I did play Survive! It was a lot of fun 😊 I'm really glad localized Digimon games are a regular thing now. Although it really makes me sad that there doesn't seem to be a series bible back there. Hey, Bandai Namco, please hire me to write one for you. I know this franchise and even all its Japanese media like the back of my hand, I'd get all the obscure references for you, I love translation and localization, I could do so much for you 😭...

Other than that, I'm playing Splatoon 3 whenever I'm not too busy. It's been a while since I've last played 2 so I'm still a little rusty, but it's been really fun. Ryza 3...I really feel bad saying this, but I'm on the fence about it, especially because the soundtrack is already sounding kind of iffy to me and that's kind of make or break when it comes to me and Atelier. Sophie 2's soundtrack was incredibly good, so I'll hold out for hoping this improves in other future games, but right now I'm a bit wait-and-see.

It's probably a strange way to put it, but I really like the fact I'm "manually sculpting" the vocal expression. Doing little tweaks here and there and customizing it down to the last detail. Of course, there are still technical limitations, but in some ways it gives me a little more "control" than if I'd sung it myself. I've always thought that the biggest irony is that people have a perception that vocalsynth is inherently lacking in emotional expression ability, but I mean, I spent hours perfecting that by hand to make it have my emotional thought process in it!

I actually have both Solaria and Tsuina-chan right now and I plan to start trying them out more seriously when my health problems recede! In fact, I got Tsuina-chan specifically because cross-lingual synthesis is a thing, because ever since I got V4 Nekokmura Iroha a few years ago I'd been hesitant to get too many more that don't support English, but as someone who'd still been entertaining ideas of getting every English vocalsynth released to date, SynthV introducing cross-lingual synthesis kind of made me go "oh no, I'm in danger" 😅 I don't think I'll be getting ALL of them in the end, but I certainly have choices...Perhaps unsurpriisngly for a VY fan, I like the "faceless" ones (like Saki), and I think any future ones will depend on what kind of voice types I end up needing!

I read this question two different ways, so I'll answer both versions: in terms of the ending (song), I'll give it a 10 because it really is quite the vibe-able song (I think overall its melody is a little less memorable than some of my top Atelier EDs, and melody memorability is a huge standard by how I rate my music, but we're asking about vibing and I think it fits the mood perfectly).

Regarding the ending (story), I'll give it an 8 (-2 for being a bit too obvious it's an in medias res story, even if there's not much they can do about it from premise alone, but everything else was excellent and feelsy). I can't say too much without spoiling, but also, isn't Ramizel just the epitome of the millennial fantasy? Imagine being in your twenties and absolutely sure you're not going to make anything out of your life and then someone from the future comes to tell you eventually you'll be an amazing accomplished person who's an inspiration to everyone around you. Like, man.

Vocaloid culture has been in a lot of things now, and I'm really happy for that -- I'm not going to call any portrayal or parody of it "bad" as long as it's not disrespectful or misleading -- but I think the majority of portrayals I've seen focus more on the "synthesized robotic-sounding voice" part or the "virtual idol" part more than it focuses on the "indie community of creators" part. So for instance, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE's "Singaloid TiKi" still has an indie producer high school girl, but one of Tiki's songs is run through a vocoder to make her sound as "computerized" as possible when in reality only a very small percentage of producers would tune (or not tune) like that, and Tiki's story is more about herself than it is about any kind of producer culture. It's not inaccurate, and it's also understandable because the game itself is about the mainstream industry, but it's more "Tiki as a parody of Miku" than it talks about the actual culture.

Caligula and Caligula 2 are more about the producers themselves, and the virtual idol's performance and expression changes to represent the producer's own thoughts, feelings, and presentation. The "idol" is more of a way to indirectly express yourself, and the plot itself revolves around the idea of the virtual idol having to express the producer's feelings on their behalf by effectively channeling them. I think this is a pretty accurate description of how most producers feel about making music through a vocalsynth software, and the way "Doll-Ps" are respected and given attention as masters of their own unique craft is something I really appreciate.

I think the only other thing that I've felt felt accurately portrayed the indie-creator collaborative meta atmosphere this community has would be Re:CREATORS, which is funny because it doesn't have a virtual idol at all, but the "anything can be canon and everyone creates this character's canon together" is accurate to how things are seen here. There are some things that require suspension of disbelief, because it mixes Vocaloid culture with Black★Rock Shooter's origin story, and the latter is not actually considered to be free-for-all canon, but I think it mostly nailed the gist of the concept.

I've played all of the modern ones starting with Rorona, although I've yet to finish Nelke (it was a bit too difficult for me so I've kind of had it on hold). I did start Mana Khemia, but it was, uh, the PSP version, so that didn't work out; I might get around to it eventually.

My favorite soundtracks are probably Ayesha and Firis, and I think of all of the Atelier games they're the ones that have had the strongest influence on my own music. Both of them have incredible atmosphere and strong composition, and I love the different moods they convey. That said, I think Rorona should also get special mention because it's a standout in terms of cohesive composition and structure for the whole game, and I tend to go back to it when I try to think about fundamentals.