Leaderboard

These are just a few thoughts that I've had after experiencing various gameplay VNs over the years. First, understand that I see VNs as reading material (in the same vein as manga but with the addition of voice, some animation, and detailed narration) first and games second. Second, the type of gameplay most likely to be fused to a VN (strategy or turn-based rpg) are ones I played for well over a decade before I first encountered VNs, so I have at least some qualifications to evaluate them. First, for the gameplay... no matter how you express it, the average VN gameplay is several levels below the average console strategy game, srpg, or jrpg in terms of quality and design. Some of the best of the type - such as the Ikusa Megami series - just barely reach the same level as stuff released before the turn of the century as far as those two aspects go. Second, balance... in a VN hybrid, having a good balance between the story and gameplay is vital. In other words, the grinding needs to be minimalized and difficulty should be adjustable. VN hybrids without adjustable difficulty levels (with an easy version that really is easy) tend to result in a VN where the story is told in snippets between long stretches of grindy gameplay (Softhouse Chara's games tend to have this flaw in excess). Third is feature creep... a lot of hybrids have weird gameplay features that make the game confusing without really adding anything enjoyable to the game. An example of this is the recruitment system from the 'breeder' Venus Blood games. To be blunt, this game mechanic, while fitting in with the atmosphere in the story, made the games unnecessarily complicated, and not in a good way. Fourth... story pacing. A lot of hybrids have horrible pacing. In particular, many of them start out really well, grasping the reader/player with a dramatic prologue or first few chapters... then suddenly become a complete slog or grind in the mid-game. To be honest, the most egregious offender in this case are strategy-conquest VNs, where the story won't progress significantly until you've achieved an artificial goal, like conquest of a certain region. Generally speaking, most strategy-conquest VNs (such as Sengoku Rance or Madou Koukaku) start out really well, with an interesting beginning to the story... and suddenly become devoid of story for about thirty hours if you don't act in exactly the right way. The Sengoku Hime and Sangoku Hime series are classic examples of this. Both series tend to have first-rate beginnings, but the story gets put to the wayside pretty early in the game. As a result, you essentially get stuck playing a sub-par strategy game for ten to fifteen hours before you manage to restart the plot. This is tiring and boring, to say the least. My conclusion? Generally speaking, VN hybrids can be good, but that is only if the VN aspects don't become an adjunct for the third-rate gameplay that tends to be tacked onto them.

Summer is closing in and every cool boys and girls are hyped for zero escape time dilemma . But I want to say sorry to you all because I’m not going to hype the fuck out of it. Instead I will write a critical review which reveals some bullshit Uchikoshi ran away with. Let’s start with 999 shall we?* HUGE SPOILERS SO NO COMPLAINTS IF YOU RUIN YOUR EXPIERIENCE OKAY? * Overall VLR might seem like an epic tale but in reality it is a trainwreck. Noting makes sense and I bet ZE3 will have a hard time covering up it’s bullshit. I give VLR as score of 6.7/10( above average) just because it introduced interesting brainstorming ideas and had some great characters. Despite all the things I said I am still pretty hyped for ZE3. But I think it will be really hard to wrap things up. Until the game releases you can bitch about how it will make sense later on in the comments.

This one by the fucking far. There's no "Here's an over-the-top twist, suck it fuckers" in Zero Escape to the level it is in, say, Danganronpa. Some twists may strain the suspension of disbelief for some people, but they're all reasoned well. Now get the hell out of this thread before you do get something spoiled.

