• “Oi, this company (ASD) is going too far with their research. Kill them all!”
• “Imperator Eddison has now relaxed scientific research as a means to try and further push the drive to really end this crisis across Stanton.”

Yeah, makes sense. Please don’t take this comment too seriously.

Non combat event which has a chance to stay non combat and UI change are much appreciated. Lets hope things work out properly throughout the whole thing.

Indeed. Been at it for about a year now.

Not necessarily too old, it’s just that industry (in general, not just gacha) changes in the way that many of us don’t really like. That’s the price of pushing their way into mainstream. All we can do is look in less obvious places and try more, sometimes not obvious, titles - there might be a diamond or two hidden somewhere if one’s lucky enough.

I’m still stuck in the villainess mines, it’s just what I crave these days.

• Behold the True Villainess
  Finished it, it was pretty good for the most part. There were a few sections I wasn’t really hot on (spying on the fiance comes to mind) but other than that it managed to keep up a solid quality until the end. Probably won’t stick as one of my favourites though.

• The Villainess’s Bestie
  It’s about a 5 year old maid working in the imperial palace who becomes friends with the empress (the titular villainess). It’s mostly comedy, with some slightly more serious elements thrown in the mix here and there.
  Pretty fun read, unfortunately it went on hiatus in 2023 so there’s only 60 chapters available.

• The Antagonist’s Pet
  Pretty similar premise to the previous series just replace kid maid with young girl from unimportant noble family who’s treated like a favourite pet by ladies of higher status (that’s actually her survival mechanism for this environment). Don’t know how I feel about it yet, “it’s fun enough” is all I can say for now.
  Oh, this one is actually a double isekai (as in, two people were dropped into this fantasy world) which might lead to something interesting down the line.

Other than that The Big Bees got a healthy update recently which is always a blessing. Love me some fat bees.

I don’t hence why I currently play 3 games: first GFL (mainstay, doing dailies and events), GFL2 (giving it a year to see if it’ll turn out into a sequel I’m interested in, it’s a bit more convoluted compared to the first game) and P5X (want to see if it’ll be fun in the long run, most likely won’t be a good fit for you). I’m afraid we’ll have to wait until someone comes up with a surprise hit again so companies have a new template to copy from.

The only things that come to mind right now are ones I’m not too familiar with so I might be completely off base. These would be:

• Limbus Company - what I did hear about it make it sound like a simpler game in terms of resource management.
• Snowbreak: Containment Zone - haven’t played this one since their pivot into 120% horny town but I remember it being pretty basic in regards to upgrades and items. Things may have changed since then so I can’t promise anything.

Is there any reason you’re focused on gacha with your search? Is this about a specific mechanic or just feeling of having a constantly updated game to enjoy?

That’s a pretty difficult question honestly. The easy answer would be to look for “normal” games instead but we’re in a gacha community so that’s obviously what you’re interested in. Based on your post it feels like you’re looking for a simple game with limited side content which kinda goes against the current trend of new releases.

I don’t play too many titles these days but here are short descriptions of what I’m sticking with at the moment. Hopefully this will help narrow down what exactly is or isn’t important for you.

Girls Frontline 2 doesn’t have tons of popups and dailies there can be done in 15 minutes or less for the most part. At the same time there’s A LOT of side content that, while not necessary, might count towards those things you don’t want in the game. There’s a few resources that could possibly count as currencies though I’m not sure what’s your definition on that.

Persona5: The Phantom X has pretty fun gameplay and lightning fast dailies but global servers are treated like crap (it’s SEGA after all). It also has a bunch of currencies/resources and the amount of popups can be annoying depending on where you are (I’ve read it differs by country, personally I’ve seen like 5 or so since launch).

If we’re talking about games with gacha mechanics in general there’s also Idol Manager - this is a “normal” buy to play title rather than a live service one. Gacha here comes in the form of idol scouting though it works more like randomised units in XCom than rolling for properly defined characters. Perhaps this could scratch that itch?

Last question: what do you mean by modern? How old are we talking about?

Confucius joining Hololive wasn’t on my bingo card but hey, they do have an eye for talent.

I’ve been waiting for something like this ever since medical gameplay was introduced. I assume the issue for now has to do with unfinished work on the planetary on-foot navigation for NPCs but who knows. For now I just huff hopium considering navigation tasks are semi-regularly mentioned in monthly reports so… one day.

