ChaosRaven

I think starting a heroine route only means that you start the VN from the beginning with preset choices that lead you to the preselected heroine route. You can also start a new game and make all the choices yourself and end in every heroine route. If you really finished the 'common route' labeled "new game" you've probably already finished the game with one heroine route lol. I think my choices lead me to Kei's route.

So I'm reading Dies Irae for a while now (chapter 8 I think), and it was an... okay read so far. Neither particular lows that would get me raging nor particular highs that would have impressed me. Art is pretty good especially considering its age, though the sound is kinda hit and miss. Compared to Tokyo Babel it had a way better start, but unlike Tokyo Babel which somehow grew on me over time, there are more and more things that are starting to bug me. First and foremost, the VN makes way too many POV changes to other characters. So much I think i'm spending more time in NVL format than in ADV. And there are a few consequences because of that. First, the pacing comes down to a crawl because the story hardly progresses since the VN tries to follow every character. Second, NVL is okay for narration but not so much for dialogs since its harder to follow them that way. Third, the VN spoils too much info you're not supposed to know since the protagonist doesn't know it. That also means if the protagonist finally gets that info it's both boring and redundant since you already got the information. That's not to say that some extra info couldn't be used to create some tension like in KnS or G-Senjou, but the VN is way beyond that. The main problem that arises of all those points is that character development and interaction of the protagonist is significantly lacking. So far he wasn't particularly useful anyway and just a mere tool for the order. That's okay for a start, but he doesn't seem to grow at all. He just reacts on situations to play a bit karate kit, but there's zero initiative on his own to investigate or do something, anything. But the VN also doesn't really seem to give him a fair chance to develop. It's already pretty weird that the protagonist and his friends barely seems to care if people around them die. One or two sentences to mention the fact and then back to joking. It's very irritating since it makes it hard to take the events serious that way. Though Tokyo Babel had similar problem in that regard. And it goes without saying that romances are pretty much forgetable that way either. I hope the plot justifies the VN pretty much sacrificing his own protagonist. I think Dies was better at the start than Tokyo Babel, but currently I'm starting to favor Tokyo Babel since for all its flaws it had, the protagonist was one of the best ones I know with a good chemistry with the heroines. The other characters in Dies have to compensate this, but so far I didn't see a character that really managed to impress me. There wasn't really bad ones either so it's not that bad and not all characters did show up yet, so there's certainly still potential to turn the tides. The VN has certainly strong similarities with Fate and Hellsing, both all time favorites of mine, but the VN still has to show that it can stand its ground to those two.

Ugh, looks like they adjusted their character designs to the background quality and not vice verca. I recently bought Fata Morgana but I don't think I'll touch that one. Because VNDB list's Code:JP as English company.

Interesting, he was involved in Sprite's rather popular Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm and in Sumiko Soft's Harumade, Kururu which was also quite popular. Is that really an OELVN title? Looks a bit too professional for that.

Dracu Riot doesn't really count as a full announcement for me since it's already translated, but well nothing against an official release. The second Yuzusoft announcement Senren Banka is more interesting though. Looking forward to that one. But I hope the heroine routes are better than in Dracu Riot this time. The annoucement of Nanairo Reincarnation is kind of funny since I was actually guessing that this title would be brought over - just not from Sekai but from MangaGamer lol. Anyway, the title was pretty highly rated when it was came out in Japan. Art style isn't really my cup of tea though (Is pinky even supposed to be a woman?!?). We'll see... Ninja Girl and the Mysterious Army looks surprisingly good for an OELVN title. I think I'll keep an eye on that one. Chances are better if it's a longer title though. I usually don't read short titles anymore, although there are rare exceptions. Island Diary seems to be a lolige, so I'll pass on that one. No idea what's that Eternal - Magical Girl title supposed to be they've announced at last. The cover image is just a rough sketch. Overall, the announcements are of similar quality than the ones from MangaGamer. A few interesting titles and a few not so interesting ones. Surely not as spectacular as last year. I'd even go so far to say that it's almost a bit disappointing for AX. I wonder if they are holding annoucements back for Otakon to be able to give ManagGamer a better fight than last year. It'll be interesting to see what titles both publishers still have reserved for Otakon.

