Leaderboard

Just letting everyone know that, from now on: Requests for walkthroughs or threads with nothing more than a link to other walkthroughs should be tagged with [REQUEST] in the title, and should not have 'walkthrough' in the title, so as to not create false hope or confuse internet searches.

I guess it's both counter-intuitive and kind of depressing, but I don't see another answer unless we include a concept of soul (in some form). I mean, just a small experiment: how much you can control what you're thinking? How much do you control how you react to things? You make "choices" every other moment, but are you enacting your free will, or are just your past experiences, present incentives, subconcious codes of conduct and reflexes (etc. etc.), all coded in the form of neural networks and electrical currents in your brain, coming together to create an action? The answer is irrelevant anyways. Our lives are liniar stories, with just one set of circumstaces we'll encouter and exacly one set of actions we'll perform in reaction to them (multiverse theories aside, but even those are about random chance rather than some methaphysical concept of self-determined actors). Alternative universes exist in books and our imaginations, they may even haunt us, but that doesn't make them any more real or our actions any more independent. Moral systems exist to give us the incentives to do the right things, not to give us salvation. Moral judgment, both external or internalized, exists to dissuade us from causing harm to others or breaking the accepted order of things. I personally find this vision way more clean and appealing than some higher plains of existance where our consciousness would reside, above the obvious limitations of the material world. That would make the whole thing utterly confusing.

Just a general idea: shouldn't this thread be pinned instead of all those super-outdated compilations? It's kind of a core part of the forums... Anyway, to the topic. I was actually reading quite a few things lately, even though it doesn't show very much in my VNDB. I've finished the route I once skipped in Fragment's Note, Misha's (the deredere childhood friend) and read all the three arcs of After Stories. It's one of the very few genuine mobile JVNs (that is, counting those that actually tell stories and not the microtransaction-riddled messes just masquerading as VNs) that were translated into English and I can't really decide what to think about it. The main intrigue is quite cool and I like most of the characters, but there are just no limits to how dumb and repetitive this VN can get. The stepsister's and childhood friend's routes are nearly identical, the drama showing up after the main plot is resolved is utterly idiotic and drags on for an eternity. But I still kind of can't force myself to hate it, especially when reading it leisurely on my phone. After Stories were nice to read mostly because they skipped on serious drama and just focused on the protagonist and the heroine of your choice figuring out what their relationship should be like. And in the end, two things are certain: Eri is the best girl (she starts as a bit of a confused moron, but I think a slightly-traumatized teen could easily end up being that way – at least she has an actual personality) and Misha is annoying as f*** when she's not in a supporting role. But also, even if I'm reading through an utterly mediocre series, I find it impossible to not feel some connection to the characters and to not enjoy the whole thing more and more over time (well, Sakura MMO might be an exception, but that's beside the point...). I'm slowly starting to get into Fragment's Note 2 and I think I'll enjoy it even if it repeats most of the sins of the original – also because every VN reads better when it's your only entertainment during a long, boring bus ride... I've also finished reading No One But You and well, it was entertaining for all the wrong reasons. I have a review of it more or less ready and it will show up soon, but damn, I'm sometimes amazed by what kind of monstrosities VN writers can produce. I think I've lost like 10% of my brain cells reading through Shiro's and Megumi's routes. Also had a bitter laugh after learning that ebi-hime wrote Chinatsu's route (it was okay-ish, way above the ones I've already mentioned for sure), not only getting involved in this trainwreck but also having her nick misspelt as "ebi-himi" in the credits. And continuing with ebi-hime, I went back to reading The Language of Love, happily reminding myself what a mature work by a talented writer looks like. It's utterly mundane in its flow and themes, but still manages to be original by tackling the kind of everyday scenarios and characters that aren't usually a part of VN's romantic fantasy, with a struggling single mother and a screw-up in his mid-twenties being at the center of it all. Also, it gave me that awkward moment of realization, that even these unusually old VN lead characters are still six-seven years younger than me. When did that happen?

Yeah, once you start going this way, it becomes strangely addictive.

Yeah, I am aware of those problems. That's why I am hoping that if it indeed gets localized, then someone capable of delivering the prose would be working on it. I wish you luck in any case No matter how slow, it's always more fun to read the work at hand in its original language.

Trust your instincts next time?

Could not agree more with this assessment of Tsui Yuri, tbh. The bad endings are entertaining, at least.

I'm glad you're gonna give it a try I'm jelly. Maybe I should read it too, although my JP skills are still shit. I was kinda holding back from it because I believe it's gonna get licensed. It's a title I see loc companies fighting to get licensed (even though sales-wise it'd probably fare as well as this masterpiece is doing at the moment). That's fair. Sometimes H-scenes feel forced and make no sense to be in the places they are. But there are VNs where I can't forgive the lack of H-scenes, forced or not. As you said, it depends on the story, how it's written, etc. I think I only read one VN so far where I didn't feel bothered enough to grab the adult release... and that VN is Dies irae. For me, the all ages release of it was a masterpiece enough. Well, for the all-ages portable one, you would have to read it in JP. But seeing how you managed to complete Mashiro Iro Symphony just fine, I know you wouldn't have any trouble completing DameKoi in JP too.

Well, I think I'll manage somehow Recently I finished PC version of Mashiro Iro Symphony, and I loved it - including most of the h-scenes (I'll write more about it once I complete additional routes from the console version) So yeah, there are games where I prefer all-ages version, and the ones, when adult version feels better. It depends on how the scenes are written, and how they fit into the story. But I still cannot decide which version of DameKoi to get - adult one from MG, or all-ages portable one (it's hookable from the emulator).

Seems there's no all-ages release for it. At least its VNDB page doesn't show anything. How are you gonna survive an adult release of it? xD

There's also a Mahokoi which I've played but that was terrible, so it's probably better it remains forgotten.

So I decided to take a detour from playing genuinely well made vns and play some trash instead This is the trash I ended up playing The only real entertaining part of it were the bad endings, those were some good ole wholesome fun I rate it: Kinda toilet/10

But isn't that concept coming mostly from before people had any understanding of how human brain works? It's kind of hard to treat "motivations" as anything more than another form of stimuli, just "internal" one rather than "external". You still approach every situation with one set of internal motivations and external stimuli, resulting in some kind of action – not "predetermined" by some cosmic influence, but determined by this incredibly complex net of factors that are fully beyond your control. It's pretty inconvenient for most ethical systems, but still, it's hard to escape.

https://imgur.com/a/RBDOnJn Special thanks to @Sonikun4 on Twitter for archiving his current Rewrite readthrough on Twitter through screenshots.