The Rat's Den

I meant to start posting regularly again, but didn't quite muster the energy. Hopefully this year will be a return to normality, or at least something close to it.

Despite being laid up over half of 2025, I didn't spend much time reading. I mostly attribute it to the fact that I fell down the YouTube rabbit hole and it became my go-to for "I'm not feeling well but I need entertainment," and I'm far more familiar with various YouTube channels than I ever was before. When I did feel well enough to do more, I ended up gaming instead, which was good for my gaming backlog, but not so much my reading one!

So I only read one book for 2025, but at least I'm getting closer to finishing Legend of the Galactic Heroes! You can consider this one recommended even though I won't be doling out any asterisks for a top pick when it's my only pick.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Vol. 8: Desolation by Yoshiki Tanaka

We finally get what looks to be the final face off between Reinhard and Yang as Yang's forces are bottled up in Iserlohn Fortress and Reinhard himself arrives to take out the last remaining holdouts from the Free Planet Alliance. I won't get into spoilers, so unfortunately this write-up is going to be shorter than the myriad thoughts I actually had, but I definitely did not see what would happen midway through the book. In the hands of a lesser writer I could see this event substantially taking the wind out of the series' sails, but I think there's a lot of material left to mine here and I'm interested in seeing how the remaining two books will handle this.

As with the books, my life got impacted so I only watched one series this year, but I liked it enough that I still want to draw some attention to it. Just as with the books, there will be no asterisk (*) for my Top 3 of the year since I only completed one series.

7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy!

This series was clearly titled to appeal to fans of the subgenre of anime involving teenage girls reborn as the villainess of a particular story, but takes a quick left turn in the first episode and the villainess part doesn't factor into the equation at all. In fact the carefree part doesn't apply either. The real story is that Rishe keeps dying for various reasons a few years after her fiance breaks off their engagement, and every time in the future the neighboring nation of Galkhein begins a war of conquest under the leadership of Emperor Arnold.

Each time Rishe revives at the moment her engagement is broken, and each time she loops she tries something else, lives a different life, learns a different trade, and because of that she becomes a very knowledgeable woman. However her seventh loop ends up in her attracting the interest of not yet emperor, but currently Crown Prince Arnold (who actually killed her in her sixth life) and she ends up accepting an engagement to him in hopes of changing his outlook on life so the war never begins. Unfortunately the series ends without any resolution, but I'm definitely interested in reading the source novels now.

I didn't mean to take another month between posts, but as I alluded to in January I'm having life issues that has made regularly posting difficult and I'll make a post about it eventually, probably after my very short anime of 2024 post. The only reason these 2024 wrap-ups even exist is because I worked on them throughout last year so I did not have to spend much time writing or editing them to post now.

That said, on to what I'd written prior to all my issues:

Having not completed a single RPG in the past two years, it felt like 2024 was the year to remedy that.

I usually designate these great games as my Top 3 picks each year by marking them with an asterisk (*) and these are the 12 games I liked the most out of the ones I finished in 2024, in the order I played them. If the game is available on multiple platforms, the one I played on is listed first. Usually I try to complete at least one game a month, but because of said issues I fell short this year.

Undernauts: Labyrinth of Yomi (Switch, PS4, XB1, Windows)

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I got into Undernauts with its alt-1970s Japan setting and truly inspired character designs. It's a first person dungeon crawler, but with modern day quality of life auto-mapping and easier than average difficulty for a game of its type. The story is more nuanced than you'd expect for the genre and made me want to get to the bottom of what really happened. The only thing I'd fault it for is that the post-credits scene makes it clear the story isn't over, and the only way to see the story through in its entirety is to complete the punishing post-game.

Unpacking (Switch, PS4, PS5, XB1, Windows, iOS, Android)

Unpacking was a media darling when it first came out. The premise is simple. You unpack the belongings of an unseen girl/young woman as she moves from place to place over the course of her life. From what she carries with her, how she chooses to augment her belongings, and where you are allowed to place things, you learn a surprisingly large amount of what kind of person she is and what has happened in her life. I thought it was an interesting concept, but was less enamored by the actual gameplay.

Process of Elimination (Switch, PS4) *

If you need to fill the Danganronpa (or Ace Attorney) shaped hole in your gaming needs, Process of Elimination is likely to do the job. It doesn't feel as polished as the more established names, but if you want to be trapped in a murder mystery with a bunch of colorful characters who gradually get picked off one by one, it's a solid pick. Evidence collection deviates from the point and click methods of its predecessors, going for an isometric map over which you can direct a team of detectives. It's nice to see a fresh take, but the implementation feels a little clunky. I really liked that the deduction portion of the game involves putting all clues together in context, and rarely involves waving around contradicting evidence, so I really felt smart when solving a murder. Would buy a sequel in a heartbeat.

Collar x Malice Unlimited (Switch)

The fandisc to Collar x Malice. I was going to play this back when it first released, but that ended up happening shortly before I had surgery for my first cancer, and it fell off my radar. By the time I remembered I still had it in my closet a lot had changed in the otome gaming landscape so it kept getting deprioritized in favor of non-sequels. That said, it's a little hit or miss for me. The characters I liked least had the best After Stories and the ones I looked forward to the most had the weakest. The extras were just okay and the Adonis route less exciting than expected.

The Centennial Case : A Shijima Story (Switch, PS5, PS4, Windows, iOS, Android) *

Mystery novelist Haruka is asked by a friend if she would look into a hundred year mystery involving his family and a skeleton they found buried behind their cherry tree. Has a very different feel from most games being primarily told through live action segments and the player being asked to assemble hypotheses from clues obtained during those scenes rather than being in direct control over an investigation. I found the story extremely gripping even if the actual game mechanics were a bit clunky. Having the same group of actors play different roles in different time periods was a nice touch, and also made it easier to keep characters straight since there wasn't a constant parade of new faces.

Emio - The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club (Switch)

Third entry in the Famicom Detective Club series. It manages to modernize the gameplay from the NES remakes, keeping the unusual dialogue system for pulling out clues, while getting rid of the less sensical logic jumps occasionally experienced in the older games. The investigation part of the game is deep and a constant source of tension, but the story wraps up in a mediocre fashion that is both unsatisfying and a post-credits info dump.

Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth (Switch, PS4, XB1, Windows, DS) *

I played the remaster as part of the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection, having played the original on DS when it came out years ago. It's still a fun ride as tightly laced straight man Miles Edgeworth as he investigates crimes filled with a cast of wacky characters with a stubborn sense of logic. I don't think he needed to be saddled with a teenage sidekick, as Kay didn't feel as natural a partner as Maya did for Phoenix in the original three Ace Attorney games, but I suppose the design team felt a need to parallel the earlier games.

Ace Attorney Investigations 2 : Prosecutor's Gambit (Switch, PS4, XB1, Windows)

After many years this is finally available in English in the first time! Though I think the overall throughline of the story could have been smoother and Kay felt more stapled on than the first game, it was still a very good run with a lot of returning cameos (some of them very deep cuts!) without feeling like it was wallowing too heavily in fan service. I was particularly happy with what they did with an "annoying" character to both give him his comeuppance and then turn him around into being someone we could be sympathetic towards.

9 R.I.P. (Switch)

Misa Issihiki is spirited away as part of a supernatural plan to help her deal with her inability to stand up to her mother regarding her plans for college. Romance involving ghosts and yokai, so there's nearly always an element of separation involved in the endings, but some of them wrap up satisfactorily for all involved.

Digimon Survive (Switch, PS4, XB1, Windows)

Strategy/visual novel hybrid that leans heavily into nostalgia. Unlike most Digimon games it takes inspiration from the anime and features a number of human characters with partner digimon rather than a single human player character who raises and collects hundreds of them. Though collecting can still be done, this is a much more narratively focused game with an emphasis on human and digimon partners. There is also a fairly strong plot emphasis on the "survive" in the title, though I feel like it hits harder in the early game than the late.

even if Tempest: Dawning Connections (Switch)

The fan disk to even if Tempest. To be honest, the fandisk was a mixed bag for me, and since it's tonally different from the original game, being more focused on romantic relationships than the drama of trying to survive, it doesn't feel as exciting as the first game. To be fair, most routes employ a non-romantic plotline to try and retain some of the tension and drama, but they don't always work the best. My favorite routes were Zenn's and the non-romantic The Fellowship due to the additional worldbuilding.

I didn't end up reading much in 2024 for reasons I'll eventually post about at some point, but suffice to say there's a reason I stopped posting on my blog for months and the only reason these 2024 wrap-ups are coming out now is because I work on them throughout the year so I did not have to spend much time writing or editing them.

Normally I would list the twelve books I enjoyed the most, and mark my three favorites with an asterisk (*), but this year because I didn't read that much, I'm just listing the four I finished and will not be marking any of them.

Krieg by Steve Lyons

I'm not a Warhammer 40,000 player, nor am I really a reader of the franchise's numerous books, but when I found out they had a faction inspired by World War I trench warfare, and they had a book based on these fanatical soldiers who were willing to hurl themselves into certain death in the name of the God Emperor, I realized I had to read it and the book did not disappoint. I still have little interest in any other Warhammer material, but I think I would be inclined to pick up another book about the crazy yet oddly mysterious soldiers of Krieg.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes Vol 6: Flight by Yoshiki Tanaka

Yang continues to be my favorite character in this series as he ends up retired due to circumstances of the last book and he goes about doing exactly what he wants to do with his pensioner's lifestyle. But of course things can't remain that way and there are still too many people who misunderstand him and what he would actually do versus what they think he'll do. Reinhard has his problems too, but I didn't find his side of the volume as compelling as Yang's.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes Vol 7: Tempest by Yoshiki Tanaka

I found this to be a pretty exciting volume, with relationships starting to fracture on Reinhard's side and Yang's crew making a play to keep the Free Planet Alliance alive even if the FPA isn't exactly their biggest fan. We also get to see the payoff for a gambit Yang set up back in Volume 5.

