A 1970 Corvette

btw holy shit the image upload actually still works? i thought it was broken for ages now

I'll preface this by saying I won't get into the content details since that's a bit subjective but more the unique aspects that got my attention (or didn't lmao). You're an adult you know what you're getting into if you search these up.

 

Chikan Undercover Agent Rina: Interesting hybrid turn-based real-time gameplay where you and enemies act on a timer. You have to suss out enemies who attack you or nearby people and arrest them while managing all the random shit they might pull, and have special powers that can be activated outside of your turn to save yourself. Lots of status effects that are reflected on your character in real time and affect how you can act, and probably the best handled corruption system I've seen where you can save it and load, or play without any saved status effects. Wish more games did that instead of forcing you to play two different times to get the hard/easy experiences.

 

Lab Sweeper ~ Dorothy's Secret Records: Minesweeper porn game, which has more entries than you may expect. Apart from some bugs the core gameplay is good, has a lot of fun content-gameplay interactions where your abilities and options close out if you fuck up too much. More often than true minsweeper there are some situations where you have to guess, but you also get powerups that let you guess safely, so it evens out. Has a bit of a balance issue where you can play smart at the start and stock up on items to breeze through the last half of the run, but it seems hard to really combat that with how the core gameplay of a minesweeper puzzle is. 

 

Both of these above games are funny in that they're roguelike but have a considerable upgrade tree that sort of shoves that to the sideline. And that they kind of take a while for a run. And that there wasn't much up front fucking, which was an issue for some people but not really an issue for me since I enjoyed the huge focus on how a run goes tits up.

 

Asuna Hoshizuki and the Underground City of Lust: Pretty much shovelware, also frontloads the "strongest" art while having multiple artists (no shade to the artists, but there's a pretty significant difference from scene to scene). Grindy as fuck too without much interest in the basic RPGMaker gameplay to keep me going. Unlike the above two, the gameplay wasn't interesting and basically had nothing to do with the r-18 content. Lame. Also saw people saying something about AI but people will say that about anything they don't like so who knows.

 

-Bang Dream! Ave Mujica: The Die is Cast - Half sequel, half spinoff to MyGo where the cast focus is basically flipped. Less focused and clean as MyGo was, but having the side characters from MyGo get focus and learning about them and their fucking weirdo lives was a lot of fun. Crazy banger OP and ED, which is rare (usually you only get one) but makes sense for a music anime with this much behind it. There's fair criticism about the plot flow and pacing but I think the main appeal was the characters and their interactions (especially the ones from Mygo and their connections with Ave Mujica members) which more than enough made up for the flaws. That, and the narrative structure and themes being the inverse of MyGo is just so damn cool, I love it.

 

-Maebashi Witches - Sleeper hit of the year, picked up kind of on a whim and it turned out to be an extremely fun music/magical girl show that goes off the rails whenever it wanted to. The character interactions and banter are a lot of fun and while not everything goes off perfectly I think it does a great job of having these memorable scenes that you wouldn't expect a magical girl show to end up at.

-Ninkoro - Despite being made by SHAFT I liked it! This show is fucking bizarre in how it handles its themes but if you can handle the murder followed by gacha game overspending shenanigans it is a pretty entertaining comedy. Honestly, the murder is one thing, but the way the main characters are kind of just complete sociopaths about it and the show doesn't care is interesting in and of itself (I've seen that be a deal breaker for people though). I seriously have no clue who I'd recommend it to, but the tonal whiplash, weird situations, and good art/animation worked for me.

 

-Rock wa Lady no Tashinami Deshite - It wasn't bad, but we've got quite a glut of these girls band dramas and I think this one doesn't really rise above the average line much for me. I get the way they handled the performances but it wasn't very exciting for me, despite them supposed to be the main action parts for the show. Oh and lesbians I guess. Didn't really feel anything about those relationships, which is probably a knock against the writing of the story.
-Shiunji-ke no somethingsomethingidk - Good art wasted on a a barely mediocre series. I liked the initial premise where the MC seemed a lot more motivated and assertive but it falls apart within a few episodes and just becomes boring.
-Mono - I think about movies shot by someone who went on a vacation and used it as an excuse and this is like the anime version of that. It has a very vague theme of photography but it's mainly set dressing for the author's self-insert to go places and get drunk. This may sound like a condemnation but I still enjoyed it, but I know a lot of people didn't like it BECAUSE of that, so fair warning.
-Aharen-san S2 - Good romcom, ending was a bit surprising because it was an actual ending. I can't really say much about it other than the premise of the two characters being dumb savants was fun.

