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Before I begin, I just wanted to say that I've gotten some feedback lately that my "reviews" have been fairly ... Laid back and not too serious. This is completely true, and I've written this with that feedback in mind. This is a much more objective, serious review of a game that I've wanted to review for a while. Hope you enjoy reading it, and please keep giving me feedback that can help me improve, I do appriciate it. Shuffle! Review, By Dergonu, fuwanovel Shuffle is a romance / fantasy visual novel originally released by Navel in 2003/2004. The game was later licensed and translated by Mangagamer, along with its two sequels Tick! Tack! and Really? Really! (You can buy the games here: (nsfw content on the game's page.) In the game you play as Tsuchimi Rin, a fairly normal high school student. When Rin was younger he met two beautiful young girls by chance, and spent the day playing with them. It turns out though, that these fate encounters would later change Rin's life forever. Shuffle offers 5 romantic routes as well as a common route, the story featuring elements of romance, drama, fantasy and comedy. (Note that a newer version of the game called Essence+ offers a whole roster of new characters and heroine routes not found in the original release, but this version is un-translated, and is not the version covered in this review.) The main story takes place in a fantasy universe where two portals have opened in the human world. These portals connects our world to the world of the Gods and the Devils. Contrary to popular belief, Devils and Gods are not omnipotent almighty beings which hate one another, but instead they are fairly similar to us, and the two races live alongside each other in peace. The Devils and Gods do have magical powers, and certain features does make them look slightly different, the primary attribute being their long ears. In the game, we follow Tsuchimi Rin in his everyday life. It has been 10 years since the portals opened, and Gods, Devils and humans live alongside each other peacefully. The overall look of the game is very nice for such an old novel. The art is pretty to look at, with nice sprites and colorful, well drawn backgrounds. The menu is detailed and easy to navigate, offering a great variety of settings to improve your experience. There is a date display in game, and choices will affect which heroine's route you enter. The choices are very plain and easy to understand, often literally containing the name of the characters to make it easy to choose the heroine route. In addition, the game has no bad endings, so playing it blindly with no walkthrough is risk free. Once you enter a heroine route, a sprite of the heroine will be displayed during scene changes, so you know when you have entered a route. All these things taken into consideration, Shuffle is a very laid back and casual visual novel experience, but that in itself isn't necessarily a bad thing. The music in shuffle goes hand in hand with the other elements we have discussed so far. It's very light and very simple. Each one of the normal tracks played throughout the primary part of the common route and the start of the heroine routes are simple, light and cute. They offer simple instrumental music with slight variation that glide smoothly into the background. The tracks unlocked later on during the final dramatic parts of the routes, feel like they are on a different level from the earlier ones. They do a better job of making the player feel engaged in the game, as they feature more detailed instrumental music which fits the setting very well. The music tracks in the game are all enjoyable of course, and fit nicely with the feel of the game, but if more effort was put into making all the tracks like the last few ones, then it would allow for even greater immersion in the game, something that could possibly make the game better than it already is. Still, every track is very comfortable to listen to and none of them are disruptive in any way. Among the five heroine's routes, each story offers a fairly similar structure. It starts of very light, introducing one small piece of information casually that will later turn into a dramatic twist to the route. This small catalyst is easy enough to spot early on, and figuring out vaguely what is going to happen is fairly easy. That being said, the game still does a decent job at hiding exactly what it is that is going on. The primary part of the heroine's route will be about Rin and the girl falling in love, and developing their relationship. The game offers 2 H-Scenes for each character, with CG variations based off your choice in the route, and an epilogue which takes place after the events of the main route. As the story progresses, the catalyst which was introduced earlier will start to become more present in the story, and a big climax towards the end filled with drama will occur. This can remind you of a normal nakige build up, but the last dramatic part is so short and gets overpowered by the lightheartedness of the previous part of the game so strongly, that it can't be called a nakige at all. The game re-uses a fair share of the same situations and conversations during the early part of the heroine routes. These only have certain new lines of dialogue, making the scene itself the same. This comes off as lazy, and gets old after the second route. At the very least, short new events should have occurred during these parts to make these scenes slightly more entertaining. This is luckily only the case for the beginning of the route, and the later parts are all completely unique to each heroine. Sia's route is supposed to have two variations, but similar to the previous problem mentioned above, they