You’re in luck then, they just released an exploration event! Seriously though, my hopes towards exploration are about as high as those towards medical gameplay. I hope I’m wrong though.

Tony is retired - you can find him with the title of “Game Director Emeritus” on CIG’s About Page.

As for the economy sim… officially it’s still coming, with the last excuse we got (or at least the one I can remember) for it not being ready being server meshing. With this year’ focus on quality of life and polishing Squadron I’d say it’s the usual “2 more years”.

This definitely sucks but at least it seems like they had a good enough schedule to finish the season before airing. So… not a completely bad news?

Yeah, that tracks - it’s a business organisation first and foremost. And yeah, we definitely do.

I’m back on the villainess train, this time with two titles I found completely at random - both being decent finds too.

• Kill the Villainess

I initially thought it will be a less interesting version of Villains Are Destined to Die, it turned out to be probably the most sombre (without being edgy) villainess themed series I’ve wrote about here so far.
The premise is nothing original: woman is pulled into the body of a villainess from a book and has to die to go back to real world. Guess what? She tried. Multiple times. Before the story even began.
There’s no easy way out and she has to play the part of a bad guy according to the original novel, whether she likes it or not.

It’s a pretty solid choice if you’re in a mood for a less quirky story in this genre.

• Behold the True Villainess

A complete whiplash of emotions when paired with the first one as this is a pure comedy.

This one is also an isekai story but here the soft and timid noble girl gets taken over by someone who doesn’t let herself get pushed around by anyone. She bails from a temple she was sent to, stirs trouble, gets people addicted to modernised (well, properly spiced) cuisine and spreads real world slang among the nobles (often misrepresenting what it actually means).

It’s silly, it’s light-hearted and it’s full of pretty good jokes (visual or otherwise).

It’s a group representing the biggest publishers in the industry, used as a front to pretend they’re able to self-regulate when it comes to consumer laws vs business wants. So no, not a governing body but more of a cartel or lobbying group, I guess? One with A LOT of money on the line and enough lobbying power to push against things like the Stop Killing Games campaign the moment they feel threatened.

Either way it’s pure speculation considering something truly massive would have to happen for Steam to even get to this point.

I might be reading too much into this but I think they’re going for an anthology feel with the show and if there’s ever Cyberpunk Edgerunners 3 it would once again focus on yet another group of characters. That’s just how I interpreted Sztybor’s words though.

I think that to some extent this comes down to a simple fact that for many people, like yourself, Edgerunners was their first into the world of anime - depending on one’s media literacy and experience this might sway their opinion one way or another. Besides, that’s not just a problem with Edgerunners, you could say the same about folks for whom Cyberpunk 2077 was their first experience with cyberpunk as a genre.

While not perfect, it’s a solid show overall and if it serves as a gateway deeper into the rabbit hole then I’d say it’s worth the praise.

He did say something similar years ago if I recall correctly but we never got any details and it was so long ago it’s hard to guess whether that’s still the plan. Reassurance or update on that wouldn’t be unwelcome, that’s for sure.

Here are the board members of this organisation in case someone is curious about their relevancy/neutrality on the matter:

• Hester Woodliffe – Chair (Warner Bros. Games)
• Canon Pence (Epic Games)
• Kerry Hopkins (Electronic Arts)
• Ian Mattingly (Activision)
• Klemens Kundratitz (Embracer)
• Qumar Jamil (Microsoft)
• Clemens Mayer-Wegelin (Nintendo of Europe)
• Cinnamon Rogers (Sony Interactive Entertainment)
• Matt Spencer (Take 2)
• Alain Corre (Ubisoft)
• Alberto Gonzalez-Lorca (Bandai Namco Entertainment)
• Karine Parker (Square Enix)
• Mark Maslowicz (Level Infinite)
• Felix Falk (game)
• Nicolas Vignolles (SELL)
• David Verbruggen (VGFB)
• Nick Poole (UKIE)

You know, the people who “ensured that the voice of a responsible games ecosystem is heard and understood” (direct quote from their website).

Writer was pretty clear about David’s fate in the article and mentioned wanting to tell more stories with “many interesting characters”. Besides, season 2 is described as a standalone story so more than likely.