Stream
The collective stream of my current gaming, visual novel and reading journeys. Follow along for a real-time, chronological diary of every title I’m experiencing featuring unfiltered first impressions, video highlights, and screenshot galleries updated as I progress. Use the category tags to filter the feed and follow a specific story from start to finish.
Cosmicon, Roll on! Hook is clearly cheating!
Currently playing the dice game to clear the event and get the rewards and I was like "oh, this event is kind of a borefest" when I started the final battle against Hook (the leader of the Moles) and she put out that obviously ultra cheat card of Castorice with Perforation, Combo, Counter, Forcefield, Unyielding and 99 health. I was like "wait, what? How am I supposed to win here?!". I managed to survive one turn thanks to Unyielding by Phainon, but that was it. Of course it was a scripted defeat before the real match against her, but it was a cute scene to see her proud of being invincible.
Also she isn't repentant either as, apparently, she was just a poor adorable kid being mislead by the "Four Heavenly Kings" that are the next ones we need to fight in the event. The first one we found was Sparxie, but apparently wasn't her the one that teached Hook to use cheat cards. Who is the mysterious culprit?!
Even though it wasn't voiced, it was nice to see the Belobog gang all back to play some random fun. It reminds me of when I started playing this game at launch and I fell in love with Seele, Bronya and the whole setting of Belobog. It was the best part of the release day as I never managed to like Xianzhou Luofu.
Apparently I heard from rumours online that there's going to be a new story part dedicated to Belobog in the future of the game, but don't know the details as of yet. Only some leak by usual unknown sources, but I'm stoked for it.
Ochette Ch.2 Glacis Route - Hunters being hunted
Ochette is turning out to be a much more interesting character than I expected her to be. In this chapter we are chasing the final third creature of the legends called Glacis found in Stormhail where she is revered as some kind of divinity because of the protection she gave them from various meteorological phenomenons.
Issue is, once there we found that the situation is a lot more complicated now because the blizzards are ravaging and Glacis is angry. Turns out some hunters went their way to try and "hunt" Glacis and ended up mostly being killed. They did manage to destroy the egg of Glacis which sent her in a frenzy. One of those hunters is still alive and want to get revenge for the others.
Honestly wasn't expecting to ear Ochette's voice change so dramatically in this scene (the attached screenshot). She was livid and deeply angry at what happened and her voice changed a lot. Apparently she's voiced by Aya Hirano and honestly despite her being so popular back then, I totally didn't notice until her voice changed in this scene.
Either way, Ochette manages to calm her down and willing to help with her quest. Now the next target is going back to the home of Toto'haha and preparing for the calamity. But the report of a Black Hunter being the one that instigated the attack on Glacis makes me wonder about who is really going to be the final villain of her story...
Gameplay wise, the boss wasn't that hard to be honest. Just kept breaking the weakness and killing the adds when they popped up. It had a few scary AOE attacks like Silver Wind (that did like 1000-1200 damage to the entire party), but nothing that you can't overheal with items or the Cleric class. I was vastly underleveled compare to the suggested level (I'm lvl31 compared to the lvl37 suggestion).
Aino Miori's voice is so oneesan!
Continuing on Aino's route and wanted to show everyone the typical oneesan voice of Aino Miori is during the interactions with Tsubame in this visual novel.
In this specific scene she is reprimanding him because he closed Castella (the bird) in a closet as she was a nuisance in his attempts to get intimate with Aino. Tsubame tries various ways to escape from the allegations, but in the end only makes Aino even more angry by saying that he was just "trying to release her stress and it wasn't him". This triggers Aino's revenge "now I'll make sure to release your stress too!" and well, poor Tsubame RIP.
I really like her "I'm angry, but I'm trying to control myself here" voice that you know it's trouble (even Castella escaped), but you can't say openly because technically she's still talking normally.
