Pyramid Solitaire Saga review – Annoying gimmicks get in the way of fun

Instead of jumping into another RPG after Demon Gaze II, I’ve been playing Pyramid Solitaire Saga for the past couple of days. It’s another prettyfied puzzle game from King, makers of Candy Crush Saga, Farm Heroes Saga and many similar time-wasters.

And these games all share one thing in common: they all start out really interesting at first, lots of fun progress and freebies. Then they introduce all kinds of annoying gimmicks and stack them up, one on top of the other, so the game gets harder and less fun as it goes along, all to encourage you to spend more money and time on them.

Well, they’ve got my time at least. But not my money, never my money. Pyramid Solitaire Saga is based on… Pyramid Solitaire. Which I had never heard of until just now when I googled it. I know regular Solitaire, and Freecell (man I wasted so much time on that) and Spider Solitaire but not Pyramid. Still it’s the same concept, more or less. A>2>3>4>>>>K>A etc etc. There are one or more gold cards at the bottom of the stacks in every puzzle and your job is to whisk all the blocking cards away until you get to it.

Of course they don’t make it that easy for you. Alas. In every stage you have to navigate one or more of the following challenges:

Blue card: You have to get at least one blue card before you get all the gold cards, or you fail the stage.

Streak: You have to get a number of cards in an row, usually some reasonable number but sometimes something crazy like 40 cards in a row. I can see this getting very annoying the further along I go.

Bandaged cards: Cards covered in bandages so you have to tap them twice to unlock, wasting your moves every time.

Chained cards: You have to get a streak of four in a row to unchain these cards and then tap them to remove them. If you fail to complete this process, all the chains grow back at once and you have to start all over again. My least favorite gimmick.

Cards with leaves: Similar to the chains, but the leaves grow back in stages so there’s still a bit of room for error.

One-up cards: Their value goes up by one every turn, e.g. a Q turns into a K, etc. Supposed to make for strategic gameply but can be safely ignored so far.

The early stages before they added all these complications were the most fun. One of my sisters likes these puzzle games, but she only likes the easy parts. So she’s perfectly fine just starting from level 1 in every session, playing till she runs out of lives, then going back to level 1 again the next time. It just boggles my mind. I’m not super into challenges or anything, but I can’t imagine playing that way and never making any progress. But when I consider all the dealbreaking gimmicks King likes to add like the bombs in Candy Crush and the frogs and spiders in Farm Heroes, I kinda see where she’s coming from. Sometimes you just want some simple and mindless fun, y’know?

At least Pyramid Solitaire Saga is more generous than Diamond Diaries Saga, which I am about to delete. It gives a regular super-powered mode with lots of Jokers, and you can earn 30 mins of free lives and a host of other useful items just by progressing the stages. So if anything gets too annoying you can just hack your way out with the items and gamble on the next stages being more reasonable.

Music? Sorry, I play on mute so I wouldn’t know. Same with sound effects. I suppose I could turn them on for a minute and see… Yeah, blah. Forgettable. There’s no attempt at a story, yay. Puzzle games don’t need stories. I like the relatively muted colors. Nowhere near as bright and garish as the other puzzle games. It feels less kiddy and more relaxed that way. Apart from that I’ve got nothing to say about the superficial stuff.

What I like
-Bright happy colors, but not too bright. I really like the way it looks on my tablet.
-Simple, addictive gameplay.
-Generous game with lots of freebies.
-It requires some thinking ahead but isn’t too complicated.

What sucks
-They suckered me in with simple gameplay and now they’re complicating things.
-Annoying gimmicks that will only get worse as it goes along.
-Creepy crawlies in the form of scarabs scrambling all over the screen. I’m not scared of insects but they’re annoying.

TL;DR: Pyramid Solitaire Saga is a fun puzzle game but I can see the stormclouds on the horizon. I’ll delete it if it ever gets too bothersome to play.

Next up: I was at a standstill until this morning, when I finally decided to play Ys Seven. Why? Because. As for the Ys Celceta I mentioned I’d started some months ago, it’s dropped. Something about the open fields just rubbed me the wrong way, not being able to save stressed me out and I couldn’t make sense of the battle system.

Wait, come to think of it, instead of Ys I should play Final Fantasy XIII instead. I said I would, and I don’t want that game to follow me into the new year. Okay FFXIII it is. No wait, Ys Felghana is supposed to be short. Maybe that one…

….Or maybe I won’t play any of those and will start something else. Eh. Let’s play some more Pyramid Solitaire Saga while I try to figure it out.

