Fred the Barber

- K-On! - MariMite For K-On!, the ending works best if you just watch the two tv seasons - watching the movie afterwards kind of screwed up the ending experience for me. The end of the second season is my favorite ending to any series because it so perfectly nailed the vibe you're describing.

The Disgaea series is a bunch of quirky, fun SRPGs with a lot of unique mechanics. It's not very difficult, unless you want to go all the way through all the bonus content, of which each game has tons, and which is pretty entertaining as well; it not being especially difficult may be a pro or a con for you, so I'm just calling it out for completeness. It's also not a game where probability calculations usually have all that much of an impact; I personally find it annoying when games, especially SRPGs, end up having the RNG being the make-or-break factor, but I guess some people like this? If you're interested in the series and have a PS4, I'd start with the latest one, Disgaea 5. If no PS4, maybe start with the very first release, Disgaea, which should hold up well even though it's been a loooong time since it came out, and which is available on pretty much any system you can imagine (they actually just released the PC version on Steam a couple weeks ago). If it looks too old for you, maybe Disgaea 4 is the way to go (Vita and PS3), but a lot of the gameplay mechanics in that one bothered me.

Yeah, geodes have been my best bet so far as well. Although it turns out that extra dungeon rarely spawns Iridium nodes, and I got super lucky in my last trip through and got a cluster of them (5 nodes for 10 ore). So, that helped a fair bit. Now I just need a good storm so my lightning rods can charge up some battery packs, so I can make more Iridium Sprinklers (I think I have two right now, and I love them). Marriage is... interesting. The ceremony is really quick and doesn't pass any time on the day it happens. Honestly, I didn't like this - I'd rather it totally screwed up your day, and you had to deal with it. As it is, it feels like it diminishes the importance. Anyway, after that, back in the farmhouse the bedroom will get extended substantially, and the extended area will have all of your partner's stuff that was in their old bedroom. It looks pretty amusing for my house and Abigail, at least. Then the next day when I woke up, Abigail was in the kitchen complaining about the house layout (which is, in total fairness, absolutely abominable and really needs to be fixed - but I don't know if that's just something she'll always do, or if she did it because the house layout actually is that bad). After complaining, she handed me some bread with a line about how I had to make sure I ate something during the day. That was actually rather subdued but cool. A big part of me was wondering whether marriage meant that your partner would do anything (either continue their own profession, for those that have one, or take up some of yours, if not) - apparently the answer is, to at least some minimal extent, they'll help you out. But now I kinda want to see what happens if you marry the doctor... I've only been through two days married. I haven't seen big changes yet, but the little touches are nice. And I don't know if maybe bigger changes are on the horizon. I've unlocked most of the bundles now, and the Greenhouse unlock is amazing. You can grow whatever you want, whenever you want, and I happen to have just bought a bunch of strawberry seeds, so I just started a (presumably) never-ending strawberry patch in my greenhouse. Outside of that, I think I'm going to stock it with as much starfruit as I can fit (starfruit is ludicrously profitable, especially if you make it into wine). My focuses now are: - Getting the last house upgrade so I can have a kid. The spring money just really started rolling in, from a big rhubarb crop, so I should be there before too long. - Leveling up relationships with all the townspeople. I realized that's the way to unlock both a lot of recipes and a lot of amusing cutscenes. I'm constantly carrying about 10 random items that I can hand out as gifts when I run into people, including a big stack of gold bars which I just dole out to Clint and Maru on sight. Some people are more convenient than others - Leah, in particular, likes to hang out at the bar, where I can always just buy and hand her a 220g salad that she loves. Similar story with Shane and Pam, although beer is decidedly not cheap. Willy, on the other hand, is a pain in the ass. - Fishing whenever I can force myself, since my fishing skill has lagged way behind my others. Farming has been at 10 forever, everything else is at 9, but I think my fishing is a paltry 7. Holy shit that's cute. Penny and Maru are the ones who most need the makeover, in my opinion, so it's good to see them both getting some love.

