ChaosRaven

I'm reading Shin Koihime for some time now, but so far I'm disliking pretty much all the changes they made to it. First, they skipped the prologue for some reason, so you don't even know why you're here. The main villain who was acting behind the scenes also seems to be missing or at least didn't make an appearance yet. Can live with those changes though. However, I've started with the Shouko route which is pretty much the story from the original and the changes they made here are a lot worse. While the main story is almost the same so far, the whole romance arcs were drastically reduced. Resting scenes were much rarer so far and instead of developing their relationships it's pretty much just boring slice of life comedy. And while Aisha was the absolute main heroine in the first part she's now so unimportant that she didn't even get her own character slot anymore and has to share it with Touka, which drags the relationship development even more down. The pacing of the main story also seem to be much slower now because they introduced so many new characters (of questionable quality) and they cycle through too many factions. The original also had some problems with that but it wasn't as bad as it is now. The original at least didn't throw all characters at you at once, and not all of the characters had to butt in into the main conversations. Especially since Kazuto seems to be much less involved now. But the worst change of all of them is the lolification of the cast. Honestly, it's pretty much Lolihime Musou now. Almost all of the main heroines from the original seem have gotten a 'support' loli whose main job seems to be to go on your nerves. Shuri was already hard to endure in the original but now she got additional support from Hinari so she can be twice as annoying. But it gets even better. Ren now shares her character slot with Nenene who looks like a 5 - 6 year old child, so if I want to play her route I have to go pedo. Well, Ren wasn't amongst my favorite heroines in the original, so I can probably live with just skipping her route. But now the biggest 'highlight', they did the same with Sui and coupled her route with Tanpopo!!! Nothing against Tanpopo, I really liked her in the anime, but that doesn't mean I want to date her. And I just have to look at the VNDB tags to know what will happen later on in this route. *sigh* This also goes beyond of just not being the biggest loli fan. In moderation (and without the H-scenes) it can actually be quite charming. The problem is, I've already 7 loli's in my party, and it's turning more and more into a kindergarten simulator. And Shion didn't even join yet with Riri. Well, at least Riri will stay out of adult business again (hopefully). But knowing my luck, Miu will probably also join and increase the kindergarten to almost 10 kids. Koihime Musou was never particular serious but now it's turned pretty much into a kids novel. And later on it turns into a damn child abuse festival. Great! Just absolutely great!! I wish all loli's except Rinrin would go away. At least she kills her opponents so they don't go on my nerves later on. I'll continue the route a bit more and see how it's going, but if it continues like that I might just drop it and go for the Go route. That should be more my taste.

Not sure if it was already mentioned here (at least I didn't see it), but Sona-Nyl is getting the better art assets from the console version and Rance 6 will get a high resolution update for the English version.

You're sure you're not a masochist? If so, just give me a note and I send you a list of the worst kusoges I've ever played. Grades between 0 and 1 guaranteed - you'll absolutely love them!

Announcements were fairly even split between MangaGamer and Sekai Project for me. MG had the title I'm most interested in with Hapymaher but Sekai has one announcement more I'm interested in. So vote category 1. went to MG while 3. went to Sekai. I voted the rest for Sekai simply to balance out the field a bit lol. Though overall I think currently MG is in a more advantageous position since they don't have the problems with the adult releases Sekai is struggling with and they've started to go for some real top titles too. Wish Jast would have given those two a better fight. It's hard to believe now, but when I started with VN's they were the top dog in the market. How could it come to such a development, that Jast more or less has no importance anymore as a VN publisher?! Pun intended?!

Too bad Conjueror couldn't announce his secret project yet since it seems to be a rather highly rated title. Still, I'm almost convinced it's NOT Eustia since he's so desperate to make everyone believe it is...

Not really eager to do that. My interest in Purple Software's titles has a lot to do with their artist Koku, and he joined them first with Mirai Nostalgia so I'd like to take that as a starting point. It would be a bit different if I'd possess Clephas' reading speed (or at least 50% of his ), but the way it is I have to make some compromises since I'm following several VN series.

