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I'd maybe wanna talk about what a mess the gender politics in the game are but I'm too distracted by the fact you can't shoot up, that you skip the text too quickly and that you may have gotten the power up from the lab off screen (and not mentioned it) or not gotten it yet
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Jul 26, 2016 04:34
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Deceitful Penguin posted:I'd maybe wanna talk about what a mess the gender politics in the game are but I'm too distracted by the fact you can't shoot up, that you skip the text too quickly and that you may have gotten the power up from the lab off screen (and not mentioned it) or not gotten it yet  i will say though, we're able to get the upgrade later 'cos we return to the agriculture lab later on and can actually reach it the second time around? (and we stumble into a substantially dumber ~encounter~ at the end than last time, so that's gonna be fun) As for text speed, I've been trying to go through the text slower but if it's still an issue in the last video I'll slow down further, sorry about that everyone 
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Jul 26, 2016 05:31
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Hell is a lot of things. Hell is emptiness, vast and unyielding. Hell is ceaseless, lifeless winter. Hell is endless torture -- literal torture, racks and whips and flames and flails, or simply reliving every mistake and misstep and dreadful little failing in your life, day after day after day. But most of all, Hell is recording the same segment of iffy stealth mechanics and wonky, slippery traversal seven loving times because really dumb complications and recording issues and fun quirks of the AI keep derailing things. So, uh, update this weekend! I hope y'all like "the goth play-doh space illuminati did it" as a plot element. in the meantime i'm going to play Death Road to Canada and you nerds should too 
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Jul 28, 2016 02:28
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 Well this is certainly a special sort of game. After you beat the big roller thing the woman says in response to Ceyda affirming her identity "So you REALLY consider yourself a snowflake? You don't realize it's just imposed by the matriarchy?" So my guess would be that snowflake is used as a derogatory word for trans women. The regular women use it to describe the "secret men" they fear and for the revolutionaries it's kind of like calling them sheeple I guess? As for the narrative as a whole I thought at first they might be going for a twist where the patriarchy is secretly still controlling it all and that's why things are bad. Seems less and less likely though and more like a simple role reversal based on the SJ worldview. Instead of a patriarchy which supposedly is keeping women and trans people down we have a matriarchy doing the same thing to men. The message would be "see how it would be if the roles were reversed? this is how it is for us, this is why we fight." No idea what the Macedonia stuff fits into any of that though 
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Jul 28, 2016 14:59
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Ummon posted:So my guess would be that snowflake is used as a derogatory word for trans women. Nah. I thought that when I was playing this but it comes up in multiple contexts, it's just kind of a slur for whoever stands out or acts up.
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Jul 28, 2016 15:01
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END ME SCOOB posted:Nah. I thought that when I was playing this but it comes up in multiple contexts, it's just kind of a slur for whoever stands out or acts up. So it's basically a standard fascists bogeyman, then?
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Jul 28, 2016 15:18
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Pretty much. I'm trying not to say much about the plot until we get to relevant bits, but yeah, it does try. I won't claim it always succeeds, but someone clearly thought about a few layers of how things might come off.