Aino is voiced by Iwasaki Kanae who is, admittedly, a rather minor seiyuu in the visual novel industry. I've had a look at the other titles she worked on and I didn't find any other visual novel that I read in that list, but after a much wider search found out she was Airi Altinate in "I Couldn't Become a Hero, So I Reluctantly Decided to Get a Job" and man that series was nice. I should give the light novel a try later...
Castti Ch.3 Abandoned Village - Malaya was...
Completed chapter 3 of Castti and I'm left a bit without words about the events that happened. Trousseau's motivations to betray everyone was "I talked to some dude back then and he told me the truth", but they never elaborate much further on why he spread that terrible disease killing innocents left and right. He says that's the way to free everyone from suffering, but that's like...just...absurd and incomprehensible.
To add on top, we get the reveal that everyone else in the Eir's Apothecaries are dead trying to get Castti to safety. Including Malaya that was not someone who was angry with Castti, but purely her own imagination trying to remind her about the memories she lost. Now Castti is on her own and she needs to finish what she started.
Now next chapter is the grand finale with the battle against Trousseau to stop him from destroying a huge city while the coronation of the new king is ongoing. While I'm sure that Castti will succeed I'm wondering exactly WHO put these things in the mind of Trousseau. I'm starting to think again that there must be a central figure that is causing havoc around the country in all the various routes and they're all somehow connected, but so far can't still figure out the pieces.
Aino's sleeping with Yua
I just finished Tsumugi's scenario which was, as I predicted in the previous article, all about overcoming the feeling of guilt after what happened to Yua in her route. Yua is, in that route, still sleeping in that world to allow everyone else to continue their lives normally which creates a huge sense of guilt in Tsumugi for her happiness.
The issue is solved by a meeting in the dreaming world with Yua that reassure them that she's going to wake up in the near future and that they should just wait a bit more for her.
Now starting Aino's scenario in which Yua is also sleeping, but this time she's in her room and not disappeared from the world like in Tsumugi's route. When Tsubame was poking Aino's thighs while she was sleeping hugging Yua she appeared to be pissed off and punched him, but it must've been the wind! Clearly can't be that Yua is reacting!
Aside from these small jokes nothing special happening as they go around trying to reintroduce what is the situation of the world in this specific route. Aino is honestly a lot cuter than I was expecting with her "older oneesan" personality that falls short often due to her tendency to fall asleep everywhere. Apparently she improved compared to the original game though, she only sleep 15 hours a day now! It's progress, small, but progress nonetheless.
Tsumugi and Tsubame relationship
I've been going ahead with Tsumugi's scenario and it's now certain that it's a continuation from her specific ending. In this scenario Yua isn't there as she disappeared to allow everyone else to continue with her life and Tsubame/Tsumugi are living their life at the best. Tsubame is under the assumption that Tsumugi doesn't remember about Yua, but that's just a lie as she does remember.
Just as they're going through their life normally (with some nice comedy scenes with Alice worrying about them as they look too much like an older couple), they discover that Castella (Yua's bird) is somehow back which shouldn't be possible as she're strictly connected to Yua and couldn't exist without her. Does this mean that Yua is going to come back to deliver an happy end in this reality too? That would be a nice touch to make all the routes "canon" and just different parallel world and all with a happy end for everyone, but let's see what they do.
Right now Tsubame broke his four limbs protecting Tsumugi from a fall and is now being pampered by Tsumugi, quite cute scene. She's become ultra protective of him after the event and it's quite cute to see their back and forth as everyone else is instead kind of "what are these two doing?"
Throne Chapter 3 - Father Route
Wait, he was not her father after all? I was already predicting a cheesy scene like that in star wars with "Father" going "Throne, I'm your real father" with a "NO!" shout from Throne. There was even the leading up sad backstory showing Throne mother Marietta and Sebastian (Father's real name) being together and going to a church to be together lovingly. She even revealed she was pregnant and Sebastian going "let's marry" and I was like "oh this is very cheesy!".
Then Father deliver the bombshell that Marietta then left him, killed the kid she was carrying, married the leader of the Blacksnakes and had a daughter which was Throne. And that kind of shocked me as it really come as a curve ball, but it had reasoning because there was another chapter after this one and if Father dies we would have no final mastermind to fight against.
