[2017 Recap & Review] Week 4 – Apps & Browser Game Reviews

This year I’ll be doing the yearly recap & review posts a bit differently, I’ll be doing separate posts for each review subject so it’ll be posted for each week in December and finally doing an overall recap post at the end of the month.

I’m splitting things up because I won’t be available to blog during late November/whole of December as I’ll be overseas with no internet access, or at least no regular access.

This week I’ll be recapping and reviewing apps(mobile) games as well as browser games that I’ve played in 2017, some of them are just me trying them out and then dropping them others are games that I play religiously.

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2017 Apps & Browser Games Recap and Review

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This year has been year of the mobage for me and prolly for a lot of you out there. There’s been a lot of game releases on mobile devices and it just doesn’t seem like it’ll slow down any time soon. I mean, companies are making millions off whales (players who spend a lot of money on in-game things like premium currency) so it’s not a bad business but it is kinda an ‘amoral’ business especially with gacha games which is all based on luck on whether you get your best boy or girl in gachas through premium currency that can be bought. Anyway, that’s just a thing to discuss for another post (maybe).

Here’s a list on the games that I officially dropped from 2016’s recap where I said I wasn’t sure if I would drop it or not:

• Yume100 – Officially dropped
• Dame x Prince – Officially dropped
• Stand My Heroes – Officially dropped
• Bungou to Alchemist – Officially dropped

Here’s a list on the games that I put on Hiatus in 2016’s recap and haven’t played at all in 2017:

• Idolish7 – Put on hold indefinitely (probably lost my account too, sighs)
• Toraware no Palm – Only played a bit of Aoi’s episodes aka his first episode, haven’t touched it since
• Boyfriend (Kari) Kirameki Note – More or less dropped and lost my account, but I still yearn for those high rare cards I see popping up on my TL lol

Now that all of that is covered let’s go and cover the rest of the mobile/browser games I played in 2017.

Touken Ranbu // (On & Off Playing)

For the early half of this year I was playing it almost often and I managed to get a lot of new swords too but didn’t get around posting game diaries (really sorry about that!). Then Chrome got updated and for some reason the update messed up the settings of the flash player so that it didn’t allow it on some sites, which I didn’t know at the time so I stopped playing.

Then I decided to download the Touken Ranbu app once more and manage to transfer my account details to my phone and played it there. Boy…. the Touken Ranbu app ain’t good on my phone, the load time for the start up screen always took me around 1 hour to load and then I play the game and it’s just so hard to get used to from playing on a big screen to a small one. But the loading time was the breaking point for me because I couldn’t stand tapping the screen whenever it was ready to go to standby mode as I try to load the game 😆 It was frustrating. Then, I found out what was causing Chrome to not have flash and fixed it right away and began playing as often as I could….

Until DMM change the address of Touken Ranbu so the cookie trick didn’t work and I’d get gaijin kicked out for having a foreigner IP lol. Now I’m here with a VPN extension trying my best to play Touken Ranbu but it’s just so bothersome using it, especially with the risk factors of using VPNs. As I am writing right now, I’m trying to get Tomoegata Naginata in the anal beads collection event.

I’m collecting all these beads just for you, Tomoegata. Hopefully I got him by now.

✦

Ensemble Stars // (On & Off Playing…?)

It’s sad to say but I’m drifting away from this game. I don’t know exactly why but it just doesn’t feel good playing it as it used to, now it feels like a chore trying to play it. I can’t even be bothered going into events just for the stories because it feels like they’re trying to distant the protagonist from being part of the story (at least at the start of the year it felt like that). It’s getting a bit better but still doesn’t feel like enough.

I’m still into events when it’s my favorite characters but it just doesn’t feel fun anymore. If you haven’t noticed by now, I have stopped writing game diaries for Ensemble Stars. It’s more or less because I stopped playing it religiously but also because I know there’s a bunch of other people translating even stories so I don’t need to go and do summaries of stories with inaccuracies.

To sum up: Happy Elements, get your shit together. Adonis is still a good boy but the why y’all at Happy Elements HQ just keep forgetting about him (and Mitsuru, and all the other characters HE forgets about) is just a shame.

✦

Yumeiro Cast // (On & Off Playing)

I’m playing it occasionally but I’m just mostly playing the gachas haha. I think last year I started a new account and I think I’ve got more UR cards than ever. I love the new “Star Awakening” feature, it’s a good addition to the game.