I'm starting a list of ridiculous things I've shouted while playing Stardew Valley: "No! I shipped my eel!" The ship bin needs to let me take more than just the last item back out of it. Say, last 10 or last 15? I think I've accidentally shipped things I really didn't want to three times now: the other two were a nautilus shell (to complete that collection) and my entire stack of copper bars (ugh). Anyway, I've clearly been playing this game too much - I've finished an entire year and am back in Spring again. Some highlights: - The next day is going to be rainy, so I'll be buying the marriage item and putting it to use. I'm interested to see how marriage changes the game experience. I should be able to afford the last home upgrade (a nursery, so you can have a kid), in a couple more game weeks. - I learned that fruit trees are actually not nearly as great as their price would imply. They produce a single piece of fruit per day, with no maintenance, so they're not bad per se, just not great given the cost and time investment. You also have to keep the surrounding tiles completely clear - that includes not hoeing them (if you accidentally hoe a tile, you can smooth it with the pickaxe) - Producing artisan goods is where it's at. Basically, for your best produce, you should probably be turning it into an artisan good instead of selling it directly. Turning fruit into wine takes forever but puts a huge multiplier on the value - very useful for super-expensive items like Starfruit. For vegetables, I think pickling is the best option - a pickled normal pumpkin nets > 1000 cash. But where this really shines is for animal produce - milk -> cheese, eggs -> mayonnaise, and so on. The nice thing about those is that the machines to do the conversion work pretty quickly (unlike the keg to make wine), so you can get 2x the value of your animal produce on the same day just by having enough cheese machines and mayonnaise machines on your farm. - Getting to the bottom of the mine rewards you with a key to another dungeon, which doesn't have the equivalent of an elevator, and which has random drops in addition to stairways, where you go down ~6 floors at a time. I got a quest to reach the 25th floor of it, which I did, but I don't yet know how deep it goes... - Irridium is a major pain in the ass to get. The best source for me so far has been buying it off the traveling salesman, who appears on a random day (I think) once per week, down near the wizard's tower.

You know, this is the only time I have ever seen a game delay announcement result in universal approval, and I can't say I see it happening ever again. I shall savor this moment. I'm happy about the delay too

Pretty cool! I actually really like the feel of the game's original portraits, but these are great as well. If the modder ever completes the whole cast, I might give it a try just to see if it changes how I feel about the characters.

Geeze. I'd blocked that out of my memory. While I get that "itadakimasu" is often difficult to translate, especially when used jokingly in that particular context, I've never seen quite as questionable a translation of that word, even in that same exact context, as that instance. I can only imagine that everybody who made or signed off on that particular translation must have been either drunk or high at the time. Incidentally, I thought the translation overall was mostly fine. It just had its weird moments, none weirder than that one.

"What a Beautiful ..." or WaB is another common name for the Steampunk series, of which Gahkthun is the... sixth release, I think? I'm not sure how fitting that moniker is anymore, given that Gahkthun's subtitle includes "What a Shining ..." rather than "What a Beautiful ...", though. https://vndb.org/v/all?sq=what+a+beautiful And, well, he did say he didn't read your post, so you can't entirely blame him for being completely wrong about the content...

I think when Symphonic Rain was voted in, whoever was running the club put the tagline "every month until it wins" next to it; I think that was at least its third appearance. It's a viable strategy. And if the game's good enough, who cares? Steins;Gate is, presumably, pretty great, so it's all fine by me.

Comyu did a pretty good job of some of what you're asking for. What it had was: 1) you could start a game at any time from any scene you'd already seen 2) there was always a clear indication, in that "scene selection" menu, of when any scene had unread text. But in spite of its choices, Comyu is very linear, so this kind of thing would be a little easier for it than for most games with choices. A fully-resumable flowchart would also be a little unwieldy for games which use more of an "affection points" system, where your choices only send you one way or another temporarily, with an internal counter changing and that counter ultimately deciding things like what route you're on, what ending you get, etc., Although you could do that if they made it so you could quickly fiddle with those values (just blow through the necessary choices), but that might pull you out of the immersion too much... I like where your head's at, though - maybe we don't have an ideal answer, but there's definitely a problem to be solved here that can make for a better VN-playing experience.

