ChaosRaven

Seems like MangaGamer tries to overcompensate the 4 years of waiting time for Da Capo 3 by developing a real Circus fetish now. We're getting the next Circus moege - Space Live - because it's so long since we got the last one. The waiting time was almost... unbearable. However, there's something that's really irritating me. I couldn't find a Japanese annoucement anywhere - the title isn't even mentioned on Circus' homepage. That got me thinking, might that actually be one of those precious English 'exclusives' that usually stand out by their 'outstanding high quality', and are therefore hidden from their Japanese fans base because they might 'rage in envy'? I wonder!

A user from VNDN created a new Visual Novel Text Hooking Wiki with the H-codes from the old AGHT Wiki. He also added a nice little text hooking guide that covers the most common tools for it.

Towards the end, there's usually a big backer boost, so it doesn't look that bad with more than half of the backer goal already reached with 14 days left. I actually like the character designs of Sakura and Akira. Despite their age they look better than a lot of characters from newer titles. I might even end up backing this. You even get a hard copy for 40$, which is almost a bargain compared to some other Kickstarters from other publishers who usually want more than a 100$ for it *cough* Sekai Project *cough*. Would be nice if they'd release a high res edition though. So far they seem to stick to the old 800 x 600 resolution.

So, I finished Yang's route in Pygmalion now, and I think I'll leave it at that. To be honest, I think I only made it that far because I enjoyed its music so much. I really have to try to extract its music somehow or get a download for it since it would be a waste to just have it gone. In that regard its similar strong or maybe even better than Tokyo Babel which also had a quite good soundtrack overall. For all their flaws, Propeller did have a good sense of music. Unfortunately, the VN had a lot of other flaws that couldn't just be compensated by the music. First and foremost the weak character cast, followed by a very chaotic story flow. And the top offender was Mina itself, the protagonist. If I would be forced to find a word that describes everything about her, personality, attitude, character strength, everything in one word, then this word would be "Huh?!". Nothing else describes her complete cluelessness, lack of common sense and character strength better than this word. You can literally talk her into every crime with just a half-assed explanation because she will believe everything or just be too timid to doubt you. You can totally expect stuff like "Huh, how could I have known that the kid will be dead after I shot it?!". Overall, she acts like a 5 year old child for the most part of the VN which gets VERY annoying after a while. The rest of the 'yuri circle' - Riko and Jessica - also didn't exactly stand out through particular smartness. Riko was as bland and boring as it gets while Jessica was at least bearable and actually has some decent scenes. Another top offender was Madame Leifang who could be considered the leader of 'Team Ruka'. Her main agenda seemed to be to cause as much infighting as possible and get her team killed as fast as possible. She also constantly seemed to change her attitude through the VN to a point where I had the strong suspicion that she might constantly having her days. At some point I just gave up trying to understand what she actually wants. Yang, her daughter, was better and some of the characters who acted a bit more mature. Though she was essentially not more than a side character. She only appears for a short time at the start and then just joins much later on. And most of her 'route' consisted of sitting in a car and talking with Jay, which was surprisingly one of the more relaxing parts of the VN's. And speaking of Jay, he was probably the best written character by a long mile. Calm, composed and loyal - I really liked him. He would have been a way better protagonist than Mina. Art was hit and miss. The artist had frequent problems finding the right facial and body proportions. At its best there were some really nice and beautiful CG's, but more often than not it just turned out as weird and distorted. For the story itself, it had potential, but the weak character cast and chaotic story flow more less killed it. Character ranking: Jay > Yang > Jessica >> Riko > Madame Leifang >> Mina (I use a character ranking instead of a heroine ranking this time so I can include Jay) Overall rating: 6/10 Regarding other translated VN's I'm currently reading, I'm half through with Chrono Clock. Makoto's route was pretty good although a bit short. Misaki's and Michiru's routes felt really unnecessary and tagged on though, with a much lower quality than Makoto's route. They dragged quite a bit and it took me several breaks to dig through them. Currently at DD's route which I'm not sure yet how it'll turn out. But the VN certainly lives from its charming characters. Finished Kasumi's route in Dies which wasn't that great and getting to the end of Kei's route I think. Seems a bit better than Kasumi's, but it's still rather bland and predictable. I think I've never experienced a writer that had such a tendency to blather like in Dies. Ask anyone for directions and he'll just say "Just over there, 200 meters from here on the left side.", ask Masada and you get a half hour sermon about 'going against the forces or nature', 'wilth full spirit', 'even if it costs you your life', 'and never give up' and stuff like that - you get the picture. It's only possible to digest in small doses... -.- Also started with Fata Morgana and it's rather promising so far. In contrast to most others I didn't like the music at all and replaced it with the soundtrack from Beyond two Souls from Lorne Balfe which somehow fits the gothic atmosphere better. The original soundtrack also had too much (bad) singing and I find atmospheric music with singing horribly distracting. The sprites are good, the backgrounds... not - in half of the cases I can't even figure out what the background image is supposed to show. Oddly enough, as long as the sprites are good the weak backgrounds don't hurt the experience as much as I thought. But the writing is overall spot on so far and compensates for a lot of its other shortcomings.

