June 2025 Progress Report
June was.. pretty ok? No favorites here, but I’m really surprised how much effort was put into making the Hyperdimension series, considering the third game felt like it was made more for fans than a general audience, which you gotta respect. Got another curator game from the Hidden Cats series, like previous titles, it’s pretty good with the main Rio map being the best out of all of them, no matter how cute the kitten bonus levels are… lets see, next is Devil on G-string, which was a really painful read. Aside from being incredibly sexist and insensitive, I really despised the “twist” reveal at the end, when it’s like “Ahaha! This is the twist! The build-up! Are you shocked?” when it kept beating you over the head with the most stupidly obvious hints every chance it got. I should never be able to guess the literal ending of a 20-hour thriller VN within the first two hours. Finally, Distant Bloom! Really cute! Needs a bit of polishing and I got vibes the ending was cut down to be shorter, like there was supposed to be more content, but overall fantastic environment sim with companion planting.
Next month! I’m finishing Falconeer, I’m having a fantastic time and it’s more enjoyable than I anticipated. The flying is really smooth and you can do quite a bit of air acrobatics - but for Keyboard and mouse players, you gotta go to settings to do a bit of key rebinding and set the game to “mouse control and aim” which is honestly the reason for most negative reviews, not changing the controls. Cyberdimension Neptunia 4 is also in the plans, as well as Dead Forest and Dragon Wings - Birth of a hero. some of these are kinda short though, so I might work on a fifth game, possibly Coromon? I’ll figure it out as I go.
Total games added to backlog: 3 (Falconeer, Hidden Cats in Rio, Dungeons of Hinterberg)
Total completed: 4
After resolving the calamity of Re;Birth 2 and bringing peace back to Gamindustri, the nations of Planeptune, Lastation, Lowee, and Leanbox rebuild their cities and restore their citizens faith in the CPUs – but for Neptune, the peace doesn’t last very long. A sudden attack by a mysterious energy sends her straight to another dimension, one where Planeptune is newly founded and run by another purple-haired protagonist, Plutia. Surrounded by familiar strangers, Neptune’s gotta regain her powers and figure out how to get back home! Right after she takes a long nap, of course.
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30-70+ hours to complete, Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 3 is a turn-based Visual Novel disguising itself as a JRPG. It’s fully voice-acted with plenty of slice-of-life moments and fourth-wall-breaking humor - if you’re a Neptunia fan, you will probably enjoy this! While you don’t need to play the previous games in the series to enjoy this one, there are references to previous events and re-occurring characters; however, due to the Dimension Hopping theme, they are regarded as “familiar, but new.”
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While Re;Birth 3 is heavy on dialogue, the game retains and has refined its turn-based combat system with plenty of combo-building options, flashy finishers, and team-based special attacks. Item spawns in dungeons are notably no longer RNG dependent, so you no longer need to pray to RNG to get a specific Plan dropped. There is still quite a bit of grinding, but it’s much lighter than in previous entries. If you want to skip the grind entirely, I highly suggest picking up Histy’s Emergency Aid Plan. It lets you enjoy the story without becoming so crazy overpowered that boss fights become meaningless so long as you’re moving through the plot at a steady pace – the final boss still packs quite a punch!
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This game was given to me for free to curate, which does not guarantee a positive review, and reflects my sincere opinion.
2-3 hours to complete, Hidden Cats in Rio de Janeiro is a charming point-and-click hidden object game featuring historical monuments and of course, cats! There are a total of eight maps to explore with a total of 737 hidden felines, among them are special collectible cats that appear with their photo cards to unlock bonus levels. As you uncover cats in an area, that segment of the map fills in with color giving you a nice little visual reward, but more importantly avoiding the frustrating experience of searching every corner for that last, stealthiest cat.
Overall, this game is a pretty satisfying and engaging experience. There is a large variety of cats with different sizes, weights, and fur ranging from sleek to fluffy. You can spot them in quite a few poses as well, from lounging on rooftops to blending in and loafing with the rolls in the bakery. In addition, there is a wide range of meowing, some soft and quiet, while others are loud and playful! Combined with the catchy background music, Hidden Cats in Rio de Janeiro becomes an ideal cozy and engaging experience.
