Anime Review: Bofuri, I'll Max my Defense!

Bofuri is about a girl who isn't very practiced in video games becoming remarkably powerful almost by accident.  She and her skilled PvPer girlfriend play as much as they can, start a guild, and have lots of fun shenanigans.  Their little guild becomes full of surprisingly powerful players, in unexpected ways, and they end up competing in some large scale guild events.

Unlike reality, in this anime, everyone is friendly and a good sport, so this is s pleasant anime to watch.  Also, the relationship between MC and her PvPer girlfriend is a little vague, but I ship them, so whatevs.  It's a good, cozy anime to watch.

Anime Review: Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid

Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid is an older anime at this point, but I still like it.  It's got 2 seasons, and some shorts.

A single officeworker with a penchant for drinking, makes friends with an incredibly powerful, but homeless dragon, who swears to repay her kindness by being her maid.  The dragons other dragon friends show up, and shenanigans.  Some of the characters have incredibly large breasts, but it's too comical to be sexy, and I kinda appreciate that somehow.

Anime Review: Recovery of an MMO Junkie

Recovery of an MMO Junkie is an MMO themed anime that's near and dear to my heart.  Overworked and stressed, the main character quits her job and hides in a video game to try to cope.  She joins a friendly guild, and another player becomes special to her.

There's a lot of video game references I get very well, some gender confusion mishaps, and a lot of sweetness overall.  I really like this anime, and have watched it a few times. 

Anime Review: My Next Life as a Villainess

I admit, I've only watched season 1 of this show, and it has 2 seasons so far, but I think season 1 is worth reviewing.  This is another otome game isekai.  The main character is reborn as the antagonist of her favorite otome game from her past life.  Because of this, she fears an early demise, and will stop at nothing to get a longer, fuller life.

This otome game isekai is also incredibly funny, in a very sweet and wholesome way, and it's really cute.  The MC does her best to befriend everyone so no one will try to kill her, and she tries to hard that everyone loves her instead.  Even the female characters fall for her, which makes my bisexual heart happy too.  I haven't watched season 2 yet, because season 1 ended so perfectly, it felt weird to, but I'm sure it's more of the same.

Anime Review: Trapped in a Dating Sim

Trapped in a Dating Sim is one of my favorite anime.  It has one 12 episode season, came out in 2022, and the dub is so good, I got the MC voice actor's autograph.  This is the only dating sim isekai I was able to get my husband to watch with me.  It's special.

Why is it special?  Well, it's because the main character is an anti-hero, and a hilarious one at that.  His obnoxious attitude, even as he's doing the right thing, is priceless.  Also, otome games make me mad, so I really enjoyed him ripping on all the old otome tropes.

I've read some of the manga after watching the anime, and it's not as good.  It doesn't wield the sword of humor quite as well as the anime does.  The premise isn't that great if it takes itself too seriously.  It's the parody and sarcastic edge that makes this anime a gem worth watching.

Eden Eternal

Another very old anime MMO has made a recent comeback.  Eden Eternal was created by X-Legend and was originally hosted for the Western hemisphere by Aeria Games starting in 2011.  Aeria Games got bought by Gamigo Games, and they eventually shut down Eden Eternal in 2021.

X-Legend got their game back and launched their own server last year, in 2023.  This is the version I'm playing now.  Because of the gap in service, accounts from Aeria Games were not transferable like Aura Kingdoms, but they offered a good amount of new account rewards to help players start over.

Revisiting Aura Kingdom

It's been about 3 years since I reviewed Aura Kingdom, and since then, it has changed hands in ownership from Aeria Games, to Gamigo Games, back to X-Legend, the original developers.  For a while I was unhappy with Gamigo, so I played Aura Kingdom on a private server, then I went back to the official server, then quit for a year because I had technical difficulty transferring my account to X-Legend.  Recently, I was able to overcome my technical difficulties and play again.  Much to my surprise, X-Legend has made several improvements since getting their game back.

For starters, auto-pathing had been improved.  You used to run through water and get dismounted.  Now the paths navigate the maps much more safely.  Also, apparently they've streamlined the leveling process to 99, because the game used to really drop off at 80.  Most specifically in my personal interest, they've rebalanced the classes, and Wizards are a lot more successful than they used to be.  Where I used to hit a wall and be unable to continue, now my current gear and stats are sufficient to complete story content.  And as an added bonus, they've increased the drop rates of gold and rewards in dungeons, so making money is easier too.

