Val's Visual Novel Nonsense #03 - Word by Word, Line by Line, Darkness Retreats

    Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai (a good librarian like a good shepherd, stylized as such in the jp logo) is, in short, a fairly strong character-driven VN dragged down by a structural decision about the routes that unnecessarily dilutes the focus on the true end. Taking place at a school that is closer to a city in population, the story follows Kyotaro Kakei, a member of the Library Club, who coasts by on his ability to test well while spending every second he can get away with immersed in books. 

Val's Visual Novel Nonsense #02 - In Love and War, No Plan Survives First Contact With The Enemy

    Muv-Luv is a game that embodies the value of planning and foreshadowing, the power of contemporary consumption of media, and the degradation of both of those strengths under the flow of time and ensuing discussion.

Val's Visual Novel Nonsense #01 - Beyond the Sky, Above the Firmament

I have a lot of visual novels that I’m going to be playing, and for once I want to have some kind of archive of my thoughts on them. For whatever reason, most of my history with VNs has slipped my mind. I feel like I can only confirm that I’ve played certain games with the assistance of screenshots that are still buried in my documents, but even then, I have the sneaking suspicion that I’ve played some more than are listed there.

Drasilian Disappointment

Instead of dancing around it, I’m going to just come out and say it. I don’t think Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age was very good. Right now, I would rate it my least favorite Dragon Quest game, with all three entries that I’ve previously played to completion (DQ4-6, via the DS remakes) topping it by varying margins. I still did enjoy my time with it, to be fair, and I wouldn’t say it’s bad, per se, but something was off in the blueprints for this one.

Kill Your Masters, or: Hype Train Derailing

How do you like to hear about games?

The Dichotomous Dance of the Looter Loop

Have you ever had a moment when your mental capacity for buying into a game as an entertainment medium sloughs off, and you're left mindlessly running through the motions of playing it, your thoughts idle enough to notice you're sat in front of a Skinner box? I've been having more and more of those lately, and it's always centered around the idea of progression.