Wish they fixed the loading times, improving it would be great to reel in new players because I’ve heard a couple of times people complaining about the loading and just straight up dropping it. I really wish people gave this a shot, they’re doing their besterest to improve it and add new features (tho be wary of the gachapocalypse, they really love releasing gachas like crazy, tho some of them have good deals like next 10 roll is for free).

I’m liking the new rival cast edition. They finally gave them romance stories with Madoka (the heroine), that’s some good shit.

I’m looking forward to another year with this game (Please don’t give up hope, Sega).

✦

I Chu // (WE BACK IN THERE)

Just like the opening line in my review for I Chu back in 2015: “I wish I knew how to quit you” because I keep coming back.

The only main reason I came back was because of Saku, I had been eyeing him for a while now and when I saw one of his tour events was happening I just hopped back into I Chu and slaved over a overheated phone to get that one (1) copy of Saku. I was too weak to rank for a second copy, I could only get his points card, after all I started off with a fresh new account.

Now I’m stronger than ever before and I’ve got a blood lust of collecting that sweet Saku ass.

✦

BF/Boyfriend (Kari) // (Dropped)

Yep, I straight up dropped this game. I think after playing the idol game of this (Boyfriend Kirameki Note) I stopped paying attention to the OG BF and then I eventually unistalled it for more extra space on my iPod.

Sorry about that, Boyfriend.

✦

Fire Emblem Heroes // (Dropped)

At the time I didn’t have enough space on my iPod and I didn’t have the phone I have now (that I jailbroke to have an SD card as the internalized memory, don’t tell the cops), so I decided to download Fire Emblem Heores on Bluestacks.

I played it on day one, it was aight, more like a mini version of Fire Emblem but with a few restrictions to the gameplay. I remember rolling a Chrom who had that underwhelming artwork of him and his twig arm (where did buff Chrom go?) and then I went to sleep. Next day when I tried to access it the game had a network error or something so I was like ‘kay cool, I didn’t like that account anyway, uninstalled the game and tried to redownload and reinstall. It had the same error and I couldn’t access it.

So I just uninstalled and never played it again.

Overall it was ok, I wouldn’t call myself a hardcore Fire Emblem fan so I don’t have any attachment to the characters from previous games that I haven’t played, sadly, and I wanted to like them but honestly I would need to play their games to grow a better attachment to them rather than playing Fire Emblem Heroes as a supplement.

This guy is pretty cute though. 10/10 would reinstall for this guy.

✦

Uma no Prince-sama // (Dropped)

For the novelty of it, it was funny for the first few minutes and then I grew bored of it and slightly annoyed with all the ads in the game. I know y’all need to get that ad revenue but it’s hard to tap the screen when it’s constantly there sometimes.

10/10 would horse face again.

✦

Magical Days // (Dropped)

Not sure if this was a game I played in 2016 or 2017. Would’ve helped if I did talk about it in last year’s recap (but apparently I didn’t, same goes for Sanrio Danshi that I played in 2016 but never mentioned it in the recap).

Either way it’s an alright game, I especially appreciate the dialogue options you can choose your heroine to say (some of them were humorous). The gameplay was alright, it was a RPG-ish puzzle game like Yume100 but I kinda disliked that the balls you have to connect had physics on them so they can bounce around and you’d have to wait for them to stabilize before you connect it.

I stopped playing it because I kept having these crashes whenever I read the story because the live2D was too much for my iPod to handle so my iPod would crash the game, which messed up my fun in playing it because I had to read the stories to go to the gameplay/unlock stuff or something. So I just uninstalled it.

Every now and then I’ll see some event cards on my TL and think ‘man i should install Magidays again’ but then I remember that the gacha mcfucked me over too.

✦

A3! // (Currently Playing)

I love this game. The wholesome interactions with each other as if it’s one big family, a good story, good songs, nice humor but also some serious topics and a good game that represents the heroine pretty well (even if she doesn’t have her own portrait in story mode, but seriously I think most of the A3 fandom, japanese side, love drawing her and creating SSR cards for her lol). It’s pretty incredible that even though it released early this year it’s gotten pretty popular to the point that there are two nendoroids in the making.