I think the key scenes were around when she issues an ultimatum that if he beats her she'll agree to a relationship and otherwise he has to give up on her. And then he lost and was lying frustrating under a tree. And then she came to him and tryed to console him. I think that was the point when turned dere, but for me the relationship was over at this point. And I'm pretty sure I didn't image the 犬 part with the dog since it came up a few times around this time. Maybe it was intended as teasing, but for me it was more like humilation. Anyway, it isn't that important. Nothing wrong with two people having different impressions and opinions about a route. It wouldn't really have changed my opinion about the title a lot. Changed plans to Mirai Nostalgia after MangaGamers's Hapymaher announcement...

And I installed the Japanese version just yesterday - what an odd turn of events... Glad I decided to start reading Shin Kohime Musou first. Still, I guess I will read Mirai Nostalgia instead, since I'm a bit fixated on reading a Purple Software title now. I guess if Sekai or MG will license another Purple Software title, it will either be the fan disc Hapymaher -Fragmentation Dream- or their newest title Amatsutsumi.

Wow, that was a really impressive list of announcements from MangaGamer. Had almost a bit of a 'The Empire strikes back' feeling to it after Sekai's spectacular announcements at AX. At last, they go for some real high quality stuff. Hapymaher Eh, really?! I installed the Japanese version yesterday, so I can just uninstall it again?! Lol, I don't care. That's certainly my announcement of the year. I guess MangaGamer thought when Jast can NTR Flowers away from them then they can do the same to Sekai Project. They might have preferred to do it with Jast as revenge, but Jast probably doesn't really have anything worth NTRing away. Sorcery Jokers Okay first thing: Yay I guessed correctly months ago, it was really Sorcery Jokers!!! I had my eyes on Third Eye titles for a while and this is supposed to be their best one so far. It got even in the top ten Getchu award list if I remember right. Not sure about the double protagonist thing since I'm not a huge fan of that, but it's still a must buy for me. A Kiss for the Petals - The New Generation! So that's the yuri title they teased on twitter. Not exactly surprising, though in contrast to their last Sono Hanabira title this one has adult content. Not sure if it'll get a Steam release therefore. Still, not really a release that interests me, but it's nice for Sono Hanabira fans. Shiei no Sona-Nyl -What a Beautiful Memories- So they'll release yet another Liar-Soft title?! Seems like Liar-Soft is slowly getting one of MG's more reliable partners and not just a one-night stand like so many others. It's Sakurai's supposed best title so I guess Sakurai fans will be happy. On the other hand, I heard the same about Gahkthun and it didn't really turn out that way. Anyway, not really a title that interests me, so it's not important for me. Rance VI - Zeth Houkai - and Rance 5D - Hitoribocchi no Onna no Ko - So this was the inevitable announcement of a Rance title. Not sure if all Rance fan-boys will be happy that they won't get a newer one but a double release of 5 & 6 is certainly the best way to not let the old translations go to waste. But at least Rance 6 seems to be a bigger title at least. I'm also pretty sure that newer Rance titles will follow, probably alreay next year. So, well done MangaGamer! At least for the titles I'm interested in, Sekai's and MG's announcements are fairly even now for this year.