simply re-use the scenes with tiny changes in the dialogue. The final experience is the same, and so it feels almost pointless to have these two variants, as they simply don't do anything majorly different from one another. It is not a good / bad end type of deal, but instead two sides of the same ending, with all the scenes identical, except for certain variations in dialogue and the character's behavior. This is a little bit of a shame, as Sia's route is very good. Had the two sides of the route been pulled off in a better way, this route would have been even better. Primula, Asa and Sia's routes are the only ones that has "believable drama". The other two routes doesn't make you feel like what is happening is really a big deal at all. It is trivial drama that doesn't have any real impact compared to what happens in the routes mentioned above. This is not to say that the routes are bad because of this, but it does make the game feel a little inconsistent, as if the two routes which feel less impactful are played after the other three, then you won't really be that pleased with the end result. Actually, one of these routes has to be played before Primula's route is unlocked, so only one of the routes actually have that problem. The endings in the routes also feel a little bit rushed. Once the drama is introduced, the player has almost no time to let it sink in and feel the effects of it, before it is resolved. This makes the novel lose some potential, as it doesn't feel like there is any "risk" to it at all. It's almost as if the game is saying that something bad could happen, but then it instantly corrects itself, saying don't worry, we wouldn't actually do this! Still, with those factors in mind, the story in the game is still enjoyable. The actual core of the heroine routes does a good job of making the player care for the heroine and about what happens to her, and seeing as the game instantaneously lets you know that it is a very laid back, plain and casual experience, the slightly rushed endings and not overly dramatic parts are to be expected. To sum up, Shuffle! is a very light and simple, yet effective visual novel. It does a good job of making the player care for its characters, as long as the player is willing to accept the game's light hearted and simple atmosphere. The music and art in the game is well made, especially the art and backgrounds. Considering the age of the game, it is in fact quite pleasantly surprising to see such nice artwork in the game. The music could have had even more effort put into it though, as there is a clear difference in quality between a few of the tracks. The routes are a little inconsistent, and offer parts which are essentially just copy pasted with slightly altered dialogue. This alongside the predictability of certain events, the game loses a bit of its potential. + Nice art, music and well made menu makes for an enjoyable experience. + The story is enjoyable overall, and does a good job of making the reader care for the heroines - The drama in the later parts of the game ends far too fast, and are essentially pointless - The game loses potential with the lack of variation in its re-used scenes, especially in Sia's route Rating: These things taken into account, shuffle! gets a 7.8/10 rating

First, let me state that 2015 is the flat-out worst year for VNs I've seen out of the last six. There was a lot of upward and downward flow hovering around the line known as 'mediocre' or 'average', but there were - saying it straight out - no kamige and few titles that really stood out from the crowd. It is definitely the worst year since I started VN of the Month, just two years and five months (or so) ago. Unlike in 2013 or 2014, there are not a lot of titles I really even seriously considered to be in the running for this spot, even in a vague sort of way. While there were a few titles that jumped out at me toward the end of the year, I wouldn't have even seriously considered them in either of the two previous years. Heck, my top three titles this year wouldn't have even made it into the top twelve last year or the year before. That is how bad it was. In 2013, the winner was Hapymaher by Purple Soft, its unbelievably high-quality soundtrack, art, presentation, and storytelling barely edging past Komorebi no Nostalgica for the win. While both games could pull both my emotions and intellect into play, Hapymaher's musical presentation gave it an overwhelming edge on that front, making it the winner. 2014 was also a hard choice... but in the end, it came down to Nanairo Reincarnation, the only VN that year that I honestly had no reservations about. Semiramis no Tenbin, Hello Lady, and a few others were runners-up that year (in fact, 2014 was an amazingly good year), but in terms of complete overall quality and appeal, they couldn't match Nanairo. Unfortunately, 2015 just doesn't have any candidates that match those. Silverio Vendetta was immensely fun for me, but it has flaws in its structure that disqualify it, in addition to having way too niche an appeal. While I did praise it, Kyuuketsu Hime no Libra (which - as most of us know - has been Kickstarted for translation) just doesn't make it to the level I demand from VN of the Year Candidates. Sakura no Uta, for all that it does have its moments, has a deeply flawed overall flow and a lot of technical issues with the story presentation. Soreyori no Prologue was an interesting experience, despite being typically Minori (meaning sincerely annoying at several major points), but it wasn't a game I could seriously consider for VN of the Year. Natsuiro Recipe is probably the best 'iyashikei' product made in the last three years, but it isn't something I could honestly consider for raw quality. Koko Kara Natsu