Finished Demon Gaze II – Story was dumb, but I had fun (spoilers)

I cleared Demon Gaze II in 27 hours and 30 minutes, making a nice short and reasonably satsifying game. Any longer than that and I would have gotten bored, any shorter and I would feel robbed. The same complaints I had with the first game apply, namely:

  •  Loooong cutscenes every time something happens in the story. This time I got a kick out of choosing the most trollish answers possible, and some of the responses were genuinely funny, so it wasn’t so bad.
  • Very little dungeon variety. There are three or four main dungeons you visit over and over again. Demon A’s territory is near the start, B’s territory is a little deeper in, C’s place is beyond that. And the sad thing is, they don’t even bother to vary the decor or recolor the walls or anything, it’s the exact same scenery all the way through. Very boring.

That’s the downsides. On the plus side, they fixed a lot of things I didn’t like. For example the rent gimmick is gone, I have party members instead of generics, there’s much less fanservice, you don’t have to select individual demons any more, etc. I can tell they really listened to fan complaints about Demon Gaze and applied it to this one, just that they were too lazy to design proper dungeons to make Demon Gaze II truly superior.

Now I’m really confused by the people who said it was worse than the first. Recycling the same dungeons and having a weaksauce story is the main thing I can fault them for, and those are flaws the first game shared. TBH the first one felt a bit tedious while Demon Gaze II was much more comical and light-hearted so I enjoyed it more.

Story

An incomptent bunch of revolutionaries attempts to take down an incompetent ruler through the power of radio, many laughs ensue. The uselessness of the Revolutionist Party kept me playing even when I was irritated by their antics, because I thought, “The bad guys can’t be that stupid, can they? They’re going to swoop in and catch them any moment now, right?” But no, they’re really that dumb.

You can insult them as much as you like and they’ll still adore you

Or, more accurately, and to give partial spoilers, big baddie Magnastar didn’t care that much and bigger baddie Erik is enabling them for his own purposes, so the revolutionaries were never in any serious danger. It’s probably because I played Entaku no Seito and Stranger of Sword City first, so I’m used to darker moods and stories from Experience Inc. That’s why I was expecting a Sol Trigger kind of situation where… umm… things didn’t go so well, but Demon Gaze II isn’t that kind of game. Which is good, I guess. Now I think of it, I don’t play a lot of light, comedy games, so it’s a nice change.

Gameplay

Big bad Magnastar has the population of the city of Asteria under mind control. He does this through giant crystals guarded by demons, so what you do is, you beat the demons, smash the crystals and then… you don’t free the citizens from Magnastar’s mind control. Nope, you overwrite it with brainwashing of your own, in the form of a magical song. It’s briefly pointed out that what we’re doing is almost the same as what Magnastar is doing, but our boss says “Yeah, but we’re the good guys!” and that’s the end of that. Make of it what you will.

they see me crawlin they hatinActually, if you want some spoilers, post-game it’s explained that the boss Muse and her sister Prim are daughters of the Demon Lord. The Demon Lord who seems to be Ol=Ohma from Entaku no Seito, who is definitely not good people so it shouldn’t be a surprise. The real surprise is that Ol=Ohma was a woman all along…??? And Wyvie is that annoying wyvern sub-boss I had to fight before him… her? My mind can’t accept it.

Combat and stuff

The usual Experience Inc. gimmicks apply. The only change is you have is demons as party members. Some of them have the normal classes you’re used to, others have a mishmash of skills that belong to various classes. My party for most of the game was Signa, Peg, Capricon, Leo and Cygnus. I switched out Leo for Draco near the end because her damage is just unreal. You get a lot of other party members as well, and they level up pretty quickly, but I’m lazy and didn’t feel like experimenting so I stuck with the ones I got early on.

Where did this thing come from, anyway?

It didn’t matter anyway., I played the whole game on the second-lowest difficulty, “Warm” so there was no need to optimize my party or stats. Everyone was super accurate even without casting Hit or Slow, damage was puny so no need for Avoid or much healing, and so on. For the final boss, I used the strategy where you leave some of the front enemies alive and cast Veil or use a mirror item, blocking his (or her?!) physical attacks. Then I just killed him. On Warm difficulty you get a free retry even if you fail, so there’s no need to hold back.

