ChaosRaven

A bit unexpected that it's already released - somehow I expected it later this year. Unfortunately, that forces me to reconsider my current reading schedule, since such a heavy weight release can't simply be ignored. Guess I have to hurry up with the 4 - 5 VN's I'm currently reading at the same time, so I can squish that in. And that will even further delay Chrono Clock and Hatsukoi 1/1 which I originally thought to be next. Man, so much to read and so little time...

What the... I knew there were a lot of them, but that can't be serious!

But you did try ITH-VNR instead of just IHT, did you?! Since ITH not working on Win10 is a known problem and ITH-VNR was then released precisely to avoid that problem. Though if ITH-VNR doesn't work on your system you might be really out of luck, since Chiitrans was murdered with Microsoft's new Creator's Update and its updated .NET version. And not to mention the little DOS box that was popping up every hour since then because the MS Office programmers apparently didn't know what they are doing either. But well, that's another story...

She's a typical Kuudere. Similar heroines would be Yumiko from Grisaia or Riho from Deardrops.

The fan base for this series is still scary, to say the least. Already more than 1000 Steam reviews and 98% of them positive. I guess I should really give the series a try, to finally get to know what all the hype is about and what amazing kamiges I've missed so far...

I think they've done it for Chrono Clock if I remember correctly...

The Eternal Heart fan disc stretch goal sounds extremely tempting, and seems well in reach with 75.000 $. I might end up backing it, even if I already own the Japanese original. Still, I'm a bit hesitant about the Deluxe Set as the 'cheapest' hard copy edition for 90 $. Knowing Sekai, they most likely announce a hard copy edition for half that price about five minutes after the Kickstarter campaign is over.

The title is called 'LoveKami... Useless Goddess'?!?

Like machine translation for example. It wouldn't be the first time. Though the last thing I heard from another source was that the translator had originally translated the title in VNR over a year (whatever that means), and the 3 - 4 months were just porting the script to an official patch. No idea what's true though, as long as the translation is fine I don't really care. Though if he's really that good he might think about knocking on MangaGamer's or Sekai's door. They would surely have use for such a gifted translator.

Wow, the first translated title from Tone Work's. That's quite impressive, I'll certainly give it a try. Really? If so, that would smell a bit fishy to be honest. Either they worked with almost inhuman speed, or they used... other means to get it done so fast.

Huh? I don't remember anyone claiming that routes C and D would be more boring than route B (That's barely possible anyway). I thought it would be common knowledge by now that route B is the big slough everyone has to wade through... It definitely gets better afterwards, especially in D.

Seeing that, then maybe Sekai's plan to release Koikuma on Steam could work out after all...

I personally deeply regret having played route A before B. Chronologically, route A comes after B and A simply spoils far too much about B. It was one reason I found route B incredibly boring. Route A pretty much spoils the complete ending of route B and you're far more interested to know how A continues instead of getting stuck in an almost endless slice of life festival with barely any relevant new information. However, B did a decent job at introducing the characters and at least for me, that belongs to the beginning and not somewhere in the middle of the VN. If I'd ever read RD again, I would definitely start in chronological order with route B.

I think when judging Clannad, it has to be considered how old this title really is. It was released in 2004, so it's about 13 years old now. I've read it just a few years ago when it was already about 10 years old and would have rated it a solid 7/10 at that time. But to be fair, if I would have read it ten years ago, it would have probably impressed me a lot more. Furthermore, Clannad is a school life nakige/moege which is nowadays amongst the most common VN's released in Japan, with most likely several dozen releases per year of varying quality. That means it has lots of competition by now. So I think there's no shame for a 13 year old title, that significantly defined the whole genre, to be just 'solid average' anymore today.

I don't understand what's your point? Nothing wrong with the name and I didn't complain about it either.

