Unboxing

Unboxing: Dot Kareshi II & Danzai no Maria CE

30 Comments

dm01

Oops looks like it’s been a while because I’ve had 83 hours of my life eaten by a terrible Quin Rose game!

SOoooo yea I’m still playing through Mirror Alice. And my save file says 83 hours and I actually only turn my game on when I play (so I don’t leave it around or anything) so yea it’s literally been 15-20 hours per character route (including the side route that spawns from it.) At the moment I’m on my last “pair” which is Julius & Blood. I intend to finish it this week but it’s just burned me out completely. I’m kinda glad this arrived and I am hoping this will help kick me out of the quin rose slump. Just for the record I won’t be doing a detailed review on the Heart no Kuni no Alice remake. I’m buying the game but I’ll probably be playing it on the side and taking my time with it. I may do a brief comparison of the system/story/art but that will be all. Playing this game has all but annihilated my otome gaming spirit. Stuff like new releases, otome site updates, product release updates…I just can’t find the fucks to give about any of that anymore. How many bad games am I supposed to sit through before I stumble upon a good one? =_=

Anyway enough of my ranting, the stuff with Danzai no Maria is really neat! I haven’t looked through all the booklets but I will once I can get the pile of Alice crap off my desk this week. I plan to get to Dot Kareshi really soon since I know that won’t take me more than a day of play time.

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30 thoughts on “Unboxing: Dot Kareshi II & Danzai no Maria CE”

  3. Hi, sorry to bother you but is your copy of Danzai no Maria playing properly? I installed it and all, but when I try to start the game it keeps saying that the disc isn’t inside when it is. Bleh.

  4. wow it’s that good huh! I’m glad to hear since it’s been a while since I played any decent games orz.
    I plan to broadcast Dot Kare tonight!

  5. So I’ve heard, too. I expect the results of my playthrough of Maria to end in tears and my heart in itty-bitty pieces… XD

    Yay for DotKare review within the week. Waiting patiently for it. ❤

  6. Woops sorry you can blame Quin ROse’s lack of editing skills on that one! (And their love of delicious copy pasta)
    Enjoy my tl;dr final thoughts! 😆

    I feel like while the art got better in the new Alice games, the original core, the humor, the writing of the cast just got completely stripped away. It’s like the game itself “a pretty vapid diamond” lol
    The turn system made it fun to interact with the characters and in a way felt more accomplishing if you managed to get through it all.
    Here I’m like blah blah just end already the entire time because they just don’t know how to “seam” scenes together so they throw in a bunch of useless text & scenario. I guess the turns were their “crutch” and without it they’re just fumbling on the ground.

  7. Finally an update! I’ve been checking your blog every day (no joke) for the Mirror Alice review lol. The Maria game looks pretty good. Glad the review will be out soon, I like your long reviews but since this game was long, I’m actually scared of what the length of the review will be like! XD
    Also are you going to play the Heart no Kuni remake coming out at the end of this month (I think that’s when it’s released)
    Also will there be a Spade no Kuni no Alice? Ive always had a feeling that there would be but I hope they don’t ruin the characters there if they do :/
    I actually liked the older Alice games in terms of both there being humorously written characters and better character designs. Fujimaru can draw but I think the old artist’s clothing and character designs are much better.
    Also I think that the turn based system actually made Quinrose seem original. Without there being a turn based system, may as well play another Otome game that has better deals

  9. haha interesting I hope to hear the comparison though I believe from Karin’s site they added a ton of new endings/CGs which is what they did for Zettai Meikyuu Grimm in the past too. I’ll have dot kare review up this week for sure, I’m finally seeing the finish line for Alice lol

  10. If I pressed the circle I’d probably get through slightly faster but I actually get serious hand/arm pain when I do that (cause I’m an old grandma) so I just play in automode nowdays 😐 (hence why I always rage if auto-mode doesnt work right in a game)

    and basically from what I gather you’ve skipped like half the game since half the game is copypasta (like joker no kuni) so yea no wonder you finished faster! I actually sat through all that (mostly cause I didn’t feel like constantly changing to “force skip” in the options to skip through blatant copy pasta.) I was hoping in the joker scenes (which were all nearly identical) I’d be able to gather something new about the story but turns out I never did so lol yea waste of time. But I usually don’t skip someone’s spoken line except when it’s some stupid NPC during the caucus game e_e;;

    Also idk about you but I don’t think Boris’ route was OKAY. IT WAS TERRIBLE they ruined the character for me. They ruined him so badly that when I got my latest Cheshire Cat Waltz I could barely focus on it -_-;; Oh well I’ve written a wall of “final thoughts” in my review which will hopefully be up later today or tomorrow. Actually I sort of liked the turn system in Alice too. I liked it because I got to interact with the characters directly rather than some round about way which involved a bunch of faceless/spriteless NPCs…and yea I enjoyed the random dialogues! So I’m not sure how the remake without turns will turn out but if QR screws it up it will probably be the last game I ever buy for them bleh.

  11. It could be that I read faster. (I’m pressing the poor, abused, circle.) And I skipped repeated lines in “original” scenes. (You know, when the scene skipper does not recognise it as already done, but it’s still the same/very similar lines sneaking in between new moments.) And skim through what can’t be skipped, but is still repetitive. I think it usually takes me a second or less per frame – I sometimes don’t even wait for the spoken part end if it’s not important.