Honestly, if I wouldn't know that this is AX, I'd definitely think it would be Otakon going by MangaGamer's mostly moegish announcements. Although I expected Sakuranomori Dreamers, Magical Marriage Lunatics is a title from MoonStone I was actually interested in, since I like the character designs and there's lots of potential for a good comedy moege. I'll most certainly buy that. Didn't really expect Evenicle as the new AliceSoft game. Usually I'm interested in fantasy titles, but this is AliceSoft's most ugly game and I absolutely hate its character designs. So I'll definitly give that one a pass. Damekoi is a pretty old but well regarded title. Considering Hermit is dead I guess they got this title via their former parent brand WillPlus. For once this has adult characters, which in itself is almost revolutionary. So I most likely give that a try just to support that trend. Although I keep my expectations low considering the protagonist is tagged as hetare and I hate drama's which are caused by retarded protagonists. And with SpaceLife we get another new Circus title. Looks like they changed their artist(s) again - unfortunately not for the better. Considering that the just recently released Dal Segno is probably their most pretty title to date, this is a real downer. It's even worse than Da Capo 3. Although I'll probably pick up Dal Segno some day, I honestly doubt I'll be similarly tempted by SpaceLife. Not sure what to think about MangaGamer playing Key now... Overall, even if the creep factor is much lower than last year, the announcements are still pretty mediocre. I hope they've better stuff prepared for Otakon.

I don't really know the whole context of the sentence, but technically it's in past tense not in present tense. So if the person didn't have a TV or computer (5 years ago) doesn't mean that's still the case.

Doesn't really make sense. It's probably a typo - just happens in bigger translations.

Outch! I was just looking at the new Nekopara 3 which wasn't reduced and then just left. My bad, so I just take that back and claim the opposite.

Okay, since we are getting pretty close to AX now, it's about time to make a little wish and expectation list I guess. Sekai Project Sekai usually announces most of their titles at AX and they tend to have some really spectacular announcements amongst a pletora of indie titles. One of the most hyped titles we're still waiting for and I'd really like to see would be Aiyoku no Eustia. I'm honestly slowly loosing hope here, but the chance is there. Otherwise, I'm not really sure what to expect from them. Since we already got the two AkabeiSoft2 classics G-Senjou and Sharin, maybe it's about time to get some other titles from the AkabeiSoft empire?! Hello Lady from Akatsuki Works or Lovely & Cation from Hibiki Works would be interesting titles, just to mention a few? I could also image another title from Favorite like AstralAir. MangaGamer MangaGamer tends to split their major releases almost evenly between AX and Otakon. And if they follow the pattern from last year they will a announce a title for everyone at AX and the interesting moeges and story titles at Otakon. So for AX that means that one title will be the most broken and disgusting fetish title they can find in Japan, a yaoi title, an otome, a bigger nukige for normal people and a moege. Not sure if they are still wanting to go for Fraternite, but since it's probably the most broken and violent title left they can get, it would be the logical conclusion. I've already resignated in that regard so I don't really care anymore and just try to ignore the existence of those titles. No idea what they could bring over for yaoi and otome though. A new AliceSoft title is almost a given, but I'm not sure if already for AX. I'd be happy if they'd bring over more titles from PurpleSoftware and ThirdEye, like Amatsutsumi or Shinigami no Testament. On paper BaseSon is still one of their partners, but I'm not sure if I'd really wish for a new Koihime title since they'll find an excuse why it 'wasn't possible' (too expensive, wrong star constellation, sudden terrorist attack, etc.) anyway. It will just end in disappointment *sigh*. MoonStone released some interesting titles since Princess Evangile though, and I think Sakura no Mori † Dreamers would be one that MG would be happy to translate and could be also well received. Caucasus is the last Innocent Grey title I'd really like to read which is still untranslated. Not sure about the chances though. They'd probably only go for it if they can get a high res version of it. Navel is probably a thing of the past, so there probably won't be a Tsuriotsu. Though I could totally image Navel throwing out another non Essence+ Shuffle! version nobody wants again. They also seem to get interesting new partners nowadays, so maybe there's a slim hope for Ricotta's Walkure Romanze or ClipCraft's Unionism Quartet. My enthusiasm for Eushully went a bit down, but I'd still like to see a Madou Koukaku or Kami no Rhapsody. And yeah, I guess Minori will announce the translation of one of their titles again without MangaGamer knowing anything and just sticking to their usual "Uh huh..." Minori answer. Front Wing Uh... they honestly don't have anything that interests me anymore... Jast They currently seem to stick to one short nukige... per year. So... lol

MangaGamer committing to free adult free patches is actually one area where they are far superior to Sekai Project and DenpaSoft. For example, if someone wants the adult patch for any Nekopara title on Steam, he's forced to pay the same price AGAIN just to get the DLC from DenpaSoft - a DLC for the same price as the title itself!! And if we consider sales like the current summer sale, you can get the originals even cheaper than the DLC's, since Sekai and DenpaSoft doesn't seem to understand the meaning of a sale yet. At least I can't remember neither Sekai Project nor DenpaSoft ever having a sale on their respective homepage. And then they act 'suprised' why nobody wants to buy titles from their homepage and just goes to Steam instead.