 

 

-City: Great comedy show, even if not every gag lands. Beautiful animation. Has a nice touch of heart sprinkled in amongst the silliness. Episode 5 is fucking insane, I love it so.

-Food Court: Bro watanare gets a full season but this doesn't, fuck this straight earth. Well either way, it's a fun slice of life show where two girls with drastically different personalities meet at a food court. Actually it's more of a show where Wada says the dumbest shit you've ever heard, Yamada takes it seriously, then Wada doubles down and makes an even bigger ass of herself. It was a ton of fun.

 

-Necronomico no Cosmic Horror Show: Pretty good, probably doesn't hold up to close inspection plotwise. Banger OP/ED. I enjoyed how hot-blooded the MC was. The nature of this battle-royale-esque show means saying much will spoil stuff. Has a terrible, terrible intro episode that probably filtered a lot of people, but picks up after that.
-Watanare (dont wanna bother remembering the full title): Had some interesting ideas, didn't do anything I liked with them. Standard fare. Kind of hated the parts with Satuki because the writing for her is gratingly "clever" in a way that took me out of most scenes with her. The kind where you can't imagine a human ever saying it without spending an hour the night before rehearsing it. The "monogatari effect" if you will
-Nyaight of the Living Cyat: Appreciate the commitment to the premise, though I think it kind of stands alone on that.
-Ruri Rocks: Good hobby show, good art and environments. Despite everyone creaming themselves over the character designs I didn't really think much of that aspect. Honestly kind of hate that the legacy of this hobby anime is that but whatever, if cringeworthy fans were enough to stop me from liking something I'd never watch anime again.
-Mikadono Sanshimai wa Angai, Choroi: I have issues with the localised title but pretty standard harem-type show. Decently executed, but you probably wouldn't care unless you like these kinds of shows to begin with.

 

Dropped tier:

-Yofukashi no uta: didnt watch lol, i guess the ending of the manga just left me apathetic about the series as a whole and it didn't help that every thing I saw when others posted about it just left me thinking "oh yeah I guess that happened" or "wait where in the story even was this" rather than feeling any kind of interest or excitement.
-Bad Girl: Dropped after the total watched series for the season got kind of big and hearing that it was really standard Kirara fare from someone ahead of me. Not enough of a Ui-sama fan to do it.

 

 

-Si-Vis: The Sound of Heroes: Pleasantly surprised by this one, but it's also not finished, so I can't really give a review of it. A music group fights some force that's trying to end the world by... vaguely performing music... but like in a way that they're also fighting them physically... And I guess the performances are live streamed but the public doesn't know the fights happen? Okay well despite the premise being a bit out there I like the slow burn the story has been working on due to actually having 24 episodes to let arcs breathe. There's a chance it shits the best but it has been going on pretty well so far.

-Yano-kun no Futsuu no Hibi: Cute romcom about a guy who falls down and breaks all his bones constantly and the girl obsessed with him trying her best to not come off as too eager. I liked the art style in this, though I wouldn't say it's more than normal genre fare.
-Kikaijikake no Marie: Fun premise, a little bit QUALITY here and there but I think they did a good job with what they had. A girl pretends to be a robot maid for a guy who refuses to trust any "human." A lot of shenanigans ensue. If you can't suspend your disbelief about such a successful guy being so capable of overlooking the obvious disguise you'll never make it with this show.

 

Omega Dropped Tier:

-Towa no Yuugure: You know when something has a decent enough intro sequence but then the "actual" show starts and you immediately realize it's going to be shit? That. This. This is that. I guess I've been burned by these types of sci-fi originals before, but at least Metallic Rouge had some characters I didn't want to punch in the face.

