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Enstars Tenth Anniversary (My edgelord ass is sad)
& I have uninstalled the app from my phone. I still love the first(!) and second(!!) games, though they're both different from each other they each have their own unique charms. That said, I don't really have confidence in the direction the game is going in now, so I'm saying goodbye to the game itself and I'll continue to like the past stories.
While it's funny to joke about with friends that wow, you have to really mess up a UI update to have players uninstall over it. . . It's more like the change is emblematic of changes that have been happening for a while now and kind of solidifies that this is the direction the company is choosing to go forward in the future.
The pastel bright UI very much matches the character of Nice-- who, as a character, is much less problematic than our beloved dying bastard, Tenshouin Eichi. Hasn't ever done a colonialism or pushed his classmates to committing suicide or anything. It's very clean and friendly— and we see this change in not just like, Nice as a driving force forward but also in some of the units. With Switch, for instance, Aoba's design has been reworked to be much more generic ikemen, Sora's psychic abilities are gone. The game seems like it's attempting to cater to a more mainstream audience. And yes, the mahou shonen transformations and megasphere are weird but it's more weird zany-cutesy than the typical enstars holy shit there's a cannibal cult in this idol game.
Enstars has always had elements of humour and off-the-wall world building, but it used its bizarre and absurd setting to tell stories of imperfect people and their connections to each other— hurting each other, helping each other, and finding purpose and getting by in a world that sees them as valuable commodities. The very first enstars story has Eichi talk about his dreams of mass producing idols, after all. As much as weird is integral to enstars, so is the hard edge it has on it. It's always been a game with something to say. People might criticise Akira not handling all of the topics super well, I think it's also noteworthy that Akira... didn't have to bring up any of that. Especially in a Japanese game, where people are frequently just not taught much of anything about like, imperialism in schools where their textbooks are censored, for instance. And considering some of his writing did get censored after the fact. . . I don't know, I think he included that stuff because he cares and has stories he wants to tell— and so that it's getting boiled down to lol so random lol is unpleasant.
And with Akira's last message, at the end of the !! climax series did read very much as a good-bye, plus writers names no longer being visible during a spate of stories of questionable quality, I do highly suspect he has stepped down from the writing team. Which is fair! He wrote this game for nine years, and wrote an insane volume of work. So much.
But the story was ultimately what I'm here for.
And the new UI doesn't even display story on the main interface. Add to that the addition of new predatory gacha bullshit (roll for colors of each part of each outfit), and just like. You misunderstood what people are here for. This did not get big as the cute boys do cute things series. If it was that, pripara or b-project or something would be big. And doing this to enstars is just yeah, no thanks. If it gets better, maybe I'll come back! But for now, I'm done playing. I'm satisfied with what I have.
While it's funny to joke about with friends that wow, you have to really mess up a UI update to have players uninstall over it. . . It's more like the change is emblematic of changes that have been happening for a while now and kind of solidifies that this is the direction the company is choosing to go forward in the future.
The pastel bright UI very much matches the character of Nice-- who, as a character, is much less problematic than our beloved dying bastard, Tenshouin Eichi. Hasn't ever done a colonialism or pushed his classmates to committing suicide or anything. It's very clean and friendly— and we see this change in not just like, Nice as a driving force forward but also in some of the units. With Switch, for instance, Aoba's design has been reworked to be much more generic ikemen, Sora's psychic abilities are gone. The game seems like it's attempting to cater to a more mainstream audience. And yes, the mahou shonen transformations and megasphere are weird but it's more weird zany-cutesy than the typical enstars holy shit there's a cannibal cult in this idol game.
Enstars has always had elements of humour and off-the-wall world building, but it used its bizarre and absurd setting to tell stories of imperfect people and their connections to each other— hurting each other, helping each other, and finding purpose and getting by in a world that sees them as valuable commodities. The very first enstars story has Eichi talk about his dreams of mass producing idols, after all. As much as weird is integral to enstars, so is the hard edge it has on it. It's always been a game with something to say. People might criticise Akira not handling all of the topics super well, I think it's also noteworthy that Akira... didn't have to bring up any of that. Especially in a Japanese game, where people are frequently just not taught much of anything about like, imperialism in schools where their textbooks are censored, for instance. And considering some of his writing did get censored after the fact. . . I don't know, I think he included that stuff because he cares and has stories he wants to tell— and so that it's getting boiled down to lol so random lol is unpleasant.
And with Akira's last message, at the end of the !! climax series did read very much as a good-bye, plus writers names no longer being visible during a spate of stories of questionable quality, I do highly suspect he has stepped down from the writing team. Which is fair! He wrote this game for nine years, and wrote an insane volume of work. So much.
But the story was ultimately what I'm here for.
And the new UI doesn't even display story on the main interface. Add to that the addition of new predatory gacha bullshit (roll for colors of each part of each outfit), and just like. You misunderstood what people are here for. This did not get big as the cute boys do cute things series. If it was that, pripara or b-project or something would be big. And doing this to enstars is just yeah, no thanks. If it gets better, maybe I'll come back! But for now, I'm done playing. I'm satisfied with what I have.
no subject
Mechanically, I think this update needed more bug testing before they rolled it out. Some hiccups are to be expected, but some parts of it are deffo giving me Pokemon Scarlet/Violet glitch vibes. Adding in the fact that some features seem "gone" but are actually going to be added back in at a later date (such as ensemble live and the favorite card layouts on people's profiles) it just feels a bit unfinished in places.
However I did want to point out something about the new gacha mechanic, which is that it's not actually something you can pay for at this time??? Like at ALL. You can only get more coins through certain event bonuses and the new solo live function- no way to purchase it with dia or busting out the credit card at this time. Time will tell if paid versions are added later (perhaps these outfits will be the equivalent of the 1 and 2 star cards in the square/audition scout boxes????) but for now, it remains something that is bafflingly free, save for the way it creates a certain level of time sink.
Like you said though, at the end of the day, the story is what matters most. There's some things I like and some things I don't that have come out of recent stories, but I remain skeptical that Nice is as nice as he presents himself as being. From Ibuki calling him out for trying to inappropriately put responsibilities on him when he's just a kid himself, to Madara's growing suspicion that he's up to something, to Shu's concerns about the motivations behind some of Nice's glitz and glamour, and all the way, too, to how Special for Princess seems primed and ready to draw some Fictional Narrative Parallels with Johnny's Entertainment and the way that young idols in particular are exploited by the industry, I think there's a lot of darker places this could end up going as the stories evolve.
Also he did like BLOT OUT THE SUN with his stupid Megasphere XDDDD
no subject
And it's good to hear that as much as I had the knee jerk reaction to outfits coming in pieces, it's not as bad as it first seemed, though I do wonder if things will stay that way.