While it's true that she gets more soft later in the route, it's all for the wrong reasons. It turns into a pity relationship because he can't beat her and more or less breaks down because of that. That she treats him like a dog wasn't just a manner of speech, she really provoked him that way on several occasions. And unfortunately he can't deal with it and gets totally submissive instead of giving her opposition. Frey then starts the relationship with him pretty much just out of pity. The problem with that is that she doesn't respect him - not really - he's just her cute little poodle but not a man she would look up to or rely on. And I'm a bit conservative here, I could never stand a relationship with a woman who wouldn't respect me, since it would make me feel incompetent. But it was actually more a problem with the protagonist and less with Frey - she was simply the wrong woman for him. Their relationship was doomed to fail sooner or later. I think the teacher would have been better for her. Tsunderes are spoiled princess type characters. They aren't as easy as normal dere type heroines. They need a guy who won't bow down to their abusive treatment. Hetare protagonists simply aren't suited for them. There's actually a somehow similar situation in Lovely x Cation in Sera's route. She's a teacher and older than the protagonist who's still a student. She's also a rather dominant character and a real power woman and therefore slowly starts to treat him like her cutie boy. And while the protagonist was more of a blank slate character for the most part, he showed some real guts here. He got absolutely furious and threatened to break up their whole relationship if she wouldn't start to respect him as a man and stop that cutie boy bullshit. And she actually understood and changed her view of him. He wasn't her cute student anymore, but a man she'd respect and rely on. It was totally awesome. Though I guess people who are more into femdom would probably enjoy Frey's route more lol.

Well, I would have been honestly surprised if Sekai would have really announced yet another big title. It will be already a big challenge to translate and release all the stuff they've announced this year. And we're still waiting for stuff from last year (Chrono Clock) or even longer (Grisaia no Rakuen) to be released.

You might have a look at this older thread from a few months ago. It's 'almost' the same request about older women and had some interesting suggestions in it.

I've finished Seikishi Melty ☆ Lovers now, or to be precise, a few days ago. Unfortunately it wasn't the greatest read - it was actually a faily underwhelming experience. I read it mainly because it's a knight game, it's drawn by Iizuki Tasuku, the artist from the Lovely & Cation series, and it's from AkabeiSoft3 - so what could go wrong? Well, a lot it seems. The problems already start how this project was even approached. Let’s take for comparison the two heavy weight knight games in the genre, Walkure Romanze and Unionism Quartet. Walkure Romanze has just in its first game about 15 full drawn characters and Unionism Quartet even about 20, and in addition they have also some faces for characters of less importance. Now Seikishi Melty ☆ Lovers has just 4 (!!!) full drawn characters in total - the main heroines - and the rest are just simple faces to be shown in the text box. Now, that’s not to say that couldn’t work. Lovely & Cation had a similar low character count but it was also a dating sim with an abnormal high focus on the character interaction with the main heroine. It simply worked that way and you got a lot of high quality scenes for your chosen heroine as compensation. But this is a knight game with an actual story where you simply can’t just neglect all side characters. As a consequence you see a whole lot of character interaction with void, air and nothingness which gave the game a somewhat hollow and soulless feel. On the other hand, the actual quality of the art wasn’t that bad, although Iizuki Tasuku’s character designs weren’t as good as in Lovely & Cation (personal opinion) they were still decent and the backgrounds were okay for the most part too. For obvious reasons the lack of drawn characters posed a serious problem for the writers. They could have compensated that by letting the main heroines interact more, but with the exception of Sefi’s route where Sefi interacts a lot with Lil, that wasn’t really the case. Canon and Frey were mostly on their own in their respective routes interacting mostly with various types of invisibility. What even emphasized the problem was that the writers tried to write some ‘epic scenes’ with lots of people involved which just couldn’t work that way. They didn’t even got the idea to draw a common ‘template villain’ which they could just copy & paste a few times. Even that would have already helped a lot. The interaction with other characters is also important to shape the personality of the main characters and without that they were lacking somehow. The routes themselves weren’t that great either. Sefi’s route was probably still the best. But Canon’s route was just about her silly sword which got pretty annoying after a while. Frey’s was ‘supposed’ to be the best since it was written by a writer from Walkure Romanze, but it actually turned out the worst. Frey is a bone hard tsun-tsun heroine and while it can be fairly interesting to tame that type of character it gets pretty horrible if the protagonist just doesn’t have the guts to stand up to her and just lets himself treat like a submissive dog. I wasn’t even able to finish the route, it was that bad. Didn’t play Lil’s route but I doubt it’s worth reading. Overall, the whole thing felt like a cheap cash grab. That’s even more annoying considering that this title has a bit of a history behind it. While the title carries the label AkabeiSoft3 it was in fact done by the former employees of Effordom Soft, a sub-brand of Akabeisoft2, which was closed down not long ago because of the Juukishi Cutie ☆ Bullet scandal. Apparently the title was published in such a poor state with hardly any content, that it caused quite the outrage amongst its readers. Interesting fact: Apparently nobody else than famous G-Senjou writer Looseboy was the manager of that studio under another pseudonym. And to compensate the readers of Cutie ☆ Bullet they could exchange this title with Seikishi Melty ☆ Lovers. Well, it’s probably less a compensation and more exchanging one half-assed title for another. Heroine rating: Sefi > Canon > Lil > Frey Final rating: 6/10 I’m generous here, it gets the 6 mostly because I like Iizuki Tasuku’s art, otherwise I would have rated it even lower. But overall, I don’t like what’s currently going on with the whole AkabeiSoft conglomerate. Stuff like that shouldn’t happen in a studio with such a pedigree. I will treat future releases from them with caution. So, my next two Japanese VN’s will be a cross-read of Shin Koihime Musou and Hapymaher. I’m somewhat happy for Windows 10 now since I can zoom the whole desktop content with 50 % to get the 800 x 600 low res window from Shin Koihime almost on full screen size at the right and the translation window next to it.