Which makes me wonder where all that 4 MB of text is actually hidden...

So, I finally finished Sara's route in Da Capo 3. It was not as ridiculous as Charles' one but still suffered from extreme blandness resulting from an overglorified golf contest. And I better don't mention what I think about Sara's so called 'family' and the protagonist's utterly spineless reaction to them. I also think that Sara showed more character and personality in the common route than in her own route which might be due to different writers. So, after two rather disappointing routes, I honestly don't feel any motivation anymore to continue with this VN. The overall heroine routes seem more like tagged on side stories anyway and having the true story centered around Aoi isn't particularly encouraging. I still feel burnt from Chusingura's Emoshichi chapter, and the pure thought of having to deal with an over-cutified annoying airhead loli again gives me already feelings of horror and despair. I'm not really in the mood to write a long review, so I just write some key points down: - In general, I don't think Da Capo 3 justifies as a nakige anymore - it's a pure moege. This wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, however... - The VN characters seem shockingly less developed that the ones from its predecessors (or at least from DC2), with the soulless protagonist being a top offender - The large text size gives you the impression that this is a very story rich title, but most of it seems filler text like radio transmissions or little side stories since both routes I've read so far felt rather short and tagged on with almost no effort put into them - The VN felt unusually inconsistent even considering that it had six different writers with the prologue, common route and heroine routes feeling somewhat unrelated to each other - The Harry Potter theme of the story had lots of potential, but the execution was extremely weak, often even lacking the absolute basics of common sense. Less would have been more here. And as much as it hurts to say, I enjoyed this entry of the Da Capo series by far the least. Even if DC1 certainly wasn't that good, I at least enjoyed the Kotori and the hidden fox girl routes more. Maybe because my standards are higher nowadays - it doesn't really matter. Overall, I'd rate it a 6/10 which already includes a nostalgia bonus, but because of the broken saving system that forced me to skip to the actual position after each reload, I subtract half a grade. Final rating: 5.5/10 Heroine rankings: Sara > Charles > Ricca > Himeno > Aoi

