天下制覇

Word to your mother.

Impressions:

This is only about half the chapter. I had some stuff to do last night. I'll probably go back on what I said yesterday about skipping next week for new season stuff and try to finish this chapter up since the rest will also be short. As I've mentioned before, unlike Princess Witches, there's no routing in this game really. I think you might get an epilogue here with a specific girl depending on who has the highest Like level, but all the actual 'route' stuff is stuffed into Ignition, the 'expansion' or add-on or whatever you want to call it, written by a completely different person (same person as Duel Savior, although it's a little late to salvage things).

SO! There's no choices to make and nothing to really sweat. I've been trying to keep the girls more or less even, although I think if you wanted to be really efficient, you'd use an FAQ or something to figure out where all the items that give bonus points to the Like-o-meter are and gather them first. Everyone has their own thing for that, ie they're not usable on just anybody. Kanae has teddy bears, Hikaru has some kind of Japanese charm thing (I think), I forget and/or haven't stumbled across any of the rest. There are also a ton of random items and I've been pretty lax with my equipment. Costumes similar. There are a ton, including weapon mods too, but I think almost all of them are unlockable and intended for the post-game modes, aside from the DLC ones (angel wings, devil wings, one random other costume) I've already gotten and installed. I could just grab a full save and abuse that to put them in weird things, but eh. I'm already putting in more effort than this game deserves.

New season begins tomorrow with an entire week of 3-4 shows a day, sans Tuesday. Fun times.

Our Story Thus Far:

Sketchy Principal is going off to some conference, leaving the sketchy student government in charge. Evol's been quiet lately. We've also finally declined joining the council offscreen. The little lesbian tells us to stay away and that her debt's been repaid. We say we're homesick for being not on an island filled with magic feral animals. Blondie reminds us we belong to her. We go to get lunch with her, her bitching about not being a couple couple the entire time. Afterwards in class, she's all giggles from the sheer ROMANCE of the place. The rest of the harem pops out to talk about how they'd be devoted girlfriends/wives if we bothered taking them anywhere. Erika's version is making food and then feeding it to us like a bird. Yeah, that's sexy all right.

We go out to practice and spar with either the Kanae/Hikaru pair or Erika/Tsubomi pair. We go with the latter because I'm sure bazooka girl will make things more of a challenge. And I'm right. Very, very right. Their aggression is amped ridiculously and they can kill you in literally a single combo. Also, I've been putting no extra points in HP or defense. I'm pretty sure you're supposed to lose this battle, but I have my pride, and time warp powers. Which I used even above and beyond what I recorded. One battle began with Tsubomi rocket launchering me in the face, guard breaking me within .5 seconds of the battle, and then Erika comboed me until I got another rocket to the chin and died. So… yeah. You've probably noticed some slight changes in combos/attacks at this point, in particular when using powers and off things like counter hits from engage board and extra combo gems. Honestly, most are incredibly minor, like being able to dial a combo to two hits of just explosions. Or explosions lasting slightly longer (especially in support attacks). Ayumu does eventually get a ground slam/shockwave melee finisher, and everyone gets their supers at the end of the engage boards, but most of the rest are pretty unnoticeable.

Day1/10, we deliver a vase and get told by the crazy Chinese girl to bring her food. After one failed attempt, we find a girl who'll get us it later. Then we hang out with Erika (Like lv2). She complains about her budget running thin and explains how great and independent she's being, so goes off to kill some NPs for the bounties. Afterward, we run across Mashiro trying to pet a hurt cat and worried it'll scratch her. Ergo, we pick it up and let her poke at its stomach. Then she pats us too. She thanks us for being nice, but tells us we should stay away from her.

Day2/10, we deliver the food to Chinese girl and hang out with Erika again (Like lv 2.5) Day 3/10, Ena's disappeared to one of the dungeon areas, so we head out looking for her. We don't find her but we do find about a billion goddamned bats, and thanks to completing a random delivery quest, hit Reputation level 30 which'll let us into the new area. Also, we're a high enough level now that the weak monsters ignore us. We slaughter them anyway to max out Erika's Libido. Day 4/10, we hit up a bright red Erika. Apparently she didn't know about Engage's side effects. We drag her to the roof and tell her to masturbate. She refuses and makes us do it for her, and end up getting a carbon copy of a Lily CG from Duel Savior. Unlike the DS scene, we're the one playing with Miss Terwilliger instead of the red head doing it to herself. Day 5/10, Ena pops over. We ask her about Mashiro. She's not amused. Apparently Mashiro's special, and doesn't have to do Missions or practice or be on a team, and is sometimes asked to help out upper classmen on their stuff. Sidekick and his girl interrupt us. Ena hits on us and calls herself our wife some more.

Afterward, everyone's gathered for some student council assembly. They say we've got to tighten up because of the recent stuff and a bunch of people going with the principal off the island. Also, the NPs come in cycles and it's coming up on an NP El Nino or something. We wonder about Mashiro in all this, who's sleeping through it.

Come lunch, the harem's fighting over us as usual. We ask about Mashiro. Kanae and Erika have lost to her in the past. Blondie says if we want to talk to her, she's on the roof at lunch, so we trot off to see her. We're so slick that we forgot to bring anything to eat. We try to lie, but she's too smart. She pats our head again for being 'nice.' She shares her sandwich with us. It's mint and natto. That's disgusting. We tell her we want to be friends, but she says that'll just bring us problems. She has some mission handed down from the council. She says it's at our level and we say she should team up for a while, but she declines… then changes her mind. She says she'll call us after school to help her out.

After class, Blondie spots a new Mission about some fire NPs gathering, but it ain't for her. We head out to the new area (port), find Sidekick for his chapter-note thing, kill a bunch of spiders, penguins, and pigs. Afterward, Mashiro finally calls us and tells us the missions to go to a volcano and kill a bunch of things. We find her there, being attacked by a couple wolves. She stabs one with an extendo spike and then ice explodes them both at once. We kill a few more, her saying that all the bad puppies get the ice spike.

Mashiro's kind of similar to Erika in style, although a bit slower. Her ice power is a projectile that explodes and freezes, and her forward charge melee attack pulls enemies in a mediumish range towards her, so she makes a fantastic support. Her really short range and relative lack of speed makes her a little dicier to actual control yourself though compared to the other melee characters though. Well, Kanae's in the same boat, but she does ridiculous damage and her jumping slam attacks are a bit more safer than Mashiro's straight forward charges/dives. 

We're ambushed by a giant fire pegawolf. We beat it, but it doesn't explode like every other enemy, so we just go "Gee, must be dead." Apparently it is though, so, uh… that's just weird. However, a smaller pegawolf attacks from behind its corpse. We protect Mashiro from the fireball. She starts to have a panic attack because we got singed and ices up our arm to make our booboo better. She loses control of her power, starts freezing our arm solid, and her panic attack gets worse. Eventually, her power disappears. She yells she's sorry and runs away.