a game which I played because i thought "I wanna run around akiba in a video game" despite going to actual akiba on a regular basis
can confirm running around 2013 akiba does rule because the game will be like "go to gamers" and I'll be like "I don't need to open the minimap for this one", but then I will anyway because this game has fast travel (0% playable game if it didn't) and the fast travel loading screen will show you a giant flyer ad for some mobage that probably died in 2015, and then you go to gamers and there's di gi charat in there
character designs in this game are surprisingly strong. touko, your childhood friend, has a good tomboy cyclist thing going. nana, your little sister, is a complete piece of garbage in the exact way that is a guilty pleasure. shizuku's not too bad either though she's the cool protagonist that seems mostly fated to be slapped onto mid-2010s forum signatures. rin's not on this character page but she's a twintail tsundere idol, which is both peak and mid simultaneously.
(more after the cut)
text in bold to break up the paragraphs (character section)
absolute funniest thing in this game (and technically a spoiler) is that on touko's route (the default route that you end up on when you realize nana doesn't have a dedicated ending), touko gets a CG where she sucks face with rin, but then her ending with you is like "yeah! we're childhood friends! we're going to protect each other forever! let's stand kind of close to each other now".
a stopped horny 2010s game clock is gay twice a day (the other time it is gay is when it lets you play as female character models in new game plus, which apparently does not change the dialog at all. this presents a lot of other issues)
by the way I should note that nana doesn't have a dedicated ending but she does have a Special Cutscene glued onto the ending if you finish all her missions, so in effect, her ending is cooler, better, and technically more romantic if you're into soft siscon or whatever. what I'm saying is that she's a shut in piece of garbage who forces your normie friends to watch 20 hours of anime straight.
i talk about game mechanics
combat in this game... I don't play many beat-em-ups but it feels bad when I basically never had a weapon that had AOE attacks because the game's idea of fun is "scale up number of enemies until they stunlock you to death" and punching them one at a time with close range boxing gloves is risky.
I used the boxing gloves because my first purchased weapon was a laptop, which has a high attack stat but an utterly baffling low attack with like 0.01cm range where you root yourself in place and smash yourself in the face with your laptop and hope that the enemy gets caught in your swing. it was so awful that I almost quit the game and I picked up gloves right after because "at least I know what attack animations to expect with my fists"
would like to note this game's difficulties are "easy / casual / gamer / otaku". play on easy, it's apparently much simpler than casual
translating online message boards: not even once
oh yeah I think I was supposed to segue into it above but there was a good stir at release (from what I see) due to how the In-Game Twitter Clone (that actually reads like 4chan threads) throws around the transphobic T word a lot.
it happens a handful of times and it's never great (and honestly, without knowing the source posts, it feels a bit like it's not a good analogue for what I sense they were going for?) (UPDATE: I found the previous link and then discovered after the fact that Akiba's Trip 2 was specifically brought up in the comments. So I get one correctness point) and hold on I'm going to paragraph break because I went on a tangent
anyway yeah the twitter clone in AT2 is a bit of a firestorm (in-game) but it's funnier when I invent lore that assigns backstories to all the recurring posters and gives them insecurities about themselves that makes them want to attack others online who they view as close to their selves or ideal selves (but in reality they probably want to be kissing). don't actually do this but. make your fun
oh yeah!!! tangent 5: for a game that's a mid 2010s horny anime girl you sure do start the game by stripping generic guy mooks
final akiba's trip 2 score: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFBs8lIPIyc