Like, you look at the dub for something like Anime 18’s La Blue Girl vs something of arguably similar status in the genre like Bible Black? It’s insane how much care was put into the performances in the former while you can look up sfw compilations on YouTube of the worst bits of the latter.

I imagine it was a byproduct of the period when there was a legal impetus for porn to start with a brief monologue ensuring the viewer the tape was for instructional/educational purposes, but it still made it feel like the localizers were treating it as art which it felt like Anime 18 set out to do.

Numbers go up? Where is the eros in that?

But if the number going up is at such an agonizing pace that it gives you mornings where you wake up and your heart races because you see the "upgrade" button is no longer ghosted out? Pure ecstasy.

I think this is an echo of when I was obsessed with playing incremental games without prestiging because the idea of a game taking potentially months or years before the player can make a meaningful change to the game state fascinated me, like a digital pitch drop experiment.

I'm assuming it's a novelization that follows at least the locales of the game, so like, where was snake attacked by giant scorpions?

Been feeling this. Recently played RAD for the PS2 and it struck me how experimental it feels wrt control, progression, and narrative delivery while a lot of contemporary stuff I play, even obscure indies, feel like they are only performing in accordance or defiance with genre as best they can.