Turns out the real leader of the Blacksnakes is still alive and is Throne real father. Plus the keys she stole were useless to open her collar which means they were really meant for another purpose. Almost surely to open a door in the Blacksnakes nest where the real final boss will be waiting.
I'm now curious to see what is the final ending that Throne will be reaching in the next chapter. Will she really be free or just end up becoming the new leader of the Blacksnakes?
Zibai's resurrection (kind of)
Finished the story of this year Lantern Rite and finally we managed to resurrect Zibai thanks to the three pieces of her soul. I was expecting the three personalities to disappear, but thankfully they're still there. Eventually they'll merge back into Zibai of course, but it would've been a shame if they did disappeared immediately.
Of the three personalities I liked the last one the most especially with the banter she had with Zhong Li at the beginning (when he was about to leave), but hard to go wrong considering the middle one was permanently angry and the first one didn't have much screentime at all.
Honestly I think Hu Tao's centered Lantern Rite was overall better in terms of storyline, but that could be because I really didn't manage to get attached to Zibai much while I already loved Hu Tao a lot since before the lantern rite.
I do agree that Zibai's design is stunning which adds up with the updated 3D model that seem to be making all the new characters look a lot better. I wonder if they plan to update the old characters with more details in the coming year, some of them got updated with their skin release, but that will never cover the big cast that Genshin has...
Heavenly Principles Nails on Zibai
Just continuing with the Genshin Impact event and it shows us why did Zizhi / Zibai got destroyed in the past. The Heavenly Principles decided to drop a huge Celestial Nail on her country to clean the abyss from it (the city was hit by a side effect of the huge war happening at the time) and, despite Istaroth suggesting not to do anything, she still went and protected them because it was her people that trusted her.
In the moment when she was about to die Istaroth stopped time and allowed her to continue being in a frozen-like state until today where Lumine is trying to resurrect her.
This is also made easier by the fact that the Heavenly Principles are completely silent right now and don't seem to react to any kind of provocation happening in the world be it Dottore doing weird experiments or Focalor literally destroying one of the thrones. (which I'm sure will be an important fact once we reach the final stages of the story in the 7.x patches)
Now we managed to collect one of the pieces of her soul, need to get the remaining two to finalize the resurrection and take her back to the world of the living. Curious to see what is her final personality, as we've only see specific fragments so far, for example the one we just collected was her Hatred.
Tsumugi going to the hospital?!
I've started with Tsumugi as the first scenario I'm tackling of this game and it seems to be set after the end of her route which is an interesting choice considering that there was a true ending that technically invalidates all the other in the original game. The scenario start with a, honestly extremely hot scene with Tsumugi in swimsuit (I've keep a screenshot for the final article) and continues with a series of misunderstanding between Tsubame and Tsumugi.
Mainly around why Tsumugi seems distracted at school and elsewhere. Tsubame thinks she's pregnant and start following her to see where she goes. While doing that he encounter Alice (the scene I attached as a video to this post) and the misunderstanding enlarges even further because it is revealed that she's going to the hospital making his alarm signals go off all at the same time. (but no, she went just because her mother had a small back pain issue). Alice is left dumbfounded there as he goes away while thinking what to do.
Talking more about the ending thing, now I'm wondering if the true ending of this fandisk actually work in a way that "solves" that and make them all real in some sort of parallel universe way. Wouldn't surprise me considering the type of fantasy content that pieces delivered in the previous title.
Wuling First Part End?!
If you remember in my last post on Arknights Endfield ( https://blog.emptyblue.it/impression/arknights-endfield-yvonne-laevatain-and-gilberta-side-stories ) I was excited about completing the Wuling storyline and getting to make a new article talking about my experience with it, so I decided to start today and try to get it done in one sitting.
Food and drinks ready on the side, time to do a long session trying to get it complete. There was a lot of good will believe me.
