Vokoca

I had the same issue with the RuiTomo fandisc - finished Miyawa's route (which was pretty much all of my motivation to read the FD in the first place) and Yenfei's, both of which were pretty nice but nothing amazing. Then I just kind of went on to do other things... need to kick myself into resuming it eventually too, hopefully I still have the saves somewhere.

Around 40% done with the YU-NO remake.... this VN is nuts! Each time I think I've gotten the hang of things, the VN just laughs in my face and just does something completely different. I'm enjoying the gameplay way too much, haha. And the story is shaping up to be pretty great too - it is going places, places I like. Unfortunately I won't be able to play in the couple of next days... not sure how I'm going to survive that. YU-NO is like that unnecessarily obtuse timeloop puzzle game I secretly always wanted, and I can't wait to get back to it.

Playing the YU-NO remake. Not sure if I'd even call this a visual novel, as it feels more like a full fledged point and click adventure game, but hey - let's go by the vndb listing, I guess. So far, I'm enjoying it immensely. My main motivation to buy the game was the infamous flowchart and obtuseness of the overall systems, and it definitely isn't disappointing on that front. I'm making steady progress along Mitsuki's route (?), but I already missed so many branches with absolutely no idea how I even did that, that just thinking about replaying is hilarious to me already. Can't wait to get into the flag fuckery! The remake itself is great - the text and systems the way they were, with VAs, OST and art remade. I know a lot of people have reservations about the art, but I like it a lot myself. Eriko might look a bit better in the original, but I prefer just about everyone else in the remake's art, especially Mio. Also, blinking CGs, wee! Other than that, I've also started the remake of EVE Burst Error, which hilariously enough seems to work on the exact same engine as YU-NO's prologue. Let's see how many parallels I will draw between these - so far I prefer YU-NO much more.

I was a long time ago since I've seen it, but if I remember correctly the content is more or less the same. The Dice-killing arc is good, but it's also pretty short.

As far as I know, Higurashi Hou should include the original eight arcs, the fandisc (Higurashi Rei) and some new Hou exclusive content. The Higurashi Rei arcs were included in Sui, so I can comment on these. There is Saikoroshi-hen (Dice-killing arc), which is one you definitely do want to read. It still contains the spirit of the original Higurashi, and it kind of serves like an introduction to Umineko, if more for Ryukishi himself than the actual story - a fun read. Then there is Hirukowashi-hen (Day-breaking arc), which falls into the barely readable trash category. A pointless joke arc that has nothing going for it but Ryu's average at best SoL. I've also read something about Batsukoishi-hen (Penalty-loving arc) which is equally trash if the anime adaptation is anything to go by, but I'm not sure if it is even actually included... it's not listed in regular Rei for some reason, and it wasn't in Sui either. It's probably for the best. As for the Hou exclusive arcs, I haven't read any of these as they came out after Sui, but they're probably nothing great either. The supposed Higurashi prototype/draft (Higurashi Bus Stop) does sound kind of interesting, but the rest is just a written version of the (really bad) Higurashi Outbreak movie, and Kamikanshi-hen (God-violating arc), which is a continuation of the Outbreak plot, apparently. No idea if anything that far removed from what Higurashi even was in the first place can be any good, but I'll leave that for you guys to find out, I feel like I read enough Higurashi to last me a lifetime already, haha.

Yeah, if you are going through Higurashi for the first time, just read the original 8 arcs as they come out re-translated/with the ported assets, and don't wait for the extra stuff in the middle. It is not worth it. Believe me, I spent around 330 hours reading Sui to completion - it wasn't worth it. The extra arcs range from pretty good additions (the so-called 'advanced story arcs,' dealing with the darker side of Higurashi's plot through an entirely new set of characters and locations), decent, but meaningless filler (anything involving the original cast and keeping the serious mood, all the way to barely readable trash (joke arcs) and downright insulting dreck that will actively ruin the Higurashi canon and make you regret you ever laid eyes on such an abomination (this is mainly just a single arc, but it is enough to make you lose all hope). In other words there's no stuff that'd be worth waiting for on the expense of the original, and there's also stuff that's just not worth waiting for under any circumstances ever. Still, pretty interesting for a project this ambitious to exist. I hope it goes well for the guys, but with something as ludicrously long as Sui is, they will need inane amounts of time and dedication. If 330 hours doesn't sound like too much to you, just remember that the original Higurashi has 8 arcs - Sui has 19. If they do finish this, I'd recommend everyone who likes Higurashi enough to read the advanced story arcs (anything involving Natsumi and Tomoe), but whatever you do, do not, and I repeat, do not read the Kotohogushi arc. Save yourself the despair and suffering and just pretend it doesn't exist.