Baccano!, Vol. 11: 1705 The Ironic Light Orchestra by Ryogho Narita

One of the one-offs set in one of Baccano's non-1930s settings, this time following Huey Laforet and how he came to meet and reluctantly become friends with Elmer Albatross. Set in 1705 Italy, it's an unusual story about what seems to be a serial killer targeting children, but ultimately leads to a much bigger conspiracy about how their small town functions. Likely skippable if you don't want to read every volume since Huey tends to be a distant figure in the main 1930s setting, Elmer hasn't shown his face except in flashbacks, and prominent third character Monica has not been seen at all until this point.

Though I expect most of my blog visitors are here to read about the various games I've played, oftentimes which one rises to the top in a given year is a bit of a surprise. Most of the posts are weighted towards the first half of the year, which is expected given that they've been out longer, but coming out earlier did not automatically mean that a given game (or anime)'s post was read more often.

That said, here are the Top 5 of 2023 along with a little speculation about why they're here:

#5 - Frostpunk - Yes, There's a Story Here

Frostpunk has been out for over five years now, so I'm a little surprised by the traffic with this one, but figure there are liking two reasons for this. First, 11-bit Studios ramped up their media push for Frostpunk 2 so there is likely renewed interest in the first game, and second, I talked about the story and the emotional journey taken by the player, which is not usually discussed when talking about a city builder game. It's mentioned so little that I didn't know there was a fixed scenario format when I first started the game.

#4 - Anime Talk: Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke's Mansion

This one surprised me because I came to Raeliana late and didn't write about it until several weeks after its run ended. Perhaps I'm not the only one hungry for a second season, or likes to read commentary after having watched a show. I'm still hopeful that we'll get the remainder of the novels/manga animated.

#3 - Ambition: A Minuet in Power

I feel a little bad about this one, since I spent a chunk of the post talking about all the flaws in Ambition (especially since the more you play it, the more apparent the problems become, and I played a lot to finish the game with every possible love interest). But that said, I can see why this post would have attracted attention, since Ambition is an indie title and it wasn't a breakdown hit so hasn't been much written about it. It's for smaller titles like this that I try to play and write about an indie or two every year. A high society sim on the eve of the French Revolution is just not a game most people would make, and for that if nothing else, I'm glad Ambition exists.

#2 - OPUS: Echo of Starsong

I'm a little surprised that this wasn't my most popular post last year, since it's a relatively recent indie title, though admittedly one that had already gotten a fair bit of press compared to most so I'm hardly the first person to have covered it. I really enjoyed a number of games last year, but if I had to pick one, OPUS: Echo of Starsong would be it. I know I bounced through a number of reviews before picking it up, and if my own post in turn convinced someone else to play it, that would be worthwhile indeed.

#1 - AI: The Somnium Files - nirvanA Initiative

For some reason my AINI gripe-a-thon must have struck a nerve since it was head and shoulders above anything else even though it went up about half a year after the game came out since I'd taken so long to finish it. I'm guessing I wasn't the only one with a mixed reaction to it. When I finished I was such a ball of frustration that I also sought out the writings of other people to see if I was the only one who felt the way I did. I'm a bit disappointed that my top post of 2023 is one where I had to force myself to focus on just three gripes or I'd spend pages and pages complaining, but perhaps it was a useful exorcism.

And that covers my round-ups for 2023. Next post should be the first of several covering some of the games I ran through in the final months of last year, giving me a bit of a buffer while I figure out my first game for 2024!

Last year feels rather strange to me in that I didn't complete any RPGs and I'm not entirely sure how that happened, since I usually manage at least one of them. That said, it felt like such a good year for enjoyable gaming. I only list games I liked enough to finish, which usually means I felt they were good or very good, but great games are fewer and further between.

I usually designate these great games as my Top 3 picks each year by marking them with an asterisk (*) and I was pretty sure that I knew what my Top 3 were going to be as we went into November as I'd played what I thought was a shoe-in for my third stellar game in October, but even if Tempest slid in at the end of the year and blew me away, so I'm going to call out Ghost Trick as an honorable mention. In another year it probably would have made Top 3 and it is still a solid game I highly recommend.

With that said, these are the 12 games I liked the most out of the ones I finished in 2023, in the order I played them. If the game is available on multiple platforms, the one I played on is listed first.

OPUS: Echo of Starsong (Switch, Windows, Mac, iOS) *

More often than not, I find one of my favorite games of the year at the start of the year, and that was definitely the case with OPUS: Echo of Starsong, making it one of the few linear games where I dove back in immediately after I finished. Told from the perspective of an elderly Jun Lee, he reflects on the short period of time he knew Eda and what being with her meant to him. If you want an intimate piece of space opera with deep lore and some far future Chinese flavoring, all wrapped up in 12-15 hours of gameplay, this is a must-have, but bring tissues. That's not a spoiler. The frame story makes it clear that Jun and Eda are deprived of any happy ending.

Ambition: A Minuet in Power (Switch, Windows)

When Yvette arrives in Paris on the eve of the French Revolution, her fiance mysteriously does not pick her up, nobody seems to want to associate with him, and he's left her paying for the rent and the maid at what would have been their home. Refusing to return to her village, Yvette forges a new life in Parisian high society, and the player can decide whether she reunites with her fiance or discovers a new love entirely. With a tight calendar system and selling gossip for money, Yvette can nudge the tensions in Paris one way or another. Probably more fun if you like French Revolution stuff, but also good if you just like being a schemer. You can make Yvette somewhat upstanding if you want, but there are a lot of options to play as an awful person.

Buried Stars (Switch, PS4, Windows)

Mystery/suspense visual novel in which a group of aspiring k-pop stars and their floor director are trapped inside a collapsed building. Despite the unusual choice in cast (I never thought I'd be putting on my detective hat with a pop star as my protagonist), the mystery is effective and had me on the edge of my seat through much of the main game. The game's UI is a little misleading in regards to how the story will actually play out, and there are some obvious translation errors, but despite the bumpiness I think this will end up one of the more memorable mystery VNs I've played. Saying why would be a spoiler, but I talk about it here.

My Sweet Bodyguard (iOS, Android)

Part of the Love 365 library app. A college student discovers she's the long lost daughter of the Japanese prime minister and is threatened by unknown forces who want to influence her father. Fortunately she has a crack team of bodyguards looking out for her in what is a surprisingly upbeat and light-hearted romance adventure. It also gets really silly on some routes, so don't come here for any realism. Each route may as well take place in a different reality since plot points and villains generally don't cross over.

Frostpunk (Windows, Mac, PS4, XB1) *

Brutal survival-based city building game. After a deep and potentially neverending frost settles over Victorian England, you play as the captain in charge of a new settlement that strives to survive heading in an unknown future. Though it is possible to make a relatively comfortable life for your people once you know how the game works, I think most first time playthroughs will either end in failure or with barely anyone alive (and you might end up a despot on top of that too). I like how the game makes you consider which lines you'd be willing to cross in order to allow your city to survive, and if you fail, was it because of poor planning or because you valued your morals?

Piofiore: Fated Memories (Switch)

Liliana has grown up as a ward of the church, but for reasons unbeknownst to her, she is extremely important to varying factions fighting for control of a city in 1920s Italy, thus sparking a journey with various men from one of the city's three mafia families or an agent of the church. It's otome, but darker than usual because none of the guys can really say they've walked away without killing someone, though they're generally presented in a nicer light if they're Liliana's current love interest. While I bought this as a fan of anime takes on mafia, it's worth mentioning that Liliana is a civilian, so even if she's present during the action bits, she's usually a non-participant, and some of the heavy decision making by the men happens in scenes when she is not around.

Detective Di: The Silk Rose Murders (Windows, Switch, PS4, XB1)

Series of murder mysteries in the style of the old point-and-click pixel adventure games, starring a fictionalized version of Di Renjie, more popularly known in English as the protagonist of the Judge Dee books/movies/TV series, but was a real historical person. This Di is portrayed as relatively young and new to his work, though historically he would have been pushing fifty by the time of the game, which mostly involves solving a series of murders on behalf of Empress Wu Zetian. It's a fairly short game, with some of the usual point-and-click genre problems of not being able to figure out what you missed, but otherwise a fun bit of intrigue. Good if you don't have a lot of time or want a quick palate cleanser before diving into something else.

Radiant Tale (Switch)

It took me a few games to realize that found family is one of my favorite tropes in otome. I love when the entire cast is a group of friends who support each other through thick and thin, so when I realized Radiant Tale shared staff with Code:Realize and Cafe Enchante I knew I had to get this. Tifalia joins a performance troupe called CIRCUS and gains a wacky surrogate family that includes personalities as varied as a fun-loving dragon, a flashy noble, and possibly the world's most unfriendly clown. They're on a JRPG-eque quest to free the kingdom's prince from the spell that has frozen his body and heart in time, and only by literally bringing joy to the world can they heal him. Despite the overly bright and optimistic theming, some of the routes can get unexpectedly dark.

