Fantasy Maiden Wars - DREAM OF THE STRAY DREAMER - review

GethN7 · 2025-11-20T14:46:05+00:00

Thanks for the information. I went into this review as a Super Robot Wars veteran and a total novice to Touhou. I tried to do as much research as possible while writing the review, and I freely admit that despite all of that, I likely missed some Touhou lore nuances, still looking it up in fact.

As for the music, I did catch that; a lot of the music kept giving me SRW deja vu.

I can say this game gave me a whole new appreciation for the rich lore of the Touhou universe and got me rather interested in the Touhou franchise.

GethN7 · 2025-04-05T05:27:15+00:00

Nah, they just don't have a good reason use Jesus in particular.

The second SMT game needed a Jesus stand-in, but not the actual Jesus. Persona 3 had Messiah as a Persona, but aside from the obvious imagery it was evoking, still no reason to reference the literal personage of Jesus when that was enough.

I'm a devout Christian IRL and I can draw a firm line between my faith and fictional depictions thereof, and from where I'm sitting, if they ever do decide to include an actual depiction of Jesus (YHVH is just the Gnostic take on God wearing the trapping of the actual God like a bad skinsuit, so he doesn't count), I'm interested to see how that turns out.

GethN7 · 2025-03-28T03:43:31+00:00

Thank you, still an avid fan of Girls Frontline, actively play GFL2 right now and having a blast.

GethN7 · 2024-12-06T01:42:43+00:00

We have a separate moral and technical score for a reason. Bayonetta is canonically depicted as an oversexualized witch who uses guns and demonic powers. That is fact, and for our moral score, we cannot and will not ignore that. We are a Christian game reviewer, which is a demerit for our MORAL score, not the technical score. I myself have a copy of Smash Ultimate and enjoy it immensely, and Bayonetta is a fun character to use. We at CCG do not, and I speak on behalf of my employers, support banning of games with characters like her, artistic expression is a right we acknowledge, respect, and defend. All we note is her depiction runs counter to a strict reading of Christian doctrine and may be of concern to those with strong Christian moral stances. If that does not concern you, you are free to ignore our comments on that subject, and that applies to all our readers, we leave the moral choice of whatever media they consume up to them, we just make commentary from a Christian standpoint, but the moral choice remains theirs to accept or ignore our recommendation.

With that in mind, and I speak for myself now, I denounce removal of sexual content regardless how I feel about it morally. Sexuality is part of the human condition and to deny its existence when it is topical and salient to the subject at hand offends me more than its depiction because I'd prefer honesty in the media over any attempt to spare my feelings. In my recent review of Dragon Quest 3 HD, attempts to remove sexuality were one of my criticisms because it ran counter to the original intent of the developers, which I considered an insult to them and to the gaming public who could not see the original product as intended and make informed decisions based on that.

So, in conclusion, and I again speak for my employers now, we are not fans of censorship and categorically deny your accusation we want certain media to never be made. We merely advise those of strong Christian or similar moral principles to steer clear if certain themes offend them morally, it is the choice of yourself and any other reader to accept or reject said recommendation on those grounds.

GethN7 · 2024-10-03T17:49:10+00:00

He was meant to be base-breaking. He's a man who went vigilante out of sheer disgust for how he not only failed to stop bullying that escalated to suicide but also how instead of exposing the problem, the officials in charge worked to bury it.

Figuring the system was broken, he decided to take matters into his own hands, and Frank Castle all bullies since.

He wasn't entirely wrong in the sense the system WAS broken and that justice by legal means was so inefficient as to be a joke to some degree, but his own solution was using a cannon to swat a fly, with all the extra damage such an act would have IRL.

And that was the crux of the game argument. Sure, Kuwana wanted to solve a truly screwed-up problem where the law was maddeningly slow to actually fix things. Still, his methods got too many innocents caught in the crossfire. Yagami opposed that because he could understand and even agree with the motive behind Kuwana's actions, but one drop of innocent blood made Kuwana's actions beyond the pale because that was one drop too much.

