backup save not THAT far back from those primers i can import later but man. what the hell

RIGHHHHT IT'S SO..!! like, she is very likable bc the entire cast is, but literally all we know is that she is Very Nice and Works Hard, is a good friend and is down bad for rintaro AND I NEED MORE THAN JUST LITTLE TEASES... feed me the goods!!!

REAL AND TRUE like... why do i know nothing about her!! 13 episodes and i know more about her bestie than her and that feels like CRAZY work but it's fine!! it's fine!! i'll just read the manga!!

for the record, his reply was "me too" so now I'm even more confused

do it.. it's worth it!

it is very cute and wholesome!! like very feel good, laid-back content. I really liked the characters a lot even if I just wanted More (but that's what reading the manga will be for)

45. the fragrant flower blooms with dignity

me when I am both kicking my feeties at things being cute but also going "I need to read the manga" bc 13 episodes still managed to not have any real substance for kaoruko specifically and I just KNOW that this anime did not cover enough ground

today's minor inconveience is "tummy hurty" on the day of dominate bluray preorders and then i have a felix-shaped gremlin going "do it, do it, do it" followed by a lee know-shaped gremlin giving aforementioned advice

the gremlins will win, i am certain, to the detriment of my disposable income

anyway, i think game writing can be very neat and i think a lot about the games i love and how their narratives tackle topics and can, in fact, be just as thoughtful and profound as any other medium despite what it looks like on the wrapper.

(and i want to see that grow in spite of... corpo shit)

very few things are so wholly original that you can't see their roots in something that came before it. and tropes are NOT a bad thing, they just identify common themes and archetypes neatly. and i won't get into my "i hate anime as a pejorative" rant but know it exists

there's also the weird thing people do where they just assume something is bad if its tropey, or that being inspired by other things means it's inherently a copycat story/characters which... I think is dumb because we've been iterating on the same stories for thousands of years already!

i think that just as there are stories being written to sell the gameplay and cash out, there are also people in it for the love of the game that do put so much care into writing a story they want to tell. it's a medium that still has a lot of space to grow

sure, i've played games where the writing is awful, nonsensical. where the writers themselves can't even answer what their main characters' motivations or backstories are.

conversely, i've played games that have so much worldbuilding that they can't even contain it all to their own games!

things like "well, i skip the cutscenes because all game stories are bad" or not letting storytelling flaws pass in a game that would be glossed over in another medium. and i think that's a shame.

sure, sometimes the themes get fumbled. sometimes development changes leave stuff on the cutting room floor. it's not always perfect, but there are so many good stories that have been told and are being told... so i find it strange how reductive people even within gaming spaces are about narratives

games have tackled tons of interesting concepts, even while in the framework of being a fantasy "hero saves the world" story. tackling issues of environmentalism, zealotry, xenophobia, war, and so many variations of the human condition while also having compelling worldbuilding and characters

and of course, the issue of things perhaps getting lost in translation with older games, since we know of how often translators were given short deadlines, no context, no help. some of that has changed nowadays, just like we see more instances of games telling stories that work best in that medium

like, of course there are games with bad stories and bad writing - no medium is free of this existing.

but i do think the biggest flaws in game writing have largely come from it being a younger medium that has spent a long time finding its footing on how to tell its stories while balancing gameplay