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Showing content with the highest reputation on 07/13/21 in all areas

  1. Mehnot

    What are you playing?

    I recently read 'Kotonoha Amrilato'. The premise is as simple as it is intriguing: Rin, a regular japanese high-schooler, suddenly finds herself in a bizarre version of her own world after buying taiyaki at a stall on the street. This world is, for the most part, almost identical to her world, but a couple of remarkable aspects stand out: the sky appears to have a pink hue no matter the time of the day (yes, even at night), and all the signs and posters on the street are written in a weird language, whose writing system sort of resembles the roman alphabet albeit with noticeable differences as well. As you would expect, Rin starts to panic after failing to establish proper communication when trying to ask people on the street for help. Eventually she runs into this young girl, Ruka, who for some reason can speak a smattering of broken Japanese. Ruka then decides to help her out and offers Rin her apartment to stay the night. First of all, the main focus of this VN is on the struggle to communicate between Rin and Ruka. Most of the text, aside from Rin's inner monologue which is obviously in Japanese/English, is actually in Juliamo, the language of this world... which is actually proper and completely grammatical Esperanto (as a matter of fact they had the help of the JEI, or Japanese Esperanto Institute, to develop this VN), and a translation won't be provided at least on your first playthrough. The reader is expected to feel as lost as Rin does, and to slowly learn the language along with her. A big chunk of your gameplay time will be spent on an in-game Duolingo of sorts. Now, you technically don't need to do well in your tests to procede with the story, and you could theoretically ignore all the language learning stuff. However, the payoff when you are able to understand Rin and Ruka's conversations in Juliamo is huge. It's akin to the very satisfying feeling you get when you are learning a new language and it starts to click, condensed in a ~15h VN. Language things aside, Kotonoha Amrilato, as the name implies (Amrilato is an Esperanto compound word made up of the root 'am-', related to love, and 'rilato', which means relationship, so literally, 'love relationship') is a romance between these two girls who can barely even talk to each other. Their clumsy efforts are endearing and are sure to warm your heart. The world is also very cleverly constructed and, even though due to its short length it can't spare the time to go tackle the small details, it always feels consistent and believable. It won't be a huge burden on your suspension of disbelief, is what I'm trying to say, barring the fundamental isekai premise, that is. Speaking of which... yeah! this is technically a yuri isekai! Now, I can't claim to have read an insane amount of VNs or having watched a crazy number of anime, but I have the feeling that this combination of genres is not particularly common. Anyway, the bottom line is, this is one of the most unique VNs I've read. Would I recommend it to everyone? Definitely not. This is only for people who are interested in communication and language (not necessarily Esperanto, as that is just an easy vehicle the VN picked to tell its story: don't expect Esperantist culture) and don't mind to put in the effort just the same way our protagonist does. I would say that if you are big into yuri you should still enjoy it nonetheless, but really, you can only get the whole magical experience this little gem has to offer with some active hard work on your part.
    3 points
  2. It's not. I believe it's with Nekonyan. As for your question, specifically, there was a leak of the official tl, so you can play it if you want...
    1 point
  3. I was suspecting it to be a cover but Yura is credited as the author for both melody and lyrics, so it's maybe just subtle(?) influences. Indonesian popculture in general seem pretty heavily influenced by Japanese stuff/going in similar direction over the years. Like, when I asked Ayunda Risu on a stream a few days ago if she has any music recommendation she said there's tons of Indonesian city pop-style music from the 80's. I only started digging into it, but there are even playlists on Spotify explicitly called that and the sounds are indeed pretty close. BTW, @littleshogun, do you have any ID music recs for us?
    1 point
  4. They're all waiting for me, since I got a job my time is gone, at least for now.
    1 point
  5. Eclipsed

    What are you playing?

    @adam good to hear. Umi is already high up in my first impression best girls. Which, jeez, ever since Hoshimemo's Chinami I thought I would never like the younger relative heroine type but lately it looks like thats becoming one of my forbidden yum yums. I still want that character route, as unneeded as it may be, and in general I ended up deciding to wait for Reflection Blue more 'cuz I know I'm gonna feel really ehhhhhhh going through the entirety of vanilla Summer Pockets solely due to Osborne Effect @storm Hoh... I looked at the VNDB tags of Summer Pockets. And Nakige is apparently one of them ;-; ~~ I finished "Episode One" of Himawari; apparently the VN is broken into multiple episodes, dunno how many. First, I get to nitpick the scenario writer who did Himawari and Island. Even though technically these two VNs are almost a decade apart, old habits die hard I guess and they do the same destiny-like "yo this girl looks so damn familiar, just who is she?!" meeting l0l Oh god please don't let her end up being what Rinne ended up being LOL We have amnesiac high school male protagonist with a passion for space Youichi meet fellow amnesiac Aries after she crash landed into the area via UFO, prompting Youichi and his bromate Ginga, president of the school Space Club (complete with S;G Okabe chuuni personality), to start pondering about all sorts of wild theories as to her origin and purpose. Is she an alien? Are MIBs going to show up eventually to cover things up? For the meantime, Youichi decides to shelter Aries. Aries turns out to be surprisingly normal and not alien- she's innocent, naive, childlike. The days go by peacefully... Y'know, sometimes I laugh at how in the VN realms, characters spend only like a few days or like a week together and all of a sudden that's enough for them to act like they've known each other for entire lifetimes >.> And then, an actual MIB- or should I say, WIB, appears! Just who is Aries, really? Aqua's hawt. Even better? She's voiced by the same VA as ISLAND's Rinne- Yukari, who has been my flavor of the month guilty pleasure nowadays. Even better? In Episode Two of Himawari she- Space (and sunflowers) is the highlight topic of choice in this VN, and Youichi's dream is to make it to the moon. There was an unfortunate rocket launch accident that happened in the town 2 years ago, and this incident is treated as the crux of all issues- it's the source of Youichi's amnesia, which will probably lead into more GOTCHA! revelations regarding Youichi, Aries, and the town's past. Btw, I'm getting a nasty case of the "it's a small world", cuz like I just went through CLANNAD recently, and Aries is flippin' voiced by the same VA as FUKO ISOGAIIIII. GODDAMIT. CAN'T TAKE HER SERIOUSLY NOW. Guess that VA is the go to for childlike heroines. And another jab at creator's stagnating creativity: Aqua and Karin are clones
    1 point
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