Leaderboard

I originally read Crescendo nearly 20 years ago at the time of writing this review, and I decided to reread it. The only thing I could clearly remember going into the reread was that I got emotional during the first read. Well...it's still got it. I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoys a well written pretty believable emotional story. There are some topics touched on that will upset some people. If you're sensitive to the following you may want avoid this VN: moderate to heavy spoilers very heavy spoiler Systems are about as standard as you'd expect from a VN that was released in the early 00's. The OST is actually really good and uses many Scott Joplin classical songs. Voice acting was also pretty good, especially given the age of the VN. Only frustrations really come from it being 640x480 so it's either in a small window or a weird full screen unless you upscale it yourself - which I would recommend doing using something like magpie if you have a larger monitor. The writing here is good with no real lulls in the story, so even though it's a 10 or so hour read, there's not really any wasted fluff reading. A lot of the story is told through flashbacks as the characters recall their time in high school as they (MC and some heroines) are graduating in a few days. I personally appreciated this storytelling method as it also helped give a sense of time passing through the various stories rather than everything just being done in a whirlwind 4 days. Characters are believeable in their motivations and actions, which brings weight to the story. I personally enjoyed every heroine, but they each had their flaws as well, which just made them feel more human. I'm not going to go into the routes themselves in detail as they would be difficult to discuss completely spoiler free. I don't really think there's any obvious outlier routes in regards to writing quality present in Crescendo, all of the routes are well written and have their arguments. For those of you wondering how sad it gets on the nakige / utsuge front to help you decide whether you want to read it: I'd recommend this VN to anyone who likes well written emotional stories.

Welcome to this week VNTS Review. For this week since we have Momiji's route from Ginharu started being worked on I decided to use the title 'Silver Colored Faraway', and of course it's the fourth time I used the titling hence 'Track 4' word here. I'll explain more on the title at PS later, so let me say that the second part of the title was taken from one of Kanon 2006 title specifically episode 4 (Holiday Caprice) which to say was quite a coincidence here. As for this week while my focus here is more on Ginharu, we have four nukige released with two of those are quite dark in that both of those contain several extreme sex scenes. We also have Noraneko sequel being announced, which to say was not quite interested here mainly because it's more like FD to me and not to mention being censored. Let's see what I can write for this week as well. About Amayakase here while it's good that JAST was quickly released this as soon as it's announced, it's just too bad that it's not quite interesting to me because when it come to nukige I would prefer them to work on Yamizome. Although in case you like to have silver haired cousin who like to take care of you including the sexual need, then feel free to play Amayakase here and have fun. There's Magical MILF from Cherry Kiss as well, in which we'll going to have five housewives who is the former magical group are about to fight the evil that was return with the risk of being raped. While I secretly hoping that we'll getting more magical girl VN and that Magical MILF sort of fulfill my wish, I can't say that I like the design because their breast is too big and it distract the costumes here. I know that the premise is to have very big breast magical girl, but when it come to the big breast magical girl I prefer Hijiri of Gendou Rinne. Anyway you can get Magical MILF if you've been interested with it and have fun. We have Harukaze did release Noraneko 2 English demo back at 23rd, and obviously it mean that we'll going to have Noraneko 2 translated. Let's just say that even if for example Harukaze release it properly, I think I wouldn't take an interest to this because it's pretty much amounted to FD here even though Harukaze did treat this as the sequel. While there's still no word from Fruitbat in regard of no sex scenes, I think it's should be pretty obvious that it'll be censored just like first Noraneko seeing that they once again credited the VA with their real name instead of the alias. In any case let's just treat this as another censored release from Harukaze and move on, although if you interested with it keep in mind that it probably will be out at November later. We have Mangagamer released Maggot Baits in which if we knew is full of disturbing rape. While Mangagamer CEO Kouryuu who also the one who translated the VN promote it as the love story, I can only say that there's several VN with love story that have significantly less number of disturbing rape, so if you want some love story and hate disturbing rape contents then you shouldn't force yourself to play Maggot Baits. In any case, you can get it if you didn't mind the disturbing contents and have fun. If anything at least the opening song of Maggot Baits here is pretty cool and it's English song instead of usual Japanese. Almost forget to mention that since Mangagamer released Maggot Baits, it mean that they'll announce the date for their next release and in this case it's Funbag Fantasy 2 in which it'll be released at November 21st later. Also judging from on how they already have the release build for Impoara 3 ready, perhaps it's safe to say that Mangagamer will release it at December later. About Annerose, what I can say is that the release was quite sudden and that VN is another dark nukige from Black Lilith. The premise is that we'll going to have a very weak looking MC who work for a very arrogant female detective witch with the name Annerose (Title drop), who if we know Black Lilith nukige enough will suffer a lot of rape and mind break (At least it's not as disturbing as Maggot Baits, but it's something to keep in mind). Well you can get Annerose if you show some interest to Black Lilith nukige, and have fun. For the rest of fan translation usual updates we have Harugi was regressed to 53% translated because apparently the team find the new translator and the new translator decided to retranslate the whole Branch, Miotsukushi Omote was at 39% translated, Loverable was at 69.72% edited, and Eustia was at 79.59% translated with Eustia's chapter was at 63.80% translated. For the last update from fan translation, we have Trip managed to translated 7.87% of Momiji's route (Which is at around 3,119 lines) and that's bring overall Ginharu to be at 45.34% translated. We also have Irru finally tell us that the work for Bethly's patch is almost finished, so we may have Bethly's patch at this weekend later (ie Saturday or Sunday) if all goes well. In any case, I'll look forward to Bethly's patch release here. That's all for this week VNTS Review, and see you next week PS - As for the second half of the title, I use 'Caprice' out of all song term in Kanon 2006 episodes because it's the one that fit Momiji the most here, seeing that she like fantasy story and all. For the translation notes here, the Japanese for caprice did contain the kanji for fantasy or imagination, and it's also her route theme as well seeing that her route is about acting in that it need imagination to execute. For 'October' part, it's more simple in that it's from Hanafuda card game and the October card is called 'Momiji' in which it's Japanese name for maple tree.