Would've bought that instantly if it still had the Japanese text in. Language settings should be the standard in VNs - or hell, all of these Steam ports that for some reason can't keep the original text in.

Finally finished Higurashi Sui. At this point I'm just glad it's over. After around 330 hours with this VN, I just don't really want to see it ever again. 7/10, if you like Higurashi just stick to the originals.

Finished Nier Automata. My life is empty again.

I have no idea what this is all about, but if we're getting lunch money out of it, I'm in.

Oh my...

Well I guess you just aren't a proper utsuge fan then, you liar. (；´･ω･) Outside of playing DDON all the time, I've also been going through Nioh when I have the time at home. There isn't anything negative I can say about the game - it even takes my favourite part of Souls, just fucking around in coop, and makes it even better - I've been enjoying it thoroughly so far. I'm taking my time with it, replaying a lot of missions with others instead of rushing through the main story, though I've gotten to the third region already (and damn, that spider waifu.... my fetishes are getting too fucked ), so no idea how far I actually am. Just unlocked the whole clan system, which made me feel like I didn't even know what kind of game Nioh is after all this time - a pretty hilarious feeling that I haven't experienced in quite a long time. I'd recommend this game to anyone who likes action RPGs and/or loot, it's incredibly addicting.

You can skip 2, it's not relevant to pretty much anything at all, it' weirdly different in tone compared to the rest of the series and it is widely regarded as the worst one.

It just depends on what you want to use them with - TA is obviously more convenient with VNs and other non-browser based text as it automatically parses anything in your clipboard, but for browsing the web Rikai-kun/Rikai-sama is faster. TA also has the advantage of showing you the entire sentence parsed and relatively reliably split into separate parts via color coding, whereas Rikai-kun/Rikai-sama only shows you one word at a time. Both TA and Rikai-sama are very customisable, so there shouldn't really be much of a difference between their usefulness in terms of dictionaries as such, as you can edit these yourself for both of them. It's up to you what you want to have highlighted, but at first it'll probably be much easier if you have the particles highlighted so they are easy to tell apart from the rest of the sentence, so you get used to how the sentence structure works and learn to naturally recognise them yourself.

I wouldn't recommend it, all you'd end up doing is creating some bad habits for yourself and relying on translation that isn't even guaranteed to be correct, let alone read good. You should make your goal clear - do you want to read VNs in Japanese, or do you want to translate them (in your head or with tools) and read them in English? Do you want to learn the language, or do you just want to somewhat understand it enough to make sense of it through different means? If you're indeed trying to learn the language, machine translation should be out of the question, even if it might seem tempting and easy. When put to good use, the previously mentioned Mecab/JParser is a much more reliable and flexible tool. It will help you with the words you don't know, but it should also allow you to eventually think about the sentences in Japanese, instead of just going the extra unnecessary step and translating everything in your head. It will take a long time and it certainly will take more effort than relying on machine TL, but it's way more worth it in the long run if you're at all serious about learning Japanese in the first place. Once you get the vocab, you can just skim the text as is, even if you don't know a word here and there - relying on machine TL even at such a late stage would just set you back. Also just quickly on the topic of internet dictionaries, the Weblio ja-en dictionary is a great resource that's not often mentioned, perhaps for it being primarily a Japanese page. Despite that, it will often give you much more specific and natural results- it might be more useful for translation than anything else, but it is a reat reference point if you can't find something in jisho/tangorin, or the translation there just isn't satisfactory.

This is actually very good advice. Don't tire yourself out with trying to understand 100% of the text, down to every word and every nuance. Just pay attention to the words being used and work with what you understand. Vocabulary is always the biggest obstacle, if only because of the sheer amount of it - but if you keep at it, eventually you'll just be able to read things without having to translate them in your head, whether you understand every single word or not. Axanael can be a bit difficult at times, but if you just power through the short but possibly confusing beginning with narration, you'll get a VN that's almost entirely composed of nothing but voiced lines. You can just treat it like watching an anime, with the advantage of being able to see the original 'subtitles' all the time, with the ability to look up the words you don't know easily.

Looking up words is how you learn them. You have to start somewhere, of course it will be difficult at first - but there's not much you can do about that other than just push through. Either you will be learning word after word from textbook texts, or you will be learning a word after word from VNs - it doesn't really make much difference in the end, other than the former being a bit easier but potentially boring (and price-y), and the later being harder, but more fun. Just take it slow and slowly build up your vocabulary, it will only get easier the further you get. At least with VNs you have the advantage of text-hooking, making dictionary checks nearly instantaneous.

