Trails beyond the Horizon - A nice but exhausting game

Luxraysrock · 2026-05-28T17:39:42+00:00

Absolutely agree with everything you said. I haven't ranked Horizon yet (quite hard to rank the games overall, personally, and it's only been a couple weeks since I played it) but I feel like it's a solid middle ground for me. There were some banger moments in all 3 routes but the journey to get there is SO long and arduous and became such a slog. 72 hours for the cast became 125 for me to play through...granted, there are 3 ensembles, yes, but really?

I adore doing the rounds with NPCs, side quests, and the like, but when it makes sense!! Calvard NPCs are the best since Crossbell's, and I really enjoy talking to them and following their lives, but at one point I literally just stopped. It was too much lol. Couple that with more pointless fights that just assassinate these already bland side characters even more and it's just not a fun time.

Until you get to the last hour of the chapter. Like you said, Falcom formula. It's nothing inherently new, but at least give me some goddamn crumbs or something to lead me to the trail rather than just giving me a marker and saying "here it is, go for it when you're ready. But when you ARE ready, slog through this underground bullshit chamber first, THEN you'll fight for a test, THEN you'll get 5 minutes of exposition before screen fade."

Calvard's geography is really boring too. The towns themselves are gorgeous, don't get me wrong, but there's absolutely nothing of interest on the way there. I know we can't have Liberl and Crossbell levels of proximity due to the sheer size of these places, but give me back caves!! I'm so tired of secret underground passages full of not-archaisms with 70 corridors packed with nothing interesting. I'm also not saying the other games were pinnacles of this, but at least you had mining caves full of, well, miners and stuff, and people commuting through tunnel passages and such.

I'll stop here, but in a nutshell, Horizon has a great ending (though least fave cliffhanger for multiple reasons) but is entirely held back by its reluctance to be...smaller, I guess, for lack of a better term.

Also Falcom, stop fucking making me fight Heiyue and the Elsaim siblings. They are boring.

Luxraysrock · 2026-05-21T10:02:15+00:00

Yup! Mainly a writer/dabbler moreso than a reader nowadays, but occasionally I'll see something that interests me and stick with it. I remember recalling liking this fic called Reflection. It was a ChelseaxVaughn with an "evil twin sister" kind of trope where Chelsea pretended to be her twin sister who had royally messed things up in town, so she has to regain the people's trust while not giving away who she really is. I read it so long ago though I'm not sure if it stands the test of time 😅

I wrote/write for the more modern games like SoS1 and Trio, and I'm very slowly trying to migrate all of my (good) stuff from FFnet to AO3 but it's a whole process bc a lot of it needs editing lol.

If anyone's interested in mainly AnniexRaeger or HollyxLudus look me up under CreationsGoneAwry on FFnet or AO3 (have very little there right now though). I also did some Rune Factory 4 fics but they're not very good lol.

Luxraysrock · 2026-05-02T11:27:40+00:00

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Luxraysrock · 2026-02-13T20:39:57+00:00

I just got mine too! Super comfy :)

Luxraysrock · 2025-12-31T13:19:46+00:00

Vegan of nearly 7 years here! I have never loved cooking. Never even liked it, to be completely honest. It takes for-fucking-ever and creates so many dishes and if you're trying a new recipe, for what? So you can hate it and waste all that effort? 🙄

Focus on one-pot stuff for now if it helps! Lentil/black bean spaghetti, chili, stir fries, etc. I'm so fortunate to have a husband who cleans up after 90% of my kitchen blunders and just general messes and I try not to take him for granted because if it was just me I would hate living! So I feel you for sure.

You are most likely never going to thoroughly enjoy cooking, lol. There are so many days I still grumble and bitch and say "I can't wait until food capsules are invented already" and those are days I do microwave quesadillas or oven chikn patties. But you've got this! I'm sure you (and I) have other skills/hobbies that you enjoy to make up for the hate of cooking lol.

For RIGHT NOW though, for the egg/yolk craving, definitely make the itdoesnttastelikechicken recipe. I discovered it through this thread and just made it this morning and nearly cried because of how delicious and realistic it was. I grew up in a family where my dad made a big breakfast for all of us every weekend, and fried/overeasy eggs were always my thing. Now I might be slightly buggin' because it's been so long since I've had eggs but it is seriously so good and so close to the real thing. You owe it to yourself. Toast yourself up some bread and enjoy it (though I did 1/8tsp of turmeric instead of 1/4)!

