ChaosRaven

Well, I already backed it months ago, so the review had no chance to influence my decision to buy it anyway. Root Double is also a title that most likely fits my taste so I'm probably more tolerant to flaws it might have. Besides that, the title has more than enough good ratings that it can be considered a good title. But I always appreciate a more critical review because they often emphasize the true flaws of a VN, and usually I find it easier to tolerate those if I'm prepared for them. Too glowing reviews can raise unrealistic high expectations which inevitably leads to disappointment. Ironically, a critical review can therefore result in a more pleasant experience than an all roses review.

Just for clarification, this was just a first impression to decide if I read Tokyo Babel or Root Double first. I've finished Aoishiro just 1 - 2 days before Root Double was out which was my favorite in the first place. So I gave Tokyo Babel the one day chance to prove that I want to read it before Root Double. It failed pretty hard at that, but that doesn't mean that I've dropped it for good. It's just delayed for when I'm finished with Root Double.

It's available on Steam now, so I'm currently downloading. And I'm still hyped for it...

I've started with Tokyo Babel now, but so far it's pretty underwhelming and I think I'll drop it for now in favor of Root Double. While the production values are certainly impressive, the writing is a real mess. What does this VN want to be? Horror? The Matrix? School life comedy? Action? I've actually no clue, since nothing fits together and everything is just so convoluted and confusing. It also didn't help that Gethel is my top candidate for the most annoying character of the year. I ended up switching off her voice in the options to shut her up, because I simply couldn't stand her bullshit talk anymore. At least she had the dignity to die so I fortunately don't have to endure her presence again. But I'll most likely give the VN another try when I'm finished with Root Double. It can just get better... (hopefully)

Finally finished all routes of Aoishiro now. The VN was overall very well done with surprinsingly high production values. I really loved the mysterious atmosphere and the whole Japanese mythology theme. I don't remember a lot of VN's about ancient Japanese legendary creatures and Shinto gods like Bishamonten or Susanoo. The VN also had some pretty epic fights to offer that almost recalled fond memories of F/SN. Unfortunately, the biggest weakness of the VN is that most routes including the true route are very similar to each other which made them kind of repetitive to read. I still enjoyed them because I liked the characters, atmosphere and the mythologic theme of the story. Favorite girls: Kohaku > Migiwa = Nami > Yasumi > Kaya It was also quite refreshing to see a ninja girl who wasn't just included for horizontal business. Overall I'd rate it a 7.5, but it could have easily gotten more if it wouldn't be for the far too similar routes. So, next on my reading list is Tokyo Babel...

Ah sorry, my mistake. Wrote the post at breakfast - not exactly my brightest time of the day.

Nope, you were asking for that, not me.

This one comes close I think. At least that's used in Demonion which was full of Stockholm syndrome...

I don't think this is the same thing like Palas said. Palas case would be evil for evil's sake without any reason. But someone who is evil for evils sake already made himself a slave of human moral values and therefore inferior to Lovecraft's beings. But what makes Lovecraft's beings so fascinating is that they are beyond morals - there might be a reason for their actions but they are so different that a mere human would not be able to understand them. Lovecraft himself once made a statement that he considers the Great Old Ones 'amoral' beings. The Great Old Ones just give a damn about humans, they are just a tool or nuisance for their real intentions which just happen to be devastating and horrifying for humans.

I think all three types of villains can work if they are well written. I usually consider the first type the most interesting, because they are often the most thought provoking since good and evil are not as clear and distinct from each other and everything is kept more in shades of grey. It reflects reality much better which is rarley just good and evil and the characters are usually more interesting. The second type sounds like the typical revenge type. Dude lost his family or other stuff went wrong and he seeks revenge now. Often very similar to the first type, just more fallen. Also great stuff for an anti hero in revenge movies Charles Bronsen style. The only interesting sub type of type three is usually the master mind. While a simple brute might be enough to terrorize the close neighborhood, he's hardly enough to handle anything more. If you're against everyone, this usually also means that everyone is against you. This usually means that they are either neutralized by one smarter guy or by several guys together that got fed up with him. And there are only two types to avoid this: Either hide like a typical serial killer and everyone thinks you're innocence incarnate, or you form your own evil organization of helpers around you. In general, smart and believable villains are the best ones, regardless of what type they are. The worst ones are the evil idiots where the whole world around them has to adjust to their stupidity. The greater the conflict the higher the chance that there are other highly competent and/or scary forces involved. Usually, the villain is just as good as his opponents allow him to be and if those suck the whole conflict is boring. Regardless if a villain is truly evil, fallen or just follows a wrong agenda, only the ones that command respect for their capabilities are good villains.

Ugh, I can't stomach hard utsuge at all, I've already problems with the soft ones to get emotionally too involved. I'll make sure to keep a mile distance from this one.

I think I will wait a bit with ordering it until it's confirmed that the title isn't a buggy mess again. It's a gameplay title so the porting is more risky than usual. In principal they should have had enough time with like 5 - 10 years to fix everything up. But who knows, it's Jast.

