Alexander is really good, one of my favorites. I prefer to make it with Brandy/Cognac like the recipe I linked, but you can also make it with Gin for a different, stronger flavor.
Grasshopper looks and tastes like chocolate mint ice cream. If you like that flavor enough to want an alcoholic version then go for it.
Playing The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak!
This may sound kinda random, but one of my hobbies is mixing cocktails.
Why am I saying this? Because it's fun seeing the adult cast of this game going out for drinks and actually recognizing what they are asking for 😄. Van's sweet tooth definitely affects his taste for alcohol since he keeps asking for cocoa drinks like Alexander or Grasshopper.
Anyway, back to the game, I'm now on Chapter 5.
Chapter 4 and the Intermission were a huge boost in my interest in the playable cast. I've gotten very curious about Risette's backstory, and Aaron's chat with Van during the intermission was excellent and gave me a much better view on him. Also, Judith who was one of my favorite characters so far has officially joined the party.
The story escalated really quick after that, and right now I've reached a section where you can align with different factions depending on your choices during the game. I experiented a bit with the options I had available and they all seemed fairly similar in structure, but liked the idea overall.
Faction choices
I ended up going with Heiyue. Felt more appropriate for Van to cooperate with a "gray" faction, plus I really liked the scene/backstory between Rixia and Judith.
Really curious how the scenes with Ouroboros go, it's a choice I most definitely did not expect to see but sadly I didn't have enough alignment with Chaos to try that one.
Not going to read any of that, to stay from any spoilery content.
FYI, I'm trying to avoid story discussion and talking mainly about characters, gameplay, and overall setting of the game. So hopefully no significant spoilers in there in case you read it by accident.
In summary, are you enjoying it?
Definitely. Can't praise the MC enough (my favorite since the Sky trilogy) interesting gameplay ideas that are also good QOL improvements, darker tone that pushes some boundaries from the series.
The main thing I'm not "sold" is the new team, maybe because the MC set a high bar? But side-characters in general are excellent and memorable, so I'm hoping the other party members will get more development over the game.
Playing The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak!
Finished Chapter 3 yesterday.
Van is really great, one of my favorite MCs in the series. He's this hard-boiled investigator with the perfect amount of silliness mixed in, I love the gag of him getting "bribed" into troublesome jobs by expensive sweets.
But the rest of the playable cast so far has been... kinda mid? Agnes is the demure, prim and proper female lead that I'd usually rank very low in preferences, yet she's probably my favorite of the playable cast because Feri and Risette are just there, and while Aaron does have more personality his constant rudeness really irritates me. I'm hoping they'll improve over the game, because there's plenty of room for that.
What makes this extra weird is that the secondary cast in this game is fantastic, I'm really interested in Elaine and René's relationships with Van, recurring side characters like the informers Dingo and Bermotti have plenty of personality, there's Judith being absolutely hilarious every time she's on the screen, and even some minor characters like the film director from Chapter 3 are memorable.
Another thing that I'm positively surprised is how they're trying to push some boundaries for this series, this game is significantly bloodier with named character deaths happening often, and there's even some raunchier scenes like the one where Van visits a nightclub - all of which fits very well with the "underworld" theme of Daybreak.
Finished Unicorn Overlord!
What an amazing game. The storyline lacks depth, but everything else shines - gameplay is great, the amount of customization you have is staggering, the visuals and soundtrack are beautiful, and the world is big and full of places to explore.
I was also extremely impressed on how polished and optimized the Switch version is. Loading screens are non-existent, everything is clean, fast and fluid.
Can't recommend this one enough, it's a must-play for strategy game fans.
Playing The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak!
Another arc with a new cast and location is something this series desperately needed after all those games in the Cold Steel saga and I'm glad this day has finally arrived. I'm still early in the game, finished the Prologue and early into Chapter 1, but I can already see why people say so many good things about this one.
Van is an excellent main character. He's smart, experienced, and I like how he's more morally "gray", willing go get his hands dirty if necessary - the whole idea of having the main characters working on shadier jobs is a nice contrast to the previous games. I'm less thrilled about Agnes, she feels too much like a "generic main heroine", but she does a good job as the audience surrogate and I expect she'll get more development during the game.
One thing I'm finding surprisingly enjoyable is the "dual" battle system - when you meet an enemy you start in a "action" style battle, and you can at any time press a button to transition to turn-based. The idea is that you can use the "action" part of the battle to stun the enemies and get an advantage, but when fighting weaker enemies you can often finish the battle without going into turn-based, which makes this a really nice time-saving/QOL feature.
Prologue Spoilers
Also, Van gets a goddamn Kamen Rider-style transformation. Impossible for me to not get crazy hyped after that.
Hey, Nintendo, this sounds like a nice timing to finally give us a physical edition of the first two Famicom Detective games.
I didn't have that willpower. 😀 I remember I was planning on playing something else between FC and SC, but had to change my plans...
FC ending
...due to that goddamn cliffhanger ending.
How many continents are there total?
Unless the game pulls up some surprise hidden continent thing, there should be five total. And since I had a lot of free time yesterday I'm almost done with the 4th one now.
I am thinking about finally starting Trails in the Sky SC
Didn't remember you had already finished FC!
Hope you enjoy SC, I think it's one of the best in the series.
Playing Unicorn Overlord!
The addiction is real, can't stop playing this one.
Just finished the third continent and now trying to choose the main character's partner, with the childhood friend priestess and the flirty dark elf as the two main candidates.
Been crushing the game fairly easily which makes me think I overdid with grinding, but I just can't avoid it due to the "kingdom building" aspect of the game - I NEED to rebuild every single town before moving forward.
Hopefully I can finish this one soon because my copy of "Trails Through Daybreak" is arriving next week and it'll be difficult to resist playing that one.
Are they twins? just very close in age?
According to the manga adaptation
Blood siblings born less than one year apart, which is why they are in the same school year. Their last names are different because their parents divorced and one went to live with the father and the other with the mother.
Keeping this a secret is due to some kind of family issue, but I don't think it's been properly explained in the manga yet.
Favorites for this season are Pseudo Harem ED, Oshi no Ko S2 OP and Tower of God S2 OP.
Honorable mention to the Nokotan OP for the memes, and for the evolving credits for Tower of God S2, really like how they are a "season so far" summary.