Ghost Trick (Switch, PS4, XB1, Windows, DS, iOS)

HD remaster of the underappreciated mystery solving puzzle game for Nintendo DS. You control an amnesiac ghost who has a number of "tricks" he can perform in order to manipulate the environment and the living around him in order to figure out who he is and why he died. Without spoiling too much, I think pet lovers will enjoy this game. It's not too long, but not too short either, being the rare game that is just the length it needs to be and no more. Fans of Ace Attorney will recognize writer/director Shu Takumi's brand of character writing, though Ghost Trick is less episodic since there is only one central mystery that covers the entire game.

Ten Trials of Babel: The Doppelganger Maze (Windows, Mac)

Indie puzzle adventure game where humans and various fantastical races are unwillingly placed in a survival game where the winner can ensure the continued existence of their race. English translation is usually pretty good, which makes it more obvious when it's not. Puzzles will give you a pretty good workout if that's your thing. Best played with a pad of paper next to you in order to make notes. Though it's probably possible to reach the best ending without romancing anyone, Xixy needs a certain level of friendship with her main three party members to open the way to the true ending.

even if Tempest (Switch) *

I was truly blown away by the narrative in this game, which is marketed as otome, but aside from affection-related dialogue options, plays out more like Raging Loop since it also features one love interest per timeline and a protagonist who tries to abuse timeloops in order to solve a problem. The worldbuilding is fantastic and Anastasia is one of the most engaging female protagonists I've ever had a chance to play, getting to be both strong and vulnerable, vengeful and kind, and rising from a childhood of abuse to being the person she wants to be. She is willing to do whatever it takes to save the ones she loves, and some of what she does is truly heartrending both for her and the player. There are witch trials which will likely appeal to Ace Attorney and Danganronpa fans, with the unique twist that they are playing out in the court of public opinion in which judgment is less a matter of truth than what the jury comes to believe.

The Last Matches (Windows, Mac)

Indie visual novel based on The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen. It's very short (about an hour to play through), but felt like a fitting title to close out the year given that it takes place around Christmas. Both the original tragic ending of the story and a happier one are available for our protagonist. I liked the sad ending better, perhaps because it pulls from the original and works better thematically, but also because the happy ending feels surreal, like I can't tell if it really happened. Still, it's a nice little package if you want something quick that will pluck at the heartstrings.

Normally I'd start off with my year's favorite books, but I somehow managed to not finish any last year, and I wanted to wait a week on the video games since there are some extras I still need to play through for one of them and it might impact my Top 3 picks. So we're starting with anime for my favorites of 2023!

Attack on Titan finished last November, which means I finally get to include it! Normally I don't like including anime that are likely to get additional seasons since there are a number of series that I'll end up dropping as they go on, making them something I'd rather not recommend, so all of the anime listed below have either wrapped up so there will definitely be no future seasons, or they have not announced any further seasons so I feel I can evaluate them based as they are.

The nine series below are the ones I liked enough to finish, presented in the order I completed them. My top three picks of the year are marked with an asterisk (*).

Summer Time Rendering *

This one was a sleeper release in the US, being that it had been a Disney Plus series in Japan but is definitely not a good fit for Disney Plus in the US, so it came out on Hulu with no fanfare whatsoever, which is too bad since this a fantastic time loop thriller, where the loop restarts a little further in time each time our hero dies, leaving him less and less chance to make any changes, and the villains are aware of the loop as well. I found this an extremely bingeable ride, and finished the entire series in less than a week, which is incredible for someone who usually can't sit through more than a half of TV at a time (which is part of why I like anime and its shorter episode structure).

Psycho-Pass: The Movie

Thanks to the Funimation-Crunchyroll acquisition, I finally got to watch Psycho-Pass: The Movie which takes place after the first two seasons of the anime. It's a stand alone story covering what happens when someone tries exporting the Sybil System to another country and also covers what Kagami has been up to since he left Japan. Much better executed than the second season, but lacks the philosophical punch of the first.

Tomo-chan is a Girl

Romantic comedy about a tomboy who tries to confess to her childhood friend that she likes him as more than a friend, only for him to reply that he loves her too, but clearly in "I love you man!" bromance way as he seems to have never realized that she's actually a girl. At least that's what she thinks, since as the series moves on it's apparent he does realize she's a girl, but is afraid of how their relationship would change if it turns romantic. Both Tomo and Jun are not the sharpest tools in the shed, so most of this is played up for comedy, but that's part of what makes it appealing. We don't have many romances involving two dumb jocks.

My Home Hero

Modern day crime thriller starring an unassuming husband and wife who will do anything to protect their college aged daughter, even if it means committing murder to preemptively stop their daughter's abusive boyfriend from killing her. But when the boyfriend is the son of a prominent yakuza boss, and the police can be dissuaded from offering assistance, the two parents have to get creative to keep their family life intact. Lots of cliffhangers made this a must-watch every week, and I love that even though the husband is usually our POV character, his wife is part of the team and quite capable in her own right, so they can complement each other's strengths and weaknesses. The only thing I don't like is when Tetsuo gets the occasional lone wolf streak and tries going solo since Kasen's escapades are thrilling in a different way from his and I want her along for the ride.

My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999

College student Akane gets dumped by her boyfriend after she started playing an online game just to spend more time with him. Angry, but still interested in playing the game, she ends up meeting a guildie, Yamada, at an IRL event. Yamada initially seems like he couldn't care less about her, he's blunt, he doesn't seem to care about people's emotions, but over time she realizes it's not that he doesn't care, but that he has a different way of looking at things. They are very close in age so in a few years the difference won't matter, but fair warning Yamada is still in high school.

Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke's Manor *

This is the one I fervently wish for a second season, as manwha readers have praised this thing to no end ahead of the anime's release and the release did not disappoint with the exception of the choice in the season ending. Given that there has been no announcement of a second season, it would have been nice if we hadn't ended in what appears to be the start of another story arc. But that said, this is one the best reborn as another person in a game/book/other world series that I've ever watched, as there is a mysterious reason for why Raeliana was reborn in this world and why the heroine of the book itself has yet to appear, leaving Raeliana in love with a man that she knows belongs to another woman in the "real" story. You've got mystery, politics, murder, and romance. What's not to like?

Undead Murder Farce

As the title suggests, this is pretty much a case of interlopers jumping in and showing a bunch of baffled people how there's all this fakery going on in the mystery currently plaguing them. Aside the first episode, which is all backstory setup, the season is divided into story arcs covering one particular crime that our protagonists Aya and Tsugaru work together to solve. Since Aya is a disembodied head, Tsuguru serves as her arms and legs as they unveil thieves and murderers and continue their search for Aya's missing body.

Gene of AI

Interesting anthology series in a setting where humanoids are robots that are virtually indistinguishable from biological humans. Think Blade Runner, but in a society that accepts humanoids as regular citizens. Each episode focuses on a moral quandary when the person involved is artificial. Is restoring a backup personality a form of murder/suicide when the humanoid's brain is reformated? If a humanoid has feelings for a particular person that isn't reciprocated, is it okay to remove that part of themselves to move on? The execution is not always perfect, and the animation is just okay, but the premise of some of the episodes are quite good.

Attack on Titan *

The 800 pound gorilla for the past 10 years has finally ended. Was it perfect as a series? No. But it would have been impossible to meet the standards of so many fans after such a long time. The final special episode was good though, and with creator Hajime Isayama's input, smoothed over the bumpiness that came with the manga version of the final chapter. I usually don't prefer the ending of the anime to the manga, but I think the anime stuck the landing. It may not have been what we expected when Titans first broke their way into Wall Maria, but all the characters remained true to who they are and did what they could to secure a better future.

I'm not sure I'll do one of these every year going forward, but I was looking over my stats for the past year and I figured. Sure, why not?

I'll provide a link to the top 5 posts of the year with the #1 post being last along with a little commentary on why I think a particular post got as many views as it did.

#5 - RPG Talk: Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse

Though its ranking is probably boosted a bit by virtue of being posted in January of last year, allowing it more time to be picked up by searches, SMTIV:A is also one of the more off-beat entries of the franchise, being a pseudo-sequel to a 3DS entry rather than a console installment of the series. This means that it hasn't gotten the same amount of love as other entries and there just aren't many places to get information on it, let alone another person's commentary.

#4 - Betrayal Legacy Board Game

Considering I rarely write about the adventures of my tabletop gaming group, I'm assuming this surfed up to the top 5 by virtue of Betrayal Legacy's popularity. And it's a good game! If you can find a regular group to play it to completion like I did, it can be an amazing experience. Doing so is time-consuming, it took us years (which was not helped by the pandemic), but the group that finished was almost entirely the same group that started, and that helped a lot. By the end we had so many shared memories of things we'd done to each other, but that's all part of the fun.

#3 - VN Talk: Pre-Odyssey: Odysseus, Penelope, and her Ducks

Pre-Odyssey is not the only indie otome game I've covered on my blog, but what it is... is a recent release, which you'll see is a trend with the remaining two posts that placed above it. I discovered Pre-Odyssey within a month of its release, and while it was still new-ish, I was plugging it to anyone who would listen to me. It doesn't have high visibility in the otome community, so I suspect that anyone who wanted to know more about the game or wanted to read another person's take in the aftermath (am I the only person who likes reading reviews after finishing a game?) inevitably ended up here.

#2 - VN Talk: Variable Barricade - Part 6: True Route

Variable Barricade was a 2022 release so it's not surprising that people looking for spoilers about the true route would find my post dedicated specifically to it. Seriously, this one post almost had more views than all my other Variable Barricade posts combined. People want their spoilers. I'm not someone who usually looks for spoiler-specific posts, so I'm not sure visitors got specifically what they were looking for, but I definitely spoiled.

