Fred the Barber

Seriously concerned I may fail the one-year goal in Atelier Firis: I only have 90 days left to make it the rest of the way across the map, and I just got a scene where Firis's big sister expresses concern that she needs to hurry. The game is worried about me, too! I keep having to repair bridges and shit, though, and I never seem to have the right materials on hand, leading to me going wandering off to a sidequest that burns dozens of days... At least I got all my letters of recommendation already, and I just fixed a bridge to, I think, either the last area or the second-to-last area before the city I need to get to. But damn, the world just feels huge, given how long it's taking me to synthesize my way across it. Really liking this game. I'm starting to wonder if maybe there's only a one-year goal, since it seems like it's taken an insanely long time to travel across the world map, but probably not. I'm guessing there's probably a two- or three-year goal as well. Which is good, since that means I still have lots of time to keep gathering and crafting ALL the things! Sadly, I ran out of container space again recently (despite buying a treasure chest and making a safe for +1250 container space shortly after the last time I ran out), so either I need to get aggressive about dropping stuff that isn't useful again, or more likely I need to make another safe or two

From that list, play Kindred Spirits before everything else. It's an incredibly heartwarming experience, and I don't recall seeing anyone who read it and didn't like it. That recommendation aside, it kinda depends on what you're in the mood for. My thoughts on a few of those: Chrono Clock is probably the best straightforward moege I've played (but keep in mind I've only played like 1.5 routes of it, and assuming you don't count Kindred Spirits in that bucket...) outside of KonoSora. KonoSora has the translation from hell, so, that pretty much leaves you with Chrono Clock; it's pretty great, honestly. I'm a fan of Gahkthun, but it's kind of divisive. The traits I see in the steampunk series really resonate with me: ultimately simple (and very human) stories with a fantastical setting; likeable characters; lovely art; soundtracks that leave an impression. I really liked Pygmalion. Most other people don't. I found it thought-provoking and well-written. Lots of other people don't. Maybe give it a try for an hour or two and see if it clicks? I wrote a review of it a while back, if you like to read reviews: https://fuwanovel.net/reviews/2017/03/08/the-shadows-of-pygmalion/ Beat Blades Haruka is an interesting little game, but a pretty hardcore nukige. If your primary motivation is H scenes, maybe this is the right choice. I don't get the hype around G-Senjou. It's fine, but definitely not my favorite.

I'm just a handful of scenes past the first concert, which was a big deal for me. I was feeling pretty positive about the game already, but that whole scene really pulled me in and got me a lot more interested in the key players. Character-wise, I'm feeling all the characters except the protagonist and Kanade; they're both kind of boring for me. Chika gets a pass because I think she's freaking adorable. Gonda and Riho are awesome, and Yayoi has her moments, too. Haven't met Rimu yet.

The common route is literally the best part (of what I've played... still only one full route). It is hilarious.

So half an hour ago I was going through my Twitter feed, and I stumbled across two of MangaGamer's translators going back and forth about how great the GabDro subs were. Lo and behold, the translator drops into the curiouscat.me site for one of them just to say thanks for the kind words. Totally made my day

I've been playing Atelier Firis non-stop for the past week. It's honestly great: basically everything I liked about Sophie, and then some. The best part is how it makes the experience of traveling across the world feel like such an impressive journey. The plot gives you a one-month deadline for the "tutorial" section of the game, which is trivial and whatever, and then a one-year deadline for the first real major goal. I'm probably 20 hours into the game now, I've expended 200 days of my year, and I've basically just been traveling across the world map the whole time (okay, fine, and stopping to do a whole lot of synthesizing along the way, which is actually where a lot of that time went). At any rate, the game world feels absolutely huge, which is a feeling I've been craving from a JRPG for quite a while. Edit: oops, meant to say "everything I liked about Ayesha", not "Sophie". I never played Sophie. I'm so sorry, Ayesha!