 

 

This one is kind of a toss-up because Sakiko (Ave Mujica) is the central figure of AveMuji but there's spans where she's not really the focus of the show either. But as the central character of the show I think she has a really good role as someone who tried to do the right thing just a little incorrectly and gets omega-punished for it. She also actually did say something metal when she declared herself god, which is rare for this so-called metal band otherwise. Also a great water cooler saleswoman.

Miko (Necronomico and the Cosmic Horror Show) is a lot of fun as a main character fighting against a world-ending threat more out of spite and single-minded desire to get her gf back than anything. I really liked that and it informs a great scene near the end of the show where she (spoiler but you ain't watchin this show now that I think about it) saves all of humanity but immediately turns around and bets everyone's lives on the line again to actually completely save her girlfriend. Awesome stupidity right there.

 

 

Azu (Maebashi Witches) is a pretty complex character, she famously hates fat people, constantly talks shit about everyone she knows, and refuses to ever do any work otuside. I don't really wanna actually say anything about her arc because it's kind of wrong to spoil that big reveal. I enjoyed how her character flaws were explored in the show, and I also kind of enjoy how weird it is for a character like this to exist in a multimedia music project.

Umiri from Ave Mujica is a honorable mention just because she's a personal favourite from even back when she was just a side character who handed out choccy milk in MyGo, and I enjoyed AveMuji exploring how much of a weirdo recluse she actually is. Very trustworthy.

Mutsumi from AveMuji also is an honorable mention. Uh... I can't say a thing about anything that happens involving her without spoiling the best first act twist of the anime, but I also really liked her in the previous season of MyGo, much like Umiri. She seemed like every single scene she was uncomfortable and desperately wished to not be there during MyGo, and in this anime you learn why! Well you already sort of knew back then too. But as the central theme of AveMuji goes, "And then things got worse."

 

 

This was fucking COMPETITIVE this year, what the fuck. A lot of them came from music project anime so it's not as surprising but still. Fuck.

KillKiss by Ave Mujica wins OP because it kind of hits closer to the normal music I like which is basically cheating. Georgette Me, Georgette You is also great, especially for an ED, and contrasts nicely with the explosive feel of KillKiss, and reminds me just a little bit of Shiori, the ending for MyGo, which is just a fucking god-tier song on its own, let alone a god-tier ED.

 

 

Necronomico had a great OP and ED too, I love the vocals in the chorus in particular for the OP and love the energy of both of them:

 

 

Sugosugi Maebashi Witches (opening for Maebashi Witches, surprisingly) is sugosugi as fuck, I remember someone being like "wtf why is there eurobeat in my magic girl OP":

 

Though not really related to my musical appreciation of it, the ED for Maebashi Witches holds a special part for a crazy crazy part in the anime I can't possibly spoil. It'll be clear if you watch it.

 

Rock wa Lady no Tashinami Deshite has a dece OP, but I really loved the ending in particular:

 

 

Ninkoro Dance gets the ED win spot because fuck me it is so fucking catchy. God damn it. I spent like the entire anime season singing it to myself. Now I'm going to be doing that again because I listened to it just now. Nin nin nin. Nin nin nin. Ninja to koroshiya nin nin nin.

 

 

SI-VIS has an insert song I really like, but there's no category for insert songs, but I'm putting it here anyway:

I love the heavy intro and I love the scene it plays for, though there's a funny moment of "man you guys got lucky you picked a heavy as fuck song for this fight where everything goes to shit"

 

Surprise was Maebashi Witches. I didn't expect the first five minutes to have the start of a standard music number only to have one character tackle the other for stealing the leader spotlight and derail the entire experience. And that's only the start, it felt like it could go anywhere at that point. Wanna go to one of their live shows if I get the chance.

Honestly there were other surprised but I feel like none of them get to MBW's level, so I won't even give an honorable mention.

 

Disappointment of the year was wondering why the sixth episode of Food Court was an ending, then not finding an episode 7. Shit hurt, man.

