ChaosRaven

Koihime Musou has several older heroines like Shion for a more mother type heroine or Aisha for a more older sister type heroine. Kyou and Tomoyo from Clannad also weren't mentioned yet for Onee-san types. Then there is Kurugaya from Little Busters who's also an Onee-San type. Kara no Shojo 1 & 2 has Kyouko for a more mother type heroine. Kira Kira's Chie for an Onee-San type heroine. Ran from My Girlfriend is the President for an Onee-San type heroine. And Shuffle has Asa for an Onee-san type and you can get Nadeshiko (teacher) in the fan disc Really? Really! and Ai in the fan disc Tick! Tack!. And in Edelweiss there's Mei, another teacher heroine. Edit: Ah sorry, you wanted 'real' sister or mother heroines, not just types? Anyway, I just leave it that way, maybe you can still have a look.

Nice review. I agree with your opinion about the high profile sprite dynamics. They certainly had a good look on how it's done in Yuzusoft VN's, the masters of this discipline. Personally, I really liked the start of the VN when the heroines were introduced and everyone ends up in the student council somehow. Unfortunately, it got pretty dull afterwards to a point I can only stomach it in small doses anymore. Can't judge the routes yet, since I'm still in the common route though. It's still a decent moege I think - the heroines are likable and the art is good - but it struggles from the typical 'endless slice of life' problem which is so typical for this genre. I wish moege writers would come up with somewhat more interesting stories and scenarios like Dracu Riot or Koihime.

I thought it was obvious from my post that I wasn't entirely serious and just combined the worst cases of several ports. Anyway, currently there's still neither an 18+ version of Sharin nor G-Senjou out yet, and the all ages version of G-Senjou was already released years ago. That's hardly how it's supposed to be going.

It was still an excellent opportunity to express my frustration about Favorite and the whole AkabeiSoft network.

'Japanese VN company going west' in a nutshell: Initially, they don't give a damn about the west and even IP-block their homepage from foreign access. That stays that way until a diligent fan translator happens to translate one of their titles. Then, after some time, they get aware of it and start sending cease and desist letters to stop the fan translation to emphasize how much they hate the west. That will usually not really work out the way they hoped for and they'll have a sudden change of mind and decide that they absolutely love the west and want to make an official release. Though instead of picking a new title to translate, which would be what everyone wants, they will then decide to pick the same title, ignore the existing translation and completely re-translate it from scratch. Then they will decide to make a Kickstarter and also release the title on Steam. As a consequence of that, they'll just make a Steam- and Kickstarter friendly all-ages version where every H-scene will be removed even if it's a nukige. The official translation will then take about 5 years until nobody is interested anymore, and if they finally release it, sales will be so weak that they'll immediately loose interest in further western releases.

Yes, because despite my words I made the same mistake like everyone else and tried to stick too close to the original - I was uncreative. Good wordplays usually have almost lyric qualities - a good linguistic flow and a clever twist. After some careful reconsideration, I think the name Asaba would be much better 'abused' to modify the second name. Like Asaba Dorkula, Asaba Fartula or Asaba Glooma to stay closer to the original. Though I still think a native speaker with years of battle hardend bullying experience in an English school could come up with even better stuff.

Usually I like choices because it gives me the feeling to have control over the outcome of the story, which increases the immersion. On the other hand, too frequent or too nonesensical choices can certainly hamper the experience. And too many can be very annoying if you have to backtrack for different routes. Besides Root Double's extra creative choice system, a particular bad choice combination I've seen in several VN's this year are choices which aren't exclusive. That means you get several choices but you'll just select them one after another. That's pretty much the epitome of nonsensical. Choices in general either influence the outcome of the story or are just flavour. While the former are usually the best, the latter can also be good if they make you identfy better with the protagonist. Such flavour choices are also very typical in western RPG's like the ones from Bioware. Very common choices in VN's are also map movement or location selections, often seen in dating sims to pick a certain heroine. But it's also common in Kara no Shojo like mystery games. And in contrast to common believe most of those choices are not deciding but pure flavor are also just heroine selection. And that's something I dislike about many walkthroughs: they often just show you one possible path and make you think that if you just make one different choice, it'll lead to a bad or different end. But those game are made to enjoy the freedom of choice and a walkthrough will make you feel on rails. The better walkthroughs will therefore mark the key choices that really influence the story and not just show you one way to max CG's as fast as possible. Walkthroughs should only be used if you got stuck, for CG completion or as a 'rough' guideline, otherwise they'll often just lower the enjoyment instead of increasing it.