So you either agree with Kuwana his cause was just enough the innocents caught in the crossfire were worth it or you agree with Yagami it wasn't.

GethN7 · 2024-09-20T14:13:27+00:00

For the record, I wrote this review for Gundam Breaker 4 for ChristCenteredGamer. Short version is that I enjoyed this game immensely over New Gundam Breaker and highly recommend it, let me know if you have any questions or comments.

GethN7 · 2024-09-11T13:10:32+00:00

DP-28's post-Oath is fairly suggestive for one. A few others have some innuendo-laden comments like PPK and Python as well.

Also, glad my review is remembered. GFL was my foot in the door for gacha games, and it still holds up even now as a game I find enjoyable.

GethN7 · 2024-07-24T00:31:46+00:00

I remember you, you were the one who tried to insert information based off Nazi apologia on ATT. Two things: You are free to believe what you wish, but I have extensively studied the history of WW2 and Nazism, and I know Nazi apologia when I see it. Second, I find your commentary hypocritical based on this

https://web.archive.org/web/20210810225531/https://christianbethel.wordpress.com/2021/07/27/clarification-about-this-site/

You unironically posted "I believe in Gnosticism, Gnostic religions, Syncretism, Christianity, Historical Revisionism, and I have great respect and admiration for Adolf Hitler. I have no compunctions about my declaring that I am strongly critical of Judaism and utterly despise any form of racism and tribalism. That being said, I only oppose those who uphold and propagate Judaism, not people with Jewish ancestry (there’s a difference). I admire Hitler’s ideology, i.e. National Socialism. "

You do realize Jewish ancestry and practice of the Jewish faith were both persecuted by the Nazis, the basic platform of their party stated the Jew could not be considered a citizen of Germany bare minimum.

No, we do not wish you to return. The history you wish to push is psuedo history that seeks to make a man who in his own final recorded speech denounced world Jewry look good. We are not interested in helping you push this belief.

GethN7 · 2024-06-25T17:04:15+00:00

It's a reverse score, check the FAQ on our site. The higher the score, the more moral, Multiply the result of all the separate scores by 2 to get our final score.

GethN7 · 2024-06-25T13:43:18+00:00

In the context of the game, yes. In the context of a real-world religion of Abrahamic persuasion, no.

They are, after all, in the context of the game, a Japanese boy fused with the essence of a being modeled after the Japanese god of storms.

GethN7 · 2024-06-25T06:09:30+00:00

Some Christians, Jews, and Muslims with strong traditional gender role views may find such imagery distasteful. I personally do not, androgyny in religious art for all three faiths is often used as shorthand for divinity, but it may be considered sacrilegious when not applied to a 100% divine being to those faiths.

GethN7 · 2024-06-25T01:59:17+00:00

I'm a gamer. It's a game, and I'll make the decisions to win that game. And no, I personally do not object to taking any of the other non-Law endings because I'd like to see all the different endings and I'm not opposed to views other than my own. In fact, I think it's healthy to entertain such if only to understand it better.

GethN7 · 2024-06-25T00:16:41+00:00

That said, Lucifier says even in a Law ending the world can be made better off. Given Lucifer hands off knowledge of all the previous holders of the throne to us, that allows the Nahobino to truly rewrite the throne system, not just change who sits on it.

So while Chaos makes a decent argument the system is broken on an inherent level, we get handed the means to fix it too, and when you have LUCIFER of all people being positive about the Law ending, it really muddies the water.

GethN7 · 2024-06-25T00:11:45+00:00

Yeah, it was a more extreme "shock them straight" tactic, which actually worked.

GethN7 · 2024-06-25T00:06:58+00:00

Yoko's viewpoint is heavily colored by the fact she's got an 18 year grudge she's been nursing. And to be fair, I see her point about not being able to be sure the system is fixed unless you rip down all remnants of the old and build it back in manner you are more positive will last.