I went back and forth in my mind a lot, trying to decide whether to stick to Warm or move up to Hot. Warm is definitely too easy so Hot would be just right for anyone with dungeon crawler experience. But at the same time, I don’t want to deal with any stress right now, especially not from a game this jokey and comical. So eventually I made peace with the simplicity and just enjoyed it.

Extracurriculars

There are almost no sidequests, and only a few optional demons to get. What you can do on the side is power up your demons through a touching mini-game and then go on date events with them. The touching mini-game is like hot-or-cold, where you touch various spots to see how the demon reacts, hopefully closing in on the Perfect spot to hit her for the most points. 9 out of 10 times this will be an erogenous zone like the lips, bust or crotch, so yeah, if fondling demon loli waifus is your thing, you’ve come to the right game.

Doki Doki Majo Shinpan! started this touchscreen loli molestation gameplay gimmick trend, didn’t it? I knew that game was evil. But someone else would have done it in the end. With great power (touchscreen technology) comes great madness (game developer imaginations) after all. Actually, I don’t really care. Just that Demon Gaze II‘s version is a boring and crappy mini-game, so they should have designed something more interesting and worth my time.

Conclusion

Demon Gaze II will most likely disappoint hardcore dungeon crawler fans. The dungeons are just too boring and samey, with few dangers or gimmicks. But if you’re looking for something quick, easy and cheerful with a happy ending, it’s a great way to pass the time. If I gave out number ratings, it would be like 6.5/10. Gameplay is meh, story is silly, but somehow the whole thing comes together in a charming package that left me feeling pretty good when I was done. Recommended as long as you don’t expect too much.

La Corda d’Oro 4 – Yagisawa and Ritsu GET!

La Corda d'Oro 4 boys in order of popularity Man, I suffered to get Yagisawa Yukihiro. Even after starting afresh, I didn’t take his timeline seriously enough, so I cut it really close with the event where you hold a concert for his mother. You should be careful not to date Ritsu on the same route, because Ritsu also has post-concert events that take precedence over Yukihiro’s. That’s what did me in last time.

Anyway, do I have to describe the whole route? I usually don’t because I don’t pay attention to the ups and downs of individual routes. In any otome game, not just La Corda d’Oro 4. It’s enough for me if the overall flow is enjoyable.

Let’s see, IIRC Yagisawa and co. come to support Kanade and co. during our first Seiso concert, then we rope them into joining our Weekend Concert Group by holding a concert in Sendai. If you hang out with him during the Seiso school festival, you get an event where he, Ritsu and… one other guy visit a dress-up cafe and Yagisawa dresses as a pirate. If you go to the Shiseikan academy festival, he shows you around and someone thinks you two are on a date, blushy blushy. They really don’t use his blushy-face image often enough, so unfair.

His big hang-up this time is that his family runs a traditional Japanese confectionery chain, and he’s scheduled to take over once he graduates from college. So initially he planned to go to college in Sendai so he could work there and learn more about the business. But later on he realizes that 1) If he went to college in Tokyo, he’d be closer to Kanade and 2) Everyone at his family business treats him differently, so he won’t learn as much if he sticks with them vs. going elsewhere and being treated normally.

Eventually you trigger the blasted event where you hold the blasted concert for his mother. I can’t warn you enough – raise his affection ASAP so you can trigger this and still organize a proper Silvester concert! After the concert he tells his mother his decision and she’s like “Yeah, okay, fine” and he’s like “Huh, that was easy.” End of drama.

THEN. The Silvester concert. I still left things a little late so I was only able to half-fill the Pacifico Yokohama center. Aww. Then the grand ending.

>>”Confess to Yagisawa?”
>>”Yes.”
>>”I’m sorry, I don’t feel the same way.”

Wait, what? …WHAAAAAAT?! YOU DON’T FEEL THE SAME WHAT???!!! My affection for you is at a full 500! We had all these events together! What were all those blushes for?! And now you’re telling me you don’t feel the same…WHAT?

You see how yanderes are made?

…Turns out, if your affection for a guy is high but his is lower, there’s a fixed chance for him to reject your confession. Actually he will 100% reject it if his affection is under 200, no matter how happy-snuggly you guys have been until then.

Luckily Yagisawa had 284 affection for me, so after the credits, I reloaded and reconfessed and got his happy ending. A rather awkward-looking CG where Kanade and her boy are at the train station together and he doesn’t want to say goodbye but he has to, but at least they will be in Tokyo together from spring onwards, yay.

