User blog:General Khor/4th Choiceversary Blog

Hello and welcome to another semi-annual review blog by General Khor. So as of now, I'm entering my 5th year since tuning in to the Choices Channel, and if you ask me if Choices has changed for the better, well... I can't give an answer yet, but there is some good news for this year. I originally planned to cover Queen B in this blog, but as you saw in my previous blog about the series, there's a lot to talk about, which is why I made a separate blog for it. Now, without further ado, let's begin.

State of Choices, 2022 1st Half
So as of now, the gender of choice wave continues, and according to reports, it's expected to last throughout this year at the very least. The first half of this year saw the release of 3 new gender selectable series, including Untameable, The Cursed Heart and of course, the GREATEST... MYSTERY... EVER!!! And no, it's not Most Wanted 2, that one got scrapped, remember? It's called Crimes of Passion, and trust me, from what I've seen, it's even better than MW, but let's just leave it at that, this is all I can tell you without spoiling too much. Oh, and May saw a break in the wave in the form of The Princess Swap, which is also a break in the mature wave, as CoP, Untameable and TCH are all rated 17+. Then there's the single LI wave, which is expected to last till the end of the year, as The Nanny Affair Season 3 is set to be released this week. The 2nd quarter saw 4 single LI books released in quick succession: CoP, Untameable, TPS and TCH (5 if we add TNA3). Oh, I almost forgot to mention that Wolf Bride and Shipwrecked wrapped up at the end of January, and these are followed by Ms Match which aired from the end of January to the end of April, and Wake the Dead turned out to be a solo book.

And then there's this book, which I was initially reluctant to mention in this blog, but decided to mention it anyway after much thinking. So, it's called Surrender, but don't let the title fool you. You might think it's about someone with a hereditary or mental illness and their quest to fight it, but no, it's actually about S-E-X, with the title referencing "surrendering to lust". Worse, this atrocity of a story is confirmed to be a series. It's as if Wetness: A Paywall Romance isn't enough for some fans' huge sexual appetites. Oh well, at least we now know that VIP books can be serialised as well, which in my opinion is a good sign, as this means Choices is still going strong. I mean, if all VIP books ended up as standalones, then that's a sign that Choices is failing, because if the devs know that the app's days are numbered, then they wouldn't want to serialise any more new releases, after all I'm sure they wouldn't want to have to announce cancellations of sequels after last year. Oh, I almost forgot to mention this series is also single LI, which makes it even worse. What's more, they try to lure players with collectibles to play this "not-safe-for-Youtube" book (how can they do this to me?!). The reason I've decided to mention this series which, needless to say, I'll be boycotting like how I boycotted Wetness, is that this is the first VIP book to be serialised, and that's it. Alright, enough talk about this series, otherwise I'll need a forgetting pill. With all that said, let's get into the reviews.

Reviews for 2022 1st Half
Almost all the stories I'll be discussing in this blog are recommended for experienced players as these are tagged mature.

Wolf Bride
Rating: EXCITING!

You might think this book is Nightbound done right, but to be honest, I can't really say that. Sure, I like how there's a collectible set in this book, and the characters are well written, but the plot... well, let's just say, there's a forced LI in this book, and if you thought Nik from NB is possessive, just wait till you meet Bastien, the alpha of the werewolf pack, who's even worse than Nik. Why? Well, you might think the title refers to the fact that the MC is meant to be the bride of a werewolf, since she has werewolf blood in her, and in the beginning, Bastien's pack members kidnap her and take her to him, and she's forced into having a mystic bond with him. From then on, he pretty much treats her like his property, like she's meant to be his bride. Oh, and he's not the only LI, as there's also Morgan, a human (or so we thought), and whenever she and Bastien meet, he won't hesitate to make it clear to her: "Selene is MY bride!". So there you have it, Bastien pretty much takes the possessive LI trope up to 11.

But then, we discover that the title meant much more than just "the bride of a werewolf". Long story short, it turns out we've been playing as a werewolf all this while. Yes, you read that right, the MC IS a werewolf herself. You see, normal werewolves can only have children with humans with werewolf blood, but wolf brides are basically female werewolves who can have children with other werewolves. Oh and it turns out that Morgan is a werewolf too, and Bastien's sister, no less. The reason she was born blind is because she was born during the full moon, and werewolves born on full moon nights tend to be defective, which is why full moon nights are dangerous times, apart from the fact that werewolves go savage during the full moon. The reason Morgan wasn't able to shift is because the Big Bad, who turns out to be her adoptive father, has been suppressing her abilities. Sayre's goal was to use the werewolves' magic to extend his life, and he has lived for at least a century and a half, but in the end, we defeat and kill him anyway. In a nutshell, this book would have been in the top tier if it wasn't for the forced LI problem.