#1 - VN Talk: Billionaire Lovers

This was my #1 post of 2022. Billionaire Lovers launched in English with an Overwhelmingly Positive rating on Steam thanks to blowing up in China well before its translation. But this left English coverage of a popular indie title lacking, and as with Pre-Odyssey, I played this both very close to launch and posted my story breakdown soon after. To be frank, I'm not surprised this was my most popular post of the year, given the subject matter. It's otome-adjacent, but appeals to a wider audience. I just happened to get in early.

And that about covers it! I'm not sure I'm going to go quite as hard on the indies again this year. It's really unusual for me to play something so close to launch, but we'll see.

Attack on Titan failed to end this year, resulting in people poking fun of the fact that its "Final Season" has been broken up into three parts releasing in three different years. It'll probably all be worth it in the end, but in the meantime this is yet another year I'll be leaving it off since I watched enough to only want to consider new or finished series this year. Legend of the Galactic Heroes is in a similar position, though in its case a fifth season has not been announced yet. I'm just assuming one will be because there's a lot more of the novel series left to adapt.

The series below are the eight I liked enough to finish, presented in the order I completed them. My top three picks of the year are marked with an asterisk (*).

Arcadia of My Youth *

The lone movie of the bunch and admittedly a nostalgia pick, but the reason I'm including it for 2022 is because this is the first time I watched the uncut dub. I was introduced to the movie via the dubbed and edited (to remove the worst of the violence and the "boring" stuff) Vengeance of the Space Pirate release as a teenager, but I'd heard there was a full version of the dub somewhere out there and finally found it this year on Retrocrush. If you've ever been curious about Leiji Matsumono's Harlock series, this is a nice self-contained entry point. Parts of it haven't aged well. It's got logic gaps, things that don't make sense, the science is outright bad (DNA does not work that way!), but for all that, I found it a memorable story about standing up to live the way you want, even though that may mean a life of hardship and pain. Might be my all time favorite movie, and certainly the most watched.

Ya Boy, Kongming *

Three Kingdoms tactician Zhuge Liang (courtesy name Kongming) dies campaigning on the Wuzhang Plains and is reborn in modern day Tokyo as a younger version of himself. At first he thinks he's in hell because it's Halloween and people are dressed up weird, but one thing leads to another and he ends up meeting Eiko, an aspiring club singer hoping to make a career out of her music. Charmed by her talent, he pledges to be her tactician and they embark on a journey to make her a star. It's a really weird premise, but it works! The music portion of the show is handled extremely well, but there are also lots of easter eggs for viewers familiar with the Three Kingdoms period (particularly pop culture depictions of it).

Spy x Family

I like to think of myself as an early adopter of this one. I started reading the manga when the first chapter dropped in English and fell in love with Loid Forger and his fake family (which will surely end up a real one by the time the story is over). Though the stakes are nothing less than world peace, he has to go about it by infiltrating a parents' meeting at an elite children's school which requires him to not only have a child, but a wife, in order to appear like the perfect nuclear family in a society modeled after 1960s East Germany (complete with secret police known for hauling off people who don't seem quite right). But what he doesn't know is that his new daughter is an esper and his new wife is an assassin. It's a bit of genius that only the daughter knows everything that is going on, but it's all filtered through the mind of a five-year-old.

Love After World Domination

The title is a little misleading, since our central couple is not waiting until after world domination to have a go at a relationship, but it's admittedly a striking title. Our leads consist of the red ranger of the Gelato 5 superhero team (what we would consider Power Rangers in the US) and one of the enemy generals from the evil Gekko organization that is trying to take over the world. This is a comedy, so it's perfectly possible for Red Gelato and the Reaper Princess to sneak away for some alone time in the middle of a battle, especially since ordinary citizens are so blase about the fact these battles happen in the first place. It's all very silly, but Fudo and Desumi do their best to support and understand each other and the shenanigans are usually happening around them rather than doing anything to suggest the possibility they will ever break up.

Fanfare of Adolescence

One of those niche appeal sports anime that speaks specifically to people like me. We follow a group of students through three years at a high school jockey academy intended to propel them into careers in the racing industry. Pacing is a little unbalanced considering half the episodes are devoted to the first year, followed by an abrupt timeskip that moves away from our primary protagonist to upgrade our deuteragonist to co-protagonist, and it doesn't quite work. The CG for the horses is also a bit off at times, though I completely understand not wanting to animate all that by hand.

Phantom of the Idol

One thing I love about anime is that it has a very easy time blending the fantastic with the everyday, and in this case Yuya Niyodo, the lazy half of a male idol duo, meets the ghost of a popular idol who wants to keep performing. The two strike a deal where she gets to possess him and perform and he gets to reap the benefits of not having to work. (Yeah, he's a bit scummy, but he gets better.) The anime really goes all in with the song performances, so if you love music, there are a lot of original songs written specifically for this series, and Yuya's VA does a lovely job with conveying the two personalities inside the same body.

My Isekai Life: I Gained a Second Character Class and Became the Strongest Sage

I am generally a reluctant viewer of the current isekai genre, what western viewers might call "portal fantasy," because there is a certain sameness to a lot of it. Most of them involve a generic medieval European fantasy world, often with menus and restorative items and essentially being a video game without actually saying it is one. So I generally only watch if I like the particular take a given isekai has, and in the case of the blandly named My Isekai Life, it's that the main protagonist is obscenely powerful but just wants to travel around as nondescript wandering adventurer with his gaggle of slime buddies and a nervous wolf, except he's a nice guy who he can't help but help people out even if it means slaying things he really shouldn't be able to kill.

Raven of the Inner Palace *

I love Raven of the Inner Palace for its lovely worldbuilding that takes the general trappings of imperial China and weaves it into its own mythology. We follow the Raven Consort, an unusual member of the imperial court in that she is the only consort who does not perform nighttime duties for the emperor and she has the power to see and send off the dead. The English translation choses to subtitle the names as they would be read in Mandarin Chinese, which can be confusing if your ear is good enough to understand the spoken Japanese, but I feel it was the right choice given the setting. I hope when the novel series comes to the US it makes the same choice as I would love to follow Shouxue on to further adventures, but it's going to be really hard to get used to her being called Jusetsu.

I played a fair number of games this year, but that said, I had a decided indie bent involving shorter games so I don't feel I played as much in 2022 as others. My top three picks of 2022 are marked with an asterisk (*) as I do every year, but it was much harder to pick my top three than usual. I ended up leaning indie because even though I may have dropped ten or twenty times the number of hours into a time sink like Civilization VI there aren't the same number of people talking about the bittersweet gem that is Hungry Hearts Diner, and it's games like that that I want to sell people on.

So with that said, these are the 12 games I liked the most out of the ones I finished in 2022, in the order I played them. If the game is available on multiple platforms, the one I played on is listed first.

Hungry Hearts Diner (iOS, Android) *

I downloaded this on a whim, and two things stood out at me from the user reviews that immediately made it different from most restaurant sims. 1) The game has a story and 2) it has an ending. Aside from that, you play as an elderly grandmother and how often do you get to be one of those? When Grandpa gets laid up, Grandma takes over the diner and serves food to a variety of customers, most of whom have their own stories which progress as she serves them helpings of their favorite foods. The overall mood is just a little melancholy with discussion of loss and lost opportunities, but also learning to move on and reconcile with family. It's a short little game (probably 10-15 hours depending on how fast you are), but very charming. You may need a tissue at the end.

Sid Meier's Civilization VI Anthology (Windows, Mac, Switch, PS4, XB1)

Bundle containing Civilization VI and all its expansions and DLC. It's the usual pick a civilization, build them up, and "win" by a variety of methods before other civilizations get a chance to meet their own goals. It's not anything groundbreaking for Civ fans, but it's a graphical upgrade and some nuances have changed so a few strategies from Civ V are no longer necessary or even desirable. I feel like the spread of non-western and/or southern hemisphere civs is a little better than in years past (I love that DLC introduces cultures like the Maori, Vietnamese, and Mapuche for the first time), but European countries still outnumber any other continental group despite their small geographic footprint.

Metro PD: Close to You (iOS, Android)

This is one of Voltage's Love 365 pay-per-route otome games. I didn't cover this one on my blog because I was playing sporadically, picking routes every now and then, and wasn't sure I'd like the game that much. You play a newly assigned detective to the Special Investigation 2nd Unit and solve crimes while getting involved with a variety of the unnamed protagonist's coworkers. Some routes jump awkwardly from the explosive ending of the prologue to several months later where the protagonist is an established member of the team, which I found weird. I didn't like Himuro, my first route, but played his route for free as part of Love 365's then weekly promotion. One of my friends likes this game though so I gave it another shot. Of the other routes I've played, I enjoyed Eiki, Kirisawa, and Nomura.

Billionaire Lovers (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Don't let the cheesy title fool you. There's a pretty good story locked in its 2-4 hour playthrough. Much like Doki Doki Literature Club before it, it uses dating game tropes (this time from otome) to suck the player into a game that really isn't about romance. Though it has some creepy moments, it's not as horror-oriented as DDLC and is more about the strange things happening in the main character's life. There is a content warning and it's warranted, but despite the 18 and up age inquiry upon starting the game, there is no sex or nudity. (This was originally a Chinese title and I suspect the 18+ may have to do with the in-universe gacha game, which is part of the story.)

The Battle of Polytopia (iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Linux)

My brother described this as a simplified version of Civilization, and there's certainly a similar feel to it. You make new cities, you learn new things to build or ways to train your people through a tech tree, but it's all wrapped up in a small package that makes it easy to pick up and put down at a moment's notice (because you're playing on a phone and it's now time to go). The best part about the mobile version is that it can be played offline with no internet connection and there are no ads.

