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Showing content with the highest reputation on 12/25/17 in all areas

  1. First, a short intro... this is the second Clock Up game where Kurashiki Tatsuya (one of Light's second team of writers) has been involved, and those who played the previous one, Maggot Baits, will recognize the atmosphere and 'flavor' of the story instantly. This is a game devoid of salvation in any real sense. The protagonist and the other characters are universally the scum of the Earth (Mirei being the only exception, though she is a bit screwy too), and their lifestyles and pasts range from the distasteful to the outright disgusting. While there are relatively few of the violent h-scenes that defined Maggot Baits, they do exist, so I do feel a need to warn you that a lot of the content in this game is graphic and not for those with a weak stomach. The protagonist (who never reveals his true name in the entire story) is a professional killer who needs to kill people in order to sleep (it is more interesting if you read it yourself, so I won't go into detail). One day, he gets the order to investigate/find the killer of a paparazzi killed at the love hotel at which he works most of the time. What he finds is... Azami, a serial killer, whom he gets into combat with immediately. The end result of the battle is them having sex... and her getting obsessed with/attached to him. He returns the obsession in part due to the fact that, after having sex with her, he can sleep. I'll be blunt, there is no point in this game where the characters can really be said to 'shine'. There are three endings, two of which are different based on how the protagonist pursues his relationship with Azami. The final path, the true path, brings their relationship to the final stage (visibly inevitable, if you get to know Azami), and you are presented by a predictably depressing ending. This game has excellent writing, which goes without saying really, since it is done by Kurashiki Tatsuya. However, the unending dark atmosphere that infuses the story is energy-draining in the extreme. This is made worse by this general sense that the game is just trying to say 'humans are worthless' throughout its entire length. While the battle scenes are excellent, there were too many points in the story where cruel turns of event occurred simply to push things forward or to titillate the reader. This was true of Maggot Baits as well, but this game lacks the 'sort of good ending' you saw in that one, which gave you a sense of satisfaction, even if it was only in comparison to the rest of the game.
    6 points
  2. 2017 has been a pretty cool year in terms of VN releases. I'm not even close to Clephas' level of reading, so I have only scratched the surface of what was released this year, but I did still read what I think is a pretty decent chunk of VNs, and now that the year is coming to a close, I'd like to go through some those games and talk about which ones I liked the most etc. This blog post will only cover NEW releases in 2017. I might make a separate blog post about VNs that weren't released in 2017, but that I still read this year later on. I started the year with Ryuu Kishi Bloody Saga, a cool fantasty game by Akabeisoft 3. The prequel to this game was a dark nukige-ish story, which didn't really impress me. But, Ryuu Kishi went into a completely different direction, and ended up being a really entertaining read. I wrote a blog post about Ryuu Kishi around the time I finished it, so I'll link that here if anyone wants to read it. Summing up though, Ryuu Kishi is a good fantasty VN, with great action scenes, an interesting plot, and good romance. (With a functional harem aspect, which was interesting.) It's by no means a kamige, but it was definitely among the better games released this year in my opinion. After this I played a few games, but none of them were anything special. Amanatsu Adolescence had some aspects I liked, but fell flat on its face with the heroine routes, which was disappointing. The next game worth mentioning is Majo to Tsurugi to Sen no Tsuki. This was my first time playing one of Kai's Mahou Shoujo games, and the only reason I picked this one up was because Ban'ya had helped write it. (I love Ban'ya's stuff.) The game honestly blew me away. I'm not saying it's a kamige or anything, (not by a long shot,) but considering that this is meant to be a nukige, it really went beyond my expectations. The story was legitimately interesting, the characters were great and the writing was satisfying. Reading this game made me interested in checking out the rest of the works in the series, which I'll get around to reading at some point. Hopefully they are similar in structure, as I took quite the liking to the way this game's structure. You basically have a nukige with a story, where making the right choices