no Innocence had the typically high levels of overall quality I associate with Clochette (despite the boob fetish), but again, it wasn't quite there. Hatsuru Koto Naki Mirai Yori was an immensely fun ride, but - like Silverio Vendetta - was both deeply flawed and too niche in appeal to seriously be considered. So what was I left to consider, really? Basically it came down to Kikan Bakumatsu Ibun Last Cavalier, a surprise entry in the last part of the year that tries to replicate, at least in part, the magic of Chuushingura (the VN, not the movie or the various books), except with a lot more bloodshed and in a steampunk version of the political and military conflict surrounding what led up to the Meiji Restoration. Now, at first I was tempted to think that I was jumping to conclusions, because it was so fresh in my mind... so I let almost two months pass before I made my decision, while I went about the task of reviving my memories of various VNs I played during the year. It really was odd what came back to me during that time... Sakura Nikagetsu was one of the more memorable ones (definitely not VN of the Year material, but it was immensely amusing), as was Rakuen no Shugosha (a cheap kinetic utsuge in a total anti/non-anime style), and Sorcery Jokers (the most technically sound of the straight-out chuunige that came out during the year). I honestly had to reject the former two outright, simply because their visuals make them a no-go for ninety percent of the people I know, no matter how much fun or how high quality a psychological experience they might be. Sorcery Jokers was actually a lot harder to dismiss, when it came down to it. In terms of scale, I was really tempted to say it could compete with Kikan Bakumatsu... but if asked which left a better impression, I would have instantly said Kikan Bakumatsu. To be honest, either title would have been a compromise. Neither is as good as any of the best VNs from the last four or five years. They are definitely good, as in being worthy of being listed as VNs to remember. However, I definitely wouldn't have put them up as candidates in another year. For the idiots who kept asking me if I'd say yes to Bansenjin *spits on the floor* even Masada pisses on his own feet sometimes (too much of an attempt to recreate the success of the Shinza series).

Introduction: So I´ve been on this forum for a decent amount of time now, and for those of you who encounter me in the chat you know: I love yuri. And during my many fallouts with Jade and his trap,(Which is evil ) I post pictures of yuri left and right, most of which are from SonoHana. I realize though that there are people out there who hasn't played these short and plotless amazing yuri games! Therefore, I will be making a blog post to tell you about something that no one should go their life without playing! Before I get started, do note that a lot of these games are translated, with only the newest releases remaining untranslated, BUT! These are fan translations, and the company releasing these games have shown dissatisfaction with the fan translations due to piracy. (There was a way to get the entire game extracted from the patch alone.) Because of this, please make sure you BUY THE GAME LEGALLY before installing a translation patch for these games. (Information on where to buy the games is in the bottom of the post, however, due to their bad reputation, links to the patches will NOT be in this post. Please use the google no-jutsu for that) This is NOT the case for remembering how we met, which is the ONLY licensed translation as of right now. Hopefully this will change in the future Ok so, I am talking about Sono hanabira ni kuchizuke o, a yuri VN franchise which has been releasing games for years now. Writers have come and gone, but the games have still remained somewhat the same, introducing a lesbian couple going to school at an all girls high school for daughters from rich families. The norm has been that each couple gets a minimum of 2 games, with some exceptions being released later on. The games are rather short, cute and fluffy. Its primarily just about the two main characters, and other characters rarely even have sprites in the early games. (Yes I´m looking at you guys, class mate-A, class mate-B) This however, changes towards the newer games, where most characters have sprites and there are more CGs and voice acting from others than just the main characters. Their short length and small amount of content aside, there is still something that makes these games very enjoyable, (except the yuri H-scenes ) and that is the characters and their interactions. I already talked about this a little bit in my previous blog post about sonohana nyuu jene, but I realize that if one haven't played previous games, you won't be able to relate to much I say in that one. And so! The characters and story The characters in Sono Hanabira ni kuchizuke o are wonderful. Each one of the couples offer a set of unique and colorful characters. (Unique as in different from each other, not in a general sense. I know a tsundere isn't very unique characteristic in a visual novel.) Among the many, many couples who have been introduced, we are going to be looking at, Yuuna x Nanami, the first couple introduced in the franchise, and Hazuki x Manami, one of the latest couples. The reason I´m doing this, thereby omitting a lot of the couples in the middle, is simply because of the first and the last aspect, and not because I like the others less or anything. (Though it does have to be said, these two are some of my favorites.) Which couple you will end up liking the most will be different for everyone. Each one of them has their own characteristics that makes you like them. (Or not like them. Though lets face it, no one