 

In actual anime news, Towa no Yuugure fucking annihilated what tiny expectations I had immediately so it gets an honorable mention. It also gets the faggot of the year award for the MC, due to just being the classic fare of dense and tactless, and worst girl of the year for the main girl whose middle name is "no i wont tell you the plot even though i clearly know and ive already murdered for you and am desperately trying to fuck you at all times teehee :3"

 

 

-Deadzone Rogue - I have an overall positive experience with this but I feel like it runs into some general issues of the roguelike genre which only become more apparent since I was so familiar with FPS games in general. In the lower difficulty levels it kinda feels like you only need general FPS skills for the first few levels then you just get carried by synergies annihilating enemies just by generally pointing your gun in the direction of enemies.

 

The issue is that on higher difficulties it's still got that issue but you kinda just die really quick too so it becomes rocket tag with enemies. There's a bit of a cap on how tanky you can get due to how perks work, which is intentional, but with how damage scales at hard/extreme/nightmare the things that make you tanky in lower difficulties become untenable. I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing, but it creates a rough gameplay loop where runs that take half an hour can end in half a second. I'm no stranger to that as a Noita fan, but I feel like you have less control over that than in a game like Noita (which may surprise less experienced Noiters, but it's true that you have a lot of control over dying)

 

The meta-progression is lame as fuck and just tacked on to force a little bit of grind between the start and end game. Shouldn't exist, or just be tied into clearing each zone, tbh. The maps get a bit samey and have weird basic as fuck issues (several areas with death pits just let loot fall in there and you can't get it? what?). The difficulty issues with rocket tag might be fixed up with co-op but idk how any of that works.

Also why do semi-auto weapons in this game have an automatic fire option, but it's *significantly* slower than the actual fire rate if you click it out? That defeats the fucking point. Either autofire them at the actual max fire rate or don't let them autofire at all.

 

-Nubby's Number Factory - I don't even know what there is to say about this one. I like the aesthetic and it has that nice fun gameplay loop, though I think as a game it doesn't hold up or have as much skill and decision making as, say, Balatro. The challenges feel a bit more reliant on RNG to dictate a build but that might be scrub talk. I have an issue with the length of an average run without good ways to "skip ahead" if you've got something strong early on.

 

Both of these games had a general issue with build synergies having the potential to just make your mechanical gameplay pointless, though DZR's harder difficulty options give you more options if you want to be threatened with death at all times.

 

-Stalker: Call of Pripyat - An interesting situation where it lost a lot of the stupid bullshit that bogged down the previous two stalker games in order to create a more playable game, but as a result lost a little bit of the uniqueness at the same time. I think overall it's the best game of the series as a game but Shadow of Chernobyl holds a more interesting story and even Clear Sky has a lot more ambition with its faction war mechanic, as flawed as it was. I really love this series. I am interested to see what Stalker 2 is like, some day.
-Saints Row 2 - Holds up pretty well, considering this era was when open worlds were breaking into the general gaming zeitgeist. Interesting as a piece to compare with GTA IV, especially since I like GTA IV a lot (despite the flaws). I honestly kinda rank them equal, they hit different points.
-Marble It Up! Ultra - Dude some of these secrets suck ass. There's no fucking balance, 90% of them are piss easy and the remaining 10% are fucking hard. As a marble game I think it hits everything I want, though. Perhaps kind of a pointless review since I'm not a marble game afficionado so this random genre entry is good enough for me and I won't be likely to get any others.
-Dead Rising 2 - This game is really good but also not really my kind of game, I think? It's weird because I had a lot of fun playing it but looking back I don't really want that much more of it.
-Counter Strike: Condition Zero Deleted Scenes - Plays like a really good HL1 campaign mod, which is both a good and bad thing. I liked it but I can't imagine someone not deep into the goldsrc rabbit hole enjoying it all that much.
-Marathon 2: Durandal - Weird fucking game. Terrible weapon sandbox and map design that at times was pretty good for an old FPS and at other times fucking terrible (aka par for the course). The story bits, as sparse as they are, were fun; I liked the character and role of Durandal. I'm glad I played through it but I don't know who I'd recommend it to and I wouldn't say it was 100% fun. Perhaps it comes more into focus if you grade it based on releases around the same time of it, but I'm not familiar enough with what you'd look at in that lens. 
-Hades: It's pretty good(tm). Don't know if I'll ever finish it though mainly cuz the core gameplay isn't really my jam, but I don't really need to extol the overall quality of "like the most popular indie game of all time" people know it's good