Finished the Fate route in F/sn. I don't have much to add since my last post about it - maybe except for the chuuni parts being really enjoyable. Each fight has some sort of a twist to it that it gets to explain, which is what makes chuuni interesting in the first place. Each time I see a well written chuuni fight, I just think back to Senshinkan and that very unfortunate last part of the VN.... what was Masada thinking? The fights up to that point were great for the most part, but past a certain point he ran out of things to explain and the fight scenes became an absolute snorefest. Gahh, I really do hope Dies Irae doesn't have that problem. Anyway, back to Fate. The Realta Nua replacements for the h-scenes kind of go both ways - the first h-scene before the Berserker fight gets replaced with a scene that's actually way better than the original, if only because of the weird amount of production value that went into it alone - but at the same time it kind of felt like they were stepping around the fact that this still somehow was a h-scene in some weird way anyway. It gets especially obvious with the second one, where the scene might just as well have ended with "THEY FUCKED AFTER THIS, BTW!" and it wouldn't have made any difference. In the end, if nothing else, the Fate route has some good chuuni in it, and it's also a nice introduction to the story. What isn't so nice though is the flowchart - it does get unlocked in the Extra menu after you clear Fate for the first time.... but it only lets you replay isolated scenes. Who the hell thought that was a good idea? This is probably the stupidest decission I've ever seen in VN design, and it makes me question why the flowchart even is there in the first place save for a mere structure visualisation you can't do anything with anyway. Just... why. After so many re-releases you'd think they would get at least that right... but I guess they just took the PS2 port and slapped a (in retrospect even lazier) widescreen modifier on it. At least Higurashi with it's plethora of re-releases had something unique for each one, from new sprites, OSTs, OPs, entire game systems, to different plot structure and even story arcs - but what does the Vita Fate port have? Three new OPs that were just outsourced to ufotable anyway? For fuck's sake, at least milk your cow properly, Type-Moon, this is embarrassing. On a side note, I found it funny how beating the Fate route presents you with a white screen that says "Try again from the night of the 3rd day." In English. Now I can understand the chapter titles be in English, but why the hell was a hint that tells you how to progress in a language a lot of the readers don't probably even speak properly? Why...? Why Nasu, why? I hope a bunch of people got stuck because of it, at least that'd make it pretty hilarious.

Checking in for my obligatory boring post. I'll start with something at least some people might care about - I've started re-reading Fate/stay night, this time in Japanese, on my Vita. What this means is that I'm finally getting to experience the original writing and all the perks of Realta Nua... at the expense of the sea life encyclopedia h-scenes, oh no! I've never seen the replacement scenes, so they better at least not be absolute shit, if they are taking the pinnacle of comedy that were the original h-scenes away from me - though no matter what they do, I have my worries about HF already. Please don't be shit. D: Anyway, the re-read is going well so far. Nasu's writing is fun as always. In Fate especially, it is extremely noticeable when he decides to flip his chuuni switch - as soon as these "Prelude" battle scene come in and the narrative switches into third person, Nasu throws away his baby Japanese and goes hardcore into his (often) archaic vocabulary. It's such a stark difference that you immediately notice it from scene to scene, with not only the entire lexicon different, but the structure too. Now I don't remember the English translation much since I read it years ago, but I think they did a reasonably good job within the limitations of English - some people might want you to believe that "Omg Nasu's writing is the most unique untranslateable thing ever!1!1!!", but really, all it amounts to are some subtleties that might not work with other languages, and within the context of Japanese itself it's not some amazing mastercraft either; it's just good writing. As for the story, I am about halfway through the Fate route. I should probably put it out there that I never was a Saber fan, and this re-read only reaffirms that sentiment. I'm pleasantly surprised that even after all these years (and with all the Fate knowledge now giving me a different context), my impression is still pretty much the same - that is, the Fate route feeling like some cruel experiment, in which you are forced to watch two hypocrites argue until your sanity crumbles into dust and you're left with nothing but bottomless despair. Though perhaps contrary to my first read-through, I don't feel like criticising the work for this at all, as it is clearly intentional with Nasu pursuing the theme of contradictions and heroism - still, it doesn't make the characters any more likeable.... that is to say, mainly Saber. How can people not like Shirou but adore Saber? They're both pretty much the exact same character, only Shirou has many more redeeming qualities, if only in his prerequisites for character development in the different routes. I would also like to comment on the port itself. I might've freaked out on this forum some years back when I tried the Vita demo for the first time, screaming about how for some reason the protagonists weren't voiced and that the OST was shit and what not - well, frankly, that's what happens when you're a dumb idiot like me and don't give something a proper chance. The MCs are voiced - the VN just goes out of its way to disable their voices by default when you start the prologue and when you start the real game. I guess my weird recent habit of scourging the menus before starting a VN has finally paid off, haha. The new OST can also be switched for the old one in the settings - but weirdly enough, I prefer the remade OST now. It just feels like a more competent rendition of the original tracks - with some rare exceptions, that is. The VN also is widescreen now - but all this really means is that you get to scroll the screen up and down as you see fit - or just turn it back to 4:3 if you're a crazy person. There also is a flowchart, which got me really excited at first, but while the flowchart paints itself as you go on, it doesn't really let you jump around in it - maybe they just want you to finish one route first? Which brings me to the last point - the bad ends! I love the bad ends in this VN! Not only are they elaborate and often go for much longer than you'd expect, they're often presented in ways where you aren't even sure if you are on a bad end or not until you see the game over screen. Best of all, some of the bad ends are flag-based, instead of simple choices - and these are the best ones, for sure. This is just the part that makes me wish the flowchart was more, well, interactive, but again, maybe that is a thing that gets enabled later. I wanted to talk about more VNs, but looking at this wall of text... I will probably just leave it for some other time. (；´･ω･)

