Since I'm having so much fun, I'm going to give this first DLC a thumbs up. I was a hardcore Sailor Moon fan back in the 90s, and this DLC is giving huge magical girl vibes, with transformations, costumes, wands, castles, the whole bit. Even the music takes me back to my Sailor Moon childhood.
Major bonus points for it not being a genderlocked magical girl thing, but there's masculine costumes, and male characters are given magical powers too, which I think is excellent.
Welp, it was the launch day of Hello Kitty Island's first expansion, Wheatflour Wonderland, and well, it was a day. For PC players, it was also the drop of Content Update 3, so even though I bought WW, I couldn't start WW yet because I had a ton of other quests to do first. Like a huge stack of quests when I logged in. I spent 2 hours clearing quests this morning with no start to WW, then had a doctor's appointment, so I had to leave, then come back in the afternoon.
The NekoPara OVA was a crowdfunded project released in 2017. In one hour, it covers the basic story of NekoPara vol 1. Though it is much shorter than the VN it's based on, it has the added benefit of the main character Kashou, being fully visible and voice acted. In the VN, he has no voice acting and his face is obscured.
NekoPara vol 0 is a short bonus volume that takes place before vol 1 begins. It's about an hour long, and Kashou isn't really in it. It just follows the catgirls in a day in the life.
NekoPara Extra is a short VN prequel to NekoPara 1. It was written as bonus content and published in 2018. It features all the catgirls much younger than in the regular volumes. You see Chocola, Vanilla, and Coconut as kittens. Maple, Cinnamon, and Azuki are already grown, but still cute.
Before the NekoPara anime came out, NekoPara had two OVAs, that were bonus content. The NekoPara Extra OVA is about the same story as the NekoPara Extra visual novel. You meet Chocola and Vanilla as kittens getting used to the Minaduki household, and having their first Christmas there. The whole OVA is about 21 minutes long.
The animation is pretty good, very traditional. All the characters look very distinct and accurately represented of their VN artwork. I'm not sure, but it sound like the same voice actors for the VN were used for this OVA. It's all in Japanese, so I watched it with subtitles, which seemed accurate enough. I was able to follow what was going on and everything.
This OVA is available for free through a Steam purchase of the NekoPara Extra VN, which is only 5$, so I think it's worth it.
I have 3 and a half months left of this year. Is there anything I wanna try to do before it ends? Also, we're getting into the holiday season, which is the busiest time of year. What should I prioritize? Let's see...
Well, I have 2 chickens now, that's it. And I can pet and feed them once a day. And "my" ranch isn't one I built on my plot, it's an instanced area prebuilt. No cows in my yard outside my house.
The Tailor Tickets I was excited about? They're for makeup colors, not costumes. And the daily quests that reward them are broken and disabled for the time being.
Why am I playing this morning? Because even after servers went up yesterday afternoon, I couldn't login until it was time for bed.
It's not like I don't have anything to do. I have a quest log completely full of quests to do, and villagers I haven't maxed friendship with yet, and things, and stuff. Plus, I have an entire zone I haven't set foot in yet, but that's waiting on my quests to be done first, I think... Maybe I've been off the game too long. Maybe some more recent starter guides will give me some direction. But yeah, I'm not as excited as I was.
Welp, it's come to this. No longer are we playing in fairy tales, no more fantasy, no more classical music. Barbie's in high school now. Everything looks completely different, because this movie is from a completely different studio. I've heavily considered skipping this video, but it got a good review from Darling Dolls on Youtube, so I'm going to give it a shot.
Wow, the graphics are so bad. The good mocap is totally wasted on these models.
Oh, god, I'm 15 minutes in and it hurts! It hurts so bad. Early 2000's teenage drama without an undercurrent of fantasy or monsters? I don't think I can do it. I hated public school, and wanted to die there, and this movie is giving me trauma flashbacks. I can't watch it.
