Fred the Barber

I've lived alone in the same apartment for 1.5 years, been working at my same job (so I see essentially the same people all day) for over 2 years, and even worked at the same company and lived in the same city for the last 8 years. So, most of my daily life is so routine now that it can't really be scary, so this is kind of a tough question... I guess I'm fortunate not to be scared of anything that's part of that routine - in particular, going to sleep for the night has not been an issue for me in recent recollection. However, anything that gets me out of my routine usually becomes scary for me. I fell in with a new bunch of acquaintances recently and started doing bar trivia with them on Wednesday evenings - that's definitely the most scary "regular" event for me, because I don't really know any of them well at all, and like so many others here, I'm not comfortable in social situations.

I hate having even the smallest emotion spoiled for me, so I generally avoid walkthroughs. However, I also hate bad endings. So, typically my approach is to play a game completely without any walkthrough, and only go to a walkthrough if I find myself hitting a bad ending (or repeatedly hitting bad endings) and unable to rationalize why. Katawa Shoujo is the only VN I've played where I got frustrated enough to grab a walkthrough and follow it slavishly for the whole game, and to a lesser extent I did this to get the alternate ending for Fate/Stay Night's UBW route (which I ended up disliking anyway...), but then again, most of the VNs I've played have very simple choices to begin with, so this hasn't been an issue. If I played something with really complex choices and inscrutable conditions, I'd probably go looking for a guide just like I did with Katawa Shoujo.

That sounds a lot like my experience vs. Black Heart (I still haven't played this game in like a month, BTW... I'll definitely get back to it in another month or so, probably. Maybe.). Small strategy tweaks and good RNG rolls seem to matter a lot in this game.

I'm with hsmsful on this topic in general. As an example in another medium, I simply don't enjoy watching old movies, regardless of how good they are. Watching Casablanca was a horrible experience for me - there's something fundamental that makes me just unable to connect with it (I don't know if it's black-and-white, camerawork, or what). The same thing happens to me with old games as well - unless I have a preexisting connection with it, I'm pretty much unable to enjoy anything older than ~ 5 years old. With VNs, I personally have a bit more leniency - I was able to play Kanon, in particular, without too many problems. But given how I feel about other media, I think it's totally reasonable that other folks around here just aren't able to enjoy old VNs. Also, I totally disagree with that last paragraph. As much as we can discuss the relative artistic merits of the Visual Novel art form and specific VNs, I think most of us aren't here to be art critics - at least, I'm certainly not. We're here because we find VNs entertaining. If something doesn't float your boat, then move on. If you like something but someone else doesn't, well, that needs to be cool too. Umm. Per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanon:"Kanon (カノン?) is a Japanese adult visual novel developed by Key released on June 4, 1999 for Windows PCs."

A combination of social life and a burning need to play the Iron Banner event in Destiny prevented me from finishing up Ayaka's route until tonight, but I finally got through it.

False. And I'm pretty sure I had the same response to a similar true/false earlier this week... Next person is healthy most of the time but doesn't really think about it until they become unhealthy.

I'm pretty sure Fuwa polls aren't real polls - it wasn't too long ago that a Fuwa poll elected Milky Holmes as the next show for the anime club to watch...

I really enjoyed it, but it wasn't the absolute best thing ever. I guess I'm somewhere between the first and second options. Positives: - It was freaking epic. - It gave fascinating glimpses into the lives of the many older side characters: I really enjoyed seeing middle-aged Esaka kicking ass, young Nishikujou struggling with self-confidence, and so on. - It tied up a lot of interesting loose ends and connected a lot of interesting people. - Young Kotori breaks my heart. - It gave a real feeling of closure for the VN, without going overboard on tying everything up. The ending was open-ended, mysterious, and a little bit sweet. Negatives: - I did miss not having the rest of the heroines around - I really, really missed Yoshino in both Moon and Terra (he was there in the Moon, yes, I do remember, but it was in a really weak capacity). Yoshino kinda got shafted on both the Moon and Terra routes, and that really made me sad - I felt like he deserved better than that. Some weird backstory that landed him in Terra would probably have seemed forced to most people, but I bet I would've loved it.

FFS i taught it was over and now i have a feeling it is gonna turn into a reverse grisaia where lucia is gonna be someone like yuuji The thing about Rewrite is that you keep thinking you're getting a handle on what's going on, but really you have no clue. That holds basically up until you finish the True Ending. Also, it still kinda holds then; I'm still not entirely sure what happened. But it sure was an awesome ride!

I have my pile of Spice and Wolf volumes 8 - 14 right next to me, actually, and volume 15 pre-ordered. I am only putting it off to savor the experience and to save myself hardship later - if I'm too lax, I'll tear through all of them in a week or two, and then I'll just be sad that I have to wait so long for the last few volumes to be translated and released...

I didn't think I'd ever get to say this, so I have to take this opportunity immediately: Kosaki has good taste!

To clarify: I know there's no official translation for either. I'm asking for a way to purchase a Japanese edition (import, download, etc.,) to which I can then apply the fan patch.