I say it’s ‘awkward-looking’ because unlike La Corda d’Oro 3, this game went out of its way to not show Kanade’s face in romantic CGs. Thus you almost always get these strange angles or this huge mop of orange hair blocking her face. I don’t care too much whether I see the protagonist’s face or not, but if they wanted to hide it, they could have gone about it better.

So anyway, that’s Yagisawa’s ending, GET! I liked it because the drama wasn’t too much and the guy is super nice. Some would say boring, but in a game series with nutsos and mega jerks like Yunoki and Myoga, he’s a breath of fresh air. BTW, I know I said I was going to start Demon Gaze 2 last time, but I wanted to finish this route so much that I delayed it. DG2 sounds meh from preliminary readings anyway, but more on it once I actually play it.

Ritsu Kisaragi GET!

I jumped right into a fresh playthrough to get Ritsu because I was bothered by his story. Is everyone really going to sit around and let a super-talented violinist drop out of performing just because he injured his wrist once? No second opinions? No flying abroad to get checked out by a specialist? No surgery? He’s only 17, surely his body can take it. But nope, the matter is taken as a done deal, no hope and nothing to discuss.

Okay then, so Ritsu turns to plan B and decides to become a violin maker and repairer, just like Kanade’s grandfather. Thus you find him trying to sell him violins at a flea market, without much success. He’s bothered by how hard he finds it to talk to people and how tense and nervous they get around him. So his route is about contriving a series of events – an autograph signing after an event, a part-time job hawking cakes, a touch-the-violin session after a concert – to help him work on his people skills.

And shockingly enough there’s some real development this time. Ritsu is still Ritsu all the way to the end, somewhat stiff and formal, but he gets better at interacting with his fans and potential clients. He even makes a violin sale near the end. And he smiles a lot more, which I’m not used to so it’s a bit weird, but it definitely makes him more approachable. After that we were able to sell out the Pacifico Yokohama and SSS rank the Silvester concert, whee! No new events for doing so, though.

The grand confession scene… this time I was well-prepared and raised his feelings for me up to 384, so everything went smoothly. Very blunt and straight reply to the confession: “Yes I love you too, and not as just a friend.” And then… uh… wow, I can’t believe I forgot what CG I got for his ending…. Argh, will go look and update this later. I remember it being a nice CG though. Disadvantage of having a PSTV instead of a VITA, you can’t just carry it around wherever you go.

Who’s next?

I’m in a bit of a dilemma because I’m loving the tough gameplay in La Corda d’Oro 4 and I don’t want to quit until I have filled and SSS-ranked the Yokohama Arena. But! I have mixed-to-negative feelings about the other guys available.

Myoga: Out of the question. He’s even more chuunibyo and abrasive than he was before. Although… taking him down a peg might be… Nah, it would never work.
Amamiya: Seems even weirder and colder than ever before. The only reason I would date him is because Nia told me not to, and Nia is a female dog whose guts I hate, so anything she says not to do, I must do immediately.
Haruto: Annoying brat. Even ruder and more uptight than before, even though logic suggests he should have mellowed a bit once he realized that Kanade was actually talented and motivated.
Nanami: Another annoying kid. His whiny self-esteem issues stress me out.
Kyoya: Even angrier and whinier than ever before, if that were even possible. In a world of perfect, mature and disciplined high school kids, Kyoya comes closest to the strange mix of diffidence, laziness and faux-bravado I see in teenagers around me (they’re so cute, I can’t believe I was ever that age). But that doesn’t make his dramatics any easier to deal with. Pass.
Sakaki Daichi: Never liked him, and he’s even smugger and smarmier than before.
Arata: Another annoying kid. He wasn’t so bad in the last game, but I don’t wanna deal with his shtick any more.
Houzumi: Meh. Still don’t like him. And when I chose the wrong answer, I got an event where he got all pissy because Kanade is a talented violinist from a rich kid’s school who can’t possibly understand what he’s going through. *smash* Houzumi route blocked forever. At least he’s not so violent any more. Fans must have complained, I know I certainly did.
Togane: He gives a lot of good business and life advice when he makes guest appearances on other routes like Yagisawa’s and Ritsu’s. But I did a bit of his own route and MAN, he is full of himself. Like, how does he keep from exploding? So I dunno if I want to do this or not.
Housei: Another weirdo. And his slow speaking style and touchy-feely events give me the heebie jeebies. Do not want.