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Jul 28, 2016 15:26
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Ummon posted:
Like Scoob said, it's......like the idea as described in the game is special snowflake = anyone who's ~too special and unique~ to exist in plovdiv society proper or go along with the regime which sounds like a weirdly passive-aggressive urban dictionary entry jesus, and trans women count too because of course they do. As to the Macedonia stuff, iirc (bear in mind that I picked this game up again after months and months so some things a little fuzzy and I could be misremembering) it doesn't come up again - like Ceyda throwing in a dobro utro and a blagodarya, it's a one-off 'hey this game is still set in Space Bulgaria!!!!' signifer. The twist we're building up to (which we'll see some of in the next video) is......it's not as predictably, bloodboilingly dumb as 'you thought it was a secret cabal of playdoh illuminati boobmonsters but it was me, the patriarchy!' but it's so loving goofy that (i thought, anyways) it undermines what they were otherwise ostensibly goin' for. END ME SCOOB posted:Pretty much. Ningyou fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Jul 28, 2016 |
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Jul 28, 2016 20:31
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I mean, I'm trying my very best to try and give the game a fair shake, even if we do jump off of signs in Japanese to get around the outskirts of future bulgaria where the japanese dress in burkas and are modest for some reason??? but its not exactly going well
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Jul 28, 2016 23:19
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Part 4: A Series of Unfortunate Decisions In which we wake up in Terms of Enrampagement 2 and ruin a mini-monologuing space donger's day (Planina Tower and Agricultural Lab) So I'm coming off a HEART RENDING ANXIETY bender and don't have a ton of  in me, but I wanted to throw this next segment up. (I....either I've been profligate as heck with my Nanomachine Funbucks or they zero you out when you get captured, and I *think?* it's the latter one, which, uh.....LET ME TELL YOU, that made this section fun. when the AI wasn't doing poo poo like getting transfixed by elevators Ceyda was right next to when I was at near-zero health or killing one another in one great shared homicidal brainfart before the lone survivor started chucking c4 at the section of ceiling I was on.  ) Here's where we start seeing one of the big issues I have with this game - "the Overripe Marzipan Majestic-12 did it for funsies!!!!" is....it's not a great plot element and it's a dumb rationale for just about anything. I have a lot of feelings about the way it ends up going buuuuuut i can't talk about them because spoilers, so. We're coming into the final hub of the game, and hoooooly lol is it a mess:  Stay tuned for "journalistic ethics" chat and Garbage Mascots and uncomfortable stereotype npcs next time in Part 5: I Open Up My Wallet and It's Full of Terfs Ningyou fucked around with this message at 07:32 on Jul 29, 2016 |
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Jul 28, 2016 23:59
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Man, back when I was growing up the only outlet for my lovely opinions was my mimeographed 'zine. How wonderful it is to live in the future where I can sell my woefully overextended punchline for $5 a pop.
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Jul 29, 2016 00:07
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golly, mimeographed? did you commission a festive daguerreotype to commemorate the occasion before retiring to down some laudanum and take in a fetching melody on your victrola too, GRANDPA s-sorry i couldn't not make that dumb joke
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Jul 29, 2016 00:22
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 SYMBOLISM!
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Jul 29, 2016 00:29
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Klaus88 posted:
As a side note, I'm probably going to do a little intermission thing and show off the dev's previous game, Subbania, because.....sssssupposedly? there are links between that thing and bits near the end of Aerannis. There might even be commentary! I hope you are all excited for my horrible redneck chipmunk voice and possibly also Action Shakespeare's. Ningyou fucked around with this message at 00:45 on Jul 29, 2016 |
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Jul 29, 2016 00:42
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Deceitful Penguin posted:I mean, I'm trying my very best to try and give the game a fair shake, even if we do jump off of signs in Japanese to get around the outskirts of future bulgaria where the japanese dress in burkas and are modest for some reason???
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Jul 29, 2016 02:14
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One thing I'll say for the game: while the plot continues to be a mess and the stealth parts look sorta painful to play through, the boss fights actually seem pretty well-paced so far for the most part: they don't feel too long or too short, just long enough for you to show you've got a handle on the mechanics. (Except for that one giant wheel boss, which overstayed its welcome a bit. The loooong button-mashing segment at the start didn't help.)
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Jul 29, 2016 04:43
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Ningyou posted:Would you say........................it can't be helped? Whos main method of attack was thrusting towards you and man oh man oh man, am I looking forward to the hot take on the trans critical movement from this game. boy oh boy
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Jul 30, 2016 00:04
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Deceitful Penguin posted:I would say you just shot a dick spewing stuff at you to death with your gun I mean, I'm not going to make a Zardoz joke, but yes, I shot a space dong thrusting and spurting (well, I guess it was more ~wafting~ but y'know) space pollen with my gun after it went on a tear about putting testosterone in the water supply to ~awaken dormant men.~ And like, they're less "trans ~critical~" than straight up militant bigots, but yeah it's, uh.....it gets cringey and uncomfortable in a couple of different ways and then it's off to the Dumb Plot Twist races. I'm still kind of a mess 'cos offline things but I'm going to try recording the next bit tomorrow or something. I, uh, golly, I hope you like framed portraits of the patron anime latex boobmonster of Plovdiv and also a fifty-fifty chance of the game suddenly and irreversibly refusing to recognize inputs mid-recording again!