Variable Barricade (Switch)

Teenage heiress Hibari Tojo knows that one day she will need to find an appropriate husband, but she didn't think her ornery grandfather would saddle her with four potential suitors while she's still in high school! I love Hibari for being unafraid to speak her mind if someone happens to piss her off. She's not in a position where she wants to get to know her potential love interests, let alone romance them, and of course her grandfather has managed to find four unemployed men with such awful flaws that she wonders just what he was thinking by making her live in a house with all of them until she picks the one to marry. I enjoyed the common route a lot, but the wacky hijinks drop off in favor of angst on most of the routes after the common one is over.

Crystal Warriors (3DS, Game Gear)

I bought this because the 3DS eshop is closing and I never beat Crystal Warriors on Game Gear when I was a kid because my battery backup died, making it impossible to save. Despite only getting partway through the game, I had fond memories of it, with its elemental strengths and weaknesses system, and my first experience with permadeath in a strategy RPG. Playing it now, thirty years later, there's something to appreciate in its low frills approach. The maps are smaller and the story elements light, but the tactical gameplay is all there. It's too bad the sequel never came to the US.

Pre-Odyssey: Odysseus, Penelope & her Ducks (Windows, Mac, Android) *

Delightful little VN made for the NaNoRenO 2022 game jam. You play as Penelope, who (in this timeline) is better known for being surrounded by ducks than as a Spartan princess. She meets Odysseus after he arrives as one of Helen's suitors, and from there you can follow the mythology or deviate as you like. The characters are drawn in an anime style and the dialogue is present day vernacular, but all that combined with the general ridiculousness of Penelope's duck friends makes for a charming story that made me laugh. You don't need to know Greek mythology to play this, but if you do, you'll get so much more out of it.

Strange Horticulture (Windows, Mac, Switch) *

Short binge-worthy game about taking over a strange little shop in a strange little town that sells a bunch of odd plants for various purposes. I love how the story gradually unfurls through conversations with customers and notes you can discover as you explore, but even though there is some flexibility in solving various problems and thus earning one of multiple endings, the plants themselves are static so it didn't feel like there was enough replayability for me to want to do it more than once. Discovering what something is and what it's used in is most of the fun and that's completely absent a second time around.

Yrsa Major (Windows, Mac, Linux, Browser)

Another game jam VN, this one came out of Otome Jam 2021 and follows the titular carpenter Yrsa. Being a big, strong woman capable of killing monsters with a shovel, she has concluded that she will never fit into the neat little box of a "typical" woman, and thus she has cut off some of her desires as being unsuitable for a person like her. So when she has the opportunity to bond with an elemental spirit she hopes for an earth spirit to help her defend her village, but what she gets instead is a peace-loving water spirit, Uribel. Though there are a few action bits, this is a lovely story about how what you ask for isn't necessarily what you really need. Bonus points for the atypical protagonists, with Yrsa's body type (and age given the genre) and Uribel's appearance. As an ageless water spirit who can change his appearance at will, he has chosen to look like a frail elderly man.

Escape Simulator (Windows, Mac, Linux, PS5, Xbox Series X)

Online multiplayer escape room game that comes with pre-built rooms, DLC rooms, and the ability to play user-made ones. I played with one other person and it was pretty fun, though I found the rooms to be very small and cramped compared to real life rooms, or even the rooms in the Zero Escape series. There's no player collision so there are no worries about bumping into another person, but it feels a bit claustrophobic because of the room size and if this was a real room it would feel very small for a single person, let alone four. If you want a quick fix though, this is affordable (especially compared to real world rooms) and will scratch the itch.

AI: The Somnium Files - nirvana Initiative (Switch, PS4, XB1, Windows)

Sequel to 2019's sleeper mystery game AI: The Somnium Files. I loved the first game to bits, but found the sequel to be a mixed bag due a particular narrative trick that I'll go into spoilery detail about in a later blog post and some new gameplay mechanics in the somnium segments that I just didn't like. The new characters are fun and quirky in the manner of the older ones, Ryuki might be my favorite protagonist in the series now, but the story isn't as personal as it was in the last game. Combined with a disappointing finale, I just couldn't like it as much as its predecessor.

2022 was an odd year for me. I didn't end up reading much and ended up starting and stopping multiple books multiple times. For a while I was wondering why this was happening since I was still interested in the story, and eventually, by the end of the year I realized what the problem was. I just needed to find a book that would sing to me, not just so that I would enjoy the characters but also enjoy the world they lived in.

Normally I would list the twelve books I enjoyed the most, and mark my three favorites with an asterisk (*), but this year because I didn't read that much, I'm just listing the six I finished and while three are still marked, two are in the same series so it feels like calling it three books is cheating.

Yes, I'm Hot in This: The Hilarious Truth about Life in a Hijab by Huda Fahmy

I'm cheating a bit in that this is a collection of comic strips Huda Fahmy originally posted on Instagram, but they're still enjoyable even as someone who is unfamiliar with the religion but all too familiar with what it's like being a perpetual foreigner in the land you were born in. She handles the misconceptions of white America with humor and aplomb, much of which I could only fantasize about doing in my head.

The Legend of the Galactic Heroes Vol 5: Mobilization by Yoshiki Tanaka

This is a turning point volume. For the first time since the start of the series, the Galactic Empire is invading the Free Planet Alliance with a competent commander at its head and the Free Planet Alliance is on the backfoot. We haven't had a chance to see Yang and Reinhard directly face off since the opening chapters of the series and finally it's time for the rematch. The battle comes together well and though the inevitable end to the battle aggravates me, it's so in character that it wouldn't have worked any other way.

The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang

Stand alone graphic novel about a gender non-conforming prince and the dressmaker he hires to make him dresses. It's a fairly standard coming of age title, but made more relevant in today's climate given that it's often considered inappropriate for a man to be feminine, especially in one of the last bastions of femininity; clothing. I would have liked a little more of the dressmaker's story, since it's primarily told from her POV, but her personal story tends to get drowned out given the prince's higher stakes.

The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson *

I am a Mistborn newcomer and picked this up because I was under the mistaken impression this was a fantasy western since I read the prologue years ago and it's set in the fantasy equivalent of the Wild West. It's just… the rest of the book is not. Instead it's more gaslamp fantasy, but I found I enjoyed it quite a bit. Though having Wax's partner be a guy called Wayne so the subseries can be called Wax and Wayne is groan-inducing for me, I really like Wax as a protagonist and Sanderson's way with language and worldbuilding. This was the book that turned around my year as a reader.

Crest of the Stars Volume 1: The Imperial Princess by Hiroyuki Morioka *

I enjoyed the Crest of the Stars anime years ago, and figured I'd never get a chance to read the series in English since I never picked up the first English novel translation. But I'm glad I waited. The new publisher also picked up the sequel/main series Banner of the Stars and just seems to have made a better put-together package including a lovely series of hardbacks and copious notes explaining translation choices made between previous English renditions of the story, the current translation, and the conlang that is used liberally throughout the book (because Morioka loves his Abh like Tolkien loves his Elvish.) If you'd like a more personal and (somewhat) less military oriented example of Japanese science fiction novel-writing, I think Crest of the Stars does quite well.

Crest of the Stars Volume 2: A War Most Modest by Hiroyuki Morioka *

Picking up immediately where the first volume left off, A War Most Modest is a bit of a weird duck since it wraps up the danger at the end of the last book, but is also clearly setting up for what will be the final leg of our journey in the final book of the trilogy. What it does do though is really look at what it means to be Abh and what it is like for Jint now that he has been adopted into Abh society, where all of them are genetically engineered humans while he is an unmodified human himself. Jint's gradual and often reluctant adoption of his new place in society is what I love so much about the series.

One would think that being laid up for most of the year I would have been an anime watching fiend, and I was for the spring season (which aired right after my surgery, so I had plenty of time), but after that my interest waned, and overall this has been a year where I tried a lot of series and just didn't finish them.

Also two series that I enjoyed I'm not putting on the list because they didn't finish so I don't know what my final impression of them will be, but assuming they don't faceplant the ending, Attack on Titan and 86 may be here next year.

The series below are the seven I liked enough to finish, presented in the order I watched them. My top three picks of the year are marked with an asterisk (*).

Wakakozake

I don't normally get into bite-sized anime that only lasts a few minutes per episode, but Wakakozake was so easy to slip into. Literally the only thing that happens each episode is that Wakako tries something different to eat and drinks a little alcohol, but there's something attractive about a single woman willing to eat by herself and just soak up the taste of her dinner.

Vivy -Fluorite's Eye Song- *

If there is one anime I loved more than anything else I saw this year, it's Vivy -Fluorite's Eye Song-. It tells the story of the world's first sentient android who has been tasked by a time traveling robot to stop the robot apocalypse happening in the distant future, but the catch is that the driving mission in her life is to make people happy with her music. She's not built for espionage. The only way she can justify even embarking on this scenario is to stretch her reasoning to accommodate the fact that the robot apocalypse would prevent her from making people happy with music. Throughout the series Vivy grows and learns to become more than just her programming while never deviating from what she was created to do. The ending stumbles a little bit, but this is still head and shoulders over anything else I watched and the kind of series I'd recommend even to non-anime fans.

So I'm a Spider, So What?