I've just finished Charles' route in Da Capo 3 and to be honest, it was a rather underwhelming experience so far. I think it would have been a great thing if DC3's six (!!!) different writers would have maybe just once sit together and agree on what they actually want to write. Because, the writer of the prologue seems to have thought that they are going to make another remake of Da Capo 1 centered around a big magical tree. The writer of the common route however, seems to have thought that they are going to write the Japanese VN interpretation of Harry Potter, centered around pseudo Hogwarts. And the writer of Charles' route seems to have thought that they are making a fluffy Christmas story for little kids. The whole thing would be still okay if the individual parts would be decently written at least. However, the prologue was mostly a cheap ripoff of Da Capo 2, that presented the heroines as so devoted and obedient to the protagonist that they almost appeared like brainwashed. The common route did at least improve on the latter part and presented the heroines with more personality. However, it didn't even try to make anything of the huge potential of a magical school. The short missions could have been interesting but there was no effort invested in them whatsover, neither on the writing nor the artistic part. Nothing was drawn and the missions lacked even the most basic signs of common sense. Example?! And then you have Charles' route which was immensly childish even for eroge standards. The whole writing also lacked a certain maturity Da Capo 2 still had and a central theme. And what's the point with those pointless radio broadcastings? Production values also seemed pretty low considering only the main heroines and a few of the more prominent side characters got sprites and there were almost no event CG's. Overall it's certainly at least a class below Da Capo 2 so far and even Da Capo 1 had a more consistent plot line. Anyway, I guess I still give Sara's route a try since I kind of liked her, and then call it a day.

I'm certainly not an expert for AliceSoft games, so I can only speak for last years Tsumamigui 3 and the recent Heartful Maman. Those two and the older Oyako Rankan are technically dating sims with NTR elements and probably quite different to the Rance series. What I meant is that you have to go through several dating stages until you get the full H program (meaning penetrative sex). Before that, it might just start with a simple kiss, then a boob job and so on. The main difference to a common nukige is that it can take quite some until you get there and it starts with rather softcore stuff first. This combined with the fact that the heroines tend to be more seductive than innocent and actively try to provoke you creates a certain tension that's simply lacking from your typical run of the mill eroge. Though it certainly depends on what someone considers as arousing. It's certainly different to the tension created in more violent VN's where girls are victimized like from Black Lilth or Clockup for example.

Personally I prefer a more serious tone in VN's and I honestly feel pretty oversaturated from the typical school life comedy since it gets old pretty fast. And I have a real aversion against mixing serious story VN's with comedy. Not because humor wouldn't work in such VN's at all, but more because Japanese writers just don't understand the concept of a 'grim sense of humor'. They only know school life teenage humor and nothing else. 'Rough humor' like you might see in Quentin Tarantino's works or what a seasoned war veteran might spit out is completely beyond them. That's why VN's like Chusigura or Tokyo Babel didn't really click with me, even if they do have their qualities. I think for more serious VN's I like Innocent Grey's or early TypeMoon and AkabeiSoft2's writing styles the most. And for more comedic stuff I enjoy light-hearted story VN's like Koihime, Walkure Romanze or Unionism Quartet which aren't too serious but aren't non-stop gag-machines either. Not the biggest fan of pure comedy VN's, but Majikoi was fun, Alcot's My Girlfriend is the President too, and Yuzusoft VN's in small doses aren't bad either.

Just saw that a new otome VN called Nightshade was released on Steam which looks pretty cool. It's about a group of Iga and Kouga ninjas shortly after the Sengoku era. Sounds way more interesting than the typical school life VN we usually have to endure. (VNDB link) Anyone tried it already and can share his or her experience?

Lol, that made my day! Anyway, I would have to protect my top waifu, and so it would be Tick Tack. But I would have regrets for several other VN's that are dear to me.

I liked your art designs so it's kind of sad to hear that you had to bury the project. It would certainly have been a bit of a fresh wind to the VN scene. Still, the best of luck with your new project.