Am I missing any one? Dunno if there are any secret characters and don’t care to know. So final decision: will take a brief break for Demon Gaze II then do Togane’s route. Then Amamiya after that. Kyoya and Myoga would piss me off so I would have to do another route after theirs… Ughh. I’ll give it some thought. Either way you haven’t seen the last of this game!

La Corda d’Oro 4 – Solo ending and Sunaga Takumi GET

Before starting, I read reviews of La Corda d’oro 4 that said it was really hard. I was like “pshaw, they always say that.” How hard can an otome game be? The answer is pretty darn hard, especially if you play it on Hard mode. I mean, it says Hard but usually Hard is like medium, y’know? Nah, not this time, fam. It’s Hard all right. And fun. And hard.

Story: 8 years ago, some Seiso Academy students held a Silvester concert on New Year’s eve (apparently Silvester is German for “New Year’s Eve”?). So protagonist Kanade and her buddies decide, anything they can do, we can do it better. So they form a group and hold a couple of concerts to drum up interest before finally holding their own Silvester concert on December 31st. Little does anyone suspect that the concert is just an excuse for Kanade to gather all her bishies in one place so she can hit on them with ease, mwaha, mwaha, mwahahahahaaa *cough cough*

Gameplay and why it’s harder than before: First off, they added some extra button presses to the concert portion, so instead of just tapping, there are parts where you have to hold and release and others where you have to mash a button like crazy but stop just in time so you don’t ruin your combo. It’s easy enough on Normal mode, but Hard mode can get ridiculous somehow. You basically have to abandon an entire row just to get some hits in sometimes.

My eyes got used to it in some songs after a while, but others are plain insane. Like, how??? And everything whizzes by like zoooooooom! It’s almost a blur. But it’s fun. And hard.

The second change they made is that instead of one affection bar that goes up to 1000, each guy has two that goes up to 500 each. One is a “love from him” bar, the other is a “love to him” bar. You have to fill at least one of these to get his ending. But the choices you make might not always fill the right bar you are looking for. And affection doping items will fill up one or the other, not both. Etc etc, for various reasons it’s much more difficult to max out even one guy’s affections, much less a whole harem of them. Just the way I like it, but definitely harder than La Corda d’Oro 3.

Third reason why it’s harder: apart from the very first concert, the concert schedule is entirely up you. You can hold as many or as few concerts as you want, or even zero for the rest of the game. This matters because now you can’t interact with your classmates or love interests during the week. You have to focus on lessons with your teachers instead. You can only ask guys to practice with you or work on polishing up your ensemble on weekends.

I like these chibi renditions more than I thought I would.

Which means much more limited free time, where you have to balance getting ready for the concert with getting your love life in order. Will you hold fewer concerts so you can spend more time with your sweetheart, getting less BP and less popularity and making it harder to hold a grand Silvester concert? Or will you hold more so you can buy more scores and doping items and hold better concerts? How few is too few? How many is too many? The only way to find out is through trial and error.

Random tips

And so my first two runs were spent just getting used to the new system, figuring out how little I could get away with. Seems like it’s okay to repeat the same songs in different concerts. I.e. if there’s a penalty for repeated songs or playing easier tunes, it’s not very severe.

Secondly, because of the limited time and the tight schedule, you do need to pick your love interest(s) early and start working them over ASAP. Practice together every day you can, use ribbons and cologne like you own the factory. Basically go all out to raise his affection and start getting events as soon as you can. Don’t be like me and get to December 28th only to find out that Yagisawa wants me to hold a concert just for his mommy dearest. -_-

Also, unless you’re aiming specifically for Togane, Housei or Myoga, you can save time by not holding an event in Kobe and not holding the church concert with the finalists of the high school contest. Especially the latter, since it adds almost nothing to your concert accomplishments unless you super want Myoga.

Last tip: If you hold a concert between the 24th and the 31st, you should be able to get up to SS rank, which will let you hire a bigger hall like the Pacifico Yokohama, thus beating out the legendary Silvester concert from 8 years ago. Unfortunately I discovered this too late to take advantage of it, but I’ll give it a try on my next playthrough and see if I get a special event or CG for my efforts.