@Darklord Rooke @Jun Inoue I finished it that same weekend, just never came to report in. I rather liked it, and would recommend it for anyone who likes reading epic fantasy. There are people I'd rather read in that genre (Scott Lynch and Brent Weeks are at the top of that list right now), but I'm very much glad I read The First Law: my mental world was a less interesting place without Logen and Glokta. Not everything in the story went the way I would've liked (in contrast to, say, a Brent Weeks series, which never goes the way you expect, but when it's over you wouldn't have it any other way), but you have to be realistic about these things.

I decided I wanted to watch a mindless moe comedy, so I picked up Gabriel Dropout, which, some five episodes in, is pretty much nailing those expectations — it's not amazing or anything, but it's exactly what I was looking for. One pleasant surprise has been the subtitles: they actually are amazing. Whoever wrote them has a damn fine sense of humor and a deft touch. Wish I knew how to find out the people who wrote the Crunchyroll subtitles for a given series so I could direct some plaudits their way...

Wait, are you guys saying neither Gonda nor Chika gets a route? What's with this bait and switch?

I'm playing it on a Windows 10 tablet (touchscreen and all); you'll be fine.

BTW, just created a walkthrough for this (I had it done almost a week ago but wasn't going to post it before the release, and then forgot about it until now...). I definitely recommend using it to get the last few endings, maybe after you've gotten five or six of them on your own, since, as I mentioned in the review, some of the endings are super annoying to find:

Miniature Garden http://store.steampowered.com/app/494170/ Summary In the woods not far from the city lies a school called the 'Miniature Garden.' In keeping with the school's name, an original 'Miniature Festival' is held there every three years. There’s a rumor that an unnatural death will befall someone on the night of the festival. This year, as the sun sets, Yasunari and four other students find themselves trapped alone in the school on the night of the festival. Is it just a mistake, or could the rumors be true? [Steam Summary] Ending Guideline / Suggested Route Order Miniature Garden has seven total endings, in keeping with its Seven Mysteries theme, and it's really not obvious why a specific collection of choices is going to lead you to any given different ending. That said, I don't recommend any particular order, and in fact I'd recommend you play without a guide at first. However, uncovering all the endings is an exercise in frustration and annoyance because of the lack of any obvious hints or obviously correct/incorrect combination of choices for many of them, so I basically recommend you to simply play around and see various endings until you start to feel annoyed by the repetition and/or by the frustration of looking, and at that point just use this guide to unlock the remaining endings (since they are generally worth seeing). Route Guideline Ending 1: An Old Memory Ending 2: Trigger Ending 3: With Memories Ending 4: Accomplices Ending 5: Allegory Ending 6: All Alone Ending 7: The Seven Mysteries Attribution Summary from Steam, and image linked from the game's VNDB page: https://vndb.org/v16658 Walkthrough created by @Fred the Barber

I dunno, it sounds kinda cheesy to me.

Sekai Project presents "What If Cows Looked Like Human Children", and it's beautiful.

Uhhhh. Yeah, no, that's not for real. There's no way that's not an April Fool's joke.

Yeah, I kind of dislike having to give a grade in reviews. I'd rather just say what it's good at and what's it not good at, and then people can decide to read or not based on what they care about. Doing both isn't so bad: it's not like I don't have a mental model for how much I enjoyed a game, just that I don't think it's nearly as useful as the rest of the review. Glad you appreciated the review, and hope you enjoy the game!

All right folks! The time has come, and I'm pleased to announce our selection for the April VN reading club: Deardrops. You can pick up a download copy from Mangagamer here: http://www.mangagamer.com/detail.php?goods_type=0&product_code=36 (NSFW). Or if you feel like you're gonna want that Deardrops x Kira☆Kira crossover fandisc as well, maybe get them as a package deal with a ~$5 discount: http://www.mangagamer.com/detail.php?goods_type=0&product_code=134 (NSFW) Get started reading whenever you feel like, comment whenever you feel like, but remember that we all read at different paces, so please be extra careful to put spoilers in spoiler tags! Get it, got it, good. Let's all have a good time with this one! EDIT: Just for future reference, I'm going to record the vote count here, since I'm also going to delete the question and retitle the thread. Deardrops: 9, Kira☆Kira: 6, Brass Restoration 5, Quartett!: 4

https://fuwanovel.net/reviews/2017/03/30/miniature-garden/ The review was actually posted yesterday, on release date (whoo release date reviews, always feels kind of cool), but I've been out of town so I didn't get around to posting a thread until now. Much like with the game, though, you haven't really been missing much...

