ChaosRaven

Jast never ceases to amaze me with their tendency to jump from one extreme to another. On the one hand they announce titles 5 - 10 years before they are released, but if they actually happen to release something, it's either not communicated at all or so shortly in advance that it comes completely unexpected. Anyway, I'll surely pick it up even if the first part wasn't that good. But it's Innocent Grey and the second part is supposed to be a big improvement over the first one. Yes, the third part focused on Yuzuriha is also the one I'm most eagerly awaiting. Easily my favorite character in Flowers.

Yeah, that's one of the biggest mysteries of the VN genre to me too. While otomes cover all kinds of interesting historic or fantasy settings, and also represent them with an appropriate authenticy, the common VN's adressed to guys almost exclusively consist of school life moeges and derivatives.

Same problem for me.

They really do seem to put up a lot of effort into keeping westerners out. Not sure if it's worth to ask for unblocking, since I use the site just occasionally to make some comparisons with VNDB. Still annoying though...

Yes, I expected that much. Liar-soft doesn't really seem to be big into romance. A bit of a pity, but as long as they've other qualities to make up for it, I don't really mind. The title does look interesting, so should MangaGamer pick it up, I'd most likely play it.

Until a short while ago it was possible to access the Japanese VN rating site EGS without a proxy via http://egs.omaera.org/~ap2/ero/toukei_kaiseki/. But this link doesn't seem to work anymore, at least for me. Is it still working for others or am I the only one who gets a 505 Gateway timeout error? Anyone know another link that can be used without proxy?

Does this game have romance? I didn't see any tags for it, though judging by the cover Rin seems to play a more prominent role. And if this title has routes, are those heroine routes or just routes with different plot developments?

Pretty hyped about this one for a change. I waited a long time for it. Well, I'm not really worried about this one, since my tastes in VN's seem rather different from his. I mean, he also considers Kara no Shoujo just an average VN while Himawari is the best kamige ever written for him. That's pretty much the complete opposite of my opinion. That's not to say I'd expect Hapymaher to be perfect. It'll most likely have similar flaws like Chrono Clock had, although I do expect it to be better.

Omg, that title brings 'same-face syndrome' really to a new level...

Not sure what to think about this one. It certainly looks very interesting and seems to be a refreshing change of pace to the usual school life moeges. However... While I'd like both, a seriously written horror story or an H-heavy take on Highschool of the Dead, but a dark zombie rape hentai isn't exactly on my wish list. The tag combinations of Necrophilia, Unavoidable Rape and Kinetic VN pretty much kill the VN for me. Girls raped by zombies is certainly the last thing I want to see.

He was my favorite game critic. I'm so sorry that he had to die in such a young age. It's hard to believe that all our modern medicine couldn't help him.

So, before following the recent Battle Royal trend and start playing... Fatal Twelve, I wanted to first clear up my backlog a bit. Therefore, since I kinda liked Gahkthun, I started playing Sekien no Inganock. And since I also got Himawari in a sale just like Stein's Gate, and the latter turned out to be pretty okay, I started that one reading too. When I started reading Inganock, I was honestly surprised how grim it was. I think the last VN I read that was that grim was probably Saya no Uta, although that was even more grim. While Gahkthun did showcase a prosperous and lively city centered on the high society and their dark secrets, Inganock is an almost desperate place. A city suffering from various super natural sicknesses, mutating, mutilating and killing vast amounts of people. The city is split into several levels, with the healthy and wealthy people at the top, and the sickly and poor deported to the lower slum levels. The whole theme reminds me a lot of Fallout and Shadowrun. It's a bit depressing, but the atmosphere still sucks you in. The protagonist is a doctor who tries is best to heal the poor and help where he can. He's a really likable dude who's currently top candidate for my protagonist of the year. The writing is a bit more on the poetic side sometimes, but overall it's pretty good and has a very mature touch. Kia is an innocent child Gee rescued in the slums and also behaves like that. Atty is technically also a victim of a sickness, but she was lucky enough to just be turned into a cat girl and could be more or less considered Gee's girlfriend. The three stick together and pretty much build a family with some funny and touching interaction between them. Art is a bit outdated though. Music is better even if some get a bit more repetitive after a while. If it comes to presentation, Gahkthun is certainly the better title. Can't judge the story yet though. Himawari is almost the opposite like Inganock. You have your loli moe blob and the writing is a mixture of goofy comedy, lots of cutesy talk and rather dull slice of life. To be perfectly honest, it's absolutely dreadful. I knew that it was supposed to have a weak start, so I waited until the second chapter - and it got worse. Overall, there are massive problems in almost every area, beginning from the lackluster world building to the characters, the writing and the whole tone of the VN. Warning: Rant incoming! While it's possible that it gets a bit better later on (it can't really get worse anymore), the fact that I don't give the slightest damn about the whole cast anymore, makes it pointless for me to continue => Dropped. Heroine rating: Don't care >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Aoi > Aries Overall rating: 2 / 10