Overall I like that I can multitask while playing this game because of the auto button so I can focus at other stuff at the same time. I’m hoping that they’ll fix the gachas though, I hate it whenever I do a full 10 roll on a limited gacha with 4 event cards in it and I only get 0 of those cards and that happens multiple times. I wish they would add in old gacha cards as the game goes along like in Enstars but I guess they might do that on their Anniversary.

Looking forward to another year of playing and thank you for all the daiya, A3 😆

 ✦

Fate Grand Order  [JP & NA versions] // (Dropped ? + On & Off)

I had to check out what all the fuss was about with this game and now that I have a new phone (I can’t install it on my iPod because it has an old, unsupported iOS version that I can’t upgrade from) I can try it out and all I can say is, it’s good.

The only complaint I have is that there isn’t enough fanservice with the male servants, when it’s summer events the event cards are mainly given to female servants and I say, let the fanservice be equal between all servants.

Anyway, I started off by playing the JP version which has more OP players than I, while I’m here trying to make my Sumanai Siegfried into a buff god and then I saw there was an English version being released so I switched to that. I haven’t played it much since because I’ve got so many other mobile games to juggle so I’ve been behind on events in FGO. Yeah, I’m a fake player now…. sumanai.

✦

Idolmaster Cinderella Girls Starlight Stage // (On & Off Playing)

I was interested to see what was all the fuss was about and I truly see why. Besides the story (each chapter is just an episode of each girl, nothing too big but focuses on each character which is aight), the gameplay, songs and 3D models are superb. More or less the little child within me was drawn to the really detailed but really cute dresses and costumes models for each SSR card. It gives more worth to an SSR card/high rarity cards compared to the other games I’ve seen.

I’m lovin’ it, really hoping my fav unvoiced idols get their SSR cards soon because I 100% love and support them.

✦

Band Yarouze! // (On & Off Playing)

This was another game I attempted to download last year but couldn’t play because my iPod couldn’t handle it and it would always crash during the tutorial live. Finally I get to play it and all I have to say is that it’s aight. The beat maps/rhythm game is really satisfying to play, the events are alright but I keep getting distracted by other mobage so I can’t fully play them. The main story is what you’d expect from a shounen type manga, boys with dreams who are determined to see things through despite the obstacles.

I wouldn’t call this an ‘otome game’ nor is it really a game aimed just at women considering there’s a couple of crude humor with some characters talking about their porn collections and stuff (lookin’ at you, Ray) and it can be enjoyed by almost anyone. They eventually added a ‘player character’ into stuff like event stories where you can select dialogue choices which can be humorous but most of the time they’re barely there but they’re not entirely forced into situations so its a weird balance. There are a couple of times where there’s fanservice cards which gets female players excited about so they got that going for them as well as the fourth wall breaking scenes that happen from time to time.

It’s got good rockin’ songs, good humor as well as serious scenes, it’s a good mixture but I dunno if ‘yumejoshis’ will sit through the stories when there’s no romance plot points (prolly some bromance/romance between the guys tho).

Overall, 10/10 keep up the good fanservice

Watch me suck at playing vidya games as i try to record stupid swexy incubus Tsubasa while my phone melts in my hands because of him pic.twitter.com/wfRlFYUmqc

— bilby (@otomebunny) October 13, 2017

✦

Kimikiri // (I wish it would cease to exist)

Square Enix dropped the ball on this one. Kimikiri was their first attempt at making a game for the female audience, getting a slice of that mobage for girls pie and boy was it shit…. and it still is shit.

I’ve been working on a video compiling everything about this game but I’ve put it on hold for now. I’m just waiting until Square Enix can pull the plug on this game’s servers so I can continue and post the video without getting any take downs or something (hopefully it works like that).

But anyway, don’t fucking play this mobile game. Not even for the lols because it ain’t worth having your brain cells obliterated from trying to attempt to play it.

If you wanna check it out I prepared a digest of Kimikiri from Day 1 launch to about maybe September or something, since then Kimikiri hasn’t done anything new like add new features or fix shit, or have new events it’s just been sitting on it’s ass, releasing character chapters (one chapter per character) but doing it really slowly like once every month or something.

It’s complete shit. Good Job Square Enix, you fucks.

✦

Project Tokyo Dolls // (On & Off Playing)

I went into this for research purposes for my video on Kimikiri and I came out enjoying the gameplay and liking it more than Kimkiri (then again, anything is better than Kimikiri).

