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About this blog

This is a blog primarily focusing on but not limited to VNs.  It is primarily designed to express my opinion on otaku media (jrpgs, anime, manga, LNs, VNs, etc), individual VNs, and otaku community issues.   Most of the posts are related to my VN of the Month and Random VN columns, originally started in threads in the forums. 

As of March of 2017, I'm also looking for people to help with VN of the Month.

Entries in this blog

For JVN Beginners: Clephas's Fantasy/sci-fi/science fantasy SOL/charage recs

First, I should state for those who are unfamiliar with my history that I have played a seriously ridiculous number of SOL romance/charage over the past decade.  While the sheer number I played exhausted me and I frequently desired something else to play, I don't think I ever came to truly hate the genre, regardless of how much it bored me.  What I liked most were ones that contained science fiction, fantasy, or science fantasy elements.   Now, for those who are unclear about the difference
Clephas

Clephas

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Venting sorrow: I lost my cat today

I love my cat. Let’s get that out of the way from the beginning. Even though she is gone, as of today, I have never, for one moment, believed that I would ever stop loving her. For seventeen years and eight months, this calico wonder has made her home in my heart, never failing to wrap me around her paw and jerk me around by my heart strings. As the undisputed mistress of all she surveyed (all eleven rooms and corridors of it), she has dominated the lives and conversation of our family
Clephas

Clephas

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VNs

Random VN: Ryuukishi Bloody Saga

Ryuukishi Bloody Saga might very well be the best unique work Akabei Soft 3 has created in the time since ABS2 forced a bunch of subsidiaries to merge to create it.  It is a work I also come back to every few years simply because it holds a unique place in my heart.   Ryuukishi is the sequel to Ryakudatsusha no In'en, a Clock-up style super-violent H-horror VN written expressly for the purpose of setting up things for Ryuukishi.  As such, to understand this VN, you have to understand the ev
Clephas

Clephas in VNs

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Amusing: Sports VNs

One thing I didn't notice until recently is that there is a severe lack of (non-nukige) sports VNs out there.  The reason I didn't notice?  It's fairly simple... I have no interest in conventional sports (martial arts-related sports being differentiated from 'normal' sports).  There are protagonists and heroines who are athletic in many VNs, and there are a few combat-sport VNs (like Walkure Romanze and Aokana).  However, all-in-all the lack of sports VNs is... amusing on the surface. When
Clephas

Clephas

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Love, Vampire Flowers Final

As mentioned above, this VN is a mass of wasted potential. Yes, there are really good points... but between those good points is an interminable amount of pretty much pointless ichaicha, slice-of-life, and a number of other things that made me want to scream. First, neither Lisa's nor Koharu's routes escaped the trap of mediocrity that Chris and Rie's were taken by. Sadly, both routes are fairly standard charage romance with predictable turns of events... so predictable I fell asleep during
Clephas

Clephas

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December Release: Sangoku Hime 5

I should note that I've been following this series since I played the third game two years ago, and I'm going to rehash some of my feelings about it as a whole. The first three games of the Sangoku Hime series had a number of good and bad points, even if I don't compare them to the Sengoku Hime series, which has been refined a great deal more due to it already being on its seventh installment. Pros 1- Male sprites are... badass cool, in general.  Insanely detailed, actually impres
Clephas

Clephas

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A Minor question

At present, I'm conflicted between playing Silverio Trinity, a VN I've been anticipating for quite some time, and continuing Tales of Berseria, which I'm enjoying immensely.  Right now, the balance of my thoughts is caught perfectly between the two, so I'd like yall to decide by tomorrow morning, lol.
Clephas

Clephas

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Neko-nin exHeart 2

This VN is the second game in Whirlpool's short, low-price mimikko fetish game series... and I have to say my impression of it hasn't changed from the first one.  This is a direct continuation of events from the end of the first game, and basically it increases the number of mimikko-ninja in Haruki's harem... and nothing else. Oh, it is moderately funny, the h-scenes titillate my mimikko fetish, and you get hints of a deeper setting once again... but its short length means that the game nev
Clephas

