mobage_manual | My Favorite Seasonal Events #3: Christmas (Reply)

Welcome to My Favorite Seasonal Events! In this section of the blog, I’ll be making a Top 3 of events centered around a certain season or holiday across all the mobages I’ve read stories from, shortly explaining their plot and the reasons why I like them.

Once again, it’s been a while since Halloween, but I’m finally back with another entry of the series, as Christmas is today… or rather, that’s what I would have said, but I sadly had to delay the entry as I didn’t have much time to write during the first half of the break, so here I am again instead on New Year’s Eve! Contrary to this, most games tend to hold their Christmas events a little early or during the same week, though, rather than during or after it, so most of them have already passed and moved on to the New Years events, so it’s time to cover the ones that I’ve liked the most not just through this year, but in general!

⚠️ This entry mentions/talks about the following topics that might be trigger for some: suicide.

Top 3: On this Holy Night, I sing (Project SEKAI)

Our first event in this entry is a Project SEKAI event, the one associated with Nijiiro Stories and the very first Christmas event in the game! It almost feels like a tradition to feature a Wonderlands x Showtime event with each entry, but it wasn’t intentional!

As one of the earlier events, it follows Nene learning how to get more confident again singing on stage for Wonderlands x Showtime’s Christmas play. However, they’re not the only troupe putting on a Christmas show in the park, so confrontation ensues between her and the lead of the troupe at the Phoenix Stage: Sakurako Seiryuuin.

While it’s not my favorite from the ones I’ve featured here (hence its placement as the Top 3 event as opposed to higher positions), I think it embodies well the Christmas-feel these sort of events tend to have, and has a nice story all in all. Plus, it’s important to Wonderlands x Showtime arc as a whole, as latter events have them collaborate with the cast at Phoenix Stage quite a few times!

Top 2: Wondrous Christmas Carol (HELIOS Rising Heroes)

If you’ve read Recommending Characters’s entry on Gray, you’re probably already familiar with the event taking this spot on the ranking!

As Christmastime approaches, the heroes at HELIOS try to figure out something for their Christmas league. However, despite the festive songs resounding through the speakers of most places in the Green East, its citizens don’t seem to be up to celebrating, which turns out to be the work of some Substance… though that’s how Christmas has always been for Gray, and Jay to some extent.

Unlike other Christmas events I tend to read in mobage, this actually follows characters that don’t have a lot of fond memories of the holidays, so I thought it was an interesting take on a commonly-approached theme. This time, I don’t have any other runner-ups to recommend, so I’ll go straight to the top spot!

Top 1: Star Festival (Ensemble Stars!)

… I swear this wasn’t intentional, but Enstars takes the Top 1 spot thrice in a row with Star Festival, once again related to my favorite unit – Knights! Furthermore, it also features the members of Valkyrie, which is my second favorite unit, so even if Enstars hadn’t taken the first spot in the last two entries, it would have still been pretty obvious.

Just like other Christmas events in Enstars, this follows Knights (and Valkyrie’s) side of the story in the preparations for the Winter Dreamfes in the academy. Unlike other Knighths event, this one is a little more light-hearted as it takes place later into the school year, as some sort of calm in-between the two storms that are the Autumn and Spring season, though it doesn’t shy away from sensitive topics either, as Arashi is the main figure of this event, who is reminded of the passing of her friend and admirer who committed suicide during The War era in Yumenosaki. It’s worth to note that this wasn’t explored further in the story until six years later, in the Tanabata 2022 event for Enstars, which will probably make its appearance when the time comes, though I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet. All in all, it’s likely the Christmas event that’s more memorable to me, even if it isn’t my favorite out of Knights’ unit stories.

Closing thoughts:

And with that, we’ve come to the end of this entry! Unfortunately, the holiday season prevented me from posting this on the actual date, but I managed to get it out before the end of the year as some sort of New Year’s Eve special of sorts! But once again, there won’t be more entries in this series until February with Valentines Day, so it’ll take a while before we see each other again here.

Coming up with the idea of creating this blog and actually doing it have been one of my biggest achievements of 2023 in regards to personal projects, and I’m very excited to keep it going in 2024! My goal wasn’t to get big or anything, but to let other friends know what the hell I was talking about whenever I mentioned “mobile games”, and considering I’ve heard lots of people liking this blog, I think I accomplished it! So once again, thank you for the support and I’ll see you again in 2024! Happy New Year!