I think the fundamental mistake of trying to translate something like Asa-baka is to keep the name + title suffix structure and just try to replace the suffix with something else. This structure is a unique Japanese construct because it spoofs their typical -kun, -chan, -san title suffixes. This doesn't exist in English, so it simply can't work here. If an English person tries to do a similar thing, he'll usually try to replace part of the name with something else. For example, if you want to provoke good old Hercules, you might call him Dorkules. Or if you think that Nicolas Sarkozy was a greedy guy you can turn his name to Nicolas Sharkozy. Or if you don't like Tony Blair, you might transform his name to Tony Bland. So Asa-baka shouldn't be translated to something like Asa-Something, instead the full name Asaba should be twisted to something else. Maybe Asatard for retard or Asoron for moron. Or use the full name Asaba Yuuma to get a funny combination. There are most likely better variants, but I guess just asking an 8 - 12 year old kiddo what he'd do with this name if that would be his most hated classmate will lead to the best and most creative results.

Never heard that the word 'bat' is used in that context. But English isn't my mother language, so it's certainly possible, even if I don't think it's a frequently used word in that context. Still, it's nothing compared to Chrono Clock's translation, where a supposedly ultra British girl is constantly throwing in Japanese words to 'emphasize' her Britishness.

Man, those were the days... Really loved the likes of Lodoss, Slayers, Ranma and Noir back then and even watched them multiple times. Though, I remember trying really hard to understand what people saw in Tenchi Muyo. It was just bland for me. I think I even watched it a second time in with full attention in analysis mode, just to find the hidden greatness in it. But at some point I just gave up on it, since I really didn't get it. Still, a lot more seemed to click with me back then. Nowadays I wonder if I changed or anime changed, that the like to dislike ratio dropped by such a significant margin - probably both.

I consider the follow-up route structure where each route builds up on the last one the weakest one, since the routes aren't complete in itself anymore. It still kinda works in ChuSingura where the routes at least have a rather equal quality (independent from individual likes or dislikes) and a half decent closure, but it's the worst in Dies Irae where the early routes are just poor stepping stones to the grander routes later. If a writer wants to write a kinetic VN then he should just do that and not try to force it into individual heroine routes. And it's especially problematic if you need knowledge from a former route to understand a latter one since the protagonist usually shouldn't have that knowledge and that causes a rift between the reader and the protagonist. Though at least that's not a problem in ChuSigura since the protagonist keeps the knowledge from the previous routes.

As long as I like the individual heroine routes I don't really care about a 'true' route. However, in general I think that a true route only makes sense in an actual story VN. And those are more the exception than the rule. The majority of VN's are more character focused moeges like Princess Evangile & Co with a plot that fits on a pencil tip and you certainly don't need a true route for those. Personally, I'm not a big fan of true routes since it automatically implies that the writers did spend less effort into the actual heroine routes. IMHO Fate/Stay Night has still the most perfect route structure, because each route is long, rich and satisfying and shows you different aspects and developments, but each route in itself also feels complete. I still appreciate a good true route if it brings something new and interesting to the table. But those are mostly from mystery VN's where you figure out the master mind or other hidden secrets. But I have a particular dislike for over-dramatized whining true routes with little substance often found in nakiges or utsuges. And I tend to just skip them these days if it isn't dedicated to a particular interesting heroine.

Hmm, I'll just make a guess that the huge twist is the heroines being screwed up and victimized in some way or another for cheap emotional kicks. At least that's the case in 90% of the cases I hear about a disturbing VN with some ultra dramatic twist.

The thing is, while some VN's like Eden with Sion or Saya no Uta with Saya manage to explain the young appearance of their main heroines in a rather convincing way, the vast majority does not. In fact it's almost the opposite. In most school life VN's you're explicitly given the information that it's a Japanese school and that the heroines are first year or second year students. Although I don't know the Japanese school system and its typical entrance age in detail, that makes it 'slightly' hard to believe that the characters are 'at least' 18 years old. Not that I'd really care, since it's actually pretty normal that teenagers have sex way before they're 18. The funny thing is, since the protagonist is usually a student around the same age like the heroines too, the actual situation in real life would be usually perfectly legal, since teenagers are allowed to have sex with each others at least in most civilized countries. Though there are certainly loli's with a rather questionable elementary-school or even pre-school appearance.