I think you have to unlock the append stories first by finishing a heroine route. I you aren't sure, you can also use a 100% CG save and check if the append stories are there. Fortunately, my own hard copies of Lovely x Cation 1 & 2 had the appends already included, so I didn't have to bother with copying files around and checking if it works.

Well then... Thank you Nayleen!!!

Hard to say. Usually MangaGamer still keeps a few aces up their sleeves for Otakon, though I'm not sure how good they are this year. And it's admittedly not that easy to get me hyped anymore. It would require some Eustia or BaseSon tier announcement to really get me excited. It would be nice to get something good which isn't a simple school life moege for a change. Though I think I'd be already satisfied with some more stuff from Purple Soft, Third Eye or MoonStone's Sakura no Mori † Dreamers.

Ratng wise Wagamama High Spec seems to be the better one, since it's higher rated both on VNDB and EGS. But if you liked Princess Evangile so much that you were waiting 2 years for the fan disc, then I would pick that one since it's a saver bet then.

I'm a bit irritated how exactly an University Bachelor Degree in Arts is helpful for translating a VN. I mean, they should translate the story and not write their own instead which just happens to fit the pictures, right?! Edit: On the other hand, maybe they need that for demosaicing. Though they could have made that clearer by requesting an art degree in genitals.

I've no words for that...

Guess they heard that Sakura titles are selling well in the west, and now they have dollar signs in their eyes because they've even two Sakura's in their name...

