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Croos posted this in IRC: So I went ahead and made a fix for it: CSS needed (apply to bottom of styles if unsure where to put): #profile_overview .info dl { margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100% } #profile_overview .info dl dd { margin-left: 0 } #profile_overview .info dl, #profile_overview .info dl dd, #profile_overview .info dl dt { float: left } [/code]

I wrote this for another forum as part of a series where I introduce new games that many of the members have never heard of in the hopes of raising awareness of the game and hopefully getting them into new genres or series they may have had no interest in before. Please feel free to give me feedback and constructive criticism. I'm always looking to improve my writing. Thanks for reading! Corpse Party began as a humble indie RPG Maker survival horror game. It was first released for PC in 1996, before getting a remake titled Corpse Party: Blood Covered in 2008. In 2010, Corpse Party was re-released onto the PSP as Corpse Party: Blood Covered Repeated Fear. It quickly gained a cult following of gamers drawn to the incredible sound, dark, disturbing story, and of course, horrific death scenes. When XSeed brought it to America and Europe in 2011, western gamers finally got a taste of the twisted game. Demand was high enough for XSeed to bring over the sequel/side story, Corpse Party: Book of Shadows earlier this year as well. Corpse Party follows a group of students attending Kisaragi Academy who are having a little farewell gathering for one of their classmates who is moving away. The students are telling ghost stories when they try a harmless ritual for fun that will supposedly allow them to remain friends forever. Friends forever? After preforming the ritual, a strange earthquake takes place and the students find themselves separated inside a strange rundown school called Heavenly Host Elementary School. The school houses various spirits and ghosts whom are hostile to the students, along with signs of grisly murders, piles of bones, and disturbing messages. The students attempt to meet back up and find a way out, only to find that there is no way out, and they are slowly losing their grip on sanity. What is so interesting about Corpse Party is how it manages to take sprite based graphics, and turn it into something creepy. While the visuals may not inspire fear, the color usage gives the player a sense of despair. But the visuals are assisted in large part thanks to sound and gameplay. This take place before a characters gropes particular body parts of the corpse... I'm not kidding. On their own, the visuals can give a sense of creepiness, but cannot pull it off. With the 3D stereo sound, the player feels immersed despite the tiny PSP screen. I, more than once, found myself looking around myself when someone would be speaking. I thought at one point, someone was literally behind me whispering. The sound design is that good. As you hear the screams of a child dying, you will feel chills tingling down your back. You will get goosebumps from ghosts whispering in your mind. You will feel like flies are surrounding you. It's simply stunning what the developers managed to do with the sound. As you navigate the halls of Heavenly Host, you will find various objects and notes that may or may not help you to escape. Death lurks everywhere in Corpse Party. Reading a note may end up killing you later. Uncovering a statue may anger a spirit who will brutally murder you. Picking a wrong dialogue choice, or forgetting to read a note could end in a Wrong End. Death is everywhere. Some players complained about this, but it adds so much to the suspense of the game. You need to explore to find a way out, but exploring can easily kill you. It certainly keeps the player on the edge of his seat. As for the Wrong Ends... There are plenty of graphic ways to die, and the game will spare no expense describing them to you. No one is immune either. The youngest character is an elementary school student, and she too can die in many graphic ways. And if you think the game has horrible death scenes, the comics are much, much worse. (Hidden in spoiler tag, it's gruesome) Soon, the characters begin to piece together what happened to them, and why the school is trying to kill them. Speaking of characters, the cast is very balanced. Some characters keep their cool, while others break down. That being said, some characters are very, very, sick people. One characters gets a high from seeing death, especially the death of children. Another character, as I've stated gropes, and plays with the entrails of corpses while photographing them. On the flip side, we have some noble characters who realize their short comings, or try to help others, but they are overshadowed by the twisted reality that they are in. Plenty of plot twists take place throughout the game and the ending, no matter what, is dark. Let that sink in. There is no happy ending If you want your stories and games to end on a happy note, do not play this game. The story in Corpse Party is a wonderfully twisted tale that pulls no punches. For the final two chapters, I was simply glued to my PSP. The story hooks you in, and drags you into a bloody, gore filled mess. Corpse Party is one of the more memorable games I have played. Using incredible sound and bloody deaths, you will be hard pressed to make it out of Heavenly Host alive. With the upcoming sequel, Corpse Party: Blood Drive, as well as an anime series, it seems fans of the game will have many more death filled trips into the cursed halls of Heavenly Host.

There was a really good blog post written by (much loved indie-developer) Jeff Vogel, about when it is okay to steal games/VNs/movies: http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com.au/2010/07/sometimes-its-ok-to-steal-my-games.html

Hm, I think Meru is slowly working on this. But to be honest the most important part of the game (imouto route) is already done

That's what happens when Archer is in the command. Everyone gets scared, huh.

Underrated, I would say Mahoromatic, even with it's Gainax-esque ending (that I'm "almost" sure is the same in the manga), it's a good series that keeps you entertained. Maybe Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu too, but in this case I would say that it's because people doesn't know it, rather than it's underrated. As for overrated, anything that appeals to the viewers with fanservice (not only pantyshots and the like, but all the length of the term) and because of that becomes superpopular.

