Greetings everyone, and welcome to another edition of Site Progress and Personal Update. I am your host AnnieGal and I am here to progress and personal update the fuck out of you all… that sounded just as oddly suggestive as I planned it to.
It feels like it has been so long since I wrote one of these. I have spent many of the previous months in anguish over the failure of my previous relationship, but I seem to have finally moved on. Granted there are still points where I think about them in my dreams but when I wake up I feel much more stable. I have a Discord server full of cute and adorable girls who regularly thirst over me, I have a blog that is far more successful than most new blogs are, and I have the potential to reach great heights.
Anyway it is now October. I am likely not going to have as much Halloween themed content this month as I did last year since I bit off way more than I can chew last year and ended up with some stuff I didn’t finish until December. There will be some though. Anyway here is last month’s article recap.
Anime Review: Mahou Shoujo Site
Amazing VGM: Determination (Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift)
Poem #59: Mirrors of Broken Glass
Amazing VGM: Go Home Johnny (LISA: The Painful)
Steam Greenlight Landfill: Depths of Fear: Knossos
Amazing VGM: Gods Bound by Rules (NieR)
The Beginner’s Guide (PC): A Postmodern Masterpiece (Detailed Review)
A Goddess’s Will: Chapter One – Getting Physical (Erotica)
Poem #67: Yearnings of the Flesh
Undertale (PC/PS4/Vita/Switch): A Deeply Moving Tale (Detailed Review)
A Goddess’s Will: Chapter Two – Passionate Intimacy (Erotica)
A lot of interesting stuff I did last month. I will start with the typical content that most people are here for; the game reviews. I was a bit slow on putting up new game reviews in the first half of the month because I was initially planning on having my review of Persona 3 be my 100th review. It is taking far longer than I expected to complete The Answer portion of the game since it’s kind of a poorly paced and horribly balanced mess that is nowhere near as fun as the main game. I put close to 100 hours into the main story over the course of the preceding month yet I’m only little over 20 hours into The Answer now after having been at it for an entire month… I think. It wouldn’t be the first time Ii got mixed up on time if I was wrong but the point is that The Answer is so fucking plodding!
That’s why I just decided to go ahead and play Depths of Fear: Knossos and have my review of The Beginner’s Guide be my 100th review. I am quite glad I did because The Beginner’s Guide is truly amazing. I must say that games have helped me come to terms with the failure of my previous relationship quite well, and I hope I can show Persona 3 its due once I review it as well.
In terms of upcoming reviews, I have also been playing through Saya no Uta in the past week. I find it comparable to Euphoria in how it is simultaneously disturbing and frightening yet also sweet and touching. I have not even finished it but I dare say it is among the best visual novels I have ever played. I am looking forward to reviewing this game not only due to its quality but also the fact that my reviews of eroge are usually among my most well liked.
The weird thing about Saya no Uta is that it doesn’t really feel like an eroge though. There are some sex scenes in it but they are very brief and they lack that exaggerated feel that most eroge have. Even in Euphoria I wasn’t overly fond of the sex scenes. Saya no Uta I actually feel that these scenes are among the most effective at conveying genuine emotion that I have ever seen. I can’t say that I find them attractive given that Saya is designed to look like a young girl, but…. I can’t believe I’m actually saying this… it makes sense in context.
Saya no Uta is a game largely about emotional dependency. Fuminori can literally only see, hear, smell, feel, and taste the world around him as nightmarish fleshy walls and the people that were once his friends look like literal demons. Saya is the only person who still looks human and thus Fuminori becomes emotionally dependent on her. Meanwhile Saya is dependent on Fuminori for reasons that I won’t spoil but that one can probably infer from what i just listed here.
Saya no Uta is in a similar boat as Euphoria in that the content of its story is so dark and twisted that I worry about it serious scarring someone who goes in blind, but I think this one is likely to be easier for one to get into than Euphoria, although I am undecided as to which one I like more. Either way I am really looking forward to completing and reviewing this game.