Wow, a 4.5 years necro post! That's a new record!

It just shows that she has a flat chest. But the key features of the CG's in the common route are her waist and face. However, I can't really prove my point either. Everything that's said could be interpreted in different ways and the CG's can't really be trusted because she has different clothing and hair cut in the true route. Anyway, even if you're right it doesn't really make her route much better...

Can you somehow back this? I checked the text and the protagonist calls her a 'woman' the first time they met and not a 'girl'. And the protagonist also mentions that she looks very different than before when she changed to a school girl and she also apparently split into smaller beings. Naturally, it could be just because she's clothed differently and the splitting into smaller things could be just in a more spiritual sense. But she really looks AND talks a lot more mature in her original form. I'm pretty sure that she was definitely made younger than before. There are definitely a bit too much indicators here to just reduce it to a few perspective issues in the CG's.

Nope, there's a fan translation from nekoHen. Though Ikusa Megami has some rather nasty elements - mainly in chapter 3 where the protagonist turns evil for a limited time. So I'm not sure if it's really a VN you'd like. It was certainly at my limit, although that doesn't tell much, since I usually prefer tamer stuff. Yeah, that feeling is hard to avoid with a trap protagonist in an all girls school. lol She's the main heroine in the fourth chapter. In the other chapters she's usually one of the main villains. I think there's no heroine in Chusingura who's a main character in all chapters, except maybe Kuranosuke. Each chapter is basically a route.

Wow, first a nukige review (I know, with plot) and now a harem thread. Should there really be a mere mortal human being behind Clephas stoic mask after all?! Anyway, with my character obsession I just can't resist those threads... 1.) Of course Ai from Tick Tack is the heart of my harem. 2.) And naturally, there will always be a place for Rin from F/SN. She's also the smartest and will make sure to kick my butt if I should mess up. 3-5.) Yurifina and Silveria from Uninonism Quartet and Celia from Walkure Romanze are the knight girls from my harem, since I just can't get enough of those. 6.) And Aisha is my battle maiden from Koihime Musou. 7.) And Serawi from Kamidori joins because I just can't say no to an elven princess.

Every VN with a tsundere heroine! Okay, seriously... Otoboku would fit the bill for a romance title. The (trap) protagonist is a thorn in the eye of the school council president Takako. And there's Ikusa Megami Zero with the queen of villainous heroines: Haishera. Though it's a gameplay title and the translation is probably not the best. Furthermore, there's ChuSingura with the vice queen of villainous heroines: Ichigaku. And more enemy heroines... And not to forget Koihime Musou where serveral heroines are initially enemies . There are certainly more, but those came to mind.

Uh, my poor backlog! But I really had to get this title. But Jesus, a 7 GB download?!? Is this even compressed?

You did your part for the war against the bugs, civilian! Would you like to know more?