Pretty surprised by the hate for Sharin here, I honestly much preferred the twist out of nowhere there than the painfully obvious and dumb red herring in G-Sen. Then again it was ages since I read either, so I'm probably forgetting a lot. Mahoyo is probably never getting done because the original "translation" was trash and because it isn't Fate.

MGS2 gets spookier and more mindblowing with each passing year, god I love that game. As for me, I'm making my way through Yakuza 6 - from a girl who migt've leaped through time to real life pseudo-porn, it proves that this is the end to the series we all wanted. But on a more serious note, Yakuza 6 is amazing, and I'm enjoying it a whole lot. So much in fact that I've decided to do my best to finish as much of the side content as possible before finishing the story - I've never managed it with any previous Yakuza game, but let's see how it goes this time, haha. One thing is for sure, I'll be skipping the mahjong tournaments... I feel like I will never be able to comprehend that damn game.

T-thanks... (；´･ω･)

With both Alchemist and Kaga Create dead? Yeah, I don't think so - there's no one to save us this time.

No, it will be artists, when they realise Ryu just wants to "draw" everything himself again.

Hey, I'm still alive... maybe! Finished Shin Hayarigami - the reboot of the relatively obscure detective horror series, Hayarigami. Now, this reboot gets a lot of flak and gets shit on all around, mainly because of how different it is from the original series. I've only played two cases from the original, but even I could tell the difference in direction and tone. While the originals focus mainly on the, let's say "occult" variety of urban legends (the usual stuff like Kokkuri-san etc.), Shin Hayarigami seems to take a more "realistic" approach, where the urban legends it picks feel more like hoaxes (i.e. soy sauce made from parts of human body) or straight u things that really did happen, like snuff films, with the VN pulling as recent and specific examples as the Dnepropetrovsk maniacs. From the more occult oriented stuff, there are only two arcs out of the total 9 - and these two dealt with very vague stuff like angry spirits and cursed dolls, rather than anything specific at all. It's also incredibly grimdark and super edgy compared to the previous iterations - and if you know me even a little bit, you can probably guess that that is the point where the VN started winning me over. I'm not going to lie, I loved the tone of the VN, even if it was so edgy at times that it was hilarious . in fact, it was probably exactly that what made me like it so much. I also didn't really mind the different direction it took compared to the previous games, as I haven't really played much of them before - and I actually enjoyed the references it did make quite a lot. The game starts with the Blindman arc - which is unfortunately enough also considered the true arc, and is probably the least interesting one of the bunch. It tries to make an urban legend of its own and then go with it, but it really didn't have me convinced by the end of it at all. But once you finish that, new choices appear in various spots of the original arc, each one splitting into a completely new story. Now, this system might sound like a huge pain in the ass - but thankfully, the VN has an interactive flowchart. Hell yes! Why can't every VN have this, god damn it?!?! It also has some other gimmicks, like a section it calls the Liar's Art, where you are tasked to make use of the main character's silver tongue to win an argument. This means a lot of timed choices, and a surprisingly tense and fun minigame. The staple of the series, the Courage Points (your currency that is required to select certain choices) and the Inference Logic, where you are required to fill out a chart of events and people to solve each case, also make a return - but the Self Question part, that used to sway the cases in different directions in the original, is unfortunately gone - and as such each arc only gets one ending plus a whole bunch of bad endings - but the normal endings are so deliciously edgy for the most part that I absolutely loved them. As such, the VN also felt more like a regular story than a game where you solve cases - but there were a few exceptions where the MC took things into her hands and you were actually asked to do some thinking, the Doll arc being probably the best example, surprisingly enough. I would personally give the VN an 8 out of 10 as I've enjoyed it a lot, but I do admit it was kind of a guilty pleasure more than anything else. I've started the second one now, and the hardcore backdown to the core of the series is apparent right from the arc selection already (occult and science endings are back) - I just kind of miss the super edgy tone, as it is more hilarious than anything so far.