While we here at Operation Rainfall love covering the latest in gaming news and sharing our reviews of titles new and classic, we also just enjoy playing games in our downtime. So with that, sit back, relax, and check out what the oprainfall gaming crew have been up to this week!
End of year is always a hectic time, so I once again got little gaming done, but I did at least start playing through Collar x Malice, one of the several new otome games I got for the holidays. This one puts you in the shoes of a cop who gets unceremoniously pulled into a serial murder plot as one of the possible victims, and she has to work with a bunch of rogue detectives and a few eccentric police officers to solve the mystery behind the X-Day Incidents before the poison collar around her neck kills her, too. It’s fun! So far I’ve had three Bad Endings, including one where a potential love interest shot me, so I’m just living. The guys are all very well designed with excellent voice actors, and I’m enjoying the overall plot, as well. I definitely prefer my otome more story heavy than just relationship focused, but that doesn’t mean I’m not gunning for those Good Endings, either. My fave boys are Okazaki and Sasazuka, so the two most polar opposite in personality, but the whole cast is really well-written. I still have a long way to go but if you like more mature themes, give this one a try.
Other than that, it’s been a lot of Splatoon 3 since we have a Splatfest coming up, and I want to earn cred for Team Spicy. Nintendo really knows what they’re doing, hosting a big community event right after the holidays. There’s been an obvious influx of new players, and that’s not a bad thing, but I did feel really bad about wiping the floor with a party that had a first-timer. Hopefully they didn’t get too discouraged! And of course there’s my steady diet of Final Fantasy XIV and Nier Re[in]carnation, but nothing really special since I have yet to do either of their New Year’s events. I’ve also been methodically chipping away at both Horizon Zero Dawn and Raymond’s route in Star Ocean: The Divine Force. There’s a lot of games coming out soon that I’m really excited for, but I’ll save those thoughts for when they release. I hope everyone had a good New Year’s and are rested and energized for 2023! – Leah
I got a lot more gaming in this week than the week before Christmas. So Harvestella is still scheduled to not arrive until the beginning of February. I thought maybe Amazon would get some stock in and move up the date. They’ve done it before when I ordered something that said it wouldn’t arrive for months last year, but instead I got it three days later. Sadly, it looks like Harvestella truly won’t arrive for quite a while. I feel odd not having at least one new game to play after Christmas and was disappointed I wouldn’t have anything new for a while. But then it occurred to me, “Wait a minute, I’ve been sitting on Tales of Arise, which was technically an early Christmas present, since October.” Yep, this week I finally made the space and installed Tales of Arise. I never followed any of the promotion of Arise or looked into it very much. Nonetheless, I was a little skeptical to start playing it because what little I did know amounted to, it’s extremely different from the usual Tales Of game and they shove DLC in your face whenever they can. In the end, it was definitely the right choice to finally start the game. Sure I have plenty of other games I’m playing and still need to finish, but I wanted that new Christmas game feeling and I got that with starting ToA. I’m only about 11 or 12 hours into the game so far. I saw the opening story and all the oppression, I’ve gone past the first boss and I’m now getting ready to fight the next big bad in the snowy area of Cyslodia.
Okay one thing I have to say is oh my god, am I so freaking glad for once there is a fun to control yourself mage in a Tales Of game. Personally, I like to run around as someone cute and well designed, Rinwell is my favorite character design this time. I don’t plan to waste money on DLC outfits so there is no just putting someone fun to control in something better. Anyways yeah, Rinwell is my favorite design wise of the Tales of Arise main characters, but I knew she was the mage and figured it’d be the usual, clunky two hit physical attack with a lot of standing around to cast. I was glad I could at least set her as the default for running around but then have someone else as my default battle person. But no, FINALLY, they actually made the mage fun. Not only does she have an instant attack, ranged magic combo for her regular attack, but also casting doesn’t take an eternity. I’m quite happy and having a lot of fun with her. I did have a bit of trouble last night with her suddenly instantly casting the arte I had set to X after I’d stored it to do the larger, evolved spell, but I’m slowly figuring things out. It may just be that I use X a lot playing so many RPGs and it’s a bit more of a touchy button. Ultimately, I’m looking forward to continuing the game and seeing where things go. This party isn’t quite as dark and questionable as Berseria‘s was, which is something I loved about Berseria, having a party of characters that weren’t all the typical goodie two shoes. But Arise‘s cast also isn’t as goodie two shoes as past series entries prior to Berseria, everyone seems a little bit cooler and I’m good with that. About the only complaint I really have, is a few things story wise have been pretty predictable thus far. An obvious evil guy turned out to be an evil guy and I’m thinking I could be right about my other suspicion I’ve had about something since the very beginning of the game. I won’t go into that more since it’s potentially more of a spoilery suspicion. – Jenae
What games have you been playing this week? Let us know in the comments!
You can read previous Week in Gaming entries here!