Issue is that the story abruptly ends after getting the first village side-PAC (Tangtang's base in the Stockade) with basically nothing resolved and only very little information revealed at all. We got to know the vice-roy of the city (Zhuang Fangyi), a few other officials (Mi Fu for example) and the basic premise which is all centered around Xiranite production needed to power the defenses that are keeping the city safe from the blight that is expanding.
There is no real info given about the goals of the villains nor about what we're going to do to try and stop them. I understand they couldn't put the entire storyline in the first patch, but this feels hacked away without a reasoning around it. This isn't a "natural breaking point" that allows you to say "oh, this piece is done, let's wait for the next one".
Now we'll need to wait until the patch 1.1 (which is going to be mid-late March 2026) to see how it continues. I guess I'll go back at doing just dailies and wait for it I guess. There's not even a reasonably big amount of facilities in the Wuling AIC to focus on factory building either, kind of disappointing.
Let's start with Yurikago no Canaria.
As promised yesterday, this marks the beginning of this new journal stream about the visual novel series Pieces / Yurikago no Canaria. This visual novel is a fandisk / sequel of Pieces / Wataridori no Sumnium (that I reviewed at this page https://blog.emptyblue.it/impression/pieces-wataridori-no-somnium-alice-was-so-hyper-tsumugi-and-yua ). As usual, this page will be completely full of spoilers without any warning so be aware about it if you're bothered by it.
From a quick look at the interface, it looks like there will be one scenario for each heroine (Yua, Miori, Alice, Tsumugi and Kimika) plus a true ending scenario on top of it that unlocks after we go through the Yua specific scenario. I'm not totally sure what to expect out of it, but I'm excited to jump back into this world yet again.
The original game was quite conclusive with the story so I'm not fully sure what can they add on top of it aside from some funny moments with the various heroines, but let's see I guess.
At least we're getting the Ijuuin Kimika route this time around, it was a shame that they skipped over it in the main game despite giving her such good developments in her story arc during the common route. Hopefully they'll make her justice here.
Either way, let me start and come back here once I have something more to say!
Throne Chapter 3 - Mother Route
Huge revelations in this chapter about Throne's past, seems like her birth mother was the original leader of the snakes and she was killed by the current "Mother" and "Father" leaders in what apparently is a typical event when succession happens within the organization. "Mother" has big resentment over Throne being the original leader kid because she's jealous of her skill and strength. Plus she's basically same looks as Throne so seriously beautiful compared to the hideous villain.
Now "Mother" has been defeated (boss was easier than previous bosses I fought honestly) and there only remains "Father" to fight against in the second half of the chapter 3. Apparently he tried to protect Throne from "Mother" and forced her not to kill her back when her birth mother died. Why? Is she related in some way to her? That would explain why the attachment.
By the way, Mira vowing revenge was kind of ironic, because it's basically recreating the situation where the new snakes try to kill the old ones, just this time Throne is on the receiving end. I wonder if Throne will ever actually become free from this cycle of hatred.
It's hard for me to care about Mira's thoughts, because "Mother" was so absurdly evil that I would be hard pressed to feel bad for her death.
Dahlia with Chidori and Erika
I finished Mayuri end (which is sort of a bad end) and good end (which explains basically everything about the mystery of Mayuri. Now it remains just Rikka (need to do another full playthrough skipping through the already read scene) and Grand Finale ending. I will get them ongoing now and then prepare a full article for tomorrow.
I won't talk too much about the content of the ending as I want to keep it for tomorrow's post, but wanted to still share this extremely cute image of Dahlia with Chidori and Erika. A lot of things happened, but the second game remains the one that left me the biggest impression between the four and yes the reason is because of Erika. She's been consistently the best heroine of the franchise for me and she didn't disappoint me even for a second.
This category of the stream section ends here and I doubt I'll ever write on it again (unless they somehow announce something new on this franchise, but I doubt), hopefully you liked these moments as much as I did.