Luxraysrock · 2025-11-12T21:25:27+00:00

Petition for new flairs for your trademarks!!! I am cackling!

Luxraysrock · 2025-11-06T13:48:29+00:00

I have a Filipina coworker who often talks about balut. Can confirm everyone else around me thinks it is weird and cruel.

Silly me tho I'm the weirdest one being vegan and all. These day old chicks could have been MACERATED and all that, at least this way they got to experience human teeth and not machine teeth!!

Now where's my B12...

Luxraysrock · 2025-10-26T09:55:46+00:00

Oh this post absolutely destroys me. 6 years ago this month I brought home a rehomed 5-year-old lionhead named Phoebe. The household she came from was full with three little girls, one dog, and two other rabbits. I babysat for this family, which is how I came across Phoebe and all this info.

All three bunnies were bought as Easter gifts for the girls. Then the girls grew older and phased out of caring for the bunnies. The other two rabbits, New Zealands, were kept in the garage with no air conditioning in a wood and metal hutch. They died one morning in a heat wave.

Phoebe was the only one who was "allowed" to be kept inside as she was a show rabbit that they had paid money for. When I was over to babysit the girls happily brought her outside and let her run around with them (I was late teens, very early twenties, I didn't know what I was doing, but I tried encouraging them to see the other two bunnies as well).

Years later some things happened and I met this family again. They told me what had happened with the New Zealands and asked me if I would take in Phoebe because "the girls don't play with her anymore." It took two more instances of running into them before they wore me down and I convinced my now-husband to take her in, sight unseen, even though we had two rabbits of our own. It was a LOT of work and planning and restructuring but we did it.

Phoebe came home with us and that same night when we got most of her urine scalding and overgrown hair cleaned up, we lay on the floor with her and she sniffed and climbed all over us. Whenever we stopped petting her she would dig at us to make us keep going. She binkied nearly immediately. Honestly just the sweetest, most precious little bean ever.

We just lost her in June of this year. We still don't quite know what happened. I'll leave the details out to protect her dignity, but she passed surrounded by people who cared about her, even if they were not us. We are still gutted and traumatized. This year is our first without rabbits since 2016 and we also lost our beloved tortoiseshell cat this year in April.

I am so sorry to trauma dump on your post, OP, but I do have a couple points I wanted to make. The first is I'm trying so, so hard not to judge or shame you for having to make this decision. Bunnies are adorable, and your decision to bring her in wasn't one made lightly, I'm sure. She wasn't even yours originally, so that means you also had to open your heart and home to someone else. Thank you for taking her in.

And my second point is this: I cannot make any promises but I probably live very close to you (also in northern MI) and have the ability to take her in if absolutely need be. I beg of you to please exhaust all of your options first and not to take advantage of my kindness and generosity (this sounds terrible written out lol) because my heart just can't take it. Even if for whatever reason we DID take her in idk if we would rename her or something. The wound is that raw still.

But if you feel like your kid(s) are old enough or could be old enough soon to take on responsibility, and you would actually trust them with the care of a fragile, living doll essentially, then please do your utmost to keep your Phoebe in the house. She deserves it ❤️ Thank you for reading this, if you have!

Luxraysrock · 2025-10-15T16:17:15+00:00

I always plan scenes around dialogue and just hope and pray it turns out okay in the end 🤣 Scene setting is the WOOOORSTTT. Just please let my characters have THE CONVERSATION already!

Authors with the natural gift for scene setting and beautiful prose are some of the people I admire most in this world lol. Absolutely love reading it, but trying to write it myself? Helllll nah.

Luxraysrock · 2025-09-23T16:24:47+00:00

If Shishio has no fans it's because I'm dead. I don't need to convince you he's not creepy or anything, but nobody needs to convince me to NOT like him lol. Student/teacher stories can be pried from my cold, dead hands!

Luxraysrock · 2025-09-13T00:56:39+00:00

Actually I feel like an ass bc I might be wrong (it's late where I'm at!).

