Angelique Luminarise

its funny how cyrus and them keep talking to me like i actually stand a chance at becoming queen

[for 10 more days, despite saying i would give up, i kept trying to see if i could clutch this before i accepted that the situation was truly hopeless]

okay okay, i just think it'd be really funny if my liveblog ended there.

but there was a post-credits scene that showed Queen Reina with her assistant and best friend Ange.

she's beautiful... CG so good i don't care that i lost.

so, in case i didn't make it crystal clear earlier, there's... many ways for the game to end, but the most important two ways are

• you or reina fully develop your island first, becoming Queen of the Universe
or
• you confess to one of the guardians/one of the guardians confesses to you, which forces you to drop out of the exam, and then reina automatically wins and becomes queen. (i'm pretty sure you yourself can't auto-win due to your rival dropping out; that just doesn't happen.)

i saw that beating reina in continent-raising was impossible, so i ended the game by calling felix to the waterfall. when you have super high intimacy with someone, that pretty much guarantees a confession from one of you. felix confessed to me, and that was that. here's the CG not taken by a phone camera:

so close to a kiss.... so close..........

so yea, in a little less than 15 hours i beat angelique luminarise. that's normal for angelique. a run doesn't take long. it's 100%ing it that'll take 100+ hours... and trust me, i looked to see how much i saw - mind you, feeling like i saw very few CGs despite how close we were - and saw that i barely saw ANYTHING... the requirements for some CGs must be real strict.

that first pic is for CGs, and the second pic is for events. 520 events... my god. i'm sure i was able to get a way higher percentage clavis events in one run of retour than this.

i think the game is objectively good. like with many games, the catch is that you have to like at least one of the LIs, and no one had me hooked. i know i have very specific tastes, so that really is a me problem... i think lorenzo was funny though, and i'm still interested in noah's deal, so it's not like i didn't like anyone or was bored with them all. it's just no one made me at least midly obsessed with them.

this is also definitely a me thing, but i didn't love the art style. i wonder how i would feel if i saw yura kairi draw all the characters... i need to look into that. if she hasn't, that's crazy. explaining why i don't like the style would be complicated, but the real source behind it all is i've definitely brainwashed myself with too much older shoujo. so the art isn't actually bad, just not in line with my personal preferences. (there are recent artists with styles i like, but again, explaining what makes an art style i like and what makes one i don't like would take all day.)

as you can see, i struggled winning the exam. the game has 3 difficulty modes: easy, normal, and hard. i chose normal! but i think i was losing because i didn't remember to use my items until it was far too late. jrpg hoarding brain has screwed me over yet again. i'm glad it has difficulty modes, which is something i wish every angelique game had, and since it still gives you that nice "number go up :D and i had to work for it!" feeling, i think the gameplay is good. there's lots of events and romantic lines (lorenzo had more lines that got me than felix. sad!!)... basically, angelique is a good series and this is a good game. what holds it back is my own personal tastes, and other complaints i had were from me being an oldhead and comparing it to 1. older games, and 2. the guardian i'm already obsessed with. to properly judge it i need to pretend i've never played an angelique game before, and when i do that.... well... i had that experience actually. remember?

i've had the angelique snes rom on my 3DS for as long as i've had it hacked, but i never got beyond the tutorial because it was mucho texto and my japanese wasn't good enough to make sense of it. then one day, earlier this year, i saw the luminarise demo on the switch eshop and was like "woah, angelique has a new game? i should try it!" so i did play luminarise without actually playing an old angelique. and what were my thoughts? "this gameplay is awesome, but i wish i had strong feelings about any of these guys. i should try playing the game i have on my 3ds again and see how those guys make me feel." LMAO. @past chris, insane. they will make you feel insane.

i think that's all i have to say about this game. i don't regret buying or playing it. i had fun! it's a very funny game, for one thing, even if the strategizing and RNG can be stressful. no, it's fun because the strategizing and RNG are stressful. that's what makes a simulation game a simulation, no? i think i'll have even more fun when i replay it, since i know how to handle it better now.

i'm very, very excited to start harukanaru toki no naka de (aka Beyond the Stream of Time). look forward to that liveblog!!