[Event] The PokeCommunity Game-Along V: The Gaming Strikes Back

[gimmepie]

April - Read a Book​

You know, with all of our gaming and movies and the like, maybe the old people are right. Maybe we are all a little too attached to our screens. But then again, games are great! Perhaps though, there is a way to have the comfort of a good book and epic gaming at the same time? Sort of.

This month's theme is visual novels. You know what these are, you know what they look like. That being said though, I realise that a pure VN is not going to be everyone's cup of tea. So we'll be including games that have proper gameplay but also incorporate more visual-novel like aspects like the Fire Emblem or Persona franchises as well.

 

[Cherrim]

Is this the month that I finally progress Umineko...?

Haha just kidding, Anonymous;Code is ready at the library for pick up as of 2 days ago so that's probably my game. But since I actually have no idea what that's about at all, if I hate it maybe I'll play more Umineko after all.

 

[Austin]

hello hello

I'll be joining for this first time starting this month :) I was considering choosing Arcade Spirits, but something I've been eyeing for a while and I've heard a lot of good things about is VA-11 Hall-A, so I'm gonna give that a go! I think I'll vibe more with the darker cyberpunk theme than a straight-up dating sim.

 

[Janp]

Great, I'll just play Persona 4 Golden, since I'm playing through the series right now. I just started it last night, but barely got any progress. My save states I played for about 50 minutes. Is that okay?

 

[gimmepie]

Great, I'll just play Persona 4 Golden, since I'm playing through the series right now. I just started it last night, but barely got any progress. My save states I played for about 50 minutes. Is that okay?

Fine with me.

Edit: Also, I'm going to play Ace Attorney.

 

[Explorer of Time]

I'm not normally a fan of visual novels, but using SteamDB to filter out all the dating sims (among other things I don't like) helped me find one I'm actually really excited to try. I'm going to play the base game of Suzerain, a political sim visual novel where you play as the president of Turkey Sordland in a fictional Cold War.

I am a huge fan of political simulations and it's such a small genre, so thank you for setting this theme so I'd find it.

 

[Devalue]

Normally takes the opportunity to play Fire Emblem. Is in the middle of Stardew Valley (first time), though. Planned to dive deeper into Balatro after that, followed by the Spotlight Challenge in the Challenges subforum eventually too. Picks a shorter game: Long Live the Queen. Watched a video of it a long time ago. Forgot most of it since then. Happens to have access to it now, so why not?

 

[Explorer of Time]

I've finished a playthrough of Suzerain, and enjoyed it. The writing is great, but the mechanics are somewhat confusing and it's very difficult to go back and fix mistakes. I tried to play through as a fairly typical social democrat, but accidentally destroyed Sordland's economy by overspending without understanding how much money I'd get in taxes, which sent me into a debt crisis that led to another Great Depression and massive riots all across the country. I not only lost my party's primary nomination as an incumbent, but I ended up having to flee the country to escape an assassination attempt by the military. Despite this, I did successfully reform the constitution to make it more democratic and drastically reduced the power of both the presidency and supreme court to turn it into a parliamentary democracy in all but name, and heavily increased minority rights, and my successor was a strong social progressive whose policies more or less match what I achieved on that front.

I'll also need Heat Signature added to the completed games list because I did complete it in March, but it's missing from the list in the OP.

 

[Setsuna]

hello hello

I'll be joining for this first time starting this month :) I was considering choosing Arcade Spirits, but something I've been eyeing for a while and I've heard a lot of good things about is VA-11 Hall-A, so I'm gonna give that a go! I think I'll vibe more with the darker cyberpunk theme than a straight-up dating sim.

VA-11 Hall-A is great, I hope you enjoy it!

I'm still trying to stick with only playing games I've never finished this year, and the best option I can think of is Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaire's Conspiracy. Despite not really having finished a Layton game, the little I've played of this one makes me feel like it'd be a good fit.

 

[saniachan]

That being said though, I realise that a pure VN is not going to be everyone's cup of tea. So we'll be including games that have proper gameplay but also incorporate more visual-novel like aspects like the Fire Emblem or Persona franchises as well.

So... does Pokemon Conquest count?

 

[gimmepie]

So... does Pokemon Conquest count?

Conquest is basically Pokemon Fire Emblem right? I'd count it.

 

[Cherrim]

I lied, I'm playing Rain Code instead. Wish me luck because I'm already incurring late fees on it teehee!

 

[Alex_Among_Foxes]

Since we're allowed to play Fire Emblem tactical games as well, does that include the apparently amazing 3DS '''Battleship''' game? (linking a vid, it's just Fire Emblem with warships lmao)

 

[gimmepie]

Since we're allowed to play Fire Emblem tactical games as well, does that include the apparently amazing 3DS '''Battleship''' game? (linking a vid, it's just Fire Emblem with warships lmao)

Works for me.

 

[Cherrim]

Beat Rain Code! It was alright.

 

[Devalue]

Finished Long Live the Queen (a few times). Completes one attempt pretty quickly, particularly on repeat playthroughs. Enjoyed the game, though. Makes choices that do change the story a fair amount. Wrote a game journal entry on it.

 

[Alex_Among_Foxes]

I finished Battleship The Movie The Game 3DS (or whatever the hell you want to call it lol) At first I was VERY surprised at how good it was for a movie licensed video game, but after I reached the final few levels, it turned from fun FE like into an exercise of tedious misery. Enemies started to spawn infinitely and out of nowhere with full turn movement, the enemy leaders went from having decently solid and fair counter powers into outright BS unfair multimoves that you have no real way to prepare for, while the player's powers became more and more trash, and the last level was anticlimactic as all hell... It was absolutely a cool game to experience but I would for no reason play through it again. 6.5/10 for being way more interesting than I ever would have guessed from a Battleship 3DS game lol.

 

[Janp]

This was close, but I finished Persona 4 Golden. About a half of my gametime was just fusing Personas together and I had to rush the end a little bit because of that. It was so much better than the Persona 3 Portable. Less grinding, even better social sim and a little bit more interesting story. I enjoyed my time with it. I'll post my in-depth thoughts in following days.

 

[gimmepie]

I finished Ace Attorney. I'll write about it in more detail in my Game Journal later, but I liked it a lot!

 

[Austin]

Finished VA-11 Hall-A this morning! I initially started on Steam but the game kept glitching out so I continued on Switch. I thought it was decent - maybe a little less great than I expected, but overall I enjoyed it! The pixel art was gorgeous, and the cyberpunk theme really worked to the game's advantage, but the bartending gameplay and some of the unneccesarily sexualized dialogue were a bit iffy. I did like how much correctly/incorrectly making a customer's drink affected the dialogue, though. Solid 7/10.