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Jul 30, 2016 00:38
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well, i got about 45 minutes of recordings done last night, so update proooooooobably in the next day or two. In the meantime, here's a preview of this thrilling new chapter in the Aerannis SaGa:  
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Jul 30, 2016 19:07
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I feel really bad for future video game historians who look back at this era and try to make sense of it all. The nerds currently combing through weird print ads from the 90s have it easy.
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Jul 30, 2016 20:51
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Ningyou posted:well, i got about 45 minutes of recordings done last night, so update proooooooobably in the next day or two. but why choose steak over bacon
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Jul 30, 2016 20:55
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What's baffling to me, on top of all the obvious stuff, is why everyone is so calm. People about to be murdered in their own office show no emotion, no fight or flight or even trying to negotiate for their own lives like actual people do when faced with their own mortality. Even the bosses can only muster bored confusion at Ceyda's homicidal antics. The Planina leader delivers that "you killed our whole nation" line with the same "aw, hell" attitude if someone bumps into you and spills your coffee. I know these are caricatures rather than characters but it's still a bit much. Also, limits on fast movement in a mostly empty game world is dogshit and enemies that primarily hurt you by standing on you are a terrible decision.
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Jul 30, 2016 23:38
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Lynx Winters posted:What's baffling to me, on top of all the obvious stuff, is why everyone is so calm. People about to be murdered in their own office show no emotion, no fight or flight or even trying to negotiate for their own lives like actual people do when faced with their own mortality. Even the bosses can only muster bored confusion at Ceyda's homicidal antics. The Planina leader delivers that "you killed our whole nation" line with the same "aw, hell" attitude if someone bumps into you and spills your coffee. I know these are caricatures rather than characters but it's still a bit much. Y'know, I kind of want to make a dumb joke about how no gosh see the thing you must understand is that this is actually subtle worldbuilding that hints at everyone having been infected with a memetic virus cobbled together from the psychic remains of jaded nerds and chan posters and THE GAME IS WEAVING A CLEVER, LAYERED NARRATIVE OKAY but then I think of NEVER LET ANYONE DENY YOUR STRUGGLES okay kill me w/evs lady and how nonchalant Ceyda is about murdering a sentient piece of juggalo steamboat willy fanart (which is a tiiiiiiny bit of a spoiler for one of the next updates) and I just can't. Ningyou fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Jul 31, 2016 |
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Jul 31, 2016 00:42
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I also finished this game and looked at it like a confused yellow lab the whole way through. I...kinda enjoyed it? Nonetheless, the OST owns and I used it to great effect as background music when I ran a cyberpunk tabletop RPG.
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Jul 31, 2016 01:12
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Part 5: I Open Up My Wallet and It's Full of Terfs So.....okay. Okay. TERF turf. It's the seat of power in Plovdiv, and it's where the dev goes gently caress IT I'VE HAD ENOUGH LIVIN' FOR ONE LIFE and slams on the gas pedal like they're punishing it and runs the bad satiremobile riiiiiiiiiight into a brick wall. In which we make a new friend and cringe so hard our faceparts stop workin'. (Terf turf jail, Electioneering, Svetlana's Office) In which we get more dumb plot points and briefly meet a new pal with no concept of personal space (Rooftop chase) I recorded the rooftop boss as its own thing because while it's kind of a neat setpiece it's also annoyingly heavy on trial-and-error and has the Assassin's Creed problem of 'if you jump at/mount something slightly wrong you go leaping back into whatever you're trying to get away from' and i figure watching me fumble through it and die in stupid ways the first 4 or so times probably not super exciting to watch. In which we lay waste to Tokyo