Next route duel between Akagoei and Lovely x Cation. It took a bit longer than expected since I wanted to give AliceSoft's new dating sim Tsumamigui 3 a try. With Ashairo that raised my total amount of VN's I'm reading at the same time to four. I guess I should tone down a bit if I want to finish anything in reasonable time. Anyway, for my third route in Akagoei I picked Reika, the main heroine. I wasn't really happy with the previous routes so I wanted to check out what the route of the main heroine has to offer. But while Reika's route was better than the last one from Tae, it was still underwhelming. At least the first half of the route was pretty much just pointless slice of life comedy. While the comedy isn't really bad as such, it's simply get boring after a while if there's nothing else going on and almost every conversation turns into a joke festival. It somehow got better after that, but the mood shift from petty comedy to total serious was a bit too drastic for my taste. And while there was more chemistry between Keito and Reika this time I still found Reika's extreme tsundere habits a bit too over the top, especially considering Kaito's past. The final story arc also felt too short. In a way, the VN reminds me of Grisaia a bit, an interesting protagnonist gets introduced just to waste his potential in never ending slice of life comedy scenes. However, to be fair, part of why I don't enjoy the comedy scenes that much is because there's a lot of word play involved and my Japanese simply isn't good enough to really get the same enjoyment out of it like it would be in English. Still, why I do enjoy comedy in reasonable doses, I do get bored of it pretty fast if it gets too much. Lovely x Cation continued to be like written crack for me and I finished Yuuki's route in no time. The waiting time was mostly from Akagoei. Yuuki was the first non-teacher route I played, so the whole teacher-student conflict was missing, but it was also pleasant to have a somehow more normal relationship between students of similar age for a change. Yuuki herself was a gorgeous girl and it was pretty cool that she was joining most of your afternoon trips for a date and whereever I went she had something to say. It will be pretty hard to pick my favorite girl at the end. I tried Tsumamigui 3 mostly becaused it looked like a dating sim similar to Lovely x Cation, just with a somehow more mature appeal. I also chose the true love route mode that avoids all the NTR competitors. Not sure if it was because of that, but the dating sim parts were almost non-existent. At the start, locations are mostly locked to one so there wasn't really a point to choose. The VN also had seven day time periods compared to the two in Lovely & Cation which was far too much for the limited choices you have. There are no stats to raise and bonus items are only bought once or twice at most. You're just picking the girl of your choice if she's available and that's it. I've played the true love routes of the two main heroines Sayoko and Miyuri so far and it was a mixed bag somehow. Technically, it has a more solid story than LxC but the execution is lacking somehow. The VN forces you into a semi-relationship with several of the girls right from the start almost straight into H-territory, and while that might still have made 'some' sense for his old flame Miyuri, the involvement of Ai was just ridiculous. The VN was also on the brink of crossing the line to nukige territory. The art was admittedly hot, but there were also lots of repeated scenes which somehow reminded me of Beat Blades Haruka - seems to be an Alice-Soft thing. Besides that there was lots of pointless location clicking to get the super long 7-period day-cycles over, all too often with nothing happening at all. Still, I appreciate the fact that the VN knows that lingerie is hotter underwear than kids panties with teddy-bear pattern. Next is Aya's route in Lovely x Cation and 'maybe' Aya's route in Akagoei too. Still undecided - I'm currently a bit demotivated to continue with Akagoei to be honest

Wut?! In what way are bunch of mecha and postapocalyptic warfare sagas similar to a medieval fantasy epos??? I mean, that's like offering a radish to someone who asks for similar fruits like a banana.

The H-scenes in Gahkthun are so horribly drawn that most people probably won't be able to recognize them as H-scenes anyway...

I think I tried this once and Baku Ane was one of those super odd balls that required you to not only change the region setting to Japanese but also the language format. Here's a link to an old Fuwa thread for this issue: http://forums.fuwanovel.net/topic/3585-baku-ane-crashing/ Have a look at the last post. The issue was about a crash, so I'm not sure if it's the same problem. Should be worth a try at least. But I think it also worked by just using Microsoft AppLocale instead of a change of the region settings.

Your description of Jeanne sounds more like the title isn't really your cup of tea and less that it would be necessarily bad. The last title of the writer was Fairytale Requiem which is probably the pinnacle of surrealistic fantasy with its 'Alice in Wonderland on steroids' scenario. Certainly a bit too much for my taste, but Jeanne seems to be toned down quite a bit, which would be about right for me. The mystery part doesn't sound that bad to me considering you once said that you're not a big fan of mystery if I remember right. So, ironically your description doesn't sound that bad to me since I do like mystery and I'm more tolerant if it isn't perfect. At least as long as the story doesn't get too ridiculous or the characters are total failures. BTW, what happened to your play-though of Gears of Dragoon 2? Was it that bad for you that it wasn't even worth rating? Ah, and speaking of RPG/ VN hybrids, do you intend to try Eushully's upcoming Sankai Ou no Yubiwa? On first sight I wasn't exactly overwhelmed, but apparently you can start the title with 6 different protagonist characters, 3 male ones and 3 female ones, and each one has a different story. I think that's almost a novelty, not only for Eushully but for VN's in general. Character selection at the start reminds me more of western RPG's. I'm curious what they made out of it and if the usually very long play-throughs are shorter because of that.

It's clear that there's more talk about Grisaia than G-Senjou or Sharin. G-Senjou and Sharin are finished and most people have already read them, so there isn't much to talk about anymore. But everyone is starting to wonder if Sekai Project is throwing a Jast with the Grisaia sequels since they really take