dislikes yuri. Right?) Let us start with Yuuna x Nanami, and the first Sono hana game released. It came out in 2006, and tells the story of the cute, silly little Nanami who comes to a school way out of her comfort zone. Its a school filled with oujousama´s (daughters of rich families), and she really doesn't feel like she fits in. Her first day starts of bad as her uniform rips and she ends up hiding behind the school building, not going into the reception ceremony. Then, her guardian angel, the beautiful onee-sama Yuuna walks up and asks her if she needs help. She then goes on to patch up Nanami´s skirt. Instantly lovestruck, the next few months of Nanami´s life are dedicated trying to get into a planning committee where Yuuna is the leader. She wants to get closer to her onee-sama, and well, thats where the love aspect of the game beings. I won't spoil too much of the very small amount of story in the game, and will instead speak in a general way about the game. Yuuna and Nanami start dating, and have to deal with issues in school and between each other. There is a simple choice system that will lead to either incomplete endings, or the true end which is quite cute. The rest of the games that follow are made in a similar trend. Girl meets girl, couple meets X issue(s), try to resolve them together, happy end. The games are fairly short, about 5+ hours of reading if you listen to all the dialogue and 2 hours or so if you skip it as soon as the text is read. The games do vary a bit in length, and some later releases do have an increased length, (for example Nyuu Jene comes out over 10 hours,) but for the most part the games are fairly similar in this regard. Moving over to Hazuki x Manami, we have a fairly different setting from Nanami x Yuuna. This couple is introduced in the 19th installment of the series, Nyuu Jene, which I´ve made a blog post on already here: The character´s troubles are essentially the opposite of Yuuna x Nanami, but the actual characters Nanami and Hazuki are fairly similar. The reason I bring this up, other than them being the first and last couples, is to make a point; the characters have kind of been re-used at this point, (lets face it, Hazuki and Nanami are very similar.) But despite this the games are very different and the couple´s "worries" or what have you doesn't feel repeated at all. This is another factor that makes the SonoHana games enjoyable despite their short and "plotless" nature. Navigation through the many titles; how does it work? So, lets take a break from the story and the characters and talk a little about how to navigate through these games. It might look a little overwhelming and confusing, seeing as there are so many titles and the couples are in seemingly random orders. (Kind of...) So far there are 20 games in the franchise. The games have little in common with each other, except A) games that are with a previously introduced couple, working kind of like a sequel, (example games 1 and 6 being yuuna x Nanami, 2 and 4 being Sara x Kaede) B) Games released after Nyuu Jene; These games seem to have the same characters repeated, at least for the moment, and all works as sequels. (After the next 3 are released, this might change. No word on those games are out as of yet.) Other than that, you can just pick a couple you like and play it, which means, YES, you CAN start with, lets say game nr. 3 then play 5 to get its sequel, and go back to lets say 1 and then play 6. Its pretty much just about finding the individual game´s sequel. To make figuring out exactly which game offers what couples simple, literally just look it up on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sono_Hanabira_ni_Kuchizuke_o - Do note that this list currently does not have Revolution - Rinagisa (the newest game) listed, but this is a sequel to Nyuu Jene and offers Rina x Nagisa, but with the other characters as supportive characters with a role in the story. This will probably be added soon though. EDIT: Due to a strange edit on wikipedia, they have removed some of the newer games from the list ... Really don't know why. But if you display the page in Japanese instead, all 21 games are there. The games from 1-15 are on the English list. Do note that the newest games, Nyuu Jene and the rest after are UNTRANSLATED, and have no fan translations as of yet. Conclusion; why should you play these games and where to get them So, why should you play these games? There are many rom-com slice of life games out there, and to be honest I cant really sell why this should be prioritized over the others without mentioning yuri. Damnit. Well, these games are short, simple, but still offer very enjoyable characters and relationships; they are pretty much getting right to the point without beating around the bush with an incredibly long common route and a bunch of filler characters that has little to do with the story. If you are looking for a short, cute, funny and enjoyable slice of life love story, picking up one or two of these games is not a bad idea at all. As for where to get the games, most of them are available on english DLsite, here: (NSFW content!!) http://www.dlsite.com/ecchi-eng/fsr/=/keyword_maker_name/fuguriya+RG05173/ana_flg/all/from/work.same_maker For Nyuu Jene and the rest of the games you can't find on DLsite, you can buy them here: (Note that this is a Japanese site, but it DOES accept foreign credit cards. For a guide on how to navigate the site and make a purchase there, look at the blog post below.) http://gyutto.com/i/item161082 (Nyuu Jene) All of the games Remembering how we met is available on steam or on mangagamer and is the only licensed SonoHana title: http://www.mangagamer.com/detail.php?goods_type=0&product_code=149 Alright, thats it for this post.