    My favourite route was Ace (not my favourite character, but the story was the best in Diamond overall), then Julius. Nightmare’s route was 50/50: it was the funniest, and I liked Alice taking action, but the story was meh-ish and I think they retconned older Nightmare to appear more mature than he actually was in previous games. Gray’s other ends were somehow better than the “best” route. The rest is “okay”. Not stellar, but better than some meh-y games from Otomate I’ve played lately (Juza Engi and Princess Arthur.)

    And I’m probably the only person in the world that liked the turn-based system in Alice. Particularly Heart/Anniversary, where you really got two routes per character. And even in Clover, the combination scenes were fun. And despite the repetitiveness, you never got all possible dialogue in one go, so it’s worth a replay.

  12. Danzai no Maria!! I’m so envious of my friend who got hers delivered yesterday! We decided to play at the same time, me with the PSP ver. (old, I know, but i just found out about it) and my friend with her shiny new one; and we’ll compare the routes and endings.

    And Dot Kareshi II !! My funds are running low so I’m waiting for someone to play and review it. *blatant hint hint* XD

    Hang in there, Hinano. Just a bit more before you get to dump that long-winded QR otoge. ❤

  15. Still doing Mirror Alice? I can’t believe it THAT long. Is Mirror Alice really terrible? Would you mind telling me what character routes are there (like the characters that have routes)?

  16. whew your comment got eaten by spam for some reason o_o
    yea when I tried to play the original DnM it was so old it wouldn’t run on my Windows 7 lol
    Glad that they’ve released a new version :3

  17. I’m using a guide AND the jump to next selection! DDDD:
    I don’t know why it’s taking forever! There’s so many pointless scenes with NPCs and the stupid waste of time caucus game OTL
    At the moment all I can say is my favorite route is Nightmare, then Julius and my favorite “informative” route is Ace. Gray and Boris were meh and well side characters are just side characters… I think because I Played so many QR games I’m starting to see a pattern of things that bother me and it’s probably affecting my gameplay in a negative way.

    Also curious did you complete EVERY ending? Cause I’m doing like every ending here and each guy’s route (with the guide I’m using) has about 5-6 different ends spawning out of it. Maybe your read faster than me? I usually play in auto-mode with the time between sentences being 3 seconds.

  18. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on these two!

    I actually liked Mirror Alice better than the first Diamond…but that might be personal preferences talking.
    (But I don’t think it took me that long. Are you not using a guide? Or not using jump-to-next-selection function?)

  19. totally forgot about danzai no maria complete edition. but hopefully this will get you out of otome slump coz 83 hours of otoge gameplay sounds really ridiculous. kudos to you who actually sits there and still continue playing,
    good luck with both games! they revamped since the psp ver so there are happy endings from what I’ve heard (?) so fingers crossed it’ll entertain you 😀

  21. I purposely held off of playing the PSP port cause I KNEW they’d release a PC port. They have a notorious habit of doing this so sucks for those who buy a game only to see an uncut version a year later. I expect them to do the same with Mysteria at some point.

    And no I’m playing Mirror Alice. Heart no Kuni remake won’t be out until the end of this month.

  24. OMGOMG, I’ve totally forgotten Danzai no Maria’s already been released!!!!
    Oh man, I sooo wanted to buy it.I’ll check with Animate or Karin Shop if they still have all of these goodies :3 I love PSP Danzai no Maria to bits, so I’m very very looking forward to this edition ❤ So I hope you'll enjoying playing it!
    At least I remember playing Uriel's route for the whole day and even forgetting to eat during that xD

    Let us know whether you like it or not later on^^ And also, you didn't like Heart no Kuni remake? I haven't played Alice yet but I was going to buy the remake.

  27. Yea it did reveal a lot in his route but I guess it somewhat makes sense? At least part of it explains why he was so emo in Clover anyway.
    It puts Ace in a new light for me (cause before I thought he was just crazy for no reason)

    Everyone else though yea…such a waste of time lol. I’m not a huge fan of the Diamond series as well. I feel like that which made me enjoy the original Alice games is just not there? Maybe it’s the humor? Or maybe since Alice is just full of pointless waste of time events/dialogues and you barely get to enjoy your time with the characters like you did when the turn system was in place.

  28. I tend to like the Alice series, but I admit I haven’t played Mirror Alice at all. I’m curious as to what’s so bad about it, other than it being long-winded and long. I’m not a huge fan of the Diamond no Kuni no Alice stuff, anyway. I wish Quinrose would wrap up SOME of their plot points, because each game just adds new retcons and questions. Do we still not know why Lorina kept appearing with Joker in JnKnA or was she merely a representation of the guilt that Alice’s sin? Wonderland has become a puzzle but not one that really has much pay off because the clues are far too scattered and vague and important facts about the world are retconned or made irrelevent with each new game. Everything feels disconnected, and the diamond series only worsened this.

    I do know a little bit about Ace’s past with Julius that was revealed in his route in Mirror World, and I really don’t like it. It feels incongruous with the rest of the series.

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