I read this right after posting over in the "Key" thread, and my mind pretty much exploded. Then I read a little more and realized you were talking about the character Kanon in G-Senjou, and my mind unexploded. Then I remembered that the G-Senjou H-scenes were, universally, almost as bad as Key H-scenes, and my mind exploded for good. Edit (oh wait, the rest of the post): This, though, I agree with completely. I actually didn't care for her voice early on, but after I got to know her a little better it really got to me. By the end of her chapter, I was crazy for it.

Good lord. Do you have a diff between the original post I already read and this one, or do I have to get critted by your wall of text and die? Too late, I skimmed it and found (I hope) most of the important parts... Anyway, some thoughts: The beach episode was bizarre in both how unexpected it was and how good it was. Gahkthun's is quite possibly the only beach episode I've ever enjoyed. Regarding Émilie's chapter (by the way - she's Émilie, not Émile - isn't Émile a guy's name?): Yes. Definitely yes. Neon is neither mentally nor physically strong, but she still had a handful of moments where she really came through and was, well, radiant - this was the best of them for me. For me, that scene was the moment where all the tumblers clicked into place and the VN truly shone. I can't stop going over that experience in my mind, over and over again, walking through the characters and their support. It was absolutely glorious. Glad you enjoyed it! Sorry about your head.

Wikipedia has a good, basically spoiler-free summary of what I mean when I say "Key formula" at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_(company)#Impact: "... Due to an influence by Leaf's visual novel To Heart released in 1997, the developers at Tactics created a simple formula for a game: a comedic first half with a heart-warming romantic middle followed by a tragic separation and finally an emotional reunion formed what is known as a 'crying game' or 'nakige'. The main purpose of such a game is to make the player feel for the characters and make them cry due to emotional scenarios which serves to leave a bigger impact on the player after the game is over." That development team split off, formed Key, and released Kanon, which was kind of a big deal at the time. If you play Kanon now without context, you'll likely think "so what", because that formula is now pretty stock across the industry and the game, while fine, is far from innovative or interesting in any other ways. At the time, seemingly, that formula was not so cleanly-realized, and thus it was probably quite impactful at the time. So, maybe Key gets some points for innovation and impact, but that doesn't tell you much about whether more recent games putting that formula to use really make for an enjoyable game. Little Busters! is a pretty pure realization of that formula, with an interesting extension of it by adding a "true route". Most interestingly, for the true route, Little Busters! even goes so far as to set aside romance in favor of telling a story about friendship. You'll see something similar in Rewrite, where the true route doesn't feature romance, and I suppose I've seen it rarely in other VNs (Majikoi's Agave route comes to mind... but Majikoi is a really hard-to-pin-down game), but I don't know how common that strategy is more broadly. At any rate, I love the true route to death in both Little Busters! and Rewrite. Little Busters! has some stumbling blocks along the way there, for sure - they all do. And it clearly doesn't work for everyone. But I can still work myself up to tears pretty easily by reflecting on that true route, so it sure works for me.

Ok... but nobody did that. Here's what Tyrael said about art: So, the bad art is one of the two biggest drawbacks among "more issues than [Tyrael] can count". Nobody's hating a VN purely based on the art (which everybody agrees is bad) here.