So, I finally finished Lovely & Cation 2. Like the first one, this was a pure dating sim where you choose locations and buy items or do stuff to raise your stats. High stats or specific items can then unlock hidden events, CG's, other items and additional H-scenes. I guess having certain stats too low can also give you a bad end. I personally just played easy mode, and so it was more about getting all goodies a route has to offer. What probably stands out the most about the game is its pretty art that made Iizuki Tasuku one of the most popular artists. Due to its dating sim nature the VN puts an unusual strong emphasis on the dating aspect, putting the interaction with the chosen character first and almost neglecting story aspects. Naturally, that's a double edged sword since for someone who expects an interesting story this is certainly the wrong title. On the other hand it shines in the romance and character interaction departments. It neither waters down the tension of the romances with unnecessary comedy nor does it get too serious like a nakige. It's also a very ero heavy title, which is considering the good art a big plus and certainly one of its strongest attraction points. The original already has about 10 H-scenes per heroine, but since I played the Zutto Hatsukoi no Hibi Edition with all after stories, there were an additional 7 - 8 scenes per heroine. That's not to say it's a nukige, it actually takes quite a while of relationship building until the characters get intimate. Art quality is mostly comparable to the the predecessor which was already top-notch, although they added animated walking scenes like in ef where the characters talk while walking somewhere. On the other hand there's one point that didn't improve at all: Iizuki Tasuku's obscure denial to draw any side characters. It's almost baffling, that this artist has no problems drawing tons of gorgeous art for the main heroines but refuses to draw even the most essential side characters. And this stood even more out here than in L&C1 since there are two rather prominent side characters with lots of screen time. L&C1 also used a rather elegant trick and made two heroines friends of each other, one acting as prominent side character in the route of the other. The heroines in L&C2 felt a bit more isolated because of this. The heroine routes itself were enjoyable and I think longer than in its predecessor, but they also felt a bit more generic in comparison which might be partly due to the two teacher routes in the first part that added some nice extra tension. The heroines were all likable, although I didn't play Hinata's route. While she's certainly cute and I liked her, she was simply a bit too loli for my taste, especially considering the ero heavy nature of the game. Hime was the lively beauty next door, very similar to Yuuki in the first part. Wakote the adored school pincess and elite student similar to Sera in the first part. And finally Seine, the silent and introverted beauty with empathy problems with some similarities to Aya in the first part. Overall I liked Seine a tiny bit more than the others, followed by Wakoto and Hime. So Seine > Wakoto >= Hime > Hinata Overall rating: 7,5/10 (Almost as good as the first part, but not quite) I somehow wasn't motivated enough to continue with Ikusa Megami Verita, but somehow got interested in Dungeon of Regalias instead and played that almost half through, just to completely loose motivation and stalling it again. The gameplay was petty addictive though - fast-paced and fun. I just wish Astronauts writing would be just half as good as their sense for fun and addictive game mechanics. Art wise it's IMHO a bit weaker than the previous titles. Besides that I played Itsu made mo Boku dake no Mama no Mama de ite!, a nukige with animated scenes which was unfortunately not as good as I hoped it would be due to the annoying mother festish obsession of Japanese eroge writers with all female characters that 'might' be older than 20. Overall rating: 5,5/10 Next Japanese VN on my list is Shin Koihime † Eiyuutan to celebrate the upcoming release of Kakumei. I also have my eyes on the upcoming Hyakki Ryouran no Yakata from Astronauts: Sirius, the long awaited unofficial successor to Kiriya Hakushakuke no Roku Shimai from Atelier Kaguya which is still one of my all time favorites. I've mixed feelings about it though. This is not a gameplay title and Astronauts didn't exactly impress me with their writing in recent years, and their last try with Saint Estella was quite disappointing. I'm still slightly optimistic, Saint Estella just got 11 months of development time while Hyakki Ryouran is getting almost 1,5 years. So they are taking their time for this one. They better don't mess that up again, or I'd be pretty pissed.

lol, I know that feeling. BTW, I think I remember some translators posting an image of their workplace, and I think they did use a word processor for translating the extracted scripts. So they probably don't see the actual images of a VN when translating, which would make it quite hard to find such a little bugger.

I meant if it would be a translation for a book. Naturally, if it's a VN you can just check out the images.

Interesting, I didn't know that. I wonder if the original Japanese writer is some kind of traditionalist and wanted to call the eye color 'aoi' or if it was just a simple mistake. Not sure it the translator is to blame here, since it's not really his job to fix logical mistakes or plot holes of the original. Though, if 'aoi' can really mean green and blue in Japanese I wonder what a translator would be supposed to do if there aren't any images present to figure out what's really mean. Roll a dice? Guess it's probably left to the creative freedom of the translator.

There's one major thing I didn't understand about the opening of the swastikas yet...

