LostPomegranate's Reviews and Recommendations

The biggest hazard with the ladder-style story progression structure is that all the heroines but the 'true' heroine get gypped.  Aoi Tori, at least, has the advantage that all the paths are technically 'true' in an alternate worlds sense, but it still feels like the heroines other than Akari aren't really getting treated equally.  

In the case of Aiyoku no Eustia, the author failed utterly to create internal consistency, as his setting (both the general one and the heroines' settings) made any path other than Tia's path impossible within the greater context of the story.  This is actually a trend with a lot of writers who like to use the ladder-style, where they fail to maintain internal consistency due to a half-assed attitude toward the non-true heroines' stories.  

13 hours ago, Clephas said:

The biggest hazard with the ladder-style story progression structure is that all the heroines but the 'true' heroine get gypped.  Aoi Tori, at least, has the advantage that all the paths are technically 'true' in an alternate worlds sense, but it still feels like the heroines other than Akari aren't really getting treated equally.  

In the case of Aiyoku no Eustia, the author failed utterly to create internal consistency, as his setting (both the general one and the heroines' settings) made any path other than Tia's path impossible within the greater context of the story.  This is actually a trend with a lot of writers who like to use the ladder-style, where they fail to maintain internal consistency due to a half-assed attitude toward the non-true heroines' stories.  

I agree with you there. Only Akari's route - and Mary's to a lesser extent - really felt like they were written with their own story in mind rather than how it fed into the true route. Which is a shame because Sayo was a pretty great character and foil to the MC. Risa / Mikako were largely just a joke story that existed to foreshadow a few plot points and throw in some extra H-scenes (with 8 of the 25 belonging to them). There's really only a few ladder structure games where I wasn't hit with the same feeling and those were not "true route" type games such as Fruit of Grisaia.

 

Aiyoku no Eustia is on my decision wheel right now - most of the VNs I own but haven't read end up on a wheel I spin to determine my next read when there isn't a new release - so I'll likely hit that myself at some point.

Edited Sunday at 09:18 PM by LostPomegranate

7 hours ago, LostPomegranate said:

I agree with you there. Only Akari's route - and Mary's to a lesser extent - really felt like they were written with their own story in mind rather than how it fed into the true route. Which is a shame because Sayo was a pretty great character and foil to the MC. Risa / Mikako were largely just a joke story that existed to foreshadow a few plot points and throw in some extra H-scenes (with 8 of the 25 belonging to them). There's really only a few ladder structure games where I wasn't hit with the same feeling and those were not "true route" type games such as Fruit of Grisaia.

 

Aiyoku no Eustia is on my decision wheel right now - most of the VNs I own but haven't read end up on a wheel I spin to determine my next read when there isn't a new release - so I'll likely hit that myself at some point.

Honestly?  I'd say don't bother with anything from August.  August's writing team tends to be awful at keeping the details even remotely consistent in their plot-focused games.  This is true with Fortune Arterial and it is even more true with Eustia.  The sad part is that the setting of Eustia and Cain's characterization are really, really well written up until a certain point (to be specific, once the female pope and the princess get on the scene) where all of the sudden the setting and character personalities are all over the place.  This was the reason why my final rating for the game was so abysmally low, despite actually enjoying it immensely up to about the mid-point.  Not to mention that I have a distinct dislike for Victim A heroines (heroines that would probably die horribly in the first act of any decent story with a dark atmosphere, hahaha).

This was also seen in the Sen no Hatou series, which had a truly impressive setting with some interesting characters... however, once again their writing team sabotaged itself by not only utilizing the ladder-style structure but also failing to keep the setting consistent (I actually have fewer complaints, mainly because character personalities didn't suddenly change on a fundamental level partway through the story).  Up to a point, the setting was internally consistent, but I kept hitting points in the true route that were inconsistent with the setting presented in the other routes and common route.  

The 'true heroine' debate is probably never going to go away.  Games with true heroines inevitably push down the other heroines to some extent to build up to the true one.  The single best approach I've seen in a multi-route plot-focused game is Vermillion Bind of Blood, which treats all its heroines equally while the 'true' route is called the Grand Route and actually doesn't have a heroine.  A secondary approach is having one path serve as a joke and the other as the true route, like in Draculius, where you had a path where the protagonist chose not to confront certain issues and the path itself was nonstop comedy, versus the more serious and emotionally deep true route.

As far as I know, there are really only a few companies and scenario writers who ever even make an attempt at equalizing heroine treatment.  There is always a main heroine, though some authors manage to bring to life all the heroines despite their preferences.  An example of this would be Higashide Yuuichirou, who, while he always has a heroine he favors, also always gives all of the heroines a route worth remembering from beginning to end.  Whether it was Ayakashibito, Bullet Butlers, Chrono Belt, Evolimit, or Tokyo Babel, all of his works made you love his characters, even the ones that were less visually appealing, lol.