I plan to announce the next visual novel I'll read in the post I'll make on the final article about this series, it'll be something less emotional heavy this time around to balance things. I'm still trying to recover from this.
Cinderella play with Erika and Suou
I think I'm pretty close to the completion of the first ending of this last Flowers game and the mystery will be revealed. They reached the hidden room, but they haven't yet told us what exactly they found in there that caused Rikka to go aghast. Suou is sure that's enough to warrant Mayuri's freedom.
But before exploring that for the last spurt of the story they're doing a Cinderella play at school and the art /acting is just way too stunning that it completely exceeded my already high expectations.
The casting has Suou as Cinderella, Erika as the witch (seen here in this screenshot), Ringo and Ichigo as the siblings (they can do the spoiled behavior perfectly) and Chidori as the prince (honestly quite charming).
And no, it's not just a small scene to present the activity and then fadeout to skip, they're going ahead doing most of the important scenes. Starting from Cinderella getting bullied, then the meeting with the prince, running away before the time runs out, etc...
And then Chidori leaves the stage to make Mayuri appear and I'm like "how?! why?!". They better be explain all in detail about how was she able to free from her captivity already!
I'm quite excited to see how the whole thing ends, but at the same time I'm battled because I know I will feel sad that I won't be able to listen to their voice and story anymore. It's harsh when you like a series this much.
Gilberta's kindness as a messenger
I was expecting this to take a longer time considering the length of Yvonne and Laevatain side stories (around 2 hours-ish each), but turns out Gilberta was an extremely quick one compared to those two and it honestly left me a bit dumbfounded when it completed out of the blue. Gilberta is a messenger, someone who delivers letters and packages (we do have three "challenges" during the gameplay to deliver three packages with specific conditions like "don't run or jump") and her story is focused on one particular delivery that makes her encounter a tragedy story between two researchers studying a water filter.
It's something reminiscing of Shigofumi, an old anime about a mail carrier bringing letters from the departed to the living. Of course dumbed down for gacha audiences, but I still enjoyed it overall. Gilberta is quite a sweet character and a lot more innocent/pure compared to the more war-rugged people we encountered so far (except maybe Ardelia of those that come to mind). She's striving to do the best for everyone around her, but sometimes she feels down and being with Endmin helps relieve some of that pain.
There's technically Wulfgard's side story remaining, but I'll leave that for another day as I'm tired and focus on writing an article on the main blog now. I'll link it from here once I'm done. Next stop will be more Wuling!
Yvonne's character and personality
I just finished reading Yvonne's side story leaving only Gilberta to do before I can write up a new article about it in the main blog. Honestly I'm still processing my emotions about it and I won't go in detail. Instead I want to talk a bit about Yvonne's character and personality and how they were a complete divergence compared to my expectations from before getting to know her.
I remember seeing art of her online in the pre-release period and some excerpt about her role in the storyu and I was imagining a scientist, proud, arrogant and maybe a bit tsundere toward everyone. Well I was completely wrong.
Yvonne turned out to be a gal-like pal that you can spend the day chatting around, she goes along with jokes and likes to play doing things. She's approachable, direct and even affectionate in the way she interact with others. However, she also understands how other people see her and try to play along even though internally she is hurt. In the main story you can see everyone is walking around trying to avoid the topic and she goes along to keep her cheerful self always in front of others.
She's a good girl, plain and simple and I really really love her. Between the characters I've got to know within Arknights Endfield so far (haven't finished the Wuling storyline yet) she's definitely my favorite one by a long distance. I can't wait for her banner to come around in 9 days as I want to roll and start playing with her as main character.
I played a little bit as her during the battle segment and she seems to be fun, I also have Last Rite so I can probably do an ice team. Need to see what material to farm...
Endministrator's fears and worries
I started the Laevatain side story expecting it to be mostly about her character and past. Some sort of introduction of her character to the story (as she doesn't appear in the main narrative so far), but turns out it's really a side story focused on the protagonist Endmin so far (1 hour-ish in). It seems like the courageous and perfect character we've seen in the main story was just her acting strong to not disappoint all the people that were putting trust into her. Be it Perlica, Chen or the various other characters of Valley IV that fully trusted her despite her having no memories about why.