Cherry Magic Anime Review

Cherry Magic is a gay office romance that I was a huge fan of the manga for, so the anime had big shoes to fill.  Fortunately, the resulting anime was fantastic!    The animation was pretty, and very similar to the manga in design.  There was a little drama, but not enough to really peak my anxiety.  It had the right amount of silly and serious. 

The manga is still ongoing.  I thought volume 9 was gonna be the finale, but there's much more after!

Palia Concerns

I'm really worried about Palia.  A lot of people review-bombed them at the Steam launch.  And now they've had 2 rounds of layoffs in 2 months.  That's devastating.  The mini-game they introduced in the Lunar New Year festival was a huge hit.  I really thought they'd be doing better than this.  It really feels like Palia won't survive it's first year.

So, I'm trying to make the most of it while I can, going after a few more achievements, taking lots of screenshots, and... trying not to be depressed.  I owe a lot to Palia.  Playing Palia helped me finally adapt to a control style I've been struggling with for years, controlling the camera with my mouse.  This has opened a lot of other doors for me, like Monster Hunter, and my Time at Portia.  Palia is a good game, and I will benefit from playing it for many years to come.

My Time at Portia Review

Since I've had such a good time playing Palia, I've been interested in similar single player experiences.  My Time at Portia has been on my radar for a while.  Recently, it came up on a really good sale, so I picked it up, and after 3 hours of gameplay, I'm really pleased so far.  The art style takes some getting used to, but I still recommend it.

Last Epoch, Launch Weekend

Last Epoch is an Action RPG among the likes of the Diablo series.  It was created by 11th Hour Games and has been out in early access for a while, but just this week had it's official 1.0 launch.  I had a good time playing Diablo III before I quit all Blizzard games entirely, and I've missed it, so I welcome this new opportunity for similar gameplay.

At only 35$, I consider it a bargain.  Diablo IV went for 70$ last summer.  Of course, there's cosmetic packages you can buy, but they don't affect gameplay and can only be used in online mode.  One feature I'm very pleased with is an entire Offline mode.  You can play the game, solo, start to finish, without any servers.  This means if the servers are shut down later, I will still have a game to play.

I do wish there was some sort of character customization at character creation, but there is not.  You cannot pick even your gender or race.  You are simply getting a copy of a preexisting character.  That is why I'm playing a large man with a beard.  I enjoyed his class abilities most, after some trial and error with other classes, his gameplay style fit me best.  I've named him Animal Friends, because he gets animal combat pets.  His starter summon is a wolf, that I have named Dog.

It's a solid game, and if you enjoyed the Diablo series, or Path of Exile, then you should enjoy this game, once the server issues are sorted out.  I don't know how long it will take for server issues to be resolved, but at least you can play in Offline mode in the meantime.  If you want to play with friends, keep an eye on the official Discord and wait.  But at least you have access to everything in Offline mode, so it's not like you can't play the game at all.  Offline mode works really well.  Overall, I don't regret spending 35$.

Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Guild Wars 2 had their first expansion, Heart of Thorns, in 2015. I did not get to play when it was current, but I did get to play the Heart of Thorns story and maps in the past year. 

Story wise, it was intense, especially since I'd unintentionally picked the one race that would be featured the most in the first expansion.  A lot is revealed about who the Sylvari really are, or at least who they're related to.  Also, a core character from the Sylvari starting story ends up dying to save the world.  Very dramatic.  I cried a few times.

The new world maps were a pain in the ass.  Heart of Thorns introduces the gliding travel mechanic, and they make it incredibly necessary at every turn.  I was not at all used to such vertical maps.  Much to my dismay, they had no heart quests.  Mastery XP could only be earned from random event grinding, which feels more high stress to me.  But the next zone would be locked behind leveling up in Mastery, so no choice but to do it.  Hated that.

Gliding, the new travel mechanic, was fun and cool, but also very difficult to master.  It's tons of fun to climb up high places and just glide down, but when you're trying to get somewhere specific, it takes a little more finesse.  I will make an effort to level up this skill when I'm finished with Season 3 unlocks.  Season 3 is tied to Heart of  Thorns.

About Season 3, the episodic bits between Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire, things got considerably better when they started having heart quests on the maps again!

Overall, I don't regret getting Heart of Thorns.  I prolly won't be able to complete the HoT maps until I get a flying mount in Season 4, but you know.  But hey, I got to feel important as a little Sylvari with a jungle dragon god telling me to murder my friends.