Solo ending and Sunaga-sensei ending

All that fumbling around gave me the “forever alone” ending the first time round. You get a nice concert, you all throw a big party afterwards, Nia shows up to mock you for being a loverless loser, credits roll, later on you get a CG with all the Seiso Academy guys going to school together, the end. Not too bad except for the Nia part.

Second time round, I got paired up with my teacher Sunaga-sensei by default. La Corda d’Oro 4 makes it so you can take lessons with teachers every weekday. Every time you have a lesson with Sunaga, his affection stat goes up. If you don’t shut that nonsense down ASAP, he starts to like you more and more (but they play it off like you like him) and all sorts of stupid events start happening like you guys are cleaning the blackboard together and your fingers touch and it’s like “KYAAAA our fingers touched!” What is this, grade school? Very stupid route.

Creepy creepy creepy creepy :-(((

Turns out Sunaga-sensei is just pretending to be cool but he’s actually a bit shy and awkward (?) in real life, which is why no woman his age will give him the time of day and he has to get his jollies by hitting on naive high school girls who can’t get away easily because they’re forced into close proximity with him. …Okay they didn’t say the latter part, but you put two and two together and that’s what you get. I like his looks, but the guy and his route are both pathetic.

What’s next

I tried twice to get Yagisawa’s ending, but even after holding a hastily-planned concert for his mother, I still didn’t get the required event. =___= This requires some googling. I also want to get Ritsu’s ending and Togane’s ending. Kyoya is a bit too whiny and Amamiya is a bit too callous this time round, so I’m ignoring them. That’s three more playthroughs and then I’m done.

But first, I need a break from the bishies so I’m going to start Demon Gaze 2 in the next couple of days. See ya!

Atelier Sophie – I quit. I’ve had enough

I’ve already said my piece on Atelier Sophie last time, i.e. it’s unenjoyable trash. Nevertheless, being the closet masochist that I am, I decided to soldier on for another 20 hours or so in case the game suddenly got more fun. There were moments when it seemed like it could possibly get interesting, but it never made that grand breakthrough.

Eventually I was able to turn Plachta human, and my characters had long since hit the level cap and my alchemy level was at level 47. I figured I had seen enough so I headed to the “Gates of Wisdom” at Enlightened Mountain like the game had been nagging me to for a while. I thought the last boss would be there, and then I would beat them and finish the game. Turns out, I’m not just a masochist, I am also extremely naive. As if Gust would free me from this torment that easily.

So the last boss showed up (spoiler: it’s the true form of Meklet and Atomina, those totally not suspicious twins) and I was fixing to go beat him up but NOOOO, Plachta’s convenient amnesia conveniently acts up so she can’t remember where the last boss is holing up. “Maybe if you raise your alchemy level, I’ll remember.” Oh Plachta, Plachta. I would Love to raise my alchemy level. Love with a capital L. It’s the stupid developer of the game that won’t let me do so.

I have about 20 unlocked recipes on the list that I can’t make until I fiddle with alchemy traits and make Item X with Trait A, carry it over to Substance Y, fuse that into Liquid Z before making the final item, etc etc. Or there’s one that says “Go talk to someone who might know.” EHHH? What kind of hint is that? “Talk to someone who talks to the dead.” HUH? Maybe Pamela? Grandma’s grave? Who? How the hell am I supposed to know?!

TL;DR I can’t be bothered to Google the answers. It’s ridiculous to have a game about alchemy and lock every recipe behind a cryptic hint or tedious puzzle. I’ve played along with this stupidity long enough. Counting spin-offs and side games, there must be over 30 games in the Atelier series, so it’s not that strange for there to be one or two duds among them. I didn’t like Atelier Sophie, and I hear Atelier Firis is worse, but I won’t let that turn me against the series just yet. That said, I think I should take a break from Atelier games for the rest of the year. Playing them in such quick succession can’t be helping.

What I’m playing now: There’s a “half AP for side stories” promotion currently running in Granblue Fantasy so I’m farming up Premium tickets for my next spark. Actually I already have enough crystals for a spark, but there’s no harm stockpilling tickets while I try to figure out what to spark.

For actual games, I just started Kiniro no Corda/ La Corda d’Oro 4. They’ve made a number of changes to the gameplay that IMO aren’t necessary, and the number of events is uncomfortably high, but once I clear the first playthrough I’ll be able to fast-forward through a lot of stuff so things will get more enjoyable. Now, which bishie to conquer first…