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Patch v26.0 is out! Main Story is done!

Adventure. PS - Seriously speaking, VN as the whole is the subgenre of adventure, at least according to Wikipedia. Obviously there's growing distiction of both with pure adventure game relies on the features above while VNs only has choices, although Japanese would never forget that seeing the ADV text presentation was came from adventure with I also remember one commercial called a VN as adventure game, so yeah Japanese was called VNs as adventure game. As for the other examples of the VN that retain the adventure game element, it would be Kara no Shoujo trilogy with the MC Reiji need to examined the criminal scenes (Pixel hunt) in order to gather the evidence that could help him in the investigation. Another example is the Zero Escape series with it being the game that was made by Somnium's writer (Uchikoshi) back in 2009, which is contrast to Root Double here with it is the traditional VN even with Nakazawa made it as the answer to 999 (Zero Escape first game). That's all for what I can write in regard of this topic.

There are many to comment when it come to SRPG, so let me try it here. Well sometimes simple is the best, because if SRPG has too much gimmick (Mechanic Distinctiveness) it may ended up become very confusing for the new players, and I speak from my experience as someone who confused when I tried FFT (Which is the standard of modern SRPG) with I ended up stuck in the 4th story battle (And then I decided to delete the game). SRPG can also have dating sim element like Luminous Arc trilogy, in which while the game has gimmick the battle system itself is simple enough. Also for blending it with VN like narrative, well it's more or less given seeing most SRPG didn't have much walking around like usual RPG. For the second point, I always think on how Eushully did good job on facilitate the large number of characters in Kamidori in combat, and yet the roster is still fewer than Chrono Cross. For comparison, the first playthrough of Kamidori have 16 characters while first playthrough of Chrono Cross have almost 40 characters with the latter didn't have SRPG gameplay thus making some characters become underplayed. It's even worse when you consider Chrono Cross staffs only limit the characters into three people (With Serge as the permanent party member) while Kamidori didn't necessarily forced Wil to be deployed in every stage. Speaking of large group combat, Arterial as the next Eushully game after Kamidori did it better on that front even though it's card game, mainly because you can have all the duelists gain all of the experiences at once and every card in the deck (Up to 30 cards) can gain experience even if it's not played. For the first point, arguably we can say on why all of SRPG have war stories is started from Fire Emblem in which it's about an exiled prince who start the war against the one who conquered his own country, and seeing it's very popular naturally the developer make the SRPG variant based on it. It also help that SRPG are usually harder than normal RPG, and thus it give the player feeling like they're the tactician if they manage to pull out the win, which Fire Emblem staffs realize seeing the player need to be very smart to have all of their allies keep alive until the end of the game seeing the older Fire Emblem keep the dead party member remain dead (The modern one circumvent it by making Easy Mode revive all fallen allies after the stages ended). About Utawarerumono, the original game is kind of difficult if only because there's no much opportunities to do some grinding, and Aquaplus fixed the problem in the next two games and the remake of the first game. Oh yes, Digimon Survive creator was inspired by Utawarerumono gameplay, so if you wonder why it has SRPG gameplay despite it would be fine if it's in RPG form, there you have the answer (Besides saving cost for the walking animations in the area obviously). That's all for what I can comment in regard of SRPG.

Well obviously dark fantasy is what people usually call as edgy, and in light novel it's usually the one that has revenge story. Obviously this type story would be too bleak for some people, although obviously it would be very engaging to follow until the end in order to see whether the casts can earn their happy ending or not in the bleak setting. Of course though, the writer should try their best to balancing the character development and breather in the midst of dark story, because after all almost nobody would want the story become bleak from the beginning to the end so much it make the story become not engaging at all. Oh yes, it's quite interesting most of translated otome has dark story, which is quite ironic compared to the male oriented VNs that have much lighter stories. Speaking of otome, actually what we saw in light novel with the genre 'Reincarnated as Villainess' is really misrepresent otome game, because most of the story in the light novel are mostly have kingdom setting with the villainess is not really prominent in otome VNs, and the reason why the author use otome game is probably because the author only understand otome is the counterpart of usual VNs where the female can date more than one handsome characters (To further make the counterpart with isekai harem novel) with the author can only refer shoujo manga when it come to make the in-universe otome VN. That aside, most otome VNs are only available on console, so it's too bad if you want to play those and only have PC or laptop. Forgot to mention usually dark fantasy VNs have some rape, which make sense as the way to instill the bleakness into the reader. For the prominent example, besides Maggot Bait there's euphoria with it has nice song along with surprisingly nice story beneath the disturbing sex scenes. Obviously the story should be the main draw, although obviously most people would prefer to avoid the rape altogether. Speaking of rape, there's Mugen Renkan with the female MC will suffer a lot of rape, which in hindsight make it closer to the otome when one think hard about it. Of course there's more than rape in Mugen Renkan, because it tell the story about the immortal female MC who did her best to find happiness in her immortality. That's all for what I can write in regard of this topic.

