My Life As A Yakuza Therapist Of These Fine Boys Who Do No Wrong — Reviews by Anons

Reviews censored due to Pastebin's asinine filtering.


Review #1


>Quest Review: "My Life As A Yakuza Therapist Of These Fine Boys Who Do No Wrong"
>OP:
Top-Notch OP image. It's iconic and conveys the character of the mc effortlessly. Combined with the first part of the title, it sets the tone and premise up nicely.
Text: Jumps right in with the dialogue. Not always effective at drawing players in from the catalog. It does well, but it's not a fantastic draw. It would be far worse without the image providing solid support.
The second half of the title conveys a forgiving attitude of the therapist but also a sophomoric approach by the QM. Hurts far more than it helps. "My Life As A Yakuza Therapist", which is what I always thought it was called, would have been better suited to a quest that took itself seriously.
Overall, a B-grade OP. Solid. Iconic. Brings the player in. But it could be better.


Review #2

>OP:
Image:
Top-Notch OP image. It's iconic and conveys the character of the mc effortlessly. Combined with the first part of the title, it sets the tone and premise up nicely.
Text:
Jumps right in with the dialogue. Not always effective at drawing players in from the catalog. It does well, but it's not a fantastic draw. It would be far worse without the image providing solid support.
Title:
The second half of the title conveys a forgiving attitude of the therapist but also a sophomoric approach by the QM. Hurts far more than it helps. "My Life As A Yakuza Therapist", which is what I always thought it was called, would have been better suited to a quest that took itself seriously.
Overall, a B-grade OP. Solid. Iconic. Brings the player in. But it could be better.

>Formatting:
Immediately I noticed that, on mobile, the formatting causes the paragraphs to end prematurely. This, and occasional typos, are forgivable. Although when the word "mop" was used instead of "mob" not once but twice, it completely took me out of the quest to wonder if it was an autocorrect issue, an ESL issue, or just a terrible joke.

>Delivery of the premise:
It is exactly what it says on the tin, only with an unexpected level of character.

>Theme:
Atmospheric yakuza dysfunction.
Exploration of the nature of therapy.

>Scheduling:
Doggedly sporadic. No broken promises. Not great, but delivers solidly.
The epilogue was posted in the Quest Thread General after the first thread died and was vital to the quest.
While managing to have it attached to the first thread would have been better, that isn't always possible and providing the epilogue was great.

Art: N/A

>Writing:
Characterization: Amazing
Dialogue: Excellent
Description: Very good.
Setting: Unique and expressive
Worldbuilding: Stage Scenery
Characterization and evocative writing are where this quest shines. Peaceful crafts tangible, tactile characters and places that grab your attention and hold it. You can feel the heat from the rice and smell the acrid cigarette smoke. The words come from the characters naturally and at a pace that ignores formulaic constraints.
The result is neurotic characters in an odd world that seem more real than the average real-life store cashier.

The main character, Five, is a lovely amalgam of archetypes that is singular in my personal, subjective experience. This means that she lives in my head now, forever sharing cigarettes with John Constantine in the smoking section of my brain. That alone is probably the highest compliment I can give.

Some of the tertiary characters come across as too outlandish and insane to be believed. Like Four, the knight -helmet-wearing yakuza.
To be fair, insane characters appearing in a story about a therapist for the craziest of an odd yakuza family is not unexpected.

Also, the quest doesn't take place in the normal world. The setting isn't some sci-fi, fantasy, or paranormal realm. It is the bizarre world of the yakuza family run by "Daddy" and the world they dwell in is the "Trashcan". I have no familiarity with any yakuza dens to compare it to, but it seemed odd to me.
Why are things the odd way they are? Because f*ck you. That's all the explanation Five gets and that's all the world-building you get.
But if you put fake brick wallpaper over a real brick wall, people will be too amazed at the "realistic" texture to realize that you've successfully distracted them into fondling your wall.
A talented writer can show off a world that feels so real that most readers never notice that there's nothing behind the thin wall of stage scenery.

