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4th Anniversary Winners & Other Thoughts

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buta

Thanks to everyone who entered the 4th anniversary giveaway and thanks to everyone who came out of lurking to post a comment. (*´ω｀*) Anyway the winners are below:

First Place: Teacup – who win’s the B’s Log Issue
2nd Place: Yume – who wants me to review Peter Pan by Quin Rose
3rd Place: ヽ( ´¬`)ノ – who requested a CG pack from Joker no Kuni no Alice

Congratulations to all the winners. I’ll be contacting you via email about your prizes.

Now I have something else I would like to talk about.  Since we’re at the beginning of a new blogging year for me, I am thinking of changing my reviewing style a bit. I’ve always tended to do summaries + final thoughts for my game reviews but I’m thinking I’m going to change this template.  I’m under the impression people mostly read my reviews for the commentary/final thoughts anyway since they can just play the game on their own right? And even if they can’t I broadcast every game I play so they could always watch it that way. So my thought is pretty much do some of my reviews in the similar style that I did my Hakuoki Yuugiroku 2 review.

What would basically happen is

  • Less full game summaries (well as full as I write them.)
  • More funny commentary/photoshops/my oh so glorious artwork 😆
  • Final thoughts will be briefer
  • Less game/plot spoilers (maybe?)
  • More discussion about the system/walkthrough tips?

Now I do appreciate all my readers feedback so I would like to hear everyone’s thoughts on this. The reason I decided to consider this option is because I realized a lot of otome game stories are pretty much template at this point (and with stat-raiser games there’s almost no story.) This is when I said to myself that “man I wish I could just sarcastically babble like I did in my Hakuoki review” instead. This is especially true for stat raisers and fandisks and I’d almost rather talk about my favorite scenes than summarize all the events and endings. Also I thought about some games in my backlog like Genroh and Toki no Kizuna…wooowww yeaa the thought of summarizing that text dump makes me want to pretend the game doesn’t exist :lol:. I think from experience the only games where a summary is actually good is games where there’s constantly something different happening or something completely ridiculous like any R-18 game I’ve played.

So as a reader I’d like to hear your opinion. Remember that I’m not going to completely drop summaries. For games that have an interesting story or a story I want to talk about, I’ll still continue my usual format. This is really going only affect games that are either too tl;dr for me or I just don’t find it worth writing a summary for. I guess my big thing pretty much is “I’d rather write a brief review than no review at all.”  And for the silent readers I have a convenient poll (´＾ω＾｀):

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38 thoughts on “4th Anniversary Winners & Other Thoughts”

  1. I actually ;prefer your summaries to most reviews. They’re more detailed and they actually go into REAL reasons why they’re good or bad and since I can’t read japanese it really helps when you explain what happens.

  2. lol yea I suppose it’s easier to continue doing my screenshots & the like on my FC2 blog 😀 I know some people did read my reviews cause they are too lazy or too scared to try a game due to a system XD

  3. Personally I prefer your current format. I read your reviews because your comments are funny and well they’re not super detailed and long like other reviewers. And I can know the stories of games I’m too lazy to play 😉 I guess it’s the equivalent of book lovers, I like reading stories but I don’t like dem real books cause *coughtheyareboring* Otome game plots for me hoho.

    But yeah I want this to happen though “More funny commentary/photoshops/my oh so glorious artwork”. Like the stuff you post on your fc2 blog? Screenshots and stuff lol.

  5. While I value the time you take to summarise the routes (there are plenty of players out there that like to know exactly what happens before they buy the game), on a personal level, I prefer to hear more of your final thoughts and opinions rather than a very detailed summary. After all, that’s what a “true review” is supposed to be: a critique; evaluation; etc.I usually skip to next section as soon as I detect something spoiler-like. Making a spoiler-free review is hard, after all.

    Regardless of what will come out of this, I’m sure I’ll still enjoy your reviews. Keep up the good work!

  8. !! owo Ohh yay, can’t believe that I won~ I’ll look forward to hearing your thoughts on the game!

    I’m okay with either review format – whichever you think suits your review for that particular game better!

  9. YUUUP!! I have always wanted to see your review on Peter Pan game *O* It’s my favourite one and I’m interesting in reading of your thoughts =D

  10. lol I always told my friends “I plow through this crap so YOU don’t have to :lol:” I guess it really does hold true to some people xD:;. But yea now I think for games as crappy as barkuoki yuugiroku 2 it’ll be more fun to write a sarcastic comedic review than a summary lol

  11. It’s your blog–do what you want to!

    That said, the full summaries have tended to make me feel like I don’t need to bother playing these games at all (for better or for worse). I really do read the reviews chiefly to see what your impressions were, because I like your perspective.

