I think I'm finally able to give a rating after surviving a massive ARC encounter with the time ticking down to escape. It's the game I've been looking forward to since WM2's DMZ and WM3's Zombies really had me hooked with constant near death experiances but also satisfying ending events after a really brutal run.

Besides that, I really like the future-retro style of everything and I'm really happy with how they're going the same Helldivers2 route of catalogs to unlock instead of DLC Battlepasses.

Quite the bold direction for Lu! I really like that the game is made so that it gets easier each run instead of restarting you back to 0. I would love to see this concept filled out more in the future. As always, it's great to see a ton of characters from previous games as well <3

I've gotten one of the major endings finally and it was so thrilling and emotional then I expected. The game is VERY difficult so don't worry about going to easy or unlimited continues. It's also possible to end up in a softlock/bad-end if your skills are not good enough, so don't be afraid to return to the start of the game.

Remember that the heart of this game is a VN, so don't try to chase all the storylines in one go. Try to stick to a few and learn what works from there. It's well worth getting that ending.

If you love Lu games, you're going to be very happy. It did get very spooky for a bit but I love Lu's style for all the mooms you're going to be meeting. ^^

I'm not sure how to really express the journy of emotions I went though. The game was much like the writing, it walked the fine edge of being lighthearted and then switched to being incredibly heavy and dense at just the right times. The times in the story that left me questioning my own issues like faith and leadership and the lies we tell ourselfs was wonderfully writen and something that a few screenshots cannot accurately share how important the self reflection was.

On the mechanic side of things, getting a room clear in a few turns left so satifying as it requires knowing how to use every tool in one's arsenal just to move your people around or have different elements go off like a rube goldberg machine. Having the ability to rewind at any time really changed how I play out levels to not just go for the quick KOs but also the flashiest or difficult ones for the side objectives. The one room that's going to stand out for me was a perticular battle where the last enemy felt nearly invincable and unbeatable until everything clicked into place with the jerk flying out the dream window. I can confindanty say this is in my top 3 games for 2024.

I had no idea what I was about to get into go in, but never did I expect a journey like this. <3 It's like a love letter to the Touhou community who make fan works like art, MMDs, fan-fiction, and sheetposts that has kept the series alive.

The game is difficult and frustrating at times, but everything just clicks into place eventually and it feels wonderful.

There's so many issues with this game, but I can't get over the fact that I've never seen anything like this. I've played with RPG maker for a little bit and doing a platformer like this has never crossed my mind before.

I would say, keep a RPGMaker file editor nearby if you get softlocked or the game is too difficult. I did get softlocked in one of my runs and decided to cheat and refill my health to get back my save file for example. After doing about 5 runs though (more like 17~ if you include going back to the start of a zone since exits are janky and you can easily reach the end of a zone and exist back to the begining of multiple screens)

At the end of the day though, I'm still impressed and went for all endings + shards eventually. The game is short, the controls are janky, but it's an experience I've not had before.

This game really is the perfect squeal to SimCity

Honestly, GOTY2022 contender. The game ramps up the difficulty in a fair and steady manner, and the sorts of puzzles that these ships contain makes it so that even the most by-the-books breakdown always have some variable to plan around. I specially love the storytelling though. Weaver's storyline hit home as he reminded me so much of the people who I've worked under and cared about in my life.

I can't express enough how important these stories are in this age and time.

It's so good, I'm looking forward to not playing for another 10 years.