So I actually finished a VN that I dropped before. I somehow got bored with Da Capo 3 and therefore picked up almost out of pure desperation - surprise, surprise - Chusingura again. I wasn't too fond of the first chapter because it had some glaring flaws and therefore had a hard time to get used to it. But since the VN got a lot of praise I decided to give the VN a second chance. Fortunately, the second chapter improved on almost all fronts and I therefore continued and read all chapters. I'll now review each of the five chapters and give it an individual rating. 1. Chapter This was the introductionary chapter and centered around Kuranosuke and the Ako retainers. Okay, admittedly I bashed its first chapter pretty hard before. While some of it was IMO well deserved, the flaws might have overshadowed the strengths a bit too much. Mainly because the first chapter was still pretty rough around the edges with comedy and drama parts rather poorly balanced, the unfitting oversexualisation of many character designs and - my main gripe - the Franken-romance with Kuranosuke's Yoda form. Though the story events itself were still interesting and Shimizu Ichigaku was a pretty cool character that stood out from the rest of the cast. And I have to admit that Kuranosuke and Fuwa grew on me in the later chapters. 6/10 2. Chapter This chapter was centered around Yasubee and the Edo retainers. It was a massive improvement over the first chapter and also benefitted from the fact that I liked the Edo retainers Yasubee, Shinroku, Magodayuu and Koheita a lot more than the actual Ako retainers. But the real strength was the protagonist. He really grew in comparison to the first chapter and was very proactive, trying to investigate and solve the situation his way. I was also very impressed that he didn't just dump Kuranosuke for Yasubee. The situation just turned out completely different and he had pretty much no choice. And Yasubee getting together with him was a slow process. The chapter also managed to balance out comedy, story and drama very well. Especially the events around hit me very hard - I was close to tears. This time the writer was also very good to mix the whole moe theme with Japanese history very well. The ronin also have to go through real life struggles like poverty, hunger and betrayal. At times the whole atmosphere completely draws you in. Yasubee also grew very well as a character since she had to revise her somewhat stubborn black and white view of the world. Some negative points were that there were not enough revelations and the ending got a bit too slow and repetitive since it was very similar to the first chapter. Still, certainly one of the best written chapters. 8.5/10 3. Chapter This chapter was centered around Chikara and the Edo characters again. Well, to be precise it was split between Shinpachi from the Uesugi faction and Chikara. This was a rather so so chapter. Pretty much pure filler with barely any relevance to the main story. The protagonist was kind of struggling which was okay at the start and I liked the parts with Shinpachi. But it got pretty annoying later on when he started playing drama queen. The whole romance with Chikara was also far too forced and barely believable, especially considering that the protagonist had 10 times more chemistry with Shinpachi than Chikara. And the ending also felt almost like copy & paste from the previous chapters. The chapter would have been vastly better if it would have focused more on the Uesugi family. I would have really liked to see some interaction with Irobe, the head of the family. 7/10 4. Chapter This chapter was finally centered around the best character in the VN, Shimizu Ichigaku. She didn't get too much screen time in chapter 2 and 3, but this one was all about her. And while some might criticize this chapter as a bit too much of a history lesson, I found it intellectually absolutely brilliant. The writer did not only show here that he has some very impressive background knowledge about this era of Japanese history, he was also brilliant to interpret it in different ways. The protagonist was forced to question his own beliefs and look at the whole situation from the opposite side. Towards the end there were also some more revelations about the main story. Although the chapter was mostly brilliant it also had some negatives. It felt a bit rushed towards the end and the drama around the siblings felt a bit too constructed to prove a point. Chapter 2 was better in that regard. Overall the chapter was just as good as the second one. Chapter 2 was a bit better on the drama and romance side, but chapter 4 was better on an intellectual level. 8.5/10 5. Chapter This was the last chapter and centered around Emoshichi. Honestly, coming from a brilliant chapter like the fourth and then having to read 'this' felt almost like a slap in the face. I knew that a chapter centered around an annoying airhead loli character like Emoshichi would be hard, but I also didn't expect it to be utter crap. I mean, although I found Emoshichi quite annoying and would vastly prefered Sayo for a loli route, I didn't hate her. But if the story arc pretty much contradicts itself from start to finish and the writer starts to literally defile and shit on his own story, lore and characters it's hard to say anything good about it. I mean everyone knows that Emoshichi is about as talented in sword fighting as a giant space hamster. And she's also practically still a kid. So why try to make her Japanese next top samurai?! Why send her and Suguha away if their family needs them to get food and money since their father is ill? And while Asaemon was a rather quirky character (it was certainly no coincidence that she was voiced by the same voice actress like Natsume from Kara no Shoujo), she didn't harmonate with Emoshichi at all. They should have taken Emoshichi as she is and give her a more passive role instead of trying to turn her into Bruce Lee. Mini-rant: And what hurts even more, is that the final revelation was pretty much squished into a small epilogue after this whole mess. It was almost like the writer had completely forgotten to write the ending and then tried to fix it one day before release. It still took some time to read it, but not because there was a lot of story. Instead it was maybe 20 - 30 minutes of relevant text wrapped into three hours of cling and clang sounds full of pointless fighting. It could have been really good if they would have dedicated the whole chapter to it. But nooooo we just need a kusoge chapter full of crap, centered around the most pathetic character in the whole VN. *sigh* 4/10 Anyway, as a whole this VN was one of the better ones I've read in a while. While it was still rough around the edges, it had some extremely well written parts and charaters. The writer is certainly talented. Most characters were drawn which is a rarity and it had some of the best fighting scenes I've seen so far (Shinpachi end fight was amazing). Back ground art could have been better, but I think they used photographic ones and for that they were good. They must have used a pretty good conversion technique. Though I have to say that the VN is mostly about the individual chapter stories. The overarching plot wasn't that good and barely touched in most chapters anyway. And for that I think a long common route followed by individual routes and actually satisfying endings would have worked much better. And Kuranosuke should have been one character with a multifaceted personality and not a split personality between clown and serious. She managed to be both one the best and worst written characters at the same time which was often totally confusing. Revised overall rating: (6 + 8.5 + 7 + 8.5 + 4) / 5 = 7 Revised character rating: Ichigaku >> Jasubee > Shinroku > Shinpachi > Magodayu > Fuwa > Kuranosuke > Chikara > ...

Ah, okay. So it does cover the major shops. I think that's probably good enough for somewhat representative sales numbers. If total sales are let's say ~20% higher, that's still good enough to make the numbers representative. If it would be like let's say ~200% higher on average, then the deviation would be simply too high for representative sales data.