Clephas

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Tayutama 2 After stories

For my post on the original Tayutama 2 game, look below Now, my opinion of what LoS did wrong with Tayutama 2 hasn't changed at all, and, in my mind, they did the same thing with this one.  As fandiscs go, it has a lot of content, though most of the stuff that was actually of interest was to be found in the extras portion.  While it might bet tempting to see the three original heroines' stories as the main part of this one, they are in fact a secondary issue.  Their actual stories are shor
Clephas

Clephas

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My VN Reassessment Project (UPDATED)

When I first started playing untranslated VNs (right about the time Obama got into office), I had the luxury of cherry-picking some of the best titles in existence at the time for my initial lineup.  In some cases, I just randomly grabbed stuff that met my tastes, and in others I went by recommendations by established vets like Accany.  However, at this point in my VN experience, I had yet to start VN of the Month and I was basically seeing VNs solely by how they met my expectations and tastes,
Clephas

Clephas

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Random VN: Erect!

I'm not going to lie... Erect is an appropriate name for this game in a number of ways.  However, this game is, despite the name, not a pure nukige.  Rather, it is more of a romantic (actually romantic, not just playing at it) charage with high sexual content (about 6 H-scenes in the common route and something like eight to ten in each path).  Now, this is the game that got me paying attention to Astronauts as a company, and it is from Astronauts: Spica, a subsidiary that has so far only produce
Clephas

Clephas

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Ou no Mimi ni Todokenai

Now, I've said this several times before, but AXL is a company that reuses its art, music, and character designs/features heavily.  As such, I rate their games solely based on plot/story and how those elements are used (in other words, jackasses who point out the somewhat dated art style and recycled music can go sodomize themselves with a pickle for all I care).  Unless you are a bigot who absolutely has to have the latest art styles, this shouldn't be something that bothers you anyway. Ou
Clephas

Clephas

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Random VN: Yami to Hikari no Sanctuary

Yami to Hikari no Sanctuary is a game made back in 2017 that came very close to being my VN of the Year for that year, for good reason.  Since I've already reviewed this game as a whole once, I'm going to go into more detail about what the catch points are of this game, as opposed to merely assessing it based on a lot of general points. A major plus point of this game is the way Alice, the main heroine, often serves as a sounding board to provide the reader with an intellectual understandin
Clephas

Clephas

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Issues when Reviewing/Commenting on stuff you like and stuff you don't

Something I'm sure people have noticed in my posts in this blog is that I almost invariably compare VNs I'm reading on to either a genre standard or a similar VN in the past.  To be blunt, this is a shortcut, as it is incredibly tedious to write out an extensive analysis of a genre-typical something that is only minutely different from a hundred other VNs of the same type.  Comparisons provide a frame of reference, giving the readers a chance to figure out what they can expect based on prev
Clephas

Clephas

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September Releases (UDATED!!!)

First... I already talked about Haze Man, though you can't really call it a review, lol.  Second... I'm stalling Mono no Aware for now.  After playing it for three hours, I've come to the conclusion that I hate the setting in this game.  It feels like one of those anime episodes in an otherwise awesome series that I drop simply because I don't like how they handled it.  This game has enormous potential to be interesting... if you obliterate player agency.  Unfortunately, I hate the way this game
Clephas

Clephas

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How to know if you have a true favorite VN

People who drop themselves into the abyss of otaku media tend to have their sense for things dull over time.  Action scenes don't excite like they used to, rom-coms aren't as funny, ecchi isn't as hot, and only the densest stories succeed in scratching the itch.  This is what I (and some others) call becoming a 'jaded veteran otaku'.  Jaded veteran otakus often become 'genre specialists' (meaning they only play one type of game, watch one type of anime, and/or refuse to play specific types), and
Clephas

Clephas

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Random VN: Yurameku Kokoro ni Michita Sekai de, Kimi no Yume to Yokubou wa Kanau ka

Yurayuka was released  in 2017 by Cube, a company that I never got around to messing with (mostly because their other games were nukige, for the most part).  I chose to put this one in my 'rainy day' archive for a time when I wanted something to play that I hadn't read before but wasn't a charage (most games I set aside are charage, since there is only so much virtual sugar I can consume without getting virtual diabetes).  From the very beginning, this game makes its 'time loop' concept obv
Clephas

