Heaven Reigns Supreme:

After finishing Chapter 4 of Heaven Burns Red, I've decided it's already the #1 game of all time.  If I viewed it as a visual novel it would be the #1 visual novel of all time too.  The combination of endless hundreds of hours of content, akin to World of Warcraft, alongside the incredible soundtrack that only Jun Maeda can provide, alongside the heartrending, tearjerking plot and setting that makes you care more about their world than the real one. . .is something no other work has ever achieved.

Chapter 4 of the game alone took as long to beat as most standalone video games take, and that's with me barely sleeping.  The fact that Heaven is 6 Chapters long and counting really does make this comparable to the entire corpus of Final Fantasy or Tales.

The ending to Chapter 4 Part 2 is more emotional than the ending of Chapter 2, and that's something I never could have imagined saying until I finished playing it.  The mechanics of the boss fight had me on edge and the boss kept transforming and presenting new challenges like freaking Sephiroth from FF 7 Rebirth.  And the music of the last dungeon and last boss was on level with FF 7's as well.  It was so intense it was hard to breathe.

Ostensibly this chapter is about defeating the new hub tier cancer Skullfeather -- but it's actually about Tama and Megumi.  Their past and their future.  And their future together.  The epic, absolutely satisfying conclusion to the cliffhanger they left me at in December.

I love Squad 31-A so much.  And I love squad 30-G, 31-C, 31-B, and 31-E too.  I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up loving 31-X, 31-F and 31-D too by the end of the game -- with Jun Maeda narrating eventually he'll make me fall for all 48 characters.  I swear.  He can make the impossible possible.  He's at a superhuman level -- the only possible title deserving of his talent is 'Heavenly', which is obviously why they named the game he made 'Heaven.'

I still have goals to achieve in Heaven despite finishing the main storyline.  There are still socializations, recollections, Orb Bosses, and new SS Memoria that need to be leveled to max level.  I got yet another new SS Memoria today, Niina's, so the backlog of girls I need to pay attention to keeps growing and growing.  Most of all I need to farm up 6,000 more quartz in the next 11 days so I can get that guaranteed SS Memoria recruiting ticket.  That's my laser focus goal for now.

I dearly desire a SS Memoria version of Megumi so that my plot party can eventually become my power party.  That's really the one thing I'm missing.  The game would be perfect with that.