I guess it's about time for a little status report on my Japanese VN's... So, I finished Unionism Quartet A3 after months, and I think I've rarely seen a fan disc that deserves the name "Fan Disc" as much as this one, since it's pretty much all about fan service with a short story for pretty much all main and side heroines. While it's story wise just a pale shadow of the original with an overly cheesy and simplistic pick heroine structure, if you just take it for what it is - a fan service heavy fan disc - then it's still quite decent because it has at least a lot of content for that with about 14 heroine routes of varying lengths. I read most of the major ones and about half of the minor ones spread over several months and that way is was still kind of enjoyable. Despite being quite fan service heavy, the VN kept a certain dignity and you still had to go through a romance phase before getting the girl. That clearly separates it from a plain nukige. Though I was definitely a bit pissed that the routes for the main heroines in the original were no after stories and just inferior versions instead. Anyway, since I still kind of enjoyed it for it was, I rate with an admittedly slightly biased 7/10. Definitely only for fans of the original who are fine with just getting lots of fan service. I'm also about half way through Ikusa Megami Verita somewhere in chapter 5. Gameplay wise it got some nice improvements over Zero with additional alchemistic upgrade options that peaked in the later Kamidori. The visuals are also a lot better than in Zero and almost on par with Kamidori. Besides that however, my experience with it was more on a sobering note. For one thing, the game forces you to grind a lot more than Zero which had a pretty good balance between story and gameplay, and for another thing it has two protagonists. I'm admittedly not the biggest fan of multiple protagonists but they can definitely work in a normal VN. However, having two protagonists in an already grind heavy game with two completely separate parties to level up is certainly one of the dumbest ideas I've ever seen. Not even considering the absurd fact that the two separate parties are partly sharing the same inventory, the story pacing comes to an absolute crawl and you constantly loose touch to your characters. And if that wouldn't already be enough, there isn't much story and narrative text to begin with, and what's there isn't good. You have two good-for-nothings randomly running around fighting some faceless villains nobody cares about. Ekria on Celica's side and Karian on Louie's side are pretty much the only and pretty bland main heroines, with the other female party members not even getting any dialog. The only interesting characters so far are Haishera who is unfortunately stuck in Celica's stupid sword and Luna who isn't even a fixed member of a party and just shows up from time to time. And lots of random H-scenes thrown in which was a problem Zero also had although they are a least not as dark as in Zero. But at least Zero HAD a story although I did have lots of issues how it was written. I stalled it for a bit since I got tired of the grinding but will probably still end up finishing it since I kinda like Luna and Haishera's comments are still entertaining. But considering it has neither the story merits of Zero, nor the charming heroines and good romance of Kamidori, it'll probably end up my least favorite Eushully title so far. I also gave Alicesoft's new Heartful Maman a try, but while it does share some similarities with the former Tsumamigui 3 it turned out a much weaker title I didn't really like. While Tsumamigui's character's and setting was still comparatively normal, this one's characters where almost creepy and had more than just a few screw's loose. Probably because it was more targeted to the NTR fans. And not to mention lots of endless repeated scene's and the akward mother fetish. Though I still have to give it to AliceSoft that they know how to create a certain tension by denial. So, final grade: 5.5/10 Anyway, following the upcoming release of Nizuma Lovely & Cation, I've now started playing Lovely x Cation 2. I liked the first one quite a bit last year and the second one is supposed to be even better so I'm quite optimistic about it.

Played FF8 a long time ago and liked it. So I guess FF10 would be the best follow up. Thanks for the info.

I'm also interested in trying some fantasy JRPG's for some time now, though I'd also be interested if any of the aforementioned titles have romance in it. What about the Final Fantasy, Tales and Legend of Heroes titles in that regard?

I'm aware that the message itself is just a april fool's, but if I consider Overdrive's general condition - not having released anything (besides Go Go Nippon) since 3 - 4 years ago - then it's hard to believe they are anything else than a footnote in VN history anymore. On the other hand, it was most likely posted precisely because it's something anyone suspects. On any other day, and with a more serious description, I would have taken it for real.