G-senjou no Maou - The Devil on G-String
26-40+ hours to complete, G-senjou no Maou - The Devil on G-String is a Noir Visual Novel that initially tries to present itself as a gripping narrative, a violent thriller where the protagonist and the antagonist play a dark game of cat-and-mouse and a righteous heroine seeking justice and the truth of her past trauma – except the “big reveal” is guessable within the first two hours since the novel drops the most obnoxious hints and the side characters have inconsistent and contradicting personalities depending on the route you’re on. There are four romantic routes, but most of them feel shallow, like they simply exist to fulfill the typical romantic tropes other VN’s have and provide fanservice. The True Route does attempt a more meaningful narrative, but due to the heavy-handed foreshadowing, the shocking twist feels hollow and painfully obvious.
Story issues and character flipping personalities aside, I can’t help but feel this game was mostly made for a narrow demographic. It’s painfully sexist, which seeing as this VN was made in 2008, it may just be a product of its time period. The romance options are common tropes that reflect outdated gender dynamics, the developers clearly prioritized erotic content over any meaningful character depth, and it felt like the writers were trying to make a “wish fulfillment” fantasy rather than an emotionally mature storyline. While I will admit Haru is a remarkably intelligent heroine who challenges the protagonist and sees through most of his BS, all the other routes feel tacked on for more eroge content and lack anything to advance the storyline. If for whatever reason you’re still interested in playing The Devil on G-String, then do so, but if you don’t like it nearly two hours in, you won’t enjoy the rest of the VN.
The planet Altra 2 is dying. In a desperate search to find a miracle among the stars, a beautiful, untouched, and habitable world is found, and the Alter race starts the construction of Distant Bloom, a massive ark meant to carry the entire civilization of Altra 2 to their new home while an exploratory ship and team is sent in advance. A group of specialized scientists, Elder Umarell, and you – the elders direct assistant. After spending 547,000 cycles in cryosleep, the ship arrives at the new Altra 3, only to find that the paradise is gone. Waking up to a barren wasteland and complete silence from Altra 2, it’s up to you to discover what went wrong and begin the long work of making the planet habitable again.
7-15 hours to complete, Distant Bloom is an environmental gardening sim where you restore areas of a barren planet via companion planting – or growing trees, ferns, fungi, herbs, and cacti together in at least three groups to develop and revitalize a devastated ecological area. There are different plants for different environments, but you can also bring in seeds from different areas to increase diversity. Areas will gradually visually improve as they recover, making the gameplay pretty satisfying! I will note: don’t worry about missing a gardening plot if you can’t find it, after the storyline ends, the game will automatically add them to your mini map when you enter an unfinished area, which I deeply appreciated, as some plots are kinda sneaky!
As for cons, there honestly are not that many. The game is a bit buggy, but all of the issues I encountered were easily fixable. Occasionally, my character became frozen after planting something, the solution is to simply hit esc, then go back to your gameplay, and sometimes tools vanished from my hands, which can be fixed by going to the main menu then returning. The biggest issue with the game I had is more a personal one – it’s really weird that you live in a tent outside while everyone else gets a house, considering it’s almost effortless to build one. In addition, I don’t think the game is in a complete state, as I have a strong impression that there was supposed to be an additional area. Overall, it’s still a solid game worth picking up if you enjoy environmental cleaning sims.
You’re making good progress through the Neptunia games.
Looks like you have a solid July planned.
Congrats for your assassineptions! You played a large number of hours!
Congratulations, cat herder! Although, I have to say that I am pretty astounded by 41h spent on a 0/10 game (⊙_◎)
I know right. Terrible game but zel certainly does commit. Now I can use this as an excuse for why I quit right at the true end. I can’t go back and play it guys, zel gave it a 0
Reviews were saying it was good, but after playing and only thinking that the true route was borderline average, I have no idea what the hell those people were on about. These were some of the tamer screenshots. I strongly consider Devil on G-string one of the most sexist works I’ve ever read, hence me saying I’m pretty sure it was for a specific audience.