Some quests are clearly more about the narrative than the interaction. This quest is a good example. The story itself is a simple balance of averting extreme danger and struggling to dispense therapy in the stretches of waiting for the ability to act. The story is not complex or the real focus, so much as the telling of the story is.

The writing just jumps onto an ongoing story already in progress. Some players may have a harder time figuring out what is going on because of that, but this approach is incredibly immersive. It suggests a living world that the events were already happening in.
While the quest is a reboot of another and much of the story may have been told more explicitly in that one, I did not read the previous one and did not consider it necessary at all to understand the quest.

...

>Presentation of options:
There often tends to be a choice between "write-in" or "vague writing prompt".
This might weed out players who are feeling lazy, stupid, and unimaginative from the already limited pool.

The narrative choices do a decent job of making the player feel as though the story may have taken a different turn had another choice has been made.
The therapy choices are another matter. They often feel as though there is a correct choice and the untrained players are left to stumble about until they discover it, or fail to.

When a quest features a unique, niche, or experimental subject, the quest is much more approachable if there's a tutorial of some sort to introduce the players to how to play the quest. Unfortunately a direct tutorial is a bit of a gamist approach and would be antithetical to the narrative approach of this particular quest.

What makes it even less intuitive is that there are, understandably, no immediately observable consequences to most of the decisions made in therapy. So anons cannot adjust their approach but must just continue making their best guesses without any feedback.

As a result, without the epilogue my review would be much harsher. I would criticize the quest for excessive, unresolved meandering with no solid consequences to show for it.

With the epilogue, it transforms the entire first thread of the quest into a tutorial, of sorts. As in other quests, the players might not know what they're doing until they learn an important lesson from the first thread.

In my opinion, the important lesson that Five and hopefully the players learn from the events is this:
If a mind is a broken machine, directly addressing the core problem is not necessarily the task at hand. Addressing the dysfunction that is causing issues is.

If a diesel truck has a leaky radiator, the proper fix is to patch or replace the radiator. But if that diesel truck has a time bomb built into it and needs to be driven to the bomb squad before it goes off, then you just address the issue by putting a raw egg in the radiator or something.

Step one is identifying the issue. Step two is identifying the cause of the issue. Step three is determining whether addressing the cause is the best method to address the issue. And if not, what is.
Step four is addressing the issue.

At least, that's my opinion.

...

>Adjudication of player choices:
It seems mostly to honor player agency, with one major exception.
This needs to be said:

<span class="mu-s"><span class="mu-b">This quest features a female main character, depicted in the OP with an anime image, and a "crazy girl" character that is a yuri romantic interest that the players voted to leave behind and yet still made a reappearance after that.[/spoiler][/spoiler]

That sentence alone is enough to send some players away screaming.

It's kind of bullshit.
The saving grace is that Five would agree that it is bullshit and simply stack it onto the large pile of bullshit she has to accept.
Five doesn't make decisions that go against players' wishes, she has the presence of someone she chose not to pursue, forced upon her and has unconscious and subtle positive reactions to the girl's unwanted presence. Some little things like tolerating the unpleasantness of the girl tugging Five's hand when she recoils from the touch of others.

Players don't necessarily get to decide what characters appear in a quest. Even if it seems like a violation of player agency, it isn't. But it might count against the QM in some players' eyes.


>Conclusion:
The quest is a highly atmospheric, heavily characterized narrative that experiments with ideas involved with therapy in a criminal setting. It is a niche quest and not for everyone, but the writing was excellent and made me want to read more.
I recommend it for players that like quests for the reading or any of the elements mentioned.
I wouldn't recommend it to players who seek quests for games, progression, or achievement.

My suggestion to Peaceful is to work out exactly how the therapy sessions could go and try to subtly provide guide rails for the players to stumble along. It is still a difficult balance between creating inscrutable mystery and painting clues neon orange.

>Sidenote:
"Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, it's forgivable to stick your tongue in crazy."
It's still always a terrible idea. But sometimes wonderful things result from terrible ideas. And sometimes terrible ideas result in severe head trauma and dead blondes. Your mileage may vary.