I chose this game in particular to showcase the differences in how Square Enix handles their mobile games, Project Tokyo Girls had some few similarities between itself and Kimikiri, they’re both sort RPGs (sort of), they both use 3D models for their characters and they’re both released in the same year by Square Enix. They’re basically brother and sister apps in my mind and boy are they polar opposites. They’re the do’s and dont’s when making mobile games that they should be used to teach in a games design lecture.

I enjoy playing this game, however the characters are kinda 1 dimensional and are just stereotypes but maybe it’s intentional because according to the plot, when they become ‘dolls’ they lose their previous personality and forget their lives before becoming a ‘doll’ so they have to start from 0 and build their own personality so who knows if their previous self had more dimensions. Either way this game is worth the try, of course it comes with the fanservice-y stuff too.

✦

Sengoku Night Blood // (On & Off Playing)

It’s an aight mobile game, plays like Touken Ranbu so you can multitask while grinding which is a good plus. It’s got Otomate’s trademark ‘blood sucking’ as well as furries (just kidding).

After making my post on the game I didn’t play much, I would just log in and go onto my other mobile games that I’m trying to juggle with my life. Lately I’ve been trying to play the event with the guest characters but damn it’s kinda hard to grind when taking the higher courses would consume a lot of BP just to have maybe 1 raid boss to pop up, sometimes even having no raid bosses popping up and I’m like…. damn, just let me have the guest character boy!

Also I’ve still yet to get a 5 star card after all this time scouting so I’m just…. I accept my fate of being 5 star-less.

✦

Cocktail Prince // (Currently Playing)

After 2 years of being in development hell, Cocktail Prince is finally here and it’s alright. There’s a lot of mini-games, some might not be fun for others but it gets the job done I guess. you can make your own bar and dress up your bartender boys in whatever clothes you unlock.

I haven’t gone too far into the main story because there’s like prolly 24~30+ chapters for the first main story volume. Anyway, I’m guessing that all of these boys used to be cocktails and for some raisin they became human beans. It kinda reminds me of this mobile game I played that was quite similar in story where the heroine is looking after her parents sushi bar or something and the sushi turned into real boys to help her. The first 20 chapters I’ve read so far just keep dancing around the fact the boys are named after cocktails and alcoholic beverages so i can’t really confirm this.

It worth a try…. only if you’re over 20 because of the age restrictions and alcoholic content haha…

✦

The Arcana // (Hiatus ?)

I was looking through google play one day and saw this in my recommend and I was like, oh that’s nice artwork. I click on it and then I see this and I’m double curious what this is about and so I downloaded it lol (btw, I don’t think stepping on him is an option in the game unless I missed it).

Story so far is pretty interesting, it’s a little bit of a murder mystery mixed with some romance. I was also impressed with the dialogue choices in the game and how it affects how parts of the story is played out. At the start of them game I chose to be sidetracked by other events that were happening while I was on me way to the palace and I ended up being so gosh darn late to the dinner meet up that the countess was pissed and I went to bed without dinner 😆 On another playthrough I found out if I ignored some stuff and avoided being late I would be on time and not piss off the countess. Pretty neat stuff that I wished was used more often in interactive visual novels.

However I gotta say that it does have some flaws such as the cloud saving, I remember getting plopped at maybe 2 scenes back from where I stopped playing, as well as the lack of a fast forward button and a back log option because I keep tapping through the dialogue mindlessly sometimes without absorbing the information (which is a bad habit I have) and then when I get to a dialogue choice I’m like “Oh… Oh no I have no idea what’s going on”.

Overall it’s a nice game to play/read. I’m on hiatus with this game for a while because I’m trying to save/earn the coins to unlock special scenes/dialogue trees.

✦

Idolmaster SideM Live On Stage // (On & Off Playing ?)

I haven’t played the original CG mobage but I was excited for this game and was hoping it’d be just as good as Cinderella Girls in terms of 3D character models and gameplay. At the beginning I wasn’t a fan of the fact that it’s a one button rhythm game and after playing I’m still not a fan of it 😆 I’m sorry, I want to playing this game but not with just a single button because I suck even harder with that tiny button in the screen.

