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A Pre-Valentine's Farewell
As the Love Live School Idol Festival All Stars mobile game wound down over a span of months, I did know a new rhythm game in the multimedia franchise had started over in Japan. Aware of how much time out of a day I could sink into these games to collect their “daily items,” I told myself I was very resolved not to try that new game when it became available over here the way its predecessors had.
I put some time instead into returning to the original anime of the franchise, where things had started for me, and might not have thought all that much about the new mobile game taking its time to appear over here until an announcement did show up. The announcement just happening to mention both a start date and an end date for service did get my attention, though. It was in an unfortunate way, of course. My understanding the new mobile game had reverted not just to the more frenetic gameplay but also to the simpler “image collection” aspect of the game I’d played after first finishing the original anime had provoked a half-amused thought or two about the elaborate computer animation models of All Stars, and perhaps its great quantities of “visual novel”-like story segments too, as being too much effort being put in for whatever was coming back through in-game purchases. It seemed now that simplifying the game hadn’t worked either.
What I have to admit, though, is that the thought of “an open-ended commitment” being ruled out right at the start raised the temptation to try just a little of the new game for the sake of the experience or something. I made an idle check on the first Saturday in February and saw it was available, if recommended for later iPads than the one I’d played the previous game on; dropping into an Apple Store to pick up my new iMac had me thinking of comments about “installing updates” there and punching in on my new-to-me phone. Once the initial download was finished I headed back to my place, where it turned out the game had to download more data than I’d already installed. It at least turned out that a vast quantity of Love Live songs were available right from the start rather than having to play a few of them over and over again to work into story segments and unlock a few more.
All in all the story content did seem lighter, even if in the introductory segment the characters were bobbing around a bit when they talked, if without moving their hands from their familiar poses. Poking away at a small screen on the easiest level I supposed I could limit my trial period to until I ran out of “thanks for starting” bonuses. An event did start almost right away even so; I wondered about plugging away a bit longer and seeing how much I’d receive at its end, but was conscious the open time in my evenings was starting to get eaten up. At last, I did have a thought of two of “giving things up for Lent,” and deleted the game from my phone, a certain number of screenshots taken to save some opening screens and one-panel gag cartoons.
If there was one thing that had caught my attention, it was some story segments that involved still drawings. Story-wise they were as lightweight as ever, but the style of the drawings was just a bit different than the familiar house style of the character images and more conventional story segments. It also turned out, though, that someone who’d put story segments from the previous game on YouTube had done that for these new segments as well.
I put some time instead into returning to the original anime of the franchise, where things had started for me, and might not have thought all that much about the new mobile game taking its time to appear over here until an announcement did show up. The announcement just happening to mention both a start date and an end date for service did get my attention, though. It was in an unfortunate way, of course. My understanding the new mobile game had reverted not just to the more frenetic gameplay but also to the simpler “image collection” aspect of the game I’d played after first finishing the original anime had provoked a half-amused thought or two about the elaborate computer animation models of All Stars, and perhaps its great quantities of “visual novel”-like story segments too, as being too much effort being put in for whatever was coming back through in-game purchases. It seemed now that simplifying the game hadn’t worked either.
What I have to admit, though, is that the thought of “an open-ended commitment” being ruled out right at the start raised the temptation to try just a little of the new game for the sake of the experience or something. I made an idle check on the first Saturday in February and saw it was available, if recommended for later iPads than the one I’d played the previous game on; dropping into an Apple Store to pick up my new iMac had me thinking of comments about “installing updates” there and punching in on my new-to-me phone. Once the initial download was finished I headed back to my place, where it turned out the game had to download more data than I’d already installed. It at least turned out that a vast quantity of Love Live songs were available right from the start rather than having to play a few of them over and over again to work into story segments and unlock a few more.
All in all the story content did seem lighter, even if in the introductory segment the characters were bobbing around a bit when they talked, if without moving their hands from their familiar poses. Poking away at a small screen on the easiest level I supposed I could limit my trial period to until I ran out of “thanks for starting” bonuses. An event did start almost right away even so; I wondered about plugging away a bit longer and seeing how much I’d receive at its end, but was conscious the open time in my evenings was starting to get eaten up. At last, I did have a thought of two of “giving things up for Lent,” and deleted the game from my phone, a certain number of screenshots taken to save some opening screens and one-panel gag cartoons.
If there was one thing that had caught my attention, it was some story segments that involved still drawings. Story-wise they were as lightweight as ever, but the style of the drawings was just a bit different than the familiar house style of the character images and more conventional story segments. It also turned out, though, that someone who’d put story segments from the previous game on YouTube had done that for these new segments as well.