Class outcast Wakaba is reborn as a spider monster in another world that behaves suspiciously like an MMORPG. This show is a bit uneven with Wakaba (also called Kumoko, literally "Spider Child") stealing the show as she nerds her way to survival in a dog-eat-dog realm of monsters. She's a ton of fun to watch, but her classmates who are also reborn, as humans for the most part, unfortunately feel very generic to anyone who's ever watched any sort of medieval fantasy media. The show suffered production issues towards the end, making for a bumpy conclusion, especially since the novel series hasn't ended yet.

The Saint's Magical Power is Omnipotent *

I'll probably pick up the books for this one. Office lady Sei is summoned to another world, which is a popular anime trope these days, but a high school girl arrives along with her, and the prince who summoned the titular saint from another world immediately dubs the younger girl the saint, leaving poor Sei to deal with being transplanted to another reality and not being the special summoned person. Though understandably upset, Sei is an older protagonist, so she doesn't spend much time sulking before carving a new life in this world. I really like it for having an adult protagonist and the slow burn romance between Sei and Albert is cute.

Moriarty the Patriot

Alternate telling of James Moriarty from the Sherlock Holmes stories, where there are three brothers, Albert, William, and Louis, who together form the Lord of Crime. I loved the first half of the show, which shows how William and Louis came from poverty and were adopted into Albert's family, which gave them the legitimacy they need to complete their plan to revolutionize the class system in Victorian London. We see how the Moriarty brothers step up to help people the system won't, even though it often involves breaking the law. Unfortunately the second half stumbles and the final plan of William James Moriarty, the mastermind of the trio, feels poorly thought out.

Shadows House *

In a vast manor live the shadowy progeny of Shadows House and their attendant dolls. The shadows and their dolls look identical save that the shadows are completely black with no face. Their dolls serve as faces for them, providing the expressive context that might otherwise be missing when they wish to communicate. Ideally shadow and doll are in complete sync with each other, but Emilico is a free-spirited doll and Kate does not wish to mold her into a lifeless servant. Being based on an ongoing manga, the season concludes after a story arc rather than a series ending, but I quite liked the mystery and the shadow/doll interactions.

Backflip!!

I did not know men's rhythmic gymnastics was a thing until I stumbled across this show. It's a sleeper, but if you think you're even vaguely interested in a show about male gymnasts, it's worth a shot. It's funny, the gymnastics are extremely well animated, and the cast is highly likable.

In 2021 I played a lot more visual novels than I normally would due to so much of my time being spent either in cancer treatment or recovering from cancer treatment. I had neuropathy issues following surgery that largely prevented me from using my left hand for gaming (even typing was hard!), which was a definite factor in what I could play. Fortunately visual novels are easy to play one-handed.

These are the 12 games I liked the most out of the ones I finished in 2021, in the order I played them. If the game is available on multiple platforms, the one I played on is listed first. My top three picks of the year are marked with an asterisk (*).

Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Switch) *

I rushed to finish this one before surgery because I didn't want to lose interest or forget too much while hospitalized, and it turned out to be a good thing given my post-surgery neuropathy. Three Houses manages to refresh the franchise after Fates tried to retread too much of what made Awakening popular. The focus this time is on houses representing the continent's three countries at a military academy, and how they end up careening towards war. I think the first part of the game where everyone is playing school is overly long (if I want Persona I'll go play Persona), but the story is compelling and I like all the shades of morally gray.

Gnosia (Switch) *

Can you build a visual novel out of the Werewolf/Mafia party games? Why yes, you can! Gnosia's premise is that you're on a starship and one or more of the crew has been infected with Gnosia, which causes them to eliminate one other member of the crew every time they enter warp. You play every round of "Werewolf" in an attempt to cold sleep the Gnosia before they equal the number of the crew, in which case they win! But sometimes, you might be Gnosia. There's a time loop component where your protagonist is trying to put together the reason behind their looping and why Gnosia is on board to begin with.

Raging Loop (Switch, PS4, Windows, Android)

The other Werewolf/Mafia-inspired visual novel with a time loop. This is the one to play if you want a modern day horror bent, foul language, and a crass protagonist. Or, if you don't want to get into the weeds of playing an actual game of Werewolf and prefer the narrative work it into the story with the protagonist making most plays without the player's input. I enjoyed this one a lot too, and the story is stronger, since it's not reliant on rng or the player figuring out a particular mechanic. If you want a more traditional visual novel, this is the one to pick.

Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk (PSVita, Windows)

Partner game to Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly. There are a few easter eggs, but nothing that requires playing the first game. Though I like Jed a lot more as a protagonist than Beniyuri, I didn't like Ashen Hawk as much since the gothic mystery setting was swapped for a low fantasy Renaissance town. There are still mystery elements, like why nobody comes to or leaves town anymore, but they're side details that most characters don't worry about. Most of the game is taken up by the ongoing rivalry between the Hawk and the Wolf clans.

My Vow to My Liege (Windows)

Otome visual novel set in the Spring and Autumn Period of Chinese history by an indie Chinese developer. Tengyu takes on the persona of her deceased brother Fuchai in order to provide her country with a king and break the Sacred Vow her ancestors made with the deceitful Dragon God. Though this is a romance game, there is a lot of war and military action that will occasionally take primary focus, making this the most gritty otome I've played, above Hakuoki, which also took place during a war. Tengyu/Fuchai herself is quite proactive and fully capable of throwing her weight around as king, making her a refreshing change from most commercial otome heroines I've played.

Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir (Switch) *

Remake of an old NES adventure game! A teen detective is hired by the butler of the wealthy Ayashiro family to investigate the death of the family matriarch. The artwork is now modern day visual novel gorgeous with minor animations for some scenes. All dialogue is voice acted, including the protagonist and his inner thoughts. However, the gameplay has not been updated so if you remember those times in 80s adventure games when you had to do nonsensical things or talk to someone multiple times to progress the game, that's all still there. The story itself has aged gracefully though, and remains compelling throughout.

Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind (Switch)

Remake of The Missing Heir's prequel. Though this is probably better put together from a gameplay perspective, having been developed later, I'm not sure I liked it as much. Notably there's a very suspicious area that you're oddly never allowed to investigate that bothered me the entire game. The ending was a surprise I didn't see coming, though it felt karmically appropriate. Given the urban legend that's part of the story, this is definitely the creepier of the two Famicom Detective Club games.

Steam Prison (Switch, Windows)

Romance game following Cyrus, a young woman from the Heights, who is framed for the murder of her parents and sent down to the penal colony in the Depths as a convicted prisoner. I feel like this is a case of the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, as there's a lot about this game that doesn't feel fully thought out (despite the fact the writer clearly loves worldbuilding), and yet I had a good time with it. Most of the issue stems from fact that Cyrus's parents got murdered, yet we're trying to have a love story at the same time, and the game is usually not good about resolving both the romance and the murder plotlines.

The Great Ace Attorney: Chronicles (Switch, PS4, Windows)

This is actually a combination of Great Ace Attorney: Adventures and Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve, which I covered separately on my blog since they originally released as two individual games, but they're really a two-parter and the only way to buy them in English is as a bundle. Series creator Shu Takumi returns to write and direct the world-spanning story of Ryunosuke Naruhodo as he tackles cases in both Japan and Britain. Not as laugh-out-loud funny as the mainline Ace Attorney games, but if you want a little more drama in the usual formula, these games got you covered. Ryunosuke does all right as the new protagonist and Susato is now my favorite of the series' assistants.

Animal Restaurant (iOS, Android)

I'm not big on mobile games, but the simply named Animal Restaurant scratches my itch for building things while also being ideal for short play periods. You basically manage a restaurant run by cats for various forest animals (and as you progress, for city animals and even a few non-animals). While you can and are encouraged to participate in a variety of activities, the bulk of your earnings for upgrades, new recipes, etc. happen while you're away. You can't permanently buy your way out of ads unfortunately, but they're fairly unobtrusive and the game is set up in a way that you can choose whether or not you want to view any video ones. It's just you progress a lot slower if you don't.

Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse (3DS)

Pseudo-sequel to Shin Megami Tensei IV initially following the neutral route and then branching off to its own thing. Features a new protagonist, though the old one is still a part of the story. Apocalypse has a number of quality of life improvements, though gameplay is otherwise very close to its predecessor. The story makes it pretty clear what it's like living in a crapsack world where various deities and demons fight to decide the fate of humanity and expect humanity to simply obey them. The cast skews unusually young even by JRPG standards (half the party is fifteen or younger), but they talk a lot, making this one of the livelier mainline games.

Rose in the Embers (iOS, Android)

Period romance in Taisho Japan. Part of the Love 365 library app. Each route in this otome can be purchased separately, though I played all the main ones. (Side stories and sequel stories cost extra. It's mobile. Everything is piecemeal.) I'm not usually a fan of cross-class romance, especially the maid and master thing RitE has going on in a couple of its routes, but I love early 20th century stuff and this turned out better than expected. It helps that only one of the men is the super rich guy flinging around more money than he could ever spend. The others are decently off, but feel more middle or upper middle class.

2021 was a year of reading comfort fiction, mostly because I was in cancer treatment for so much of the year that I just wanted to read what I already knew I would enjoy. Hence, a lot of later volumes in various series.

Normally I list the twelve books I enjoyed the most, but this year because of all the series' reading and because I mostly read volumes back to back, I'm just going to group everything by series and include book/volume numbers. I didn't start any new series. This is all ongoing stuff.

My top three picks of the year are marked with an asterisk (*).

The Legend of the Galactic Heroes Vol 4: Strategem by Yoshiki Tanaka

We finally see all the politicking in the previous volume pay off as the Dominion of Phezzan makes its move and Reinhart decides to make use of their subterfuge, bringing him one step closer to claiming the imperial throne for himself. He feels a lot better in this book, less distant, perhaps because he's getting over his grief. Yang's chapters aren't quite as good this time around, perhaps because he has less to do. This isn't a particularly space battley volume and while his grand strategy insight is as good as ever, his government doesn't like to hear what he has to say, as usual.