I want to play this game and have fun with it but it’s a little bit hard for me to like it, I’m sorry y’all… I’m sure there’s others enjoying the game and having fun and it’s good to see that this rhythm game broadens the audience to those who like rhythm games. 3D models aren’t as good as Cinderella Girls which is kinda disappointing because these boys deserve better but it’s relieving that the movement when dancing aren’t as robotic as Utapri’s third season dancing or whatever season dancing it was with the terrible cuts to the stiff, robotic 3D models.

I’m really hoping that Bamco will pump in money into this game to make it just as good as Cinderella Girls and hopefully one day it’ll be the first mobile game aimed to women to be better than average or mediocre. It’s got the potential.

✦

Uta no Prince-sama Shining Live // (On & Off Playing ?)

Utapri is out on the mobile, attracting many utapri whales. It’s done by KLab so you know that it’ll deliver the bare minimum and it did. You don’t get a lot of fancy MVs while playing the rhythm game, you just watch a live of people waving their glow sticks to a giant screen of profile pictures. Y’know, the good shit.

The rhythm game part is fun to play ngl, but it’s really easy. The only challenging difficulty is PRO and you can turn on auto mode for when you’re in the office and you’r supposed to do your work but nah fam, gotta play Utapri tho. I remember launch day of this game it was lagging on my android phone and crashed even though I’ve never had a game crashed on my phone. I did a poll and it turned out most android users experienced lag/crash while iOS users never experienced anything. I see.

Story wise it’s really basic, bland stuff like watching idols doing the most mundane shit I’ve ever seen. Haruka Nanami is not on the same plane of existence as the boys in Shining Live, in fact there is no player character in the story however for some weird ass reason the boys will speak directly to you when on the home screen with quotes like “I’ll dedicate this live to you” or “It’s lunch time. Aren’t you hungry?”, like y’all…. Choose what you’re gonna do, either don’t acknowledge the player in the game or do acknowledge them and pander towards them.

I don’t play it often, I only go in and play a few songs and then stop because there’s not a lot of good ass songs in the playlist that i can jam to.

Supposedly there’s gonna be an English version and Chinese/Taiwan version to release but I haven’t heard a single update on the English side, so maybe Shining Live for 2019.

✦

Dear Magi // (Dropped)

It’s got an interesting premise, magical boys and you’re their master, great art style and a good story… however it’s got a lackluster gameplay that needs you to draw some high rarity story cards to get a high rank to clear the stage with flying colors.

Overall it made me think: Why not have this game be just any old visual novel on the PS Vita? I’ve always been waiting for new media to be released about magical boys but I’m slightly disappointed in this one… that I stopped playing. I’m sorry y’all, I wanted to believe.

✦

Starevo // (On & Off Playing)

After being released back early this year/maybe last year I can’t remember lol, Starevo has finally released. I’ve only played a bit of it considering it’s new and overall I have to say it’s ok, it does lag a lot at the home screen but it does play alright. This game is another one button rhythm game but it’s a bit lenient… except for the slide beats/notes that always fucks my combo up and that’s usually my main problem with one button rhythm games.

The story is alright, each story is broken up between each unit. I’ve only focused on Luna Lore’s story and I can see that Rejet is going the yumejoshi route which is fine. I heard that the main unit’s (pura.net) story is a mess and slightly boring so I’m gonna stay away from it for a while. I haven’t explored other unit’s stories or get a good grasp on other characters so I’ve got much to learn about with this game.

✦

Animal Crossing Pocket Camp // (On & Off Playing)

 Because I live in Australia I got to experience Pocket Camp way before it’s well intended release date for most countries like USA and Japan, though I’m sure others who aren’t in Australia managed to get their hands on this from other illicit means (qooapp).

Overall it’s ok, I’d rather have an Animal Crossing game on the Switch though. It does have features that restricts your gameplay like you can only fish at certain areas that you got to travel to, you gotta pay some tickets (or ask 5 of your friends to help… if they ever respond) to smash some rocks for either money or items and you can’t cut down mcfucking trees. I was hoping to deforest this place but goddamn it Nintendo…

I’ve noticed that items in my shop would cycle over and over again and I’d never see anything new and there’s only a few insects and fish you can get. So far I’ve yet to see a shark.

Either way, I’m waiting for the day for a Switch Animal Crossing game, maybe then I’d buy a Switch.

Stay tuned for next week where I do my overall year recap and 2017 ranking that will release on the 31st of December. Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas in advance y’all. Be safe and have fun.