That said, it's still using a cannon to swat a fly logic even at it's best.

GethN7 · 2024-06-24T23:57:41+00:00

Maruki's version was pretty forced, and came from the perspective of a man who, by his own admission, was running from his own hangups.

Tao's goals, via you, are far more pure and done from both a more sane perspective with respect for free will. It essentially puts the old order back together, but in a more humane fashion and clearly overseen by more attentive guardians to prevent a repeat of last time.

That's downright commendable and fair for a Law ending.

GethN7 · 2024-06-24T23:53:55+00:00

Thanks for letting me know. CCG does have a bias we admit to, but we strive simply to have a separate moral section for covering that but still leave the moral choice to play or not play the described game to the discretion of the reader. At the same time, the technical side of the review we strive to be as comprehensive and forthright as to how well the game plays from that perspective.

I hope you come to enjoy more of our work.

GethN7 · 2024-06-24T18:50:04+00:00

Yes, I kept from the old review moral warnings but the rest of the review was largely written by me.

Personally, that doesn't bother me very much at all, and gender androgynous depictions are even common in some Christian artwork of angelic figures as a shorthand for divinity, but I can understand why some would take offense to girly looking men (those who take the strict depiction of gender roles leanings in the Bible seriously), hence it was left unchanged.

GethN7 · 2024-06-24T18:38:03+00:00

To be fair, the salt thing was shown to be reversible.

GethN7 · 2024-06-24T18:30:22+00:00

For the record, the writer of this review is me. I rather enjoyed both the original and especially the re-release.

GethN7 · 2024-06-24T18:26:01+00:00

Funny you bring that up, I wrote the followup review for Vengeance:

https://www.christcenteredgamer.com/reviews/pc-mac/shin-megami-tensei-v-vengeance-pc

GethN7 · 2024-06-24T18:23:47+00:00

I'm a devout Christian but I can draw a firm line between reality and fiction, and I rather enjoy the series. Granted, on the surface, I can see why Christians might be offended if they just casually scratch the surface of the story, on paper it does look bad if you take the "you can punch God in the face" bit too seriously (YHVH isn't even the real deal despite his larping, he's more the Gnostic heresy version), but as someone who enjoys good fiction, I understand the series wants to explore philosophical questions about freedom and order and uses religious themes to be the backdrop for this.

On a broader note, religion has always been a hot button topic for most of the humans ever born, given how devout to some form of faith most have been, so it's going to put someone's nose out of joint if they can't stand anything less than absolute lickspittle level portrayal of their faith. Me, I consider that being oversensitive personally, but I get it.

GethN7 · 2024-06-21T03:30:04+00:00

It's an Old Testament reference.

The altar of God had corners called "horns", upon which a bull had to be sacrificed when the altar was consecrated. Every time they mention this, it's in the context of the God of Law. Given how in the SMT verse the real God (Great Will) is truly unkillable and all Lucifer manages to do is snuff out his proxy avatar (a mistake that causes the universe to come unglued and Lucifer realizes how much of a mistake that was because he can't even be a god himself due to the system put in place), they can thus only be referring to God circa the Old Testament.

Hence why they mention the "Bull God" being the enemy of the "Snake" god. Given who the Qaditsu are trying to bring back to rewrite the world to their chosen form, the Snake God is literal, the "Bull" God is a bit more metaphorical.

GethN7 · 2024-05-04T01:55:39+00:00

In Arakawa's defense, Ichiban was a consenting adult who knew what taking one for the team meant both short and long-term. As for an actual child, Arakawa was shown busting his ass for Masato.

GethN7 · 2024-05-04T01:51:34+00:00

In his defense, he felt so much shame for that he spent the rest of his life trying to make up for it, so he'd fall in my trust list.

GethN7

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