There are strong parallels between Laevatain and Endmin because both of them lack memories of their past and both are searching for them which makes them resonate as kindred spirits.
I can totally understand her fears and worries surfacing as visions in this special dimension. "What if what I do is wrong compared to what the old Endmin would do?" "What if I don't manage to reach the level of expectations that they have in me?"
I don't know if the visions that we've seen so far of Endmin's past are real or purely a materialization of his worries, but they were quite scary so much her personality was different. She seemed more of a dictator dominating other people than a savior trying to save them.
But then again, everyone else praising us so much in the main story already made me extremely suspicious of their motives. Perlica especially as she seems to be the most "devoted" to Endmin, but doesn't seem to want to elaborate about their past together.
I plan on doing a post on the main blog about the side stories as a whole once I finish all three side stories so stay tuned for it.
Yao Guang can't see Stelle's future
Seems like Yao Guang has the power to see the aura of fortune around anyone with a simple look thanks to her power called "Eye of Isvara", but she's completely unable to see anything for Stelle. This seems to be connected that she's the "wild card" that even Destiny's Slave want to keep around to achieve his plan. According to her Stelle's very presence becomes a variable in whatever situation she's into and it's not really a consequence of her witnessing Terminus. More like she was able to witness Terminus BECAUSE she's that variable.
Yao Guang is trying to defy the destiny she calculated (basically the fall of Planarcadia) by adding more and more variables to the "Phantasmoon Games". That's why she put the mask on Sunday (forcing him to participate) and is acting more erratically than she normally would. Her primary objective remains the alliance between IPC and Xianzhou alliance against the Destruction, but she doesn't want other things to impact this plan. (Blade presence seems to be something she is convinced of)
I love how she sees that Fugue has an aura of absolute luck as a rebound of all the misfortune she got up until now. It's sort of a cosmic karma to allow her to have it easy now and I have to say it, she deserves it.
Talking a bit more about Yao Guang, I have to say that her design is outright gorgeous. She's the "femme fatale" design of hoyoverse games, but her face has something that puts her outside of the other beauties we got until now (Ruan Mei, Himeko, etc...). She's more mysterious maybe? It's something to do with her eyes I feel. I usually like cute designs more, but she's definitely near top tier character visually for me.
Tingyun is the legendary assassin?!
Ahahah, seems like Yao Guang is playing bluff with the IPC by saying that the "Xianzhou's Number One Assassin Blade" is on Planarcadia, but it's instead Tingyun under cover investigating into the Synwish Syndicate. Seems like she's pivotal in the calculations that Yao did for her stay in Planarcadia and she's paying her 6 times the normal rate.
Tingyun is a lot more confident here showing that she can easily negotiate and discuss with the general Yao at the same level reaching the point where she states "And Madam Yao, you've passed my test, too" referring to her testing if Yao is the right master to serve going forward.
There is an entire story segment narrated from her point of view infiltrating the criminal group and she really can make the act of being cruel and powerful (Takada Yuuki is the seiyuu for JP). The segment has to be one of the most hilarious we've had in a while, Sunday and Dan Heng appear unexpectedly and she has to invent something so start saying that the "Xianzhou's Number One Assassin" is a brand and there's 300 of them.
Sunday was nicknamed "Winged Deathkneel" ranked 7th in the organization while Dan Heng nicknamed "Jadedragon" ranked 2nd in the organization. She herself is instead the "Whistling Flamefox" ranked 1st.
It's incredible she managed to invent all this on the spot and Sunday/Dan Heng were able to keep up with her and keep the lie going.
It's been a while since we saw Tingyun in the Star Rail main story, but she really grew on me since the reintroduction as Fugue a few years ago and it's nice to see that Hoyoverse is reusing existing characters instead of just adding a bunch of new ones and move on like other games do.