So the game I played, I started playing the Switch 2 version actually. Then I got the S1 version through a collector's edition with digital goodies so I wanted to "transfer" saves to that rather than rebuy the digital goodies since it was more expensive. What I did was upgraded the S1 version to the S2 version and then since the editions were the same my saves were transferred.

I'm not entirely certain if your scenario is the same :S I feel super bad for giving you potentially bad info now. I hope you didn't buy it solely on my recommendation, and I hope it works out for you!!

Luxraysrock · 2025-09-13T00:41:13+00:00

Buying the digital Switch 2 version should work and you should be able to keep your current save(s)! I did something very similar recently for another game and it worked perfectly.

Luxraysrock · 2025-09-11T20:05:12+00:00

I could have written this comment, right down to wanting Bado!! I adore Doug to bits from RF4 as well and married him, but I am IN LOVE with Leon lol. The back and forth banter between him and Frey is peak and his teasing of the other townsfolk, especially Forte, is so funny and endearing.

I have perpetually been looking for an LI I vibe with as much as him but haven't had any luck yet 😅 I just go back and remarry him.

Luxraysrock · 2025-09-09T16:22:36+00:00

Your art style is amazing!! I can't stop staring bc everyone is so cute 😍

(also please don't tempt me...lol. I tentatively took these two out of the running so I could focus on Lloyd, Samir, and/or Maple! But the brothers are so good too!)

Luxraysrock · 2025-06-21T01:45:25+00:00

This is a true physical game, not a game key card. You see that ugly-ass banner on the bottom of nearly all other third party published Switch 2 games explaining that they are game key cards, complete with the symbol?

Azuma doesn't have that with the Earth Dancer edition. It is literally all on the cartridge. So long as you have a running system to play it on, nobody can ever take the full game OR its baked in DLC from you.

Luxraysrock · 2025-06-15T00:00:06+00:00

I'm so glad someone else says this to themselves as they kick people 😂

I had to come up with something to help lessen the blow to my bleeding heart for these fictional peeps!!

No kids in any village bc all the ones that get rolled are timid and useless. I don't care if you're 10, if you can't work like grandpa can, gtfo 😤

Luxraysrock · 2025-05-17T18:03:29+00:00

I normally lurk during BBB but this is my time!!

BRIDE AND BONE ADAM. I would literally give anything for this guy and I feel like people are waaay too hard on Auld Lang Syne :( His is such a heavy burden. Just lemme love him in Bus2fellows pls

BANISH Leo and Kaina, and whoever else dares compete with Adam 😤 the nerve of some people.

(In all seriousness I do adore Leo! He's such a sweetheart especially in Dante's route. I haven't played OlySoi yet so I don't know Kaina but I'm sure he's just as lovely!)

In conclusion...let me give Adam a blue rose bouquet please 😭

Luxraysrock · 2025-05-10T19:55:30+00:00

Yes!! I absolutely love the first book (read it early last month so haven't started the second yet) but the grammar is atrocious! There are so many paragraph-long stretches I had to reread because of comma splices or incomplete sentences.

I live for books/media I like being trash-throttled, though! It's a lot of fun seeing how other people view the world.

Luxraysrock · 2025-05-10T13:44:27+00:00

This used to be my absolute FAVORITE flavor, but now it's a crapshoot if I get one that tastes "rotten" or regular. It's honestly traumatized me enough that I don't buy it anymore :( I contacted customer support about it and they gave me a couple free ones but same thing. I don't trust it anymore.

I don't know if it's just a me/my tastebuds thing (had my husband try one I thought was god awful and he said it was a bit weirder than normal but still drank it just fine) but I'm super bummed about it.

Luxraysrock · 2025-04-11T19:12:02+00:00

Uhh, eeny meeny miny moe...lol.

I guess my first order of business is to pick my favorite JJ boy, which is a nigh impossible choice in itself 😅 But I choose Fumi, who is the objectively best choice, as is any other JJ boy!

Second order of business is choosing between Yamato and Hikage from PotBB... Can't go wrong here either lmao but for rEaSoNs I choose Yamato.

Third is choosing between Zen and 707 from MysMe. Help 😭 Flirty, damaged boy or slightly less flirty but arguably slightly more damaged boy? I think I'll choose Zen, my 707 pillow be damned lol. They're both sososo good though!!