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Roads Lead to Doom! Vols 2-3 by Satoru Yamaguchi

In Vol 2 Katarina continues her quest to avoid getting a "bad end" as the villainess of the otome video game she's been reincarnated into. Now that she's a teenager she finally goes off to the magic academy, beginning the game proper, but this time around due to her bond with her potential adversaries it's clear the story will play out differently. There is surprisingly a "bad guy" character who shows up to give the story a little oomph in the finale, but otherwise it ends just about the way you'd expect.

Vol 3 is a little stranger since Vol 2 wraps up the premise of the series, but it was clearly popular enough that the author or his editors wanted to continue so what we get is a stand alone volume of Katarina meeting new people, getting into more trouble, and causing more people to be smitten by her. It's all right, but feels a bit like filler.

Baccano! Vols 8-10 by Ryohgo Narita *

Baccano volumes 8-10 cover the 1934 Alcatraz storyline as well as Nebula Corporation shenanigans in Chicago. For anime-onlies, this arc covers where Ladd Russo wound up after he was pulled off the Flying Pussyfoot and finally puts Huey Laforet's plans into action. Firo gets some pretty awesome moments as he has to operate solo inside Alcatraz for much of this arc and he really gets to put his alchemic knowledge to good use. The best mostly new to us characters are probably the twin homunculi, Sham and Leeza, who have been mentioned before, but get to finally take the stage in this arc.

Shadow of the Fox Vols 2-3 by Julie Kagawa

Soul of the Sword and Night of the Dragon are the second and third books in the Shadow of the Fox trilogy, continuing and concluding Yumeko's journey to stop the summoning of the dragon god in a pseudo-medieval Japanese setting. We get more POVs as characters previously denied a spot in the narrative limelight get their own stories to tell, but I found I didn't like the diluted focus as much. The ending was similarly mixed for me. Parts I liked, parts I didn't, though the journey towards getting there was very good.

The Protectorate Vols 1-3 by Megan E. O'Keefe *

Velocity Weapon, Chaos Vector, and Catalyst Gate are the three books in the trilogy. If you like action sf with careful worldbuilding, this is an excellent choice. It's got spies, military operations, government conspiracies. The two timelines running through the first book are amazing as I couldn't help wondering how they were going to resolve. I love Sanda and Tomas, they have great chemistry together, even when things aren't working out, and Bero is possibly one of my favorite AI characters ever. (There's nothing quite like a sulky warship.) It's all quite good.

The Murderbot Diaries Vol 3 and 4 by Martha Wells *

Rogue Protocol and Exit Strategy are the third and fourth novellas in the The Murderbot Diaries, bringing the titular Murderbot full circle with the decisions it's made since the end of the first novella. It still hates caring about people, because oftentimes people are stupid and caring makes this hard, but it still cares anyway, making Murderbot highly relatable.

Ironically, despite spending so much time at home due to Covid in 2020, I actually watched less. Part of it was a lull in the number of series I was actually interested in, but also (as happened last year while I was dealing with cancer) my daily ritual of coming home and watching a half hour of anime while eating dinner didn't happen anymore. It wasn't that I wasn't eating dinner anymore, but the ritual changed and I ended up reading the news instead.

I did see a few things though, and here they are, presented in the order I watched them.

Carole & Tuesday

When this first came out, I remember it being a "big deal" because the series was from the same director as the beloved Cowboy Bebop, but the reason I watched it was more for the music and the light sci-fi touch to the story, which places it on a terraformed Mars where musical acts are supported by computers that will generate the hit songs for them. The first half is a lot of fun, the second not so much, but the two leads are energetic (one being a person of color who isn't drawn as a caricature) and the music is fantastic. It feels very much like a love letter from the Japanese director to western music.

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!

I was already planning on buying the novel series before I started watching, and after I did, that cemented it. The series is obviously fond of romance games and since protagonist Catarina has been reborn inside the last video game she played, she actually knows some of what's about to happen and she doesn't like it! Catarina's attempts to avoid death and exile (as the villainous rival character) start from her childhood years and she's so caught up in trying to cheat fate that she completely misses how good everything has become for her.

Psycho-Pass 3: First Inspector

The movie that wraps up Psycho-Pass Season 3. Surprisingly, given the limited run time, it manages to do exactly that in a satisfying manner while also setting up for a fourth season. Not every question gets answered, but it hits all the major ones while still being entertaining as a movie. Watching Season 3 beforehand is a must, as there is no attempt to get the viewer up to speed.

Norn 9

Adaptation of the Norn9 visual novel following a group of young people gifted with special powers on a journey to see the World on a magnificent flying ship, the Norn. I liked this a fair bit better than most otome adaptations because of its effort to integrate multiple storylines while still serving up the main plot. In some cases it actually does better than the source material, and the original ending is on par with those in game (or even better for some characters).

Bofuri: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense

This isn't really a series for the ages, but it's a nice look at what virtual reality gaming can be when it's not trapping people in the world of the game or turning everything into a death match. Maple is a complete VR MMO newbie and as such, makes new player mistakes in her character build because no one honestly expects anyone to play like that, but she makes it work. She's so good natured that no one really faults her for playing her way (especially since playing her way actually works for her) and even the people in rival guilds are really just rivals because they're having a guild vs guild match and not because people bear grudges. This makes it a nice series to cuddle up with.

I'm getting better at not buying more games than I can consume in a year, but I still play the occasional free-to-play indie title and wind up with a number of commercial games through promotional giveaways. The result is that I rarely play any game in its year of release unless it's a part of a favorite series, and even then, depending on how busy I am, a much anticipated game might get postponed.

These are the 12 games I liked enough to finish for the first time in 2020, in the order I played them. If the game is available on multiple platforms, the one I played on is listed first. My top three picks of the year are marked with an asterisk (*).

AI: The Somnium Files (Switch, PS4, Windows) *

I didn't think I'd find one of my top 3 games right out of the gates, especially since it had a fair number of early road bumps that would have turned me off had this been any other game. Date and his AI partner Aiba make for a winning team though, and I lived for their banter. By the time I was about a third to halfway in I was seriously invested, and by the time I finished I was sad that it was over. This might be a game about solving gruesome murders, but the frequent moments of levity keeps it from getting too dark. I also like Date for being able to keep a professional face for his job while being a complete dork on the inside. It makes him highly relatable.

Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly (PS Vita, Windows) *

A mystery visual novel with romantic overtones. The mystery element is an overwhelming part of the main story, with the romance tacked on as alternate and arguably optional endings so this is probably not a first choice for romance fans, but the mystery is fantastic with two big twists which put a number of events in a different context on replay. Though the characters start out as five strangers trapped within a mysterious manor, there's so much about that statement that isn't necessarily true or doesn't properly represent their true situation.

9:05 (Web)

I played this little text adventure web game because it was in an article I read about the best video game endings and it promised that it was a short 5 minute playthrough. I think it was actually closer to 10 for me and I did not like the surprise ending. Ironically, 9:05 was created to show why it's a bad idea as a game writer to hide certain things from the player, and in that respect it works beautifully. So I agree with the author, that this is supposed to be bad!

Valkyria Chronicles (PS3, PS4, Switch, Windows)

If you ever wanted a change of pace from medieval fantasy and far future sf for your strategy RPG, Valkyria Chronicles has you covered with its WW2-inspired low fantasy gameplay. The small touches like having characters break line of sight, take cover in tall grass or behind bunkers, are details you just don't get in similar titles out of Japan. Magic is rare so most of your squad consists of regular people running around with guns, and each one of them is an individual with their own backstory. The watercolor-inspired art style still holds up twelve years later, and the overarching story does too.

The Sexy Brutale (Windows, PS4, Switch, XB1)

I'm not entirely sure what to call this. Maybe a puzzle-adventure game? The protagonist is stuck in a time loop inside a marquis's manor and is tasked with saving the guests from the mansion's murderous staff. Though the subject matter is dark, the game itself is more of a black comedy, with staff taking a certain amount of glee in their over-the-top murders (and the sheer variety of ways they can off someone). By taking advantage of the time loop, the protagonist can learn which events need to change in order to prevent a murder, and each "solved" murder gives new abilities that can be used later in the game. Took me about 9 hours to complete, which felt like just the right length for this kind of game.

Return of the Obra Dinn (Windows, PS4, Switch, XB1) *

As chief inspector of the East India company, the player is dispatched to investigate the listless Obra Dinn, which has drifted into port with damaged sails and no sign of the crew. Armed with a mysterious watch that allows the wielder to see and listen to a dead person's final moments, the inspector is tasked with documenting what happened to all the souls on board. There are no jump scares, but the atmosphere can get unnerving just because there are a lot of dead people to catalog and most of them did not go out on pleasant terms. A lot of the gameplay is unraveling the mystery, so the less you know going in, the better.

Norn9: Var Commons (PS Vita)

Otome visual novel following a group of espers on a flying ship in an alternate 1919. Unusual for having three playable protagonists, all voiced, and a total of nine fully fleshed out romance routes. One of the better otome I've played, but really faceplanted on anything that wasn't romance, resulting in unanswered questions and a half-baked frame story. Taken in pieces it's fine, but this is a case where the whole is less than the sum of its parts. Some of the parts are pretty good though!