I do remember being hit pretty hard the first time I heard this point of view. Stranger in a Strange Land has a pretty long diatribe espousing it. I think there's some element of truth to it, but I think the importance of it is easy to overstate. The end result of comedy is generally an improvement in peoples' happiness - thinking too hard about how it relates to suffering kind of makes you miss the point.

Did you actually skip even voice-acted "filler" lines the first time through? I don't think I could make myself do that. Character voices are quite important to me (maybe even more so than a character's art), so if a main character is speaking a line, I'm practically guaranteed to listen to it. This tendency probably accounts for the vast majority of my time playing voiced VNs - hearing a line spoken is waaaay slower than reading it. I will, of course, skip common elements on subsequent playthroughs, though with VNs with more complex stories (particularly good example: Rewrite) I usually try to fully listen to and read every line at least twice, just to make sure I see all the little hints that are dropped that only make sense on later playthroughs.

Hmm. Both Steins;Gate and G-Senjou are high on my To-read List, and Comyu was at least on my radar, so I'm fine with pretty much anything here. As long as there's no chance of KonoSora winning (no way I'm going to make the huge time investment to re-read it), I'll definitely participate in the club but probably abstain from voting. If you want my vote for something, feel free to try to convince me, though . That said, I do have somewhat of a preference for Steins;Gate because I can (and actually already did, months ago) legally buy it from JAST. Anybody know where/how to import either G-Senjou or Comyu? J-List doesn't list either, and I've never succeeded at finding literally anything on Mandarake, ever, even though I've been told it's a good source. I also distinctly remember there being a thread in the forums listing places to buy VNs but cannot seem to dig it up.

False, I just ate breakfast! But I am still a bit peckish... Next person is procrastinating.

That is nuts. KonoSora is ridiculously long. I think it took me well over a month.

Oh, no, I've been enjoying it. It just feels like stuff is basically resolved, at this point, so I'm ready for it to be over so I can move on to a new story. Ayaka is probably not my favorite, but she's second-favorite, at least.

Ohh, not bad. I still haven't finished a route, so I don't have the Extras option yet, so I can't compare reality against my faulty memory just yet. I'm quite ready to be done with Ayaka's route, TBH. Having it end right after Kayoko's disappearance and a few nice scenes with gentle music and CGs would have been just about perfect. But I kept playing for another hour or so after that, and it just kept going. Apparently there's still some stuff to work through, including another major event for Christmas Eve (should've seen that coming because Japan, I guess) which I'm really hard-pressed to care about right now, so, fine... but don't blame me if I nap through all of the remainder and dream of Chiho.

The first thing that comes to mind is Clannad: After Story. Of course, first you have to get through Clannad, which is probably exactly what you're looking to avoid. That said, when I was watching Clannad for the first time, with no context whatsoever, I thought it was pretty clear where things were going and how the main character felt, so I never saw it as having any love rivalry, harem, or love triangle elements at all (unrequited attraction, sure; love triangle, nope). And then, once you get through Clannad, the romance itself in Clannad: After Story isn't all that big a focus. So now I don't even know why I'm bringing it up. Now, after looking over my shelves for a while... if you're up for a movie instead of a series, go watch The Garden of Words right now. It's only 42 minutes. Do it. Now. You won't regret it. Edit: Got hung up on recommendations, forgot to mention my own thoughts on love triangles. If they're somewhat harmless (in particular, if I don't think the main character ever actually feels any conflict, or wishy-washiness, and has "pure" thoughts all the way through), then I'm fine with them. For instance, again, Clannad. That's totally cool with me. On the other hand, if there's an actual rivalry / love triangle / harem element to it, and some associated uncertainty, it generally makes me pretty upset. A couple of good examples: Shuffle! and KimiNozo both bother me for this (in both cases the anime; I haven't played the VN of either). Shuffle! had other issues as well that bug me, but the harem situation and the horrible (not even indecisive, but truly thoughtless) main character annoyed me a lot. KimiNozo was actually worse, with the main character in a committed relationship and acting like a total jackass. I think those negative feelings towards KimiNozo, and the fear that maybe this is Age's MO, is the main reason I've been avoiding playing Muv Luv. I guess the bottom line is that the quality I hate, which is usually what causes the situations you mention, is the total lack of self-awareness which usually causes these situations. I can certainly appreciate the difficulty of expressing one's feelings (and that happens quite frequently in shows with these relationship difficulties, and I don't mind seeing that at all), but for the main character to not even take the trouble to sort out his/her feelings in the first place makes a huge difference; when this happens, it becomes difficult for me to enjoy the story at all. Worse yet is when the character seem to actually not have any feelings at all (which is the vibe I get off Shuffle!'s Rin for most of the show) - that's simply totally unrelatable for me.

Now that she's come and gone, I guess I can comment on Kayoko: Initially she came off as crazy, but once I got her backstory I also really liked her. Genki is good, and like mitch said, she seems to be sharp as well. Good combination. Personality-wise, she felt like a very similar character to Tamie, but her CGs were all great, whereas I don't recall Tamie having any CGs (which is a damn shame).

So I'm in chapter 20, and suddenly Kayoko. Oh my god. Ridiculously cute.