The next synopsis for Spice and Wolf is still oncoming. It's just, where I'm at now the plot suddenly got kind of complex, so I was having trouble wrapping my head around it, much less putting a summary together.
Valkyria Revolution
The first two hours or so of this game seem to consist largely of cutscenes. You do one tutorial battle a few minutes in, and then it's a lot of menus and talking heads. This doesn't bother me so much as the story is somewhat interesting, but it does suggest poor pacing. I just got to the point where free missions open up, so it seems like there will be more battling going on.
A lot of people were pretty harsh on this game leading up to and through its release, because how different it is from the previous Valkyria games. I try hard to judge games for what they are, rather than what I want or expect them to be, so even as a huge fan of Valkyria Chronicles I wanted to give this a shot. The parallels between VC and this game are...superficial, I guess you could say. It has the storybook structure of the first game, the "underdog nation fighting against an empire" premise, and the sorta artsy graphics style that helped Valkyria Chronicles stand out. And there's a valkyria in the game. Those are kinda all the major things in common that stand out. While the story has similar trappings, actual plot and even the world are completely different. There's no indication so far that Valkyria Revolution actually takes place in the same universe as the previous games. The technology is different, as are the countries and history.
And of course, the big difference here, the elephant in the room, is the gameplay. Valkyria Revolution is an action-RPG with light strategy, as opposed to the strategy-RPG with light action that Valkyria Chronicles was. For some reason, when I think of games to compare it to mechanically, The Last Story actually comes to mind.
Anyway, I'm too early to speak qualitatively about the game, but I don't hate it.
Total War: Warhammer
Having now played Rome II, Shogun II, and just a bit of Medieval II, I felt it was time to dip into Total War: Warhammer. I've put a couple dozen hours into the game now, and there are some distinct things I do and don't like about it.
The biggest thing I like is the fantasy. The Warhammer license really brings a lot to the Total War formula. Now you're not just working with swords, cavalry and spears, you're working with huge beasts, tanks, and griffons. Mages cast spells that sweep across the battlefield while undead dragons fly overhead. Rocket batteries release hell on distant targets while trolls charge headlong through crowds of infantry. Tactically, large creatures and flying units add a surprising amount to the traditional formula.
And yet, Warhammer is also probably the simplest Total War I've played, in most respects. There's really no managing of finances to be done (you can't for example adjust tax level, even faction-wide), true sieges (with walls to breach and such) only happen at province capitals, and your formation options are reduced to just "melee at the front" and "ranged at the front", a big departure from all the options Rome II had. This makes it probably the most accessible Total War, but I do feel like Creative Assembly sacrificed a certain level of depth to accomplish this.
Shogun II had a meta-mechanic in the campaign called "World-Divide", that was designed to keep the player on their toes and shake up the status quo. Similarly, Rome II has internal politics that you have to stay wary of as you expand. In Warhammer, the meta this time is Chaos. Chaos corruption is a constant threat throughout your game, but at some point a few hours in, you start getting warnings of a huge horde of Chaos mustering far in the north. It's not long before they're knocking on your door, and if you're not ready, they'll roll over you.
One other thing that I like about Warhammer is the confederation mechanic. Unlike in previous Total War games, humans aren't the only ones competing for power. Other races like Dwarves, Elves, and Vampires are also on the map. Within each race you have multiple factions. For example, I might start as the human Empire, but there will be plenty of other human factions on the map, too. I can choose to just conquer them, but in Warhammer if you can get friendly enough with other factions of the same race, you can convince them to basically join you willingly. A situation that you run into fairly often with TW is that you get onto good terms with a relatively small faction that, while not particularly strong, isn't worth the diplomatic penalty you'd incur for betraying and forcibly annexing them. So you leave them be and hope you don't find yourself having to swoop to their rescue too often. Now, in a situation like that, that small faction would more than likely be willing to just be assimilated by you (which the game calls "joining your confederation"). Especially as the Chaos horde approaches and a need for unity comes into play.
The biggest thing I dislike about Warhammer compared to previous entries is how frequently routed units come back to fight. A lot of this has to do with how simplified morale is compared to previous games, but I can't count how many times I've had an enemy unit retreat, only to come running back into the battle minutes later. This happens in other games too, but uncommonly. If you routed a unit, there was always a chance they'd come running back maybe once or twice, but in Warhammer routing a unit almost feels meaningless unless you actually run them off the map, because without fail they'll come running back into the battle sooner or later. Sometimes units that have been routed multiple times still come back for more. The thing that makes this distasteful to me is that it turns a lot of battles into ones where you end up fighting to the last man, which is supposed to be really uncommon in Total War, at least until end-game. I never feel like a unit is truly out of the fight until I've literally exterminated them, which is costly and time-consuming. This feeling is compounded by what I feel like is a proliferation of units that basically don't rout at all, like the Axe Champions and Mace Flagellants, who will in fact fight until they're all dead. I dunno, call me weird, but I've grown accustomed to the more gentlemanly battles, where the enemy runs when they know they're beaten.
God Eater
This is one of the few anime that I'm watching with English voices, because the voice actors are largely the same as they were for the games. Though it follows the same overall story as the first game, it definitely takes some interesting swerves. That's kinda what I like to see in an adaptation, to be honest.