Yeah, I had a very similar impression that the VN and its battles in particular are suffering a lot from 'style over substance' syndrome. And I think you nailed one problem of them with your statement about the 'rules'. Although the recent Chusingura I played didn't have as flashy battle sequences as Dies, I enjoyed them overall much more since I could follow them much better. I simply knew what was going on and what tactic one character was using to counter the other due to the somewhat clearer sword fighting rules. The fights were more focused, faster and the characters more concentrated and did less trash talking. Dies uses an almost a contrary approach with lots of trash talking and unusual weapons like a guillotine arm where its harder to imagine how the battles are supposed to work. Not sure if I can criticise the VN for that since pretty much what makes it 'chuuni' I guess. Though I can definitely say that I like the former less chuuni and more 'substance over style' classical sword fights more. Still, I don't want to make my usual mistake and judge the VN too soon. I currently stalled it for a while until I get motivated again, but if I pick it up again I'll try to finish 1 - 2 routes first before making a final judgement. Anyway, meanwhile in Chrono Clock... Seems like green is the new blue this year.

Just started ChronoClock and my first impression is pretty much: Man, the kawaii level is almost off the scale! Pretty much every heroine I've met so far is a must play route - even Miu who is basically the loli. But what do you wanna do - you almost want to carry her around everywhere just to make sure that nothing happens to her. I was also surprised about the many background animations, it's an incredibly pretty game on almost every level. The voice acting is also stellar and the story is both funny and interesting so far. Although I should probably keep my enthusiasm a bit more in check since I didn't progress very far yet, I'd still say that this VN has the best chances to get my moege of the year. Though, that'll probably also depend on if MangaGamer manages to release Hapymaher - the other PurpleSoft title - this year or not, since Hapymaher is considered to be even better than Chrono Clock. The only negative thing I noticed so far was the text font. I mean they chose a white text color... on white background. And the dark edges were hardly enough to decipher the text. Anyway, I managed to get my text almost black now, so it's pretty much a problem of the past. Still I usually vastly prefer a white text color on a darkened text box. No idea why they chose that combination. Well, Dies had similar problems with its dark red text color on dark background where I also had to made some changes first to be able to read anything.

I was quite surprised by the message of ChuableSoft closing down since they seemed to be one of the more prosperous studios. I wasn't so interested in SukiSuki, but I had an eye on Haretaka which was propably their best title at the time when the studio had reached its peak. Wouldn't have thought that it went down so fast again. Their engagement in the west was apparently a little to late. Though it didn't save Overdrive neither, so it's certainly not guaranteed that it would saved them if they tried it earlier. The studio I'm currently a bit worried about is actually Ricotta, the makers of Walkure Romanze. Their last full title was the WalRoma expansion 2013, and after that they just released two DLC's 2014 and 2015. Although they probably sold and are still selling tons of merchandise for it, it begs the question how long a studio can survive without releasing anything. Many studios like Eushully have a stricty annual releasing cycle to stay profitable. So if a studio has a slower release cycle, the titles either have to sell pretty good and/or the budget must be low. Ricotta's last 'news' post is more than a year old so it's slowly starting to get a bit worrying.

To add an on-topic post again for a change, I seek mostly good art and romance with charming female characters from a VN, ideally with some nice ero to spice it up. That's IMHO the biggest strength of visual novels - or eroges - in general. The main job of the story is then to make the characters shine. I do appreciate a good story VN, but as long as they are just the exception than the rule I do prefer western movies and TV shows for a good story.

I'm actually really thinking about reverting back to Kasumi's route. Not because I'd care about route orders (which I don't), but the more I read about Kei the more I'm starting to dislike her. She's just a ruthless mass murderer, and I don't like that type. I wouldn't say I'm a big Kasumi fan, but at least I don't hate her. I'll probably just skip Kei's route altogether, she has no chemistry with Ren anyway.

I actually long stopped wondering about your insane reading speed and just accepted it as one of the big mysteries of life. Ah and btw, speaking of Pygmalion, you were right, it's definitely weaker than Tokyo Babel. Not even sure if I can motivate me to finish even one route... *sigh*

Hardly, it was the best selling title on Getchu in 2015 just like Senren ＊ Banka was the best selling title on Getchu in 2016. The Japanese literally 'worship' Yuzusoft.