Board 8 > Dec. Game of the Month Club ft. Murasaki, Hob, Road 96, Paradise, and Xenoblade

(+) Yeah! (+)

Yeah, Eden was pretty cool. Monsters was the only one I didn't care for, though I am picky about tower defense games, and I haven't played Nom Nom Galaxy yet. I am keeping my eye on Scrappers.

Okay, late announcement.

I used to have annual themes with one of those themes becoming a permanent feature (supports), but I have run out of simple, usable, worthy ideas. I thought about bringing back the birthday vote, which I would have had to announce back in October or November, but I didn't after seeing that was just in 2020 when I had it in my mind it was 2019 or even 2018. Perhaps I will do it for 2024.

With the replay side project, and with it being expanded to two games a month, I thought the usual four months a year with four games might get a little bloated, so I will probably just do 1-2 months a year with four games (probably July and/or December), and it may just be a fourth game drawn unless I can think of a neat theme on-the-spot. To "make up for this," I have decided to try out a year-round set of games, with that being Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, and Mass Effect 3. You will have the entirety of 2023 to finish as many of those games as you wish.

Mass Effect Legendary Edition, the remastered versions of the trilogy, is on sale for the following platforms:
$15 USD on Steam
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1328670/Mass_Effect_Legendary_Edition/

$15 USD on EA Store
https://www.ea.com/games/mass-effect/mass-effect-legendary-edition/buy/pc

$15 USD on Xbox One/S/X
https://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/store/mass-effect-legendary-edition/9pkwht7g60wq

Mass Effect Legendary Edition is currently on EA Play, Game Pass Ultimate (via EA Play), and Playstation Plus (I'm seeing that you have to claim it by noon ET on January 3rd of 2023 on Playstation)

I might try to finally play ME2 and 3. Not sure I can stomach a replay of ME1 though.

Nice, I was planning to play through them next year since I got it on PS+

Having played the first Mass Effect a couple years ago but dropping off before I got into 2, that is a perfect excuse to get back into the series.

Pass on the trilogy for me. I just played through all 3 of them for the first time a few years ago. Glad to have done it (3>2>1) but no desire to do a replay.

I'm in for Mass Effect. I tried playing it once in like 2010 but had trouble getting into it. I've been interested in giving it another chance now that i have it on PS+.

Made it to the end of stage 5 in Murasaki. Not entirely sure what I need to do to beat Murasaki, but I guess I'll look into it. Enjoying it now that I've gotten the hang of it. Only big complaint is that, for as great as the music is, I kind of hate the sound design.

On my 6th run of Road 96. Think I'm close to the end? Will hold my thoughts until then.

again, if you avoided getting the bad ending and fought the stage 5 boss proper and beat her, I would consider that to be finishing the game.

if you haven't figured out how to avoid the bad ending after experimenting and trying to fill out/read the collection, time out the three midboss fights with the quartet members in stage 5 instead of killing them and they'll appear again at the end of the stage.

ArkOfTurus has beaten Murasaki

Oh, that was simple enough. Probably just going to jump to Tsurugi, now.

KCF has beaten Murasaki

Kind of a weird and interesting game that each stage felt very distinct. I could be motivated to try out with the other girl. I'm not a fan of the sound design as Ark mentioned or the presentation, but there's a non-zero chance I could get the sequel in the future.

hate to break it to you, but you only got the bad ending.

If you want to consider that beating it, that's fine. though I have how to actually fight the stage 5 boss under spoiler tags a few posts back. (normally, the idea is to figure out on your own by unlocking the achievements in the collection and reading the lore).

anyway, I was messing around a bit earlier and actually got the second and third spell card on the stage 5 boss with Satsuki, so that leaves just getting the second spell card on the stage 4 boss with her too (since I doubt I'd make any headway in the extra stage any time soon lol).

ArkOfTurus has beaten Road 96

Went for violent revolution. Fanny shot John, Zoe showed up for some reason and died, everyone else lived, revolution succeeded.

Interesting concept, but I don't think they had the writing skills to really pull it off. The amount of times where my characters seemed to just be completely ignorant of things that happened to them earlier in that run was frustrating. I didn't really click with the characters, and the overall plot was pretty weak. Just kind of felt underwhelmed.

I was still plugging away at Paradise Killer, but unfortunately unable to beat it in time.

they did a good job with the whole danganronpa slash jojo aesthetic, but at the same time it feels like they really didn't understand what people really liked about danganronpa (since it's kind of series that people like in spite of certain things anyway)... like really now. "what people CLEARLY enjoy most about a murder mystery game is walking around mostly hallways in 3d to pick up hidden coins and monobears and talking to monokuma so let's make our game 99% that". (though to be fair it sounds like a certain chunk of that may have only been added recently as post release content). It's a genre that works better trimmed down, and danganronpa already probably was kind of bloated with certain things trying to appeal and keep the interest of people who don't normally play vn/adventure games. The investigation aspects have been pretty weak so far, and it's kind of annoying all the lines of interrogation that basically boil down to "I don't know" or "go ask someone else about this" and it seems like there's a fair amount of backtracking to talk to people again after finding things or getting certain topics (which isn't as much an issue when there's only a few screens like phoenix wright or danganronpa, vs. having to walk back across the island).

Well, all that makes it sound like I'm thinking more harshly about the game than I really am.