Keep in mind that with the longer Key VNs, you're going have a much longer slice-of-life setup before the drama begins, compared to Planetarian. Assuming you're prepared for that... I'd recommend Little Busters!, or maybe Rewrite. Not Clannad, and definitely not Kanon. I haven't played Air yet, so I can't say either way on that one. Here's some thoughts behind each one (except Air): - Kanon, frankly, is showing its age, and I think pretty much the entire story is actually told better in the 2006 KyoAni anime adaptation (with the lone exception being Nayuki's route). Kanon has H-scenes, which if you've played a Key VN with H-scenes, you'll know is actually a negative, not a positive, regardless of your stance on H. The biggest problem I have with the Kanon VN is that there's very little interaction among the cast - almost all scenes take place one-on-one between the MC (who is as blank a slate as you will ever see) and the heroine. - Clannad feels a little long-winded and basically requires a guide - spending a lot of time skipping and then choosing the answer the guide told me to pulled me out of the story a lot more than I expected. There are definitely some great moments in the regular route endings, but Clannad's strongest moments, by far, are in After Story, which it will take you a long time to get to. And some of the people who deserve better (like Akio) get kind of screwed on the routes. I think the VN is better than the anime adaptation, but only if you're willing to slog it out through a ton of replays of basically the same material in the common route. It's a pretty exhausting VN. It does a fair bit better than Kanon in terms of group dynamics - given that the overall theme of the VN is "family", that's to be expected, but it's still not as well done as it is in... - Little Busters! is the apex of the Key formula. It's still a long VN with a fair bit of branching, but unlike Clannad I don't think I ever looked at any kind of guide and was easily able to complete everything. So, Little Busters! is much better paced for someone who plans to play the whole thing sequentially. In sharp contrast to what I mentioned for Kanon, and even much more so than Clannad, Little Busters! is all about group dynamics, and watching the varied group members play off each other is a real joy. More than it is about romance, this VN is about friendship - if that's something that resonates strongly with you, then you probably already know it and are interested. If it doesn't maybe this isn't for you. Also, I won't deny that I really enjoyed playing the baseball mini-game, right up to the end. Character design and art improved in Little Busters! vs. the previous key VNs, but it's still not great. - Rewrite is a very different game from the rest of the Key VNs - it uses the Key formula early on, but breaks out of the mold in a pretty remarkable way. The last two routes are fantastic, IMO, and early routes are generally solid, standard fare. Character design and art is again noticeably better in Rewrite vs. past Key games, including Little Busters!. All the games have excellent music. Music is, in my opinion, Key's greatest strength - they write good music, and they place it well to build and set mood. Just had an interesting thought: I wonder if there's any correlation between degree of passion for VN music and liking Key games... Anyway, that's all I got. Key is divisive, but popular. Don't be afraid to say you like it, but don't be afraid to say you don't like it; you'll be in good company either way. And good for you for not being too narrow-minded to even try it, especially given all the negativity around it lately on this forum. No, it's stupid to call people stupid for disliking things for easily-explained, factually-correct reasons. It's perfectly fine for you to not be bothered by bad art in VNs which you think are otherwise good; and it's also perfectly fine for other people to be bothered by it, even to such an extent that they decide not to play those games, or to such an extent that they are unable to enjoy them. It's just a matter of taste. Calling out that the art is bad (which, in Kanon and Air especially, it really is) is a simple data point that may very well be a relevant factor, depending on a person's taste. The same could be said for plot, characters, music, ... all of them are of varying importance to individuals. Not everybody has exactly the same values as you do.

I've picked up and put down Shinsekai Yori twice now, the last time at about 10 episodes through. Like you said, the production values and the execution are excellent, and that's why I go back to it (and still want to go back to it again and finish, or at least make some progress), but the dark tone makes me have a lot of trouble keeping with it. I get easily distracted by anything a little bit brighter - clearly my mind's way of telling me that it doesn't want to be watching the show. I agree with pretty much everything you said.

I went into the JojaMart once, was horrified by the appearance (seriously, the pixel art in this game is awesome, in its ability to communicate mood and ambience), and never went back. The initial premise of the game hit a little too close to home, so I've been passionately avoiding the Joja Corporation.

Had something like that happen to me once, so I can empathize with the scariness. Hope everything's mostly worked out by now! Just for future reference to all interested parties (read: kharma whores like TexasDice), pretty much any Arrested Development reference will get you a guaranteed like from me. Confession: I'm kind of in limbo, having now completed all my interviews but still waiting for results from the last two. In the meantime, I've turned into a combination lazy bum and dilettante who does nothing all day but 1) go to the farmer's market to buy nice produce 2) make decent meals with my nice produce, and 3) play Stardew Valley for hours on end (because shopping and cooking don't really take all that much time). Sadly, I've decided that I shall return to being a productive member of society in April. Happily, that's still a long time away.