Time for some status update for my JP VN's I guess. Well, I already finished Hyakki Ryouran no Yakata some weeks ago. This was actually one of the titles I was mostly looking forward to this year, because it's the quasi successor to Kiriya Hakushakuke no Roku Shimai which is still one my all time favorites. What made it special is that it was a very ero heavy title that also offered an intriguing, mysterious plot that resembles Innocent Grey's semi-realistic style very closely. But in contrast to Innocent Grey's titles, it was much less gory and more focused on heroines and fan service. But the combination of an ero heavy VN with a strong supporting plot is still extremely rare. Especially since the production values were very high with art from M&M and a great soundtrack. The title was still released under the label of Atelier Kaguya when M&M was still the artist of Team Heartbeat before they 'rebelled' and created studio Astronauts Sirius which is mostly known for their H-heavy gameplay titles now. Astronauts Sirius usually has a good sense for game mechanics and their titles are usually less grindy than Eushully & Co who managed to take grinding on a whole new level. For that reason it's usually possible to finish one of their titles in reasonable time. Their biggest weakness is that their stories unfortunatley tend to suck. So you play an Astronauts VN because of the gameplay and M&M's sexy art, but hardly because of the story. For that reason I was hesitant what to expect from the new Hyakki Ryouran no Yakata, especially since their last try in 'story' Saint Estella was quite disappointing. I was still slightly optimistic though, since they broke their fixed annual release cycle for it and gave it about half a year more development time. And to give a short preemptive consclusion, I was both positively surprised and relieved that they succeeded with it for the most part. In Hyakki Ryouran no Yakata you play a student from the University of Tokyo who comes to Yugoshi mountain in search for his professor. During his search he stumbles upon an old, mysterious mansion and is invited to join a certain marriage ritual of the Mikado family along with several other candidates. The story is set up in a similar way like an old Hitchcock movie, where several people meet in a house where one or more of the participants are murdered and you have to figure out the culprit. It's therefore a very traditonal murder mystery at heart - just with way more sex in it. The VN also takes a different approach to many other story VN's, that make POV switching almost a new sport, in that it keeps its protagonist POV almost for the whole time. This makes the VN very immersive - you only know what the protagonist knows and sees and nothing more except for the knowledge you gain from previous routes. There's a lot of intrigue and hidden secrets to discover and one play through will only reveal parts of the story. I was honestly impressed how much effort they took to give every character a unique identity and reasons why they are part of the story. Everyone has its place is part of a big mystery. One my favorite characters was actually Iwaki Akio, a detective who also tries to solve the mystery for his own reasons. He's more or less your ally for a good part of the story. The characters are also for the most part more 'grey' instead of just black and white, with both character strengths and flaws. The routes of the VN are roughly separated in three parts - the introduction route, the main routes and the true route. The introduction route was a bit of a suprise since all heroine routes are locked and the VN is pretty much kinetic. H scenes there are actually plot relevant except some 'preview semi H-scenes' for the main heroines which were probably only included to keep readers who are only there for 'one reason' at least mildly entertained. But I found the plot surprisingly engaging and dig through it in pretty much one sitting. The VN pretty much forces you into a bad end here which is already spoiled at the start. After that the main routes are unlocked and you can pick heroines and events via map movement. Now you'll have to change the events of the introduction route. To succeed with a heroine route you also have to find certain items along the way, the protagonist will usually use to free himself from unpleasant situations or get important information. If you missed a required item you'll run in a bad end, where you'll usually get killed and you might also see (a rather tame) rape scene. The routes itself vary in quality. Since the introduction route already tells a lot of the story, the heroine arcs were a bit too much uneven on the fan service side. Aya's route felt almost redundant with the introduction route and Yuri's felt more like a side route. Considering Yuri was the heroine I was mostly looking toward too, that was a bit disappointing. She didn't even get an appropriate ending. And that's almost a shame since she was a quite interesting character. She wasn't just a tsundere, she was borderline cruel and your job was more or less to save her from herself. Fumika had surprisingly the strongest route besides the main heroine Ririka. The other side routes were pretty much just fan service. After that the true route around Ririka unlocks and the final secrets about the hidden shrine and the dark god of the Mikado family gets revealed. Although it felt a bit rushed and lacked some information about the previous miko, it was still good enough to leave me satisfied. In comparison to its predecessor Kiriya Shimai, I'd say it has probably a better written main plot, but the heroine routes besides the main heroine Riririka felt a bit more lacking. Kiriya Shimai had more fleshed out heroine routes but the main plot was probably a bit weaker. Though it's quite some time that I read it. Other weaknesses are shared by both and are also known from Innocent Grey VN's. Picking another route can result in lots of text skipping with frequent interruptions sinec you have to pick the right location. Since the VN is also very ero heavy, the heroines tend to be rather 'willing' even if the H-scenes itself are probably at least less random than in Kara no Shoujo. The VN also has a very tight time frame that makes relationship developments a bit unrealistic. But overall, I was pretty satisfied with the VN despite some flaws. Production values were top notch with great art and soundtrack that helped greatly to create a thriliing, mysterious atmosphere. The story might not be as refined as in a true Innocent Grey VN, but it's still very solid and easily wipes the floor with what most other VN releases dare to offer. I also appreciate the fact that the VN isn't overambitious and tries to create an epic conflict with hardly any substance to back it. The VN focuses on the mansion and its involved characters, locations and events, and that part is rather well done. Character ranking: Yuri > Aya > Ririka > Fumika Overall rating: 8/10 Besides my reread of Kara no Shoujo 2, this was probably the best VN I've read this year. I finished it well under a week, which is extremely fast for my standards. Besides that, I finished two routes in Shin Koihime Eiyuutan, one good and one bad. But I stalled it for a while when Hyakki came up. The VN just offers short fan service routes anyway and I still dislike the mass over class with far too many heroines you're apparently involved with and you often don't even get the choice with whom you want to get involved with. I also don't think I'll continue with Ikusa Megami Verita. Having two hero parties in a grinding game is just too much and I was neither impressed by the story nor the characters so far. I rather start a newer Eushully VN instead when I get motivated again. I also had a look on what Atelier Kaguya's non-rebel studios had to offer for some 'light entertainment'. I tried out Love Tore form Team HonkyTonk Pumpkin first which turned out to be probably the best 'pure nukige' I've played so far. I played it's successor JD Onsen last year which impressed me with its outstanding animation quality but disappointed with its silly plot. Love Tore was more of a traditional dating sim and I liked the character designs a bit more, but the animation quality was just as good. Overall rating: 7.5/10 I then also I tried Niizuma Fuwa Toro from Team CheshireCat but it turned out as a quite disappointing 5/10. Though I'll also have a look on some of Team Bare & Bunny's newer releases, even if I still feel burned by the buggy crash festival that Baku Ane was. I also started with Caucasus since MangaGamer doesn't seem to care about story VN's anymore. It was quite troublesome since it's the first VN I couldn't hook in Windows 10 and had to create a Win7 virtual machine just for it.