lets you skip most of the H-scenes, and move through the true route. But, if you make the wrong choice, you are thrown down "bad routes", filled with bad endings and H-scenes. So, depending on what mood you're in, you can choose what type of game you're playing, essentially. (There are of course still a decent number of H-scenes in the true route, but the bulk of them are in the bad routes.) My review of this game can be found here, on Clephas' blog. Now, next on the list is Chrono Box, and well, I'm just going to come out and say it right away: This game is amazing. It's without a doubt one of my favorite VNs of all time. Actually, it's tied for 1st place with the ChuSinGura series. I went into the game without knowing much about the story, and I got sucked into the game right away, finishing the whole thing in about 4-5 days. (Considering it's a rather hard game to read in Japanese, that's pretty crazy fast for me.) The ratings on VNDB aren't the best, which is to be expected tbh. It's a hard game to read, and it's a denpa game where every single small detail matters. I'd imagine a chunk of VNDB votes comes from people who try reading JP games with machine translations, and well, that is not recommended for this game. In fact, there are many parts of the game that cannot be hooked, as they are either in image files in the game itself, or in voiced lines without any text. In addition, it's a game with some pretty dark content here and there, and I know some people just rate games badly because of that. (This is a story driven mystery/denpa game, and similar to SubaHibi, all the dark elements are there for a reason, driving the story forward.) I don't mean to come off as an elitist saying "EOP's opinions doesn't matter!" here, by the way. I do think the difficulty of the game, and the content in it might have caused a bit of a change in the votes from English readers, though. In comparison, the game is rated very highly on EGS, being #23 of the whole year so far, (and it also has a rather high amount of votes, in comparison to some games above it on the list, which just has a handful. Like, seriously, 2 of the games on the list only have 5-6 votes, kek.) Overall, this is just a fantastic read. I strongly recommend it to anyone who can read it. It truly just blew my mind. If you ARE going to read it, do yourself a favor: Do NOT look up anything about it. No CGs, no story summaries, no nothing. Just go in blind, and enjoy the ride. Seriously, you have no idea what's in store for you. Moving on from Chrono Box, we have Pure Song Garden, the first "normal" charage I played this year that I feel deserves a spot among the "better" releases I've read in 2017. This is Pulltop's newest "club-themed game", similar to Konosora and Miagete Goran, focusing on a future world where AI and VR has become an important part of our lives. It has fantastic romance, (in the true route at least; I have to admit, I skipped the other routes for the true route. It was all I wanted,) the story is surprisingly good, and the characters aren't just stereotypes, like they tend to be in similar games. Suzu and Iroha, the characters with the main focus in the true route, definitely makes the game worth it by themselves. The MC also isn't bad, though I do wish they added a bit more to his backstory. They introduced an interesting conflict with him, which just kind of resolved itself rather quickly, something that irked me a bit. But, definitely a solid game overall. You can read more of my opinions on the game here, on Clephas' blog. Finally we have Biman 4. This was my first Biman title, and I didn't really know what to expect of the game. And honestly, I was blown away by it. The writing was fantastic, and felt nearly poetic at times, even. The drama was well handled, and some of the scenes made me take a break from the game for a bit, as they made me feel so many different emotions. These scenes were so well done. At the end of the day, the game is still a nukige, and I won't call it a kamige or anything, but man, this game is so much more than first meets the eye. Almost makes me sad that it's a nukige, as there could have been even more potential there had it been a little longer, and a little more story focused. Either way, this is another truly good VN that I strongly recommend people read. Also, it's completely possible to read it without having read the other Biman games, just like I did. You can read some more details about my opinion on the game here, on Clephas' blog. Overall, this has been a great year with many solid releases. My backlog still has a good chunk of the games that came out this year, many of which might have made it on this list, if I had the time to read them. But, oh well. I'm still happy with the amount of VNs I got done this year, and look forward to seeing what 2018 has in store for us.
    4 points
  3. havoc

