hi i've been enjoying things recently, as usual, and considering how i've done a couple other blog posts in the style of "things i've been enjoying recently," i figured i should give it a name, so welcome now... to the beautiful world...

i will get it out of the way and say something that i have NOT been enjoying lately is the very hot weather. it's very beautiful outside in the summer, but i am not built for the heat, so i would prefer to enjoy the beauty of summer from inside looking out a window. regrettably, i do not have ac though, so it's really hot inside. i will persist, however. even in the face of the even hotter temperatures slated for next week.

spoilers will be avoided as much as possible! the most i'll talk about is the premise of a story.

game: the hundred line - last defense academy -

i had been meaning to play this ever since it came out because i love danganronpa very much, and i finally picked it up recently because my oomfie started playing it and the propaganda was frankly too much for my feeble consumer mind to resist. i'm happy to report that this game is absolutely danganronpa af and any danganronpa fan would almost certainly love this game.

hundred line, for the uninformed, is a story where a bunch of students (including you, takumi sumino) are brought to the "last defense academy" to serve in a war that will last 100 days. there are 100 endings in this game, and multiple writers tackling different routes. the game's two main "modes" are the visual novel sections, which plays exactly as you'd expect, and then the battle sections, which are almost like a puzzle-box version of fire emblem. characters have different types of attacks they can perform with different attack potency, range, and effects; these attacks can be upgraded, but your characters don't have exp.

also, instead of the system of "each character can move once per turn", it gives you a set number of Action Points that you can use however you want, including using the same character multiple times per turn (balanced by characters' movement being limited to 1 after their first movement). in this sense, the gameplay changes from fire emblem's somewhat risk-based calculations into more of a "how can i use my characters in an order that kills the most enemies." it's a super fun system, though i definitely think that the boss maps are more fun than the rout maps, especially when you start getting a ton of characters, because you can do a ton of clever and hilarious shit to blow up a boss in one turn and it feels awesome af. there's also some aspects of the combat that i don't want to discuss because it's an extremely awesome story-gameplay integration that would make any aspiring game designer [removed to conform with international censorship laws].

at its core, hundred line is a mystery game. your first 100 days will likely take around 20 hours to complete, and it is absolutely packed to the fucking brim with twists and mysteries, and you will not get all the answers in your first hundred days. the main point of the first 100 days is to introduce you to the characters and (most of) the main mysteries to prepare you for the other endings and routes you'll be heading into.

on the topic of the other endings, i haven't actually completed any yet (though i've made a decent amount of progress on a number of them), but i'm still extremely enamored of this system. my first route, i landed on a romance route and to be honest it was complete ass so i switched. my second route was intensely interesting, and then i hit a story lock that wants you to finish some other endings first - presumably because it was pretty early in the story that some important mysteries were coming up DEFINITELY with the intent of revealing some truths, so i think they just didn't want you to wander in and learn everything TOO quickly. then i moved onto a route that appears to be a slasher route which is funny af, and the funnier part is that the writing is actually pretty fun too. the game makes it really easy to switch between routes too: you can select any day from any route you've experienced, and also jump directly to the divergence points.

quick fire compliments too: the music and art are danganronpa people again, and as usual, they are absolutely phenomenal. the graphics are also extremely awesome and have some incredibly jawdropping stylized sections, and i am obsessed with the hemoanima transformation cutscene <= this is not a spoiler because you will only have any clue what this refers to when you get to it lol.

i'm extremely excited to play more hundred line. i will probably be loading it up after i finish writing this blog post. i think that if you like danganronpa you should absolutely pick this up with a devastating quickness. if you like clusterfuck mystery stories and can survive some occasional ridiculous anime stuff, i recommend checking the game out too!! if you already know you don't like danganronpa at all then definitely do not pick this game up because it's basically danganronpa.

so far this is my goty honestly. danganronpa is so back!!

game: metaphor refantazio

i hadn't played metaphor for a while and then i only recently picked it up again in june and man. i can't lie, i didn't love persona 3 reload, but metaphor is absolutely blowing me away. the themes aren't necessarily the most subtle thing, but i'm impressed with how beautiful and hopeful the story is. persona as a series does have a bit of a problem of pulling punches or compromising on its themes, but metaphor does not have this problem at all from what i've played.

this game's identity is so fucking awesome also. the music and ui and environments and graphics are just sublime. my partner was interested in starting metaphor and then just talking about it with him made the music start playing in my head.

i really hope that atlus continues to play with the persona formula like how they did with metaphor; even if it's not a fantasy setting, i have hope that they're looking at the success of metaphor and realising that people love when they try something new.

all this being said, i must confess that i put this game on pause because hundred line has gripped me by the skull and is shaking me around for fun, but i'm looking forward to hopping back onto metaphor when i'm done with hundred line!!!

game: honkai star rail

i finally got caught up to amphoreus, including 3.4 (which i played on release day actually), and man the start was a little slow but the payoff has been awesome as fuck. i also pulled phainon and he's crazy, and i'm also really happy that tingyun is a 4* rateup for this banner because she pairs so nice with phainon and i think i hadn't gotten a single copy of her until this banner?

my favourite arc is absolutely still penacony because it was literally made for me between the aesthetic of gambling and luck and gambits and dreams and the super fucking awesome designs of everyone in it, but amphoreus is not too far behind, and i'm really excited to see what'll happen in 3.5? i'm also curious how long this current arc will be. also i'm excited to get out of amphoreus because i wanna see some new character designs of a different style from amphoreus...

also i want march and welt to get to do more stuff again...

unrelated to the above but i really hope they go hard with this fate collab story. i hope that people die and i hope aventurine does some insane mentally ill bullshit again. let him have fun and be himself...

tv show: riverdale

my partner and i started rewatching riverdale, and to be quite honest i will defend this show to the death: if you don't like riverdale you either don't get it (which is a you problem for the record) or you actively hate queer people and, by extension, me.

i think most people probably know what riverdale is at this point, but on the off-chance: it's a tv show by The CW that's based on the archie comics, with the basic premise being that jason blossom is found murdered at the start of the series. the main vibe of the show is camp af. each season has its own mystery, and characters will get into various love polygons. i think public sentiment is not very kind to riverdale because it doesn't realise that this show is meant to be crazy af. it's so good and so ridiculous and such a fun time. if you are gay or experience episodes of being a bit fruity, i prescribe you with watching riverdale.

i don't have that much to say about riverdale that isn't spoilers and those above statements honestly, but something that my partner and i have been laughing at constantly is how obviously it was filmed in vancouver. like genuinely every shot is like so hilariously vancouver that it's hard to remember sometimes that the show is meant to take place on the american east coast.

last notes: this show's music is so unreasonably good it's genuinely hilarious. like season 1 they don't sing that much but almost everyone has absolutely got that dog in them and the songs are genuinely so awesome. #1 on my spotify wrapped-levels of good.

conclusion

thank you for reading the first official entry of The Beautiful World! there won't be a schedule for this, naturally, but whenever i've experienced enough stuff that i've liked in some time frame and i feel like writing about it, there will be more The Beautiful World.

i hope you find some fun and nice things to enjoy! there are so many awesome things in this The Beautiful World and my dream is to one day have a 4 day work-week job so i can have another day for having fun and playing. i hope we can all have 4 day work-week jobs.

have a good day! xoxo