I wasn't entirely serious about that lol. But I agree with sarkasmus (what a name ) that even if they wanted to, it would raise all kinds of problems with payment portals like PayPal and public reception.

Considering VN's developed in the west, I'm eagerly awaiting their arrival in the Bronze Age first, since we're technically still dabbling in the Stone Age.

Considering GOG was created by the Witcher guys, can we assume that they shouldn't have any problems with adult content?! Well seriously, it's a bit surprising since GOG wasn't exactly open minded in regards to visual novels so far. But considering recent events, it could be that they just want to show Steam the finger a bit.

I'd tend to say that the years 2004 - 2011 were the most impactful for the whole genre to qualify as a golden age. 2004 - Fate/Stay Night (Chuuni/Story), Clannad (Nakige), Shuffle (Moege) 2005 - Fate/Hollow Ataraxia (Chuuni/Story), Sharin no Kuni (Story), Otoboku (Trap-Protag Moege) 2006 - MuvLuv Alternative (Story), Da Capo 2 (Nakige), Sengoku Rance (Gameplay), ef - A Fairy Tale of the Two 2007 - Little Busters (Nakige), Koihime Musou (Ero-Story-Moege), Dies Irae (Chuuni) 2008 - G-Senjou no Maou (Story), Kara no Shoujo (Story), Shin Koihime Musou (Ero-Story-Moege), Fortune Arterial (Moege), Akatsuki no Goei (Story/Moege), Ikusa Megami Zero (Gameplay) 2009 - Baldr Sky Dive (Gameplay), Majikoi (Action Comedy), Eden (Utsuge), Hoshimem (Nakige), Mashiro Iro Symphony (Moege), Oretsuba (Slice of Life), Muramasa (Chuuni) 2010 - SubaHibi (Story), Ikusa Megami Verita (Gameplay), Stein's Gate (Story), Otoboku 2 (Trap-Protag Moege), White Album 2 (Nakige), Kiriya Roku Shimai (Ero-Story) 2011 - Aiyoku no Eustia (Story), Grisaia (Story-Moege), Kamidori Alchemy Meister (Gameplay), Walkure Romanze (Knight Girls), Lovely x Cation (Dating Sim), Rewrite (Story/Nakige), Euphoria (Story-Fetish-Nukige), Rance Quest (Gameplay) The years after still had some good titles, but not in such a density. I guess the competition got stronger and there was a market saturation, because most improvements were made in the artistic area, while there was a definite decline in good story titles. Probably due to a tighter budget, coupled with the fact that the audience requests more H-scenes in better quality today. I also want to emphasize that I'm not a fan of all the titles I've listed here!!! *cough* Rance *cough* Euphoria *cough*

I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to say here. When I checked out the forum this evening I got informed that there's a new thread with almost a hundred new posts...

I'm not really getting it. Adult content wasn't allowed on Steam in the first place - that's nothing new. So if there's a campaign going on against titles with sexual content, it would imply that some titles broke the rules. And in that case it's just Valve cleaning up. Though I don't really know which titles they are targeting precisely, except Huniepop. But since I never played it, I don't know if they really broke the rules or if the problem are the (free) adult patches. I mean, take the recent Fureraba ~Friend to Lover~ for example, I thought the H-scenes are cut from it, so why does it still have a 'Sexual Content' tag? If VN publishers don't play by the rules, it's not exactly surprising that Valve takes action. Especially if minors and/or rape are involved.