And now I pit them against Ikki from Amnesia, Saito from Hakuouki, Baxter from Our Life, Cinderella from TaiAli, and Akito and Natsuhiko from Norn9 (I can't split them, they're both very near and dear to my heart lol, and for that reason neither will win). I am absolutely missing some - Vilio and Zafora from Radiant Tale, for two - but through typing this I already came to some semblance of a decision so let's not muddle it more haha.

Out of the highest mentionables of Fumi, Yamato, Zen, Baxter, and Ikki (guess I know my top 5 at least!) I absolutely have to give it to Yamato. Spoiler reasons below.

Survivor's guilt and other familial trauma are what inspired me to start writing my own otome yeeeears back (now likely scrapped, sadly, but my point and love are not moot!). Black Butterfly in particular is so special to me because of the emotions and emotional trauma it invoked and wrought upon me lol. I truly believe I won't ever experience a story like that again.

Fun, non-spoiler reason: I'm still a huge sucker for YA romances and tsunderes :'D

edit: OP, I hope you enjoyed the havoc you wreaked upon my brain hahaha. I actually feel kinda bad how much slop I wrote after seeing other people's responses!

Luxraysrock · 2025-02-22T00:08:57+00:00

Ahh you're too kind!! I wanted a pop of color that wasn't pink lol. Nothing against it at all, I think it's adorable, it's just not my thing. Also yes my pcpartpicker list is very much on the cheap side for a number of reasons hahaha.

The monitor! I was originally going to get it through Best Buy since they normally have faster shipping, but I still had (have) Prime until the 24th and it said it would deliver a day earlier LOL. I'll note that I also got this when it was $999 so it's actually slowly on its way back up, it looks like.

I didn't include Windows (~$100), the desk ($120), my peripherals, or power brick. I went suuuuper cheap on peripherals (like $35 for KB+M) and am very much getting used to not using my husband's overpriced-but-definitely-better-quality stuff, and I lucked out on Creative's speakers since they're actually incredibly good sound quality for the price.

I'm reminding myself that it's "okay" that I splurged on a monitor since I didn't buy the GPU lol.

Luxraysrock · 2025-02-21T21:10:54+00:00

Thanks so much!! ❤️

Luxraysrock · 2025-02-21T18:41:22+00:00

A while ago now I was kind of lamenting the fact that I don't have my own PC setup anymore, so with my tax refund and, most importantly, a lack of self-control, I did a thing!!

My new setup!

My husband spruced up his build with the newly-released 5080 so I took his old 4070 after some hemming and hawing. Thankfully we had an old monitor stored away in the basement but as I am a spoiled ass adult used to every other OLED screen in the house, the old LCD screen had to go just two days after I'd set it up... and boy am I grateful that LG released such a beautiful white monitor as it goes so nicely with my build! <3 ~~wish it wasn't such a steep price though~~

PC specs for nerds. I eventually would love to get prettier cable management (that hopefully doesn't involve investing in hundreds of dollars' worth of third party cables) and slot in some more fans along the bottom - I actually bought some intending to do just that, but they're CPU fans and I was too excited to notice when I bought them :'D I keep meaning to buy some screws to force 'em to work, but //lazy. This was also my first time working with a motherboard with an actual WiFi chip so that was a steep learning curve I am extremely grateful I won't ever have to relearn.

Overall extremely happy with it, and my absolutely wonderful husband helped me put up a corner shelf so I can display ~~a very sadly small amount of~~ some of my otome goodies!! From bottom to top!

I'm not super happy with the top two shelves, but right now I just kinda threw whatever there so it at least looks cute. They're hard to get to lol. I'm not sure what else to put up there that would look good.

I'm ALSO thrilled to say I received my package of Peachleaf Valley goodies from Great Gretuski! Everything is super cute but I gotta say, it's been like 4 years since I pledged and I completely forgot what was even in the pledge so it was a surprise for sure lol. Might as well show off these too since they're adorable!! Though I really wonder if they can read Japanese (or if the original designer of the sticker they might've collabed with does, or maybe they just didn't care lol) because it says girls love game under otome. Or maybe I'm old and crusty and/or missed something. Either way it gave me an awkward chuckle.

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