Okay, let's go paragraph by paragraph. Untagged spoilers, obviously. That's because Zero Escape is a sci-fi thriller at heart. Complaining that "the plot drives everything" is nonsensical, because it is structured in a way that an intricate framework of events is unveiled through the characters, and there is nothing wrong with a story prioritizing plot over characters, especially in a series like Zero Escape which doesn't have some 50+ hours to leisurely build character through character interactions. That said, do you think that character motivation isn't present enough in Zero Escape? Really? Check out the bad endings. So often, the characters' own motivation brings demise to the participants. Axe END. Practically every betrayal in VLR. The identity of Zero in each case. Even if you think so, Zero Time Dilemma will be significantly more character-driven as it's about the same length as VLR (confirmed by Aksys PR) but now we have insight into the general personality and motivations of many characters. Haven't the slightest clue what you mean to say about "free will". If you want an Uchikoshi VN that deals more with that theme, go play Remember11. A group of (mostly unassuming) people thrust into a completely unexpected situation in which their life is in danger? Of fucking course they would react. Zero Escape's circumstances put human nature to the test. Family with Clover-Snake. Deceit with Akane and Santa. The shadows of one's past with Ace. ZE is a treatise on how humans react and change when put under extreme pressure, and since it's a trilogy about people trying to survive a death game desperately, it doesn't make much sense that it would need to include much "proactive goodness". Not much connection with "strong themes" either, life in itself is a "reaction circle" and there's absolutely nothing wrong with a fictive work taking the approach of character building through analyzing reactions to particular circumstances. Nonsensical claim, in other words. And here is where you display a fundamental misunderstanding of the plot. Akane is not able to DIRECTLY make Junpei do things, even though the narration is by Akane you make the door choices and whatnot as Junpei himself. Akane merely observes and receives information. It is only by the true ending (TRUTH HAD GONE) that Akane manages to convey something to Junpei in the future, hence triggering the sequence of events that culminates in Junpei solving the sudoku and saving Akane. If the plan does not work out, it causes a paradox- hence, Akane disappearing in Safe END I think it was. On the first half, that's THE FUCKING POINT. Akane is Zero, and the fact is made all the more harrowing by the fact that she was forced to do that because she needed it to survive the Nonary Game as a child. She had to be a conniving, sly, cruel person to accomplish that -she had to risk the life of a childhood friend to save her own- and understandably she also wanted revenge. The thematic significance you seek is right there. Is Akane moral? What does the events of 999 mean to Junpei? How will the others be affected? As for the "as if that makes any sense" part, it is fucking fiction. The liberties the game takes from reality -The relevant one here being the morphogenetic field- allow the existence of such an event. Unless you believe the morphogenetic field theory as presented ingame is self-contradictory, this claim is factually unsound. Complaining about the game being a "master plan" instead of a "simple death game" also seems to contradict your sentiment that you want to see "stronger themes", which wouldn't be possible on the same level if 999 were a "simple death game". Murdered people have no free will now? Are you for fucking real? "Why can't she do the same?" What the hell do you even mean? Think you forgot to type something there. Also lol, 6 endings and you fucking complain that they went for too many. Some of them are ob-fucking-viously bad endings, as in, game overs. In a horror/thriller game, it is expected that there would be shock factor. "We didn't see how Ace executed his plan." - Why the hell is this even a problem? That adds to the mystery and the shock. Would have to reread it to see why Akane has the sun key. Seven was possibly made to lie. Also remember that Junpei's actions throughout the game determined the past (Akane heating up in Sub END was due to the heat of the incinerator from 9 years ago for example), so it is entirely possible that the past was indeterminate until Junpei took certain actions. Unless Junpei connects with Akane at the sudoku, Akane dies- since Junpei has not yet connected with Akane from the past, they exist in a possible paradox. You have to change the past by saving Akane. Don't remember the memory alteration deal. You do not even mention which aspect of time travel ruins the ending or the story, or what exactly is its "fault". RE: character complaints Ace- A person who is okay with (dangerously) experimenting on kids for money but yet cracks under pressure in the game, a conniving bastard, yes. His depth comes from the contrast of his façade and his true self, does not have to be likable. Santa- Again, unlikable =/= bad Akane- Yes, it was all a ruse, THAT'S THE FUCKING POINT. THAT'S WHY PEOPLE FIND THE ENDING EMOTIONAL. IT'S THE INCREDIBLE STRING OF EVENTS BEHIND AKANE'S MOTIVATIONS AND PERSONALITY THAT MAKES 999'S ENDING SO MEMORABLE. Lotus- Again, not everyone has to be a central character. Let me introduce you to the concept of a "side character". Hoooooo boy. Sigma is more powerful than Junpei. The VLR Nonary Game was structured (with all the AB game stuff) to train Sigma and Phi's jumping abilities. Sigma receives information from other timelines in the true ending, but this ability is imperfect in terms of retaining memories from other timelines until you finish the rest of the game and develop Sigma's time jumping ability. From Sigma's perspective, there's a linear line, which an observer from outside would interpret as jumping back and forth in time. There's an AB round where if you ally, you're betrayed. Then you jump and pick Betray, and Sigma, after the other person allying this time, mutters something along the lines of "Weren't you supposed to betray?!", surprising himself too. In short, Sigma's abilities aren't consistent throughout VLR- they develop as you solve more and more and more rooms and mysteries. Tenmyouji and Clover are weaker espers compared to Sigma and Phi, so their strength gets channeled. Nothing in VLR suggests that Phi is more powerful- they are of equal capability, likely the reason why both of them can use their abilities at the same time. Although I don't remember much about Radical-6 strengthening esper powers, it doesn't immediately mean everyone would be as capable as Sigma or Phi. No single choice is affected solely by morality, feelings and particular circumstances do come into account. Not exactly sure how the vote-switching-in-the-same-round works, but I think it was with Phi and morphogenetic shenanigans were involved. You don't explain how that counts into everyone being allegedly out of character. Sigma does have beliefs, it's just that they don't differ all that greatly from the average altruistic person- when you betray Luna, he does feel heavy regret for example. The flowchart is based on choices YOU make, hence why they have two branches, ALLY and BETRAY. Not sure about the inconsistency of the virus myself. What do you mean, "how are they even communicating"? Everyone's brain is slowed down by root 6, so relative to each other they speak at the same tone. Sigma's age IS mentioned, several times. Not hard to imagine that cybernetic implants are common by 2028. Their moves wouldn't feel less restricted since the mental slowdown accounts for that, and the internal pressure of Rhizome-9 is suitable for living and thus, likely to be similar to the feeling of the Earth's air. They don't throw anything. That said, it is kinda weird that the stuff left out in the open doesn't easily float. Hmm. Akane's wishes are not just her own, her wish is to save the world, and she needs other espers for that. Not everything is "prearranged"- point E, ZTD's goal for the VLR cast, does not yet exist. It's the same reason as to why people in 999 claim Akane died, it's because the past needed to be tampered with. The difference between 999 and VLR timelines is that 999's bad endings create a paradox (Akane wasn't saved by Junpei, but is present in the new Nonary Game). Compared to those divergences, VLR and Point E's timelines can coexist. You seem to hate to see how the pieces of the puzzle that is the games' storyline fit together, impressive that you still like 999. For most people, that cathartic feeling of the game being a very intricately designed puzzle is what makes Zero Escape so amazing. edit: Think of it this way: Everything isn't "predetermined", instead, think of it as every single detail about the world and characters being an integral part of the story. Isn't that a beautiful thing? Moreover, according to ZE Wiki, people DO feel a bit weird due to being on the Moon. I think there was a bit of dialogue about this in the lounge somewhere.