Path of Exile (Windows, PS4, XB1)

Gritty action-RPG in the style of the Diablo series. You mass murder monsters and they drop loot. It's free to play and microtransactions are only for cosmetics or quality of life (like additional storage space beyond the generously sized stash they give you to begin with). The skill tree is pretty gnarly, but as a result it's super customizable so if you want to do something weird like a melee witch or a cold-blasting ranger you can. Path of Exile has a feature called "leagues" where every three months a new league is introduced with its own special set of mechanics to liven up the game and give something new for players to do. Leagues can be hit or miss, but the right mechanic can add enough spice to play through the game again.

Murder By Numbers (Windows, Switch)

Murder mystery game combined with solving nonograms to earn clues. Music is by the same composer as the Ace Attorney series and it really shows. Most of the tunes are really good, though they may start to grate if you're slow at solving puzzles (I had to mute a couple times because I couldn't take them anymore). The mysteries are entertaining with the usual colorful group of characters for this type of game, and considering the game takes place in Los Angeles, the cast is fairly diverse with a woman of color in the lead role. I would have to say though that I'm not good enough at nonograms to love this game though, and there was a point where I had to take a long break, not because I lost interest in the story, but because I honestly couldn't look at another nonogram, and that may impact your enjoyment of the game.

Cafe Enchante (Switch)

Romance game based around the owner of a cafe that serves a group of non-human regulars. The first half of the game is very low stakes, slice of life storytelling, which makes it a bit jarring when things go off the rails in the second half for most of the routes. Three of the five endings are on the bittersweet side, which I did not expect given the fluffy intro about life in a cafe with non-humans (with all that absolutely gorgeous food art). I enjoyed this game a lot, and I hope it gets a sequel/fandisk, but I also have a lot of bones to pick with it.

Hatoful Boyfriend (Windows, PS4, PS Vita, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS)

I technically finished this back in 2015, but only did one ending and never got to the fabled Bad Boys Love ending which turns the rest of the game on its head. Now that I have, I'd have to say that the world building is pretty good and deceptively deeper than you would expect from a game that presents itself as a high school romance with pigeons. The gameplay itself is not to my tastes though (I found several of the choices to be too arbitrary and I dislike stat building in visual novels) so I wouldn't have given it another shot if not for a walkthrough.

Capcom Beat 'Em Up Bundle (Switch, PS4, XB1, Windows)

Technically seven games in one since this is a collection of Capcom's old beat 'em up arcade brawlers, but because they're all short individually I decided to count them together. Final Fight is the most polished of the bunch and is the marquee title, but I bought it for The King of Dragons which is my childhood favorite. I also enjoyed Knights of the Round and Warriors of Fate, though I wish the latter had been accurately translated as a Romance of the Three Kingdoms game.

My 2020 reading year didn't go off as planned, particularly in regards to picking up new reading material, but with all the staying at home that had to be done, I ended up mostly reading backlogged physical and ebooks.

These are the twelve books I enjoyed the most, and in the order I read them. My top three picks of the year are marked with an asterisk (*).

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman

I picked this up for Kindle a while ago when it was on sale for a quarter (!), figuring I'd never get it cheaper short of going to a library. It's one of those books I'd always heard about, but never read while growing up, and while the Vietnam allegory is pretty apparent once you get to the middle section of the book, a lot of the societal changes come off as insensitive as best and homophobic at worst. Though the protagonist tries to be a decent guy and avoids being a jerk to any of the numerous gay characters that appear later in the story, he never gets comfortable with the thought that a queer society could be just fine even if it's not for him. If you can ignore all that (and it's all over the later parts of the book), it's not a bad story about a soldier just trying to find his own piece of heaven, but it hasn't aged well.

Baccano! Vol 6: 1933 <First> The Slash -Cloudy to Rainy- by Ryohgo Narita

More Baccano! The series works much better in the 1930s than the 2001 of the last installment, and we get to return to the woes of our favorite mobsters. In particular, this book focuses on Tick and Maria, who were minor characters previously, when Luck Gandor sends them to negotiate with some new hoodlums in town, who happen to be Jacuzzi Splot and his gang! Dallas is finally pulled out of the river, Firo has to deal with the psychological burden placed on him by inheriting Szilard's memories, and Ronny from the Martillo family gets to hint at his true colors. There's a lot going on as usual and Narita's sense of comedic timing is on point, knowing exactly when to turn the worst tension into an incredible joke.

Baccano! Vol 7: 1933 <Last> The Slash -Bloody to Fair- by Ryohgo Narita

The second half of the Slash arc ramps up with Vino being called into back into action after having been a non-appearance most of the previous book, and we get to see him and Chané as a romantic couple for the first time, which is a bit weird if you haven't watched the anime, because the specifics of how they became a couple are skipped over for another time in the books themselves. Tick and Maria go through their own bit of character development making them worthwhile additions to the pre-existing cast. Though they're clearly as morally impaired as most of the cast, I can't help rooting for those two.

The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard

I'd been wanting to read this ever since I heard this was Sherlock Holmes in space and Watson is a spaceship. I'm not sure I see the parallel between The Shadow's Child and Watson, other than through being a detective's partner, but Long Chau is definitely a far future Holmes; prickly personality, eccentric habits, and all. This was a really swift read and The Shadow's Child is a fantastic narrator, but the mystery was solved a little too easily for me. Still, I'd definitely be interested in a sequel.

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Roads Lead to Doom! Vol 1 by Satoru Yamaguchi

If you need a light and fluffy read, this is a surprisingly short first volume that serves as a sort of extended prologue to Katarina's plans to avoid getting either exiled or killed. Katarina is initially the spoiled daughter of a duke until she hits her head one day and realizes that in her previous life she used to be a teenager in our world until she got into a car accident while riding her bike. More than that, she seems to have been reborn as the rival character in the last video game she was playing, the otome Fortune Lover, and the rival doesn't have a single happy ending in the game! Now that she's armed with knowledge of her future, Katarina puts plans in motion to change her fate, but she's also prone to overthinking things and/or making strange jumps in logic, making multiple characters wonder just what happened to the duke's daughter.

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells

Murderbot continues to be a fantastic narrator, though I wasn't sure where the story was going considering the ending for the first book. Being a construct of few wants (other than good entertainment), Murderbot didn't seem like one to go off on unnecessary adventures, and the answer is searching for what really happened that caused it to start thinking of itself as Murderbot in the first place. The soul searching was worthwhile, but I wished that had been the climax of the story instead of the other plot thread, which I was much less invested in. ART was the highlight of the book though and I'm disappointed the research vessel and Murderbot parted ways at the end.

The Legend of the Galactic Heroes Vol 3: Endurance by Yoshiki Tanaka

Though I enjoyed the previous two LoGH volumes, the first third of Endurance was aptly named, spending an enormous amount of time on setup and political maneuvering before getting to the central conflict (the worst part being that the setup ends up being for a future book and not the current one). Yang's chapters continue to be a highlight, given how politicians and enemy combatants alike really don't know what to make of the guy. Reinhard's chapters are unfortunately more distant. Emotionally he's suffered a great loss since the end of the last book, but his loss is also the audience's loss as it makes him a much harder character to relate to. No doubt some of that is intentional, but I found I just didn't like his chapters as much.

86 Vol 1 by Asato Asato *

The first book of the 86 series is surprisingly weighty for a light novel series and was originally conceived as a stand alone so there's no need to commit anything further. Though it's primarily a war story following a remote commanding officer of the ethnic majority and her squadron composed of the oppressed minority, it's laced throughout with an exploration of government sanctioned racism and how privilege can blind otherwise "nice" people. Lena's growth over the course of the story, and realizing that it may be impossible for her to ever truly become a comrade to her soldiers, is quite frankly a conclusion I didn't expect to be reached. The combat and war segments are good too, but it's really the interpersonal relationships between Lena and her squad that make the book sing.

The Daedalus Incident by Michael J. Martinez

There are essentially two stories in this book; one following a mining operation on 22nd century Mars with a strong hard science fiction slant, and a one following the crew of the 18th century sailing ship the Daedalus, which is pursuing pirates and a rogue alchemist across the solar system with a golden age science fantasy feel. (Think of the animated Treasure Planet movie or the D&D Spelljammer setting.) The sub-genre mixing is fun and unusual, but I developed a strong preference for one storyline over the other, and the two take a long time to meet, so reading was an uneven experience. I kept wanting to hurry up to get back to the team I liked better.

The Venusian Gamit by Michael J. Martinez

The third book in the Daedalus Trilogy and the one with the best pacing. You can really see how Martinez's craft improved since the first book, and there are fun moments like the two dimensions meeting up again. I wasn't surprised to read in the notes at the end of the book that Martinez wrote the trilogy for Weatherby. You have to really like sailors on 18th century ships to write this stuff! It was an exciting read all the way up until the end when I realized that not all of my questions were going to get answered. But if you don't sweat the details, it's satisfying enough.

The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart *

Set in an East Asian themed island nation, The Bone Shard Daughter mostly follows the struggles of Lin, the imperial princess who is desperate to prove herself worthy of being her father's heir, and the smuggler Jovus, who is looking for his missing wife. The world building is quite good, particularly the imperial constructs, and I'm really interested in seeing Lin's path forward after all the upheaval at the end of the book. It's not going to be an easy one!

Shadow of the Fox by Julie Kagawa *

Really impressed by this Japanese-inspired fantasy that introduces just enough Japanese language that the culture comes across, without overindulging. Yumeko and Tatsumi work well as the dual narrators with their differing attitudes and points of view, and they're distinctive enough that they can be told apart by narrative voice alone. This is the first in a trilogy and the end of the book is very much a break before starting another story arc rather than a complete ending.