As for this week, since we have exact release date for Aojashin along with we have the translation project for Houkago Cinderella, I'd make a VA joke for Aojashin main heroine VA (Asakawa Yuu) in which as we know was voiced Medusa in Fate/Stay Night so we have 'Afterschool Medusa' as this week VNTS Review title (I know that the afterschool word here is quite ironic considering what we have in Aojashin overseas release, and for the translation note 'Houkago' mean 'Afterschool'). Welcome to this week VNTS Review and yes I decided to wrote this earlier, and as for this week what I can say is that it's slightly better compared to the last week with Aojashin release date announcement and both of JAST and Cherry Kiss announced the exact release date for their nukige. Other than those announced release dates, we also have Degica is indeed localized Yumemi Dreamer in which it's the newest VN from Kogado albeit in the unusual way. Let's see what I can write in regard of this week. Laplacian did announce that they'll release Aojashin at 10th later, and let's just say that I'm still wait and see whether the extra contents are indeed really can make up for the loss of the sex scenes. If anything else, at least they make sure to announce the addition of music mode that they'd miss in the original version. For JAST newest nukige (Overly Qualified Ms. Mary), what I can say is that it's their biggest release (Well if we based it on the heroine's breast size) so perhaps you may interested with that if it's released at 23rd later. For Cherry Kiss nukige, it's localized title is 'Elf Wives Cheat to Ride my Meat' in that it should be obvious the MC will do some NTR stuffs to the elves, so if you interested with it you can wait until the release date at 18th later. As for newest Kogado VN, it's magical girl VN with the title 'Star Melody: Yumemi Dreamer' in that it's come from the same team who developed Symphonic Rain which mean it'll have rhythm gameplay. In here we have our male MC who's his childhood friend, Yumemi, was chosen as the magical girl with the task to fight the monster that manipulate nightmare in order to eat the soul along with fighting the cadres that rule over the monsters. Anyway the unusual way to release that I mention is in regard on how Degica released the patch that add new translated chapters, and currently we have 4 out of 12 chapters translated so obviously there'll be more chapter release in the future in that it'll came up at each Thursday so I'll keep my eyes on this at each Thursday. For fan translation, we have Harugi was at halfway edited, Taimanin Kurenai was at 80% translated, Chaos Head Noah was at 11.61% edited, Senmomo was at 29.58% edited with Chapter 2 was at 64.84% edited, Tsukihime Remake Arcueid Day 10 was at 84% translated, and Meiko's route of Snow was fully translated along with the Legend route was almost done in which it bring Snow overall was at 80% translated. As for Houkago Cinderella translation project, currently it's been at one third translated with them already released the patch that cover one of the route, although it's still not edited and QC-ed yet though so it might be quite rough to read. Obviously the translator did realize it, and so he search for the editor and QC (You can look more at this blogpost). Anyway I'll try to keep my eyes on this project, so I'll just say good luck to the translator even though it's might be more than possible that Nekonyan may pick up this later. That's all for what I can write in regard of this week VNTS Review, and see you next week. PS - Turned out that I did miss the progress from Slow Damage along with Love Lab secret project progress, and currently Slow Damage was already in QA (So we may get Slow Damage released in the near future) while for Love Lab secret project it was at a quarter translated. I know that I did miss White Album 2 Mini After Story translation project was started, although I'll write more of it at the next VNTS Review.