Apparently, it's just a very short title and Sayori is only one of three artists, so the effort she had to put in it was probably very low. In the title before she was still the only artists. The studio is pretty new, so I assume that they just wanted to get the name of a popular artist in their staff list to get some attention. And apparently it worked perfectly since we are now talking about it. I wouldn't be surprised if latter titles would be created without her involvement, since she's most likely not a cheap artists to hire. But to give a new studio a good start, it was most likely a good investment. Not that I'd expect anything of worth coming from a studio called 'Tentacle Games' regardless if Sayori's involved or not.

I think Stein's Gate doesn't take itself too seriously. It has a bit too much comedy and slice of life elements for that. It's therefore sometimes a bit confusing when they are intentionally mocking the issue or just misunderstood some things. But the whole mixture was probably an important reason for the huge success of the VN.

Uh, isn't setting Clephas as the standard for an experienced reader a bit over the top?! I mean, that's literally the same like asking for a fast runner and setting Usain Bolt as the minimum standard for it.

Well, I guess that's way less confusing than his gender-change antics...

Finally finished Stein's Gate. I've avoided this VN for years, due to the odd art style, the so so impression of the anime, and my general dislike of time loop stories. But since I picked it up cheap in a sale some time ago, I thought I'll just give it a try. Surprisingly, the art was much less of a problem as I thought. While it's certainly not 'pretty', it kind of fits to the whole science theme, and it does get bonus points from me for filling the world with life by drawing background characters. The usage of music was very good. The slice-of-life scenes had more light music, but whenever something interesting happens, like the sending of a D-Mail, the music switched to a more suspenseful soundtrack. It did a marvelous job to create a good atmosphere. The voices were a mixed bag though. I overall liked the female voices, but the male ones were a bit bland to be honest. Daru didn't really deserve such a dull voice considering he's actually (in contrast to Okabe) a real crack. And I hated Okabe's voice and his idiotic laughter in particular so much, that I was absolutely delighted that I could turn off his voice in the options. I wish I could have done that in the anime, since Okabe suddenly got... bearable. The E-mail system was annoying as hell though. After I finished Mayuri's route I was thinking about doing the true route too, but due to the absolute mess of choices required to get to it, I decided that having seen it in the anime was good enough for me. Story-wise there were some really good parts, like some of the time travel theories, but also some grave flaws that significantly lowered the whole experience. Ironically, Stein's Gate's time-line theory almost entirely reflects how heroine routes work in eroges, with key choices that get you locked in a certain route with no way to change it afterwards. I don't consider that particular realistic, but it was certainly highly amusing. It also had a good iteration between slice of life and suspense even if it takes a bit long until gets to the meat of the story. The not so good story-parts usually got revealed if you started to think a bit deeper about some things like... Granted, some of it might be nitpicking, but there was a bit too much ridiculous stuff to to just ignore it. I guess it's essentially chuuni - lots of smart words but little thought behind it - and therefore best enjoyed by not thinking too deeply into it. Plotwise I think they spent too much time reverting things instead of making actual progress in the story and revealing more about CERN. In that regard the VN lacked substance, since besides revealing the identity of FB there's actually very little you find out about them. The time loop scenes also had the problem that only Okabe did develop, while the other characters were kind of frozen in time. One of the main reasons I'm not a big fan of time loop stories. Characterwise, it was also a bit of a mixed bag. I think Kurisu, Suzuha, Mayuri and Daru were pretty okay, but several others were kinda... overdone in some way. Moeka and Lukaku were a bit too screwed up to be believable anymore and Faris was also a bit too over-the-top Nekopara for a story VN. The protagonist Okabe himself almost had a split personality. In the first half he's so deep into his chuunibyou, that he appears almost mentally disturbed, reacting mostly paranoid and schizophrenic - I almost had pity with him. And Kurisu getting involved with him despite how he treated and acted around her was puzzling. And in the second half he suddenly turned into sergeant serious and his whole chuunibyou gets just a mere act he can switch on and off on the fly - I just couldn't believe it. But since he got a lot more bearable and almost likable that way, I was willing to turn a blind eye on it. Overall, it was a decent read, but I was certainly not blown away like others from it. IMHO, other story VN's like Root Double or the KnS series had more substance. Heroine rating: Mayuri > Kurisu > Suzuha > Faris > Moeka (Mayuri was probably not the deepest character, but for some reason I liked her the most) Overall rating: 7/10

I don't like that either...

Would have preferred to see Gears of Dragoon from Ninetail instead. The Venus Blood series is a bit too tentacle heavy for my tastes.