Playing SIMOUN 異薔薇戦争〜封印のリ・マージョン〜 - a PS2 game the シムーン S1 | L31 anime (which I absolutely loved, but had to resort to EN subs, b/c there are no JP subs 
). Photos & basic background synposis here: SIMOUN - SHOUBI SENSOU - FUUIN NO REMERSION - (NTSC-J)
Game is a mix of ADV (interacting and building friendship w/ the characters) and turn-based tactics. I’ve been really enjoying the tactics - it hits the perfect balance of streamlined, slightly challenging, and fun for me - which is a first. Also I feel like I sorta get Fire Emblem: Three Houses a bit better now. The story and interactions are pretty decent - not quite to the level of the anime (and I’ve probably made it less interesting by always choosing the “make the character happy” dialogue choices). That said there are no guides, onboarding, or explanation of any kind (not even online afaict)… which actually, besides the crafting system (that I only discovered halfway through the game) has been kinda fun. The crafting system is just video game logic at it’s finest:
Photo of you aircraft fighter ships + firearm magazine = “A book children are forbidden to read”:
Lubricating oil + glass bullets = enemy nation’s war tactics manual
Unlike the anime, the game doesn’t show any of the external political stuff, which reduces the difficulty a lot. Also everything is voiced - so it’s a lot more fun than "fully voiced VNs. Like the anime, it’s pretty low on the fan service. I’ve pulled about 180 words from it into an Anki deck so far - most of which seem like they’ll be useful for watching/reading things in this sort of genre, or in general. It’s fun doing reviews for words I’ve seen in the last 24 hrs, instead of pre-learning words for something I’m planning to read.
Update: finished it after 24 hrs of gameplay. It doesn’t look like there’s much after-story reason to play it. But good to know that if I ever feel like replaying, I’ll have all the characters and stuff built up.
It’s making me nostalgic for SAO: Hollow Fragment… But I’m not about to dive into that rn