I finally finished Chrono Chlock. I really enjoyed the common route and Makoto's route and in retrospect it would have been the best to just leave it at that and walk away as a happy man, since the other routes were unfortunately not quite up to that standard. The main strength of the VN were certainly the charming characters. Especially in the common route when the plot around the clock was still strong, the character interactions were engaging and funny. Makoto's route then showed how it 'should' be continued, with a slow transition to nakige and a dramatic heartwarming ending. Unfortunately, for whatever reasons, the other routes turned out as low effort filler routes at best where the core plot was largely abandoned. And without any plot or at least the minimum tension the inclusion of the H scenes would have brought, there was just never ending, repetitive sweet talking. And the route I was mostly looking forward to, Chronos' route, was pretty much the worst of them. Taking such a beautiful and interesting character, and coming up with a complete bogus plot twist, just to turn her into a loli with all measurements halfed including IQ for the sole purpose of making a cheap and boring imouto route, was borderline heresy. Changing a character for a route is a big no-go anyway. If they wanted a loli Chrono, then why didn't they created her that way in the first place? Anyway, the VN had certainly good parts, but most of the routes felt like they desperately wanted to keep their annual release date. But if they wanted that, they would have been better off skipping some routes to be able to flesh out others. Or just make one main route with optional romance choices for all heroines. Character ranking: Chrono (true) = Makoto > Misaki > Miu > Michiru > D.D. > Chrono (loli) Overall rating: 6.5/10 I would have still given the VN a 7 despite the weak routes because of its likable characters and at least the common route and Makoto's route were solid. But turning Chrono into a loli demands for some additional... punishment. Regarding other translated VN's I'm currently reading, I pretty much stalled Dies for the moment in favor of Fata Morgana. I still finished Kei's route though. Wasn't too fond of it - it mostly resembled a bunch of Street Figher videos with Nazi posers on Youtube in slow motion. Fata Morgana has its weaknesses too, but the plot feels a lot more engaging and interesting. Besides that, I started reading Wagamama HighSpec. It was this or Hatsukoi and Wagamama just won for the sole reason that it was already play-ready and I was too lazy to install game & patch of Hatsukoi.

Surprised to see Record of Lodoss War mentioned a few times. Actually it was the first anime I bought on a fantasy con and it pretty much brought me to anime. Loved the two elves Deedlit and Pirotess though I developed a real crush for Pirotess the dark elve. She and Ashram made such a cool couple. And then her loyalty and sacrifice - her events were so much more tragic. Still looking for a character that resembles her. Anyway, after that I had a crush for Rinoa from Final Fantasy 8 for a while even if it's not truly 2D I guess. In anime, it continued with a somewhat shorter crush Mai from Kanon, and then Tessa from Full Metal Panic whom I literally worshipped for a very long time. Suigintou from Rozen Maiden also grabbed my heart and then came Rin from Fate/Stay Night who pretty much brought me to visual novels. My main waifu from VN's is probably still Ai from Tick Tack whose avatar I'm still using. Aisha, Shion and Sui from Kohime Musou were also characters I really liked. Then Celia from Walkure Romanze and currently it's mostly Silveria and Yurifina from Unionism Quartet.