As a former coworker of mine said to everybody when they announced it was their last day: don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

So, actually, after a few more hours with Firis last night, the experience of traveling feels really different from Ayesha: Ayesha had your typical world map with little areas you had to clear to move on. In Firis, for the first major traveling step at least, you actually walk through a big, contiguous area, full of monsters, gathering points, and points where you can pitch your tent-cum-atelier and either synthesize or rest to recover HP/MP but also LP, which is consumed both when you gather and slowly just when walking around. That probably doesn't sound like that big of a change, but it actually feels really different, for a couple reasons: you get to take a break and craft stuff whenever you feel like it (you no longer can only synthesize at a home base), since it's super easy to find a place to pitch your tent. you can also drop off your materials very easily (just find a spot and pitch a tent), so you're no longer as tightly constrained by your basket size it makes the world feel a lot bigger, since you end up spending "weeks" of game-time (and no small amount of actual time) traveling across these big field areas. I actually resumed last night at the start of the first field area, played for about 2.5 hours, gathering, monster-hunting, crafting, and basically exploring every nook and cranny, and I still haven't quite gotten out of the first field area o_O

But you just said it's getting released on Tuesday.

What? Why is that weird? Tuesday release dates are super common, at least in the US, and at least for big titles.

I'm not an expert, so I'm going to summon His Saltiness to help out answering this, since I think he's played more of these than I have: @solidbatman what do you think? I'll take a stab at it, but keep in mind my answers aren't going to be that well-informed, since I've only played all of Atelier Ayesha, a little bit of Atelier Rorona, and even less of Atelier Firis. Ayesha, while it does have an overarching story (she's trying to find and save her sister) feels mostly like you're doing side-quests. It's a very laid-back game, except if you get really into the time management aspect, which I think the game system simultaneously encourages without being too pushy about it. Yes, you have to get a lot of stuff done within the game clock time, and if you really like crafting ALL the things like I do, then you'll have to be a little bit careful with your time to make sure you don't screw up and miss one of the goals. But it's not like you have to try that hard, and you certainly will have plenty of time to do all of the stuff you want to. From the ones I've played, they do all feel kind of the same at a high level, but in the little details they're pretty different. I felt much more free to explore and go on self-assigned missions in Ayesha than I did in the time I spent with Rorona, but it's possible that's just because I never really got out of the early game in Rorona. We'll see how it is with Firis, since I'm intending to stick with this one.

Reviving this thread for Atelier Firis, which came out a few weeks ago. After really enjoying Ayesha Plus a while back, I've been periodically jonesing for an Atelier game. I tried Rorona Plus a while back, but it didn't really click with me (I think the time pressure of its assignments felt a little too stressful), and when I saw this one had come out I decided it was time to give the series another go. Just started the game and got through the tutorial time period last night, and it's looking to be a lot of fun. JRPGs filled with cute girls are nice and all, but really, it's the gather-and-create alchemy gameplay that makes me burn through the time on these games, and Firis really looks to have nailed that both by changing some things up and by adding some more little twists to the alchemy process (unless the feature I saw was present in Sophie or something, which is possible, since I skipped a few entries in the series). At any rate, looking forward to sinking a lot of time into this. With Persona 5 coming out so soon, starting this game may not have been the best decision, but Persona will just have to wait while I travel the world cooking up ALL the recipes.

Uhh... hmm. I should have made the votes public, then we could settle this easily (plus it's fun seeing what people vote for), but I think I'm going to have to let the poll results stand as they are. Sorry about that