everything (mostly everything) is explained within the confines of VLR's established universe and lore. and every. twist. is foreshadowable. I mostly said that cuz OP's complaints were about 'why didn't they just do this instead, or notice that sooner' or my personal favorite, timeline mechanics not making logical sense

I disagree. Those people have social lives with other faceless characters and whatnot. If you're anything like me, you're one of those background loners. Before the handsome, social and benevolent main character graces the loner with his presence and forces him to partake in increasingly harder social tasks until he gets completely brainwashed into becoming one of the mindless teenagers in the main character's social group. All this, of course, before the anime airs. And it eventually gets cancelled whilst in production. It never airs. That's our role.

The final rolls have been completed, and the winner has been crowned. I will be writing the chapter today and will polish it tomorrow, the release will be 18:00 CEST on saturday! The remaining 5 warriors are: Team Nosebleed: @Nebjula Team Down: @FinalChaos Team Kaguya: @gijimu, @greenshadow622, @Jade Make your leaders proud and die fight for them! Down is currently down for the count, (hah, puns ), Nosebleed and Kaguya are in the middle of a duel, and the remaining warriors are scattered. How will this end? (Dergonu wakes up in his bed and realizes it was all a dream?? ) Stay tuned to find out!

Well, I need to share with someone...so.. Confession: I fall in love She is an old friend of mine, she is pretty and she is overall awesome! \ / it is about month since we started to going out....every touch, every kiss is magical however....there is one little problem...she is getting married to another man in four weeks...and yes,I knew she was about to...so yesterday we had a talk and agreed we need to stop all this and "let's just be friends again".... I answered her with a smile but in truth I am crying af now , because I never loved anyone so much in my life So in the end, the amazing month with my beloved grill will cost me one friend and one heart...rip me...again .

Hey, welcome to the forum, nice to meet you! - Favorite VN Grisaia no kajitsu - Played nekopara and Sono Hana Yes! Someone who is doing it right! Hmm, recommendations. Just gonna list a few of my favorites. Katahane (Slightly old art, but the game is amazing) G-senjou no Maou Maji de watashi ni koishinasai Eden* Planetarian

My life is just like the life of countless anime protagonists who go to classes everyday and have boring everyday events and want to continue their peaceful, uninterrupted lifestyle. Minus the harem, the looks, the positivity, and success in general.