On the subject of game reviews, I likely am likely going to limit Halloween themed reviews this month to Re-posts since it takes longer for me to complete games. I have been working towards the Castlevania series again after a long break from them. I recently completed Rondo of Blood and am currently playing through Bloodlines, but I am unlikely to have the piece up this month unfortunately.
There have been a few personal set backs that have stifled progress lately that I need to talk about. The first is that the main computer I use has been broken and I need to wait for it to get fixed. I am currently writing this on my laptop which Is about as powerful as my old shitty computer, but I am unable to play any games that require a controller on it so I need to wait until the main computer is fixed.
The second set back has been a severe tooth pain that is resulting in surgery to get the tooth in question removed. Thankfully said tooth is a wisdom tooth so it isn’t too much of a problem, but it makes eating difficult since I need to constantly avoid putting pressure on it and can only chew harder foods with one side of my mouth. The pain is manageable right now but two days ago it got so bad I couldn’t stand up and my dad needed to get Orajel at the grocery store at 11 O clock at night. Neither of these should take too long to fix but it does make for an uncomfortable situation unfortunately.
Anyway I feel the need to also make an additional announcement. For the past few weeks I have been running a series of polls on my Twitter account over which game I will cover as a reward once my Patreon reaches $50 a month. I am currently on the final round, which is between four games and has 5 days remaining until time is up. So be sure to vote on it if you haven’t done so yet. Also if yo want me to get around to reviewing the winner sooner rather than later be sure to pledge to my Patreon to reach that limit.
https://twitter.com/Iyamtebist/status/1047341599661989888
As for non gaming content, I have decided to shelve that movie review I mentioned in last month’s update since I just have other stuff I’d prefer to work on. Chances are that following my reviews of Persona 3 and Saya no Uta, I will just play Cosmic Star Heroine and Contraption Maker since those reviews are LONG over due. there are also a number of sequels to games I covered that I should get around to as well. On another subject is that last month I have had 2 major figures who have liked my content.
The first of these is that hbomberguy finally read my response to his video on objectification and power fantasy in games. He has asked me to remind him to do a proper response when he gets back from Tokyo and I am looking forward to what he has to say. Admittedly there are some aspects of my response that I am rather critical of, namely the amount of time wasted with defending GamerGate that could have basically been replaced with me going ” I DIDN’T KNOW, I SWEAR!!!!” over and over again and also me missing the point of some of the initial arguments, although he seems to have a similar attitude regarding his video though and he was just glad that someone responded to him in good faith.
The second was from creator of Meltys Quest who was quite impressed with my review. I do feel genuinely honored whenever a creator likes my work. I hold a let of respect for most developers even when I’m not overly fond of their games. Meltys Quest was an unusual game because I reviewed it when I was opening up to more radfem views and was thus worried I’d get accusations of being a porn hating SJW if I criticized the sex scenes in the game too much for things most people have no problem with.
Since I wrote that, my reviews have not been quite as detailed and thorough since it is harder for me to put out 4000+ word theses like I used to, but most people I know have told me that they found my shorter reviews to be just as good as the longer ones. What i have focused on was the fact that I didn’t need to go over absolute EVERY detail of a game and could focus more on critique. I am interested in hearing what others have to think about this.
I also have started getting into erotic fiction writing if one did not notice, and I am interested in hearing what other people think of what I posted thus far. I am also considering accepting commissions for ero stories from people so be sure to hit me up if you are interested.
Anyway it is time to shout out patrons as usual. Special thanks to Rey, IceTheRetroKid, Meiastra, Alex Silvey, Rinnie S, Cesar Zamudio, and Blue Desolation. Additional thanks goes to anyone who has offered support to me over the past month or to who ever will for that matter.
Anyway that is it for this month’s update. See you soon and I hope things continue smoothly. Also happy Halloween!
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