  13. Yeah its totally ok in my book. No blood relation? No problem! Although sometimes if it really well done, some sibling/couzin relation is ok. Im just remembering how I found your blog. Well, actually my sis linked me to your review or Arcana Famiglia and youre reactions to inscest was way too funny its forever my first impression of you lol

  15. Congrats glad you got the CGs ok as well 😀
    I think the only time it gets blocky is when I start fangirling about a character I like 😆 (cough Itsuki)

    I think I will switch back & forth as you said for crappy games xP

  18. if they’re not blood related I’m probably not going to care? This isn’t the first game that I’ve played with a step-brother character 😛

  20. Okashi no Shima no Peter Pan??? Oh well, thats close enough to Wizard & Master 😦
    At least its still QR. But I have a feeling youre gonna rant about OMG WENDY INSCEST and what not.

    Im actually pretty new to your blog, I really love how you express yourself. I dont mind you just concentrating on final thoughts and basic plot. Just as long as you keep with the hilarious comments on the way Im satisfied 🙂

    Ganbatte!

  21. Totally agree with Kumiko_Fuji and ヽ( ´¬`)ノ
    the old format for the game you like and new format for which you don’t (cause i don’t care much about Genroh and Toki no Kizuna, either )
    Oh and throw some more funny commentary/photoshops or your glorious artwork, please. They are extremely hilarious (*´艸`*)

  22. Just review the games you play as usual. I like reading your reviews. Please keep doing your ‘Final Thoughts’ of the game, I like them too. HAPPY GAMING~ (^v^)

  23. Whoa I won!? This is crazy! Thank you so much!

    As for your format, I think it can work either way. There are those that come for summaries because they can’t play the game themselves, and those who like commentary. You could possibly shorten your summaries and inject more comments if it’d make things easier for you. I don’t really mind how it is now, but sometimes the summaries get a bit, blocky?

    The newer format sounds more like an actual review if you throw out (or shorten) summaries. You can always switch back and forth depending on how much you liked or disliked the game. No matter what you choose to do, I’m sure your readers will be okay with it (unless you end up doing something funky).

  24. yea it’s a tough decision. a lot of people rely on my reviews for either “no time” reasons or because they are playing the game themselves and their JApanese may not be up to par so they use my summaries almost as a guide to follow along to. that’s why I was like “well for games I enjoy I’ll babble but I don’t wanna suffer through the game then suffer through the post for crappy games” XD

  25. I always read everything in the review since I don’t have time to watch the broadcasts (I always knew they existed! except, time OTL). I found the summaries unnecessarily long sometimes, since as you mentioned, they’re pretty much template.

    The parts I always enjoyed were actually the end of each character write-up, to see if you either found him MOEEEE or TABLEFLIP-INDUCING. (The latter is always more hilarious, and I always like knowing why. Things like too little development of character or frustrating why-would-anyone-ever-want-you personality—yep!)

  26. I’m pretty much unlikely to do any photoshop/drawings with the current format since it’s already time consuming as it is just writing up the summary (´･ω･｀;A）

  27. I guess I wasn’t clear but pretty much with my current format, I’m looking to throw quite a few games out of my backlog. There are just certain games that are absolutely so dull (looking at you toki no kizuna) that I don’t think I can sit there summarizing it. I’d fall asleep before I’d be able to even pay attention to any of the political stuff. That’s why I suggest this new format – at least I’d be able to review the game somehow rather than completely throw it out of my play list.

  31. It’d be cool if the images were a bit bigger, like the ones you posted on Hakuoki Yuugiroku 2 . Other than that, I think the old and new format is good.

  33. yea my thought was for the hiiro 3 fandisk…I heard it’s pretty crappy and since otomate fandisks tend to be pretty shallow I’d feel like I’m wasting my time writing a summary for it (´・ω・｀)

  34. yea that was pretty much my intention. if there’s a lot of funny stuff like Akazukin then I’d definitely stick to the old format XD but yea genroh/toki no kizuna and the like …ew

  35. I’m okay with either decision, although I’ll admit I’d miss the old format, because while you’re right and most otoge plots are standard now, there’s some where your character comments made the whole thing worth it. Think back to Akazukin and Diabolik lovers, your comments on the characters are hilarious.

    Although, I won’t say no to more photoshops either. I guess you could do it game by game. Games where you have something funny to say about the characters, old format, games where everything is as boring as watching paint dry, new format.

  36. Well, I like both templates. I liked the old one because it goes more into depth about character stories, events, etc. I use them to help guide myself in the game ;D I think that you should use the newer template on games that are apart of the same series or are shorter and similar to any other otome game ^ o ^ It’s up to you which one you would choose, I wouldn’t mind either. 🙂

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