My hopes and dreams are crushed, but at least I still have my H.

Alpha's Adventures is now live on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1847704475/alphas-adventures-an-adult-yuri-visual-novel Please check it out and help spread the word/consider supporting it if you can! Synopsis Follow Alpha as she changes herself and others across 4 unique routes. The setup differs from most visual novels in that there is no common route - you simply pick the heroine of your choice from a selection screen and enjoy their self-contained story. Completing all of the heroine's endings allows you to unlock Alpha's and ??? shared route. Project overview I plan to launch a kickstarter so that I can finish (and if stretch goals are met, extend) this project. I'm aiming for an early January 2017 launch date, which is also when I will release the demo I am currently working on. The demo will cover a portion of each heroine's route. Links Out http://officeryou.tumblr.com/ https://twitter.com/officer_you Information -3 heroine routes -3 choices per heroine route -Each heroine has 2 endings -1 unlockable character/route for completing every ending -10+ CG's -For 18+ only (will contain scenes of an intimate nature and themes some may find distressing) Main Character Heroines Side characters (stretch goal exclusive) ??? CG Previews With all of that said and done, I welcome any and all feedback and questions! *Except the kind of questions that invite spoilers, of course.

Seeing how much I enjoyed Kara no Shoujo I just couldn't keep my hands off the sequel. KnS2 is going to be my entertainment for the weekend. So far I read the prologue/Hitogata part. It was surprisingly interesting, although somewhere in the middle I almost forgot I was reading KnS. Still I really enjoyed the chemistry between the children and the secluded village had it's own pretty cool atmosphere. I really wouldn't have minded reading more about that. If I had to complain about something, then why wasn't Nanako&Naori a thing. But yeah, it's still nice to get back to the normal flow of the game. I heard the investigation systems were improved, so looking forward to that. And voiced Reiji, and more Yukari... Also, damn KnS2 is pretty. Graphics aren't that important to me in VNs, but what can I say. Really beautiful art is just really damn beautiful.

I have no idea where to post it, and new thread is a little overkill. But Neko vol 3 is coming probably this year. Oh, and sales are over 500k now.

I was going to suggest me. Anyway, I vote for Victor Frankenstein. He was my favorite character out of all the well-known characters of Frankenstein.

Victor Frankenstein looks kinda hot. I'd do him

The second one. The twists are what make you wow at the game, but everything, mostly on 999 is made for you to feel the twists were something natural. The whole experience is good, or even excelent, which would make a good story even without twists. And you have to consider how the creator, in general, loves twists. See Ever17 as the biggest example.

Changed my avatar to something more... edgy, so to say Hope you enjoy it as much as I do

Found a third one. That one sounds Italian.

kay,i'll try to do it !

VN is nice, I am reading demo right now, and I like it. Good easy to read text, creepy atmosphere of mysterious old castle, actually quite unique sprite graphics (alas resulted in male character look too girly). So will tell, what I think after I finish the demo, but so far very good vibes from this one.

You must put a big SPOILER SPOILER alert, as you spoiled everything for anyone who did not played the game. Do it ASAP, before you spoiled one of the few decent plot twists to someone who did not played it yet. This is not a review at all, this is more like plot and character analysis.

hey ! its my role ! D:

Win10 has one big advantage at least in comparison to Win7. You can DPI scale the screen on the fly which works like an image zoom. This is very convenient if you're playing Japanese VN's with a text hooker. Since you can't use fullscreen mode for those because you need the translation window next to it, the VN windows get often very small because they use rather low resolutions. In this case you can set DPI scaling to something like 125% to increase the window sizes. I use that with Lovely & Cation to get its Window almost to full screen size. Since it's a 4:3 resolution game, there's still perfect space for the translation window next to it. Though newer titles often don't need such tricks. The Walkure Romanze series or AliceSoft's new Tsumamigui 3 for example use either high resolution art assets and/or very good scaling methods so that their windows can simply be resized to higher resolutions.

Hey, you promised it is gonna be my role!

I spy something I gave you. Yet another victim to the "Ren bought you stuff" festival. I hope you enjoy my alpha dominance.

I should actually buy a bookcase, but for now this will do.