It's another month where I'd be happy to play any of the VNs. this club. Steins;Gate got my vote, since it's been floating near the top of my list for quite a while now. It might actually have been the first VN I ever paid for, and then sadly it promptly got shelved. The anime adaptation is probably my second-favorite anime, and it's now been quite a while since I watched it, so I don't think having seen that already is going to hurt the experience much. So, I'm hoping for that one. That said, Remember11 and Ever17 are also both floating near the top of my list as well, so I'll be delighted if Remember11 gets voted in as well. I'd love to read more Tanaka Romeo, and I won't deny being curious to see this often-slighted Cross Channel translation, since I had no qualms with Ixrec's translations of Rewrite and Comyu, but with the amount of noise people are constantly making about wanting a retranslation of the game, I keep putting off playing it in the fear that it actually is that bad and that if I wait something better will come along. Still, ... I'm curious. YU-NO is so old that I can't imagine people would still be talking about how great it is (even people who played it for the first time in the last year) unless it was really amazing, so there's that. And then there's that last one I've never heard of with the hilariously 90s-anime-style drawing on its cover. It's probably good too

I gave them exactly this feedback in their last survey... it was ridiculously embarrassing for me to recommend Gahkthun to a group of rational adults (who I met through work, to boot), who I think legitimately might be interested in a story like that one but simply don't know about the VN genre at all. MangaGamer's storefront is just 100% porn-focused. They need a "?hentai=no" version of their website, even if it's just for individual game pages. Anyway, I voted yes as well, with the same caveat.

Will the "hit my head on lamp count" be a feature of future posts as well? Also, really, 6? I mean, I'm pretty lazy, but I probably would've figured out a way to deal with it after at most 4. So, I read the entire post, and I realize it's to be continued so maybe this one will be addressed later, but I do have one simple but genuine question: did you like it?

So it turns out there's festival around the middle of Fall where you'll want to be pretty good at fishing. There is a festival-only currency, which you can acquire by buying it, by playing mini-games, and by winning the contest associated with the festival (you'll hear about the contest from the mayor a week before, don't worry about it - I won, and pretty easily I expect) - buying is pretty much off the table (at the absurd rate of 50g for one point) - The Slingshot mini-game will give you about ~60-80 points if you're good at it, for one game at 50g. It's kind of stressful though. I think it was a little faster than the fishing mini-game, so this is probably about as efficient as the fishing game. - the fishing minigame will often give you ~200 points, for a single 50g game. But only if you're good. The only way to get that many points is if you get a "perfect" when catching about half of the fish you catch during the time limit (if you don't know what a "perfect" is on fishing, well, practice more ). But there's no super-hard fish, only one moderately difficult type. And the rest are all pretty calm, so it's not actually that difficult to do well at this. - When I won the contest, it gave me 1000 points. You should do the contest first, and only then go to the mini-games - the festival won't end until you walk back to your farm. You're probably going to want a lot of the currency, because there's a Stardrop (the item I mentioned before that permanently increases your energy) for 2000 points, a Rarecrow for 800, and a Fedora for 500. Aside from that scheduled event, the Abigail relationship is progressing nicely. I'm at 9 hearts, of which I jumped one or two because giving a birthday gift means tons of bonus points, apparently. I also gave her the flower item to start the romancing events, once the game told me about it (presumably it does that as soon as it's a good idea). I got another cute little event, and then a rather melodramatic, teenager-ish event, which seemed a little immature to my stoic farmer (and you could tell that with just a glance at his face), but I guess is to be expected from the still-living-with-her-parents Abigail. Well, we'll see where things go from here, but I expect it'll all turn out for the best pretty shortly.

No, just the people on it.

Yeah, that event was pretty cool. I'm actually rather excited about the idea that every character in the game (or at least each of the romanceable ones? who knows...) has little events like this. Also, is it just me getting too old for this shit, or is the fishing minigame pretty difficult sometimes? I swear I've hooked a bunch of fish that move the meter around so much and so randomly that it would have been impossible for me to reel them in unless I just got ridiculously lucky. Maybe I just need to keep leveling up fishing (most of the fish I hook are not that difficult) and get a better rod, and those ones will become easier.