Shipwrecked
Rating: Meh

This story is, as a whole, ok. I mean, a story about two travellers trying to survive on a deserted island after being shipwrecked would be kind of boring, as there's not much to write about, and it only gets exciting starting from Chapter 11 onwards, when we meet our evil counterparts: an evil scientist who's responsible for polluting the island and killing the wildlife there, and the leader of a gang of smugglers who's working with said evil scientist. So yeah, adding a mad scientist subplot pretty much saved this book from falling into the lacklustre category and gave me a reason to spend diamonds.

Oh, and pro tip, PB, if you want to add a score system to a story about shipwrecked travellers, don't make romancing the LI a requirement, as that would be forcing the LI on us. Otherwise, don't make this a single LI story, since if we don't like the LI, we should have alternates, that is if romancing someone is required to raise our score, but I would prefer if we have the option to stay single. In fact, the story made it look like we'll burn with the island if our bond score isn't high enough, but thankfully, we manage to escape no matter what, so you can see why some players felt that Manu is forced, since s/he is the only LI, and romancing him/her is required in order to raise bond score. Still, this is a story that I'll replay anytime soon.

Ms Match
Rating: EXCITING!

This one is kind of good for a romance story. At first, we're working at our bar minding our own business when we meet Monroe, who turns out to be the heir to a big matchmaking company, but when s/he and the boss see our matchmaking talent, she pits us and him/her in a competition for ownership of the company. Sure, this story also has only one LI, but at least s/he's likable. While we keep getting into arguments over the course of the story and almost break up in Chapter 12 due to a serious mistake on Monroe's part, in the end we still mend our relationship. Of course, we would have less arguments if Veronica, our boss, hadn't prohibited romance between coworkers, and while it was a stupid rule, she did it for a reason: it was all because her husband cheated on her. But then again, this was also the reason she wants to divorce her husband, and also the reason she set up the competition for succession, because she wants to find a new partner before she retires.

In the end, the perfect match for Veronica turns out to be our own dad, so she gives the company to us, and the first thing I would do is lift that stupid workplace romance ban. And what does Monroe do? S/he starts his/her own company, just so s/he can keep fighting us, so we pretty much have a love-hate relationship with him/her, similar to Justin from Save the Date. To be honest, Justin isn't all that bad, in fact he changed for the better in the second half of StD, but many players were put off by his initial jerkass attitude and refuse to give him a chance. In my opinion, those who like this book should try StD. This book is the only one I'm covering that isn't mature, and so is recommended for beginners.

Wake the Dead
Rating: ELECTRIFYING!!!

Let's just say, this could have been Blades: Zompocalypse Edition. I mean, a level system? Injuries? Side missions and social missions? A collectible set that unlocks a bonus scene? Don't these remind you of a certain epic fantasy series? In fact, I even worded the descriptions for those mechanics a la Blades for this reason, not to mention that at the end of each chapter is a recap and a progress report, similar to The Crown and the Flame series. I know I once said that there's not much to write for a zompocalypse story, but now I realised, they could have continued the series by writing about finding a cure for zombification while fighting Governor Blackstock, but instead, they decided to have him killed off just so that they can wrap up the story in one book. I don't mind having Dick betray us (actually, his name's Dirk, but I prefer to call him Dick for this reason), but in my opinion, the betrayal came too early, which is why the story got written into a corner. They could have made this happen in the finale after the big solstice battle.

Another reason this series ended up as a solo book is that they treated a supposedly important character as disposable. I mean, usually when a character has a customisable name, s/he is supposed to be important, but in this case, they decided to have the MC's sister seemingly killed in Chapter 2, and worse, they turned her into a zombie! Look, I get the point that this is supposed to be a horror story, so it's supposed to be as terrifying as possible, but my point is, the writers seem to like to make fans suffer, so they decided that making those fans scream in fear wasn't enough, they had to turn those fans into emotional wrecks by adding one hell of a downer moment. I mean, I get that they want the MC to be the leader, but if this is so, they should have just killed off the sister for real back in Chapter 2, otherwise they should have made her the leader and have her live till the finale before sacrificing herself to finish off the Zombie Queen. In fact, I could see the sister declaring that the MC is the new leader with her last words, and that would be the direct cause for Dick's betrayal, since he cared about the sister so much.

Other than that, this is a fantastic story, with great characters, an electrifying plot, lots of collectibles and some other mechanics such as a parameter system for the colony. Those who like this story should try Blades, and trust me, it's even better than this book.

Conclusion
All in all, these six months are full of thrills and steaminess. Before I end this blog, I have to mention that, it seems the devs have been sticking to Thursdays and Saturdays (or Wednesdays and Fridays if you're in the west) for the past year or two, reserving exciting books for Thursdays and romance books for Saturdays, so we basically get Thrilling Thursdays and Steamy Saturdays. For a while I took it as a sign that Choices isn't doing well, but when they revealed Surrender to be a series, that eased my fears a little. Still, I'm not gonna worry too much, after all we have Slow Burn (the last OG VIP book) and Laws of Attraction Season 2 to look forward to this autumn, in addition to more action and mystery titles.

That's all for today, until then, this is General Khor. The end, and thank you for reading.