Tower, there's a cute pun, and the game somehow gets even less subtle. So here's what gets me about TERF turf. Y'know, other than sticking Vivian James there or in the game at all and the wink-wink goobergrape reference and more forced-stealth missions including a no-kill one. It's gross caricatures and hamhanded commentary pretty much from the word go. I mean, let's map some of this out! There's a scene with someone being super uncomfortably transphobic at Ceyda and ranting about MEN INVADING OUR ONE SAFE SPACE UGH but then the other lady there tells her off because you see there are good people in terfsylvania too, did you know? And this isn't...this isn't plot-relevant. These aren't characters you will see again. This is just some random thing shoehorned in as prelude to buying the one health upgrade in the game. And there's another bar that doesn't serve actual food or drink, just plot points which, i mean, AT LEAST IT'S LESS UNFORTUNATELY NAMED THAN D'WORKIN'S JESUS and a lipstick-and-lumberjack-beard Respectability Politics Trans Mom which reads a lot less like 'ah yes the writer is trying to show the spectrum of beliefs and temperaments among these folk' and more like 'holy poo poo it's distilled pathetic trans person stereotype i feel like i'm gonna get alcohol poisoning just looking' And there's a huge pink-haired  FEMINIST DEMAGOGUE which, uh, this combination of things in this context does not come off like 'oh this is just a coincidence or hey w/e they're just representing different body types or' so much as making a frankenstein's monster of lovely MRA punchlines about feminists and going you, you are going to be my plot-relevant NPC, my sweet trashpile~♪And eventually, the revelation that STEAK IS TOXIC MASCULINITY YOU CAN EAT but also that hey everyone, the government's halfway to bursting with monsters like the world's shittiest pinata is just kind of met with shrugs and "if this fake-terrorist attack that kills actual people ADVANCES THE FEMINIST CAUSE, i'm all for it!!!!!!!" And then Elsa monologues about ~~~~THE DANGERS OF EXTREMIST POLITICS~~~~ and demonizing the people on The Other Side no matter what The Other Side entails because of course. So I kinda spent a day and a half trying to untangle my weird feelings about this game because I can't just go 'here's some videos, THIS IS DUMB THIS IS DUMB THIS IS DUMB I GIVE UP ON THIS loving TIRE FIRE.' I mean, come on! That's not a satisfying update. That's not *content.* So like, I thought about it, and it kinda struck me that the big thing I have about this area and the game as a whole is that it reeks of bad faith. Like....we're not yet in the wondrous future where games spring fully formed from the ground, frantically waddling around like really embarrassing mandragoras until they find someone to love them and fuss over them and submit them to Greenlight! Everything in this game is a conscious design choice. And the combination of little aesthetic choices (like the gumbygroot mascot just being *there* for no good reason and hey let's stick a wizard beard on Hey Now Let's Not Antagonize The People Killing Us lady so you can be extra double sure she's trans and some of the billboards which, uh, hooooly poo poo the autocomplete results for 'listen and believe') and plot points that sound like they're a stone's throw away from fedora dweeb fever dreams (e.g. "I BET IF FEMISMNIS WAS PRESIDENT THEYD MAKE STEAK ILLEGAL BC PRESIDENT FEMINISM IDENTIFIES AS A COW AND IT'S VERY TRIGGERING!!!!! AND THEYD SAY TERRISM IS LEGALLY ""A-OKAY, THUMBS UP"" NOW AS LONG AS ITS DONE UNDER THE BANNER OF #murderallballs!!!") and these things have a beautifully synergistic effect! It iiiiis breathtaking. The effect is "holy poo poo I can't even try to give this dumb narrative the benefit of the doubt." Next time: things start to unravel, the AI gives up on life for one long moment, and Ceyda does terrible things to some fanart of someone's juggalo Steamboat Willy OC. Ningyou fucked around with this message at 09:16 on Aug 6, 2016 |
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Aug 1, 2016 02:33
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 Jesus christ it's like Dril made a video game where the joke is it's ironic except he's being deliberately lovely at irony so it's just terrible but because he made it terrible on purpose it wraps around to funny. Except it's not that. Somebody made this, looked at it, and thought to themselves "this should be published". The worst part is that this is only a contender for the worst game being LPed right now, and for many of the same reasons. I'm just glad I'm not the one playing it.