    Merry Kurisu-masu

    merry Christmas. I i find out i only have about one true Christmas picture on my pc.
    2 points
  4. Merry combo breaker! If I can't get my combos to work, then nobody else will!
    2 points
  5. Mr Poltroon

    Merry Kurisu-masu

    Happy Christmas. It just occurred to me I barely have any images on my computer, so why the hell would I have Christmas themed ones? Oh, I have an idea:
    2 points
  6. This one will change your life: https://vndb.org/v13259
    1 point
  7. I think that's enough recommendations for now, so instead I'll just answer this question. As for this release, there's no Sigma because she was PSV exclusive character, and it was just recently released (At this year). Tokeijikake translation effort was already started since back at 2013, so there's no way that there'll be PSV port to PC there. Hope it could answer your question.
    1 point
  8. Heh, okay. Bring your worst!
    1 point
  9. The first line is there for reference. The second line is what you'll want to translate/edit, and that line will be filtered for insertion.
    1 point
  10. Leyline is a trilogy. Wait for the other two to be released before you binge it. (Early next year)
    1 point
  11. Now, now are you ready for the feats of strength?
    1 point
  12. *Grabs pitchfork* I show you something funny. A burning stake! I'm totally joking though
    1 point
  13. @Infernoplex The codepage conversion warning probably means ahdprc is using cp936. You'll need to change it to 932 by editing the tool's source code and compile it again. The number shows up twice in the tool code. Character's names in this game are prefixed with %LF instead of %LC, so ahdprc wasn't picking them up. Again, that'll require editing the tool and recompiling. wpscrpt.cpp, line 50: change 'C' to 'F' wpscrpt.cpp, line 82: change "%LC" to "%LF" When the text is extracted, the character name will appear next to the line number within the script.
    1 point
  14. Here's Miagete 1st opening, and it's the original version instead of MoeNovel version. Despite the censorship, I find that the opening was pretty good there and like it. Enjoy.
    1 point
  15. I think this one fits the bills. Just got an english release a few days ago
    1 point
  16. Seems like you want a semi-chuuni romance (that is happy). Try Gakthun, which is very slice of lifey, while being mostly happy and it has some fantasy elements. Princess Waltz and 11 eyes, also fit what you are looking for, though they aren't great tbh Most of the games I play have horrible, horrible shit happen to the characters (I still cant get over the Cartagra bad endings), but these ones are at least mostly happy.
    1 point
  17. Finished all three paths in about seven hours... and that was despite reading more carefully than I need to with moege/charage.
    1 point
  18. Ranzo

    Merry Kurisu-masu

    Merry actual Christmas nanoda!
    1 point
  19. Bump this thread, and sorry for the unpleasant news that I'll write here. Just saw some screenshot in regard of both Sekai releases, and let's just said that their release was still have some fault because there's still some untranslated text. Here's the screenshots below courtesy of Hainiryuun for Tokeijikake below, and his Tweet just in case the examples below was not convincing enough. No example from Hoshimemo here, but yeah it got same untranslated text problem as well. What I could say is that while Sekai did a good job to have them released both of 18+ and DLC version - in which Pulltop could actually do the same for the overseas release like that, unfortunately the untranslated text here was an issue that we couldn't simply ignored here because it might caused the new player to be uncomfortable. Also there's a fact that it even make one of the most vocal supporter who usually defend Sekai very hard gave up in regard of this problem, so in short this is a big issue if this problem caused the trust one of the most vocal supporter to be shattered. In the end, I just hope that Sekai will address this problem, no matter what.
    1 point
  20. just follow what binaryfail said, he cover all of your needs to do the translation...
    1 point
  21. After the initial extraction from the ws2, the tool gives you a text file and a bin file. In most cases, you can leave the bin file alone. Here's a how-to if you want it.
    1 point
  22. HMN

    My Favorite VN Releases of 2017

    You better read Senshinkan by the end of 2018 or I’ll be a disappointed otouto!
    1 point
  23. MaggieROBOT

    Merry Kurisu-masu

    Since Poltroon already broke the S;G combo, I'm putting a 2B pic here! Merry Christmaaaaaaaaaaas~~~~~
    1 point
  24. Usami is voiced by Kawashima Rino so she instantly becomes best girl for me.
    1 point
  25. I think Catgirls and WolfBoys would prolly be the best mix for everyone. yep, definitely.
    1 point
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