As I understood the posts with the sales data they were really combined sales. Otherwise the likes of Yuzusoft would probably sell several hundred thousand copies in total, which would even wipe the floor with the top sellers of past times like Clannad or F/SN, and I highly doubt that.

I think that's a bit of an exaggeration. The top main stream brands like Yuzusoft, August, Clochette or Navel still seam to be able to sell about ~40.000 copies initial sales. There were several posts with concrete sales data over the last 1 - 2 years that confirm that. But what's certainly true is that the market is more 'tight', at least in the mainstream moege market. There's a lot more competition today than let's say a dekade ago. So if you're not one of the established top brands or have something special to offer, then there's certainly the risk to fall through and just end up with a few thousand copies sold or less. Overdrive is probably one of the most prominent examples of recent times. Apparently they'll release one more title and then close down. There's much less competition on the market for story VN's and that's probably the main reason why the small group of Nitroplus, Light and Innocent Grey still seem to do well. I wouldn't take that as a given though, since Propeller, who were certainly one of the most established story brands a few years ago, are dead now. And newcomers don't have an easy life like Novectacle can surely confirm. Fata morgana no Yakata is a highly praised story title, but apparently didn't sell well, at least at first. I think they recovered since. But there's a reason why most newcomers target the mainstream market. The breadcrumps there are still much fatter than in the niche section. lol What I've learned from the various post with concrete sales data: ~40.000 initial copies sold => Fantastic (Yuzusoft, August, Clochette, Navel) ~20.000 initial copies sold => Very good (Purple Software, Eushully, AliceSoft) ~10.000 initial copies sold => Good (Circus, Ensemble, Moonstone, Minori) ~5.000 initial copies sold => Average (Lump of Sugar, Whirlpool, AXL) Depending on how individual titles performed some developers might place higher or lower, but I think the examples aren't too far off from the truth.

I don't really get Nitroplus' and 5bp's relationship to each other. Both are developers and both are publishers. And both publish their own titles and the titles of each other. And some titles are even developed or published together. Is there some system at work here, or do they use a spinning beer bottle at their regular's table to decide who will develop and publish their next title?

Yeah, that's exactly the thing I start to dislike more and more in those types of VN/RPG hybrids. I wouldn't even say that I'd really need a great story to be satisfied. I just like the atmosphere, style and characters in medieval fantasy VN's. But if I'm forced to just grind 90% of the time for some random ingredient or item, it kind of looses that appeal and I'm asking myself why I'm not just playing a real game from my Steam backlog.

How grindy is it in comparison to Kamidori? Since Ikusa Megami Zero had at least in my opinion a rather good gameplay to story ratio which gave the title a rather decent pacing. But in Verita and Kamidori the gameplay got over the top dominant over the story parts. I'd even go so far to say that the Verita I'm (also) currently playing, barely qualifies as a VN anymore. To be honest, I'm so fed up with the grinding that I've lost a lot of my enthusiasm for Eushully titles. So if Amayui wouldn't turn out as a significant improvement over last years title, I wouldn't exactly drown in tears.

Does Nitroplus really have another cash cow besides the Stein's Gate franchise? Since last years Getchu Sales Ranking tells another story, with Nitroplus' Tokyo Necro just being on 36th place versus Navel's Otome Riron to Sono go no Shuuhen -Belle Époque- on 5th place. And that's not even considering that Tokyo Necro had most likely a much higher budget and therefore needing more sales to get even. And all their other popular titles like Muramasa or Sayo no Uta are much older. The only other newer title that comes to mind that seemed to have at least some hype around it was Chaos;Child, and that's not even running under the Nitroplus label anymore for whatever reason. And I haven't seen a sales ranking list with a Nitroplus title getting anywhere near a top ten ranking besides Stein's Gate for an eternity.

It was already mentioned. Sanahtlig made a thread about this topic yesterday.

Quite interesting that they release the next Circus title so soon after the last one. Though, considering my current backlog and the somewhat disappointing Da Capo 3, Dal Segno will probably be more a candidate for a future sale for me.

Innocent Grey has amazing background art in their titles, especially in the Kara no Shojo series. I hate cheaply blurred photographs as backgrounds with a passion, so I consider background art of the likes of Umineko (PS2 art is great though), Higurashi or Fata Morgana pretty much as the biggest crap the business has to offer.

If you want sad and emotionally disturbing stories, then Minori is your friend. I'd suggest ef - a fairy tale of the two and Eden* They Were Only Two, On The Planet. Especially Eden* would be a good start since it's not as long and gives you the opportunity to make up your mind if you like Minori's style. Narcissu was also frequently praised for what you want, though I didn't play it myself.