Clephas

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April Release: Tenpure!! (EDITED)

First, I'll say that this game is pretty much based on the concept of using the concept of templates and archetypes in the story.  The protagonist bumps into a girl with toast in her mouth, gets woken up by an osananajimi, catches a maid falling from the sky, is frequently scolded by a fake-prude iinchou, and he even has an ojousama fall in love with him at first sight. Now, the attempt to turn all the classic template happenings of a moege/charage into a joke sort of falls flat in this gam
Clephas

Clephas

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Random VNs: Prima Stella [edited]

First thing that anyone thinks when they see a VN written by Choco Chip is 'nukige!!!'.  That isn't precisely correct.  I've played exactly three games by this guy that impressed me, though that was over four years ago.  Those three games were Prima Stella, Sarasara, and Sakura Iro Quartet.  Randomly, I decided to pick Prima Stella back up, and I relived my ancient experiences with it, gaining new impressions relative to what I've experienced since. First, my impressions are universally pos
Clephas

Clephas

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Random VNs: Like a Butler

As part of my series of posts on AXL, today I finished replaying Like a Butler, one of AXL's earlier charage-type VNs.  This VN is of a type that hadn't really been touched until AXL opened it up... the ojousama-ge.  Just to give you a little history, until the release of Haruka ni Aogi, Uruwashi no in 2006, there hadn't been any really good or famous ojousama-ge made.  It was only after 2010 when the sub-genre exploded outward into the ridiculous numbers we've seen since (with Ensemble alone pr
Clephas

Clephas

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Random VN: Blade x Bullet Kinrin no Soleil

Whatever else you can say about Skyfish's Soleil series, they never do the same thing (precisely) twice in a row. The Soleil series is based in a multiverse that comes into existence after the end of Ragnarok, the final battle of the gods from Norse mythology.  Previous entries in the series have ranged from your typical old-style chuunige (Shirogane no Soleil) to crazed ventures into chaotic medlies of Norse, Chinese, and Cthulhu Mythos (Gouen no Soleil).   Blade x Bullet is perhaps t
Clephas

Clephas

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Random VN: Golden Marriage (and Jewel Days)

Like many of the charage I choose to replay for this particular part of my blog, Golden Marriage is one of those VNs I thought I didn't quite give a fair chance to the first time I played them, looking back.  In retrospect, I realize I'd really come to expect great things out of Ensemble due to the examples of Koi no Canvas and Gokigen Naname.  The former is a kamige, beyond all doubt, and the latter was a deliciously dramatic look into the muddy world of money and old families.  While things tu
Clephas

Clephas

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VNs

Magatsu Barai: Preliminary Thoughts

Before someone asks, I merely paused the other VN to start Magatsu Barai (and Xenoblade Chronicles 3).  I will finish it (eventually). Magatsu Barai is the first Light game to be made from beginning to end after the collapse of the company's original owners.  As such, it is only natural (and unfortunate, at least to an extent) that some things will have changed. To address the elephant in the room for anyone who has seen the cover or sample cgs... The coloring really is that awful.  I
Clephas

Clephas in VNs

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Random VN: love, Vampire Flowers

This game is on a short list of VNs from 2015 that I am pretty sure I underrated.  As a result, I decided to take a second look at it and see if my impressions changed.  To an extent, they did.  I was much nicer to it this time around, if only because I had better perspective after having taken a few steps back from VNs in general.  This game is focused on the Gardening Club of a Protestant boarding school in Japan.  The protagonist, Haruto (real name Hartviche or something like that) is a
Clephas

Clephas

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Sora no Tsukurikata part two: Second Arc and Yurika

The second arc of this story is focused narrowly on the aftermath of the first arc and Yurika.  Yurika is a rare type in VNs these days... a sexy adult woman who isn't another man's wife or widow (yes, I went there).  She is a member of the 'Virgin of Chains', the more 'peaceful' of the two mafia groups dominating the area.  She is the protagonist's friend, occasional partner, drinking buddy, and sex friend.  She has a somewhat nihilistic attitude toward life and an absolute love of te
Clephas

Clephas

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