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Aug 1, 2016 03:50
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i mean, you say that but i'd probably buy a yuridril greenlight game day 1 if it wasn't at some kind of ridiculously high We Have This Insanely Specific Niche Market Cornered Suckers price point like it's the loving Gender Bender DNA Twister Extreme of lesbian shitposting sims also ngl i'm all kinds of curious about what the other contenders for Worst Game are Ningyou fucked around with this message at 04:29 on Aug 1, 2016 |
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Aug 1, 2016 04:08
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Ningyou posted:i mean, you say that but i'd probably buy a yuridril greenlight game day 1 if it wasn't at some kind of ridiculously high We Have This Insanely Specific Niche Market Cornered Suckers price point like it's the loving Gender Bender DNA Twister Extreme of lesbian shitposting sims The excellent LP of the decidedly non-excellent Vaeleven Hall A comes immediately to mind, don't think that'll be too controversial since the LPer himself hates it as much as anyone. Also yeah I could probably use a good shitposting sim because sadly all my real posts are pure gold. 
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Aug 1, 2016 04:44
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Ningyou posted:Gender Bender DNA Twister Extreme
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Aug 1, 2016 04:46
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So I marathoned this in a night, and just caught up, and what the poo poo. How could a game with such a good concept turn into this. Trans Assassin in Cyberpunk Dystopia to "Steak is problematic because toxic masculinity". Like you said, everything here is a conscious choice, and they were...kind of close to being a decent thing? (I guess??). The way trans women are treated in modern feminism is def a Bad Thing in most cases, and the game is TRYING to hit that, or at least was, or maybe it was an accident, but then it just devolves into some rant about how feminism is the worst most evil thing and killing people is fine as long as MEN STAY AWAY. The "Remember, Men Exist" ad still has me laugh because I hate it so much.
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Aug 1, 2016 04:50
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SSNeoman posted:next lp project???? It's bannable. (I asked a year or so back.)
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Aug 1, 2016 05:00
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oh, does it count as smut? I mean, I could always LP Highschool Romance. That kinda fits the dumbass genderweird VN niche without being straight up porny, right?
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Aug 1, 2016 05:05
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Fading Hearts! Fading Hearts! Fading Hearts! Fading Hearts! ...
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Aug 1, 2016 05:14
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I thought it was just a silly jokey word salad but good lord it's a real thing.  Steam was a mistake.
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Aug 1, 2016 05:16
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Let's put it this way: I got a lot less kindness towards that one than I do Aerannis.
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Aug 1, 2016 05:22
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SSNeoman posted:Fading Hearts! Jesus that steam blurb sounds dull
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Aug 1, 2016 05:26
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Ningyou posted:Jesus that steam blurb sounds dull There is a Scene in that game, one which it dedicates 1 out of its ~5 CGs too, which is worth the 15 bucks I spent on it. But outside of that Scene, it's mostly dull tbh yea I'll explain a bit more: imagine a VN trying to vindicate the actions of an anime PUA group. And failing.
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Aug 1, 2016 05:36
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SSNeoman posted:anime PUA group miku all invading some doppelmiku's personal space and wearing really loving goony hats and very awkwardly peacocking while luka is all like UGH YOURE SO CLUMSY BUT IN A CUTE WAY AND I MEAN I GUESS THOSE TWINTAILS ARE CUTE THEY LOOK LIKE IRRADIATED SQUIRREL SKINS YOU ATTACHED TO YOUR BODY BUT I MEAN THE COLOR SUITS YOU, all of them feeling so heartened by their newfound understanding of humanity God, now i kind of want to play a vn about weird escaped gynoids and their utterly baffling interpretations of the worst parts of pop culture. it'd probably still be better than half the VNs on steam!
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Aug 1, 2016 06:10
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Those are some of the jankiest loving elevators I've ever seen.
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Aug 1, 2016 11:32
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This game is, uh, something. It has an almost "something lost in translation" feel but that's being too lenient, since enough little things accumulate to paint a visible enough picture of problems. Maybe it would be more accurate to say it comes off as someone not understanding what satire was or this is all a very sincere game-thesis about how THE UTERATI RULE THE WORRRRLD!
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Aug 1, 2016 11:56
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