Nah its fine, its your ideas you believe and that is a good thing. The series you mentioned as overrated are the ones that have like some catchy thing about them which makes them popular, ultra cute henneko with awesome OP, catchy OP video and song in nyaruko, cute and awesome OP in yuru yuri. So they are very popular and maybe that is what you saw as overrated (lot of youtube vids etc) Those are the ones I saw and I loved them all, they are good, I loved them but they had some cons as well. Together actually with To Love Ru, in henneko and nyaruko the MC is so indecisive that it sometimes hurt me and I was yelling at the screen "JUST HAVE SEX WITH THE GIRLS ALREADY" but I still loved the shows and that's how I rate it. The show can be not as good and I enjoy it at that time so much that I just think its near masterpiece, if I watched it in different mood, I might not like it. It can be same with VN, I might fall in love with some girl there (and marry her or Mare-y her I could say ) and I will forgive it some things I didn't like (like I already said once in VN discussion, I didn't like Asuho's personality in her route in Hoshimemo, yet I still rated the game 10 as the amount of good stuff just overweighted the not so good stuff and I found my biggest love in the world there). So overall enjoyment you get from something depends on many variables which can change over time. What I don't get is how can someone watch something he doesn't like, finish it and then rate it low and bash it, if you don't like something, just drop it, don't finish it and maybe some day you will have mood for it and enjoy it as much. I actually know that To Love Ru season 1 was really perfect fit at that exact time for me, as I was just in the mood for that specific kind of ecchi and if I watched it some other time, I would probably not enjoy it so much to love it that much.

Hm, I don't watch much anime but from what I tried, Full Metal Alchemist really didn't seem that good from first 2 episodes I watched (and then dropped it), but can't judge the whole show as I didn't finish, maybe it really is epic at the end. But if the anime cant get my attention after 2 episodes, its already a bad trait. For underrated, I must actually say opposite of yours, To Love Ru is like one of the best things and I was surprised it has like 5/10 rating. Kiss x Sis OAD is actually the best thing and has really low ratings. As for what you mentioned, Seitokai no Ichizon was funny for me in the first episodes but then the jokes seemed to always be the same or similar so I dropped it. And AIR is great story, but the anime was too short (from like 100h VN to 6h anime), that's why its lower rated, lot of the important stuff remains unexplained and felt like rushed very quickly. But you should always remember to not pay much attention to ratings, as you can see, best thing for one can be boring for others, therefore receiving average rating of like 5 or 6. The best thing is just to try first episode and if you like it, continue, if not, drop it. I find ratings something personal, I give it number in comparison to other things I watched, not other people and I have different scales than other people. So looking on ratings of other random people you don't know (are not your friends so you can't ask them why they gave it such number) is never going to work. Just ask friends with similar tastes for recommendations or read review of someone you know likes similar things like you and it will work much better, average rating number is really unimportant number and means basically nothing.

IMO, VN is like a visualization of a novel(yeah, it is visual novel). Rather than just reading a thick book with endless wall of texts, going through dialogues with voices, as well as the BGM and the excellent art of the VN enhances your interest more, not to mention it kept you on going, instead of a "sleep-tool" when reading a dictionary-thick of novel. To me, it's like making you enjoy the story of the novel more in a lot of ways.

Rikka. Just Rikka. No one else.

Oh, we're supposed to post pictures of anime girls? I was just going to post a picture of myself. Well I think this fanart of Yuri from Harvest Moon A New Beginning is super cute.

Ok, finished Lucia route what the hell up with the bitter sweet ending, sheesh. Moving on to Shizuru then Akane after that so far I like this novel a lot better then I did after finishing Kotori route. From one of the earl comment from earl said this VN certainly does give you a lot to digest and this is actually stuff I really like that shows up. It has a route that I do not like, but for the most part story and plot are all good. Plus so far it as at least earned the tenth place on my top favorite VN's even though I have my complaints.

The big eyed art isn't actually a problem at all. That's a style question. I am rather fond of Itaru Hinoue style but she needs a lot work on her anatomy and I mean a lot. Chihaya in particular has some incredibly ugly sprites her arms look like wooden logs that has been pasted upon her body without actually being connected to her body. She also is very inconsistent with her art which lead to her characters often looking vastly different from shot to shot. And why they aren't changing the artist. They have sometimes Planetarian isn't done by Hinoue, not Tomoyo After either. And Little Busters/Kud Wafter is half done between Hinoue and Na-Ga. But obviously they can't kick her. Why should they? She is just as much a part of Key as everyone else there she is not some contracted artist like Fumio for Tomoyo After. Kicking her out of her own freaking company would be awful. She is improving though it's going slowly. Eroge artist don''t tend to get better at the same speed as other artist because they don't practice much. If you look at the cg's from various eroge you'll see that its always the same sorts of angles used. Since the artists spend their time drawing characters looking exactly the same they simply never improve that much ):. Well eroge/VN art in general is pretty fucking awful (Though colouring as gotten a lot better in recent years). And Hinoue isn't even near the worst of the lot. This Review by Choux from calamitous intents details some problems with the art in Little Busters. I could also mention the ugly outfits designs but those have actually improved. The casual clothes in Rewrite looks nice, stylish and actually fitting for their character (apart from Chihaya's yuck kill that thing with fire. Also Akane's clothes look kinda weird but nearly all clothes in VN's do so I guess that's expected)

I found this link that's pretty interesting : http://www.screwattack.com/news/can-shiki-kill-servants-factual-review-type-moon-characters-and-assets It's pretty logical, although I am a bit iffy if Shiki can even see the "death" of servants.