The main idea is being able to do the other side routes, since you don't have enough turns on your first Koihime playthrough.

Hello and welcome! as for recommendations I'd say Noble Works Princess Evangile Maji de Watashi ni Koishinasai! Dracu-Riot! Hoshizora no Memoria Coμ - Kuroi Ryuu to Yasashii Oukoku - Euphoria Kara no Shoujo ep 1 & 2 Cartagra Those are just some of my favorites, best of luck and hope to see you around

The osananajimi girl I grew up alongside that I pretended to dislike and we didn't see each other through our early teen years - when we met up again I fell for her and we got married and lived happily ever after. It does actually happen...

Back when I was in highschool (a long time ago), I was the only guy in a class of 12. That is all - nothing interesting happened.

Much sadness. I'll miss Igor's voice D: Also, the best thing about this second trailer: I can finally rest easy, more characters for the party than just the initial 4 confirmed. No idea if ATLUS said anything these past months... and it was supposedly "obvious"... but you never know, eh?

Also, spelling... my suggestion is that you add a spellchecker to your browser, if you are going to post in English-speaking forums...

You are pretty severely mistaken about various plot points. There are very good reasons why they occurred. Unfortunately, I can't go into details without massive spoilers. Also, a lot of Root A's events are more important than they seem. There's a ton of subtle foreshadowing in particular. Root A is fairly different from the rest of the VN, so how much you enjoyed it isn't terribly representative of how much you'll like the remaining parts of the story. They strongly prioritize characterization and world-building over suspense. That said, I would recommend getting all of Root A's heroine scenes before moving on. They have some valuable information and contribute a bit to characterization (though all three characters get much more development later on). The normal ending is also a must-read.

Welcome to the forums! Hope you enjoy your stay! Good luck with your VN! Have a moe:

There should be a thread just for horrible puns like this Btw this is the first image you get when you google 'bad puns'

You people are cray-cray, food talk is awesome. I could make, eat and talk about food all day.

Fk Decay, I almost spit out my drink, goddamn I forgot how hilarious Makina's H-scenes were ~~ Finished Van Helsing's route in Code Realize This fker was so hard to break. Throughout all of the secret organization conspiracy plots and the "I don't deserve happiness" self pitying and the RAWRRRMUSTHAVEMYREVENGE!@# going on in this route, these two steadily build their relationship from mutual alliance to "i guess this person's pretty cool, especially compared to all the other pricks I met in my sad, lonely life" to "WE'RE NOT FRIENDS!@#" and finally the following l0lromancelogic: Ya asshole, she loves you and you love her, so stop trying to pull the whole "best way to protect each other is to distance ourselves" and go fight the world together!@# POWER OF LOVE!!!1 Though, to be fair, Cardia can die on plenty of occasions; this game has a lot of 50/50 "in the moment" choices during combat scenes ._. so his worries are justified.

Onto Chapter 9 Code Realize This shit is pretty entertaining, during this entire quest to find out more about Cardia's mysterious past, her father Isaac, and the eternal heart Horologium engraved on her chest, we go on train abduction missions, lethal air balloon races, raid Queen Victoria's ceremony, and have all these tense confrontations between iconic names (Frankenstein vs. Queen Victoria, Lupin vs. Sherlock Holmes, Impey vs. Nemo, Van Helsing vs. Pseudo-Dracula's kid, and even Cardia herself will get a shocker confrontation against the game's main antagonist). And now my Cardia just got kidnapped by Jack the Ripper. like wtf, HALP!@# e: do not resist, 'less you want a Red Screen of Death ;-;

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/baltimore-tv-station-evacuated-after-man-in-lobby-claims-to-have-bomb/ What the fuck Baltimore. Confession: i'm getting better at cooking every day. I would probably starve if i never learned how to.

I was so annoyed with my name being taken on reddit when I tried to claim it a very, very long time ago that I have never registered a reddit user as a result. Seriously, who else in the world wants this name?

I'll add 2 categories to myself because im important like that 1. The Pretender The guy that always seem to know what VN you're talking about either translated or untranslated and acts like he has read em all, but in reality hasnt read a lot. Also pretend to be one of the cool JP guys while slacking off and guessing what the JP vns are about in the prologues with jparser. 2. 2edgy4u does it have guro? check. Does it make people feel really uncomfortable? check. this guy wanna read everything that people wont otherwise touch, totally disregarding actual quality for cheap shockvalue

Had to smuggle some illegal MOE over President Trump's new wall!