Your playthrough almost resembled martyrdom. At times I was almost worried you wouldn't make it through. Your sacrifices shall not be forgotten... So, what about Grisaia no Meikyuu now?! *ducks*

Izumo 4 doesn't really sound so unlikely considering Studio e.go! already made a rather clumsy approach on Steam. A bit surprised that it won a game design award though. It doesn't really look so special. Maybe it's because of the 3D scenes? Ah, and Bad End is a 'she' btw.

The whole Shin Kohime Musou series: Otome Ryouran ☆ Sangokushi Engi, Moeshouden, Eiyuutan, Kakumei and whatever comes after those.

MangaGamer teased a yuri title recently on twitter which might be true... or not. A Rance title is very likely and a Steampunk title from LiarSoft certainly a possibility. Still, I don't think they'll announce anything of interest for me. Most interesting announcement is Cojuerors secret project. Is it reall Eustia or was it just a big troll. I'm not so sure about that. Sekai already announced so much that's it really surprising that they are still not finished. Quiet curious about what they might have to announce.

Since I finished Ikusa Megami Zero, I've started with Supipara now. The audio-visual power of this VN is astonishing, especially the overall lighting of the scenes. I think the first minute I completely forgot to read the text and was just staring at the screen admiring the artwork. The VN also starts way more mysterious than expected with a slightly melancholic soundtrack and a wonderful night scenery where the protagonist meets Alice the witch for the first time. And I'm already head over heels into her. Minori is just really good to make you care about their characters. On the other hand, Minori is also very good at taking that character you care so much about, send her through the worst fate and leave you in a sea of tears.

bad end from MangaGamer translated it. Just think of how good the name fits... Edit: And yeah, if you need more info about the projects of MG's individual staff members, you can just look at their staff page.

Nice review, and jay the images are back - I'm delighted.

So, after several weeks of grinding I finally finished Ikusa Megami Zero. It was overall a very mixed bag with light and shadows and some of the lights were particular bright while some of the shadows were pretty dark. The Good: The Bad: The Ugly: Heroine rating: Haishera >>> Amdusias = Hakuginkou > Sora no Yuushi >>> Don’t care Final rating: 7/10 (Haishera was great, but the ridiculous over-sexualization of the plot and the crappy protagonist really drags it down.)

It honestly doesn't look like something I really need to play...

Uh, I really hope it will be a bit less depressing than ef or Eden this time. Minori are pretty good at getting me emotional engaged in their stories and characters, but sometimes it's almost a bit too much to endure what the characters have to go through.

That's why I always say people should just skip DC1 and go straight to DC2, but people don't wanna hear...

Following the current trend, Sakura Go can't be far...