In a quick break from the insanity in the real world, I thought I'd see what everyone was playing, or looking to play.
Being a huge X-Wing/Tie Fighter fan, I'd really like to play Star Wars: Squadrons, but I refuse to give EA money, and the developer pushing bullshit pronoun nonsense sealed the deal.
Instead, I'm about to start Yakuza Kiwami for the first time.
What are you guys enjoying right now?
I am playing through Rance 03 mainly to further my japanese studies. Other than that, I occasionally play GTA Online to collect cars.
My computer is gonna be 9 years old in a few months so I'm saving for a new one. Hopefully I'll be able to get through my huge backlog with it.
I played the remake of Rance 1 for the same reason and I have Rance 2 chambered and ready to go at some point. They're pretty primitive for what they are though. Are you familiar with any other games in the series and if so would you recommend I skip ahead to any particular one?
Is your Rance 2 the remake? Rance 02 is found within the Alice 2010 bundle. I might have the torrent file somewhere if you need it....
I downloaded all of them in advance, to be honest. I only discovered the series recently, so I wanted to play them in order. So far, Rance 03 is way, way better than the other two, it's got VA, Kanami-chan and Shizuka-chan are in it as well. The gameplay shares some features with 01, but it's a lot more fun and refined.
Rance 02 has shittier scenes, the fights and the dungeons are more tedious and the BGM is not as good, either. Also, it's shorter than the other two. Even then, 03 picks up where 02 ends, and many characters from it show up all the time. I recommend you play through it at least once.
I am looking forward to Sengoku Rance, I've heard it's so good that some people put it in their top 10 strategy games.
Thanks for the rundown, that's exactly the kind of info I needed. Yeah my Rance 2 is the remake. The title theme is a banger but in a quick dabble I got the sense that it wasn't quite as good as Rance 1. Still, if it's shorter, and if it fits in the continuity and Rance 3 is a big improvement, then I'll stick with it and do the full series with as much thoroughness as I can. Like you, I've heard a ridiculous amount of good things about Sengoku Rance as well as Rance X, so I'm looking forward to eventually burrowing my way through to those ones.
Who knows how long that'll take though. I'm a bit burnt out on Japanese after spending hundreds of hours getting through AI Somnium and Fata Morgana this summer. I thought about re-reading Cross Channel Final Complete, which I half-assedly skimmed through once long ago - while absorbing enough to realise that it was an excellent story, I highly recommend it if you like basic VNs - but when I fired it up, the author's obtuse writing style was already hurting my brain within the first couple of scenes. Think I need to just stick with my handful of indie roguelites for a little while to recover from language fatigue and from eye strain.
Speaking of all that, you mentioned the Alice Bundle. Do you know if the Mangagamer version lets you switch language? Part of the reason I pirated the Japanese versions of Rance 1&2 is because I wasn't sure if you could play the western ports in anything other than English. If you can switch easily, then I might try purchasing them as I go forward in order to support the devs a bit, assuming nothing is censored.
Sorry, I do not know anything about the Mangagamer version. I'd rather buy some merch to help AS, but my coffers are in a bit of a crisis atm.
Thanks for the recommendation, I can see myself going through it in order to take a break from our hero with insatiable lust.
BTW, what is your set up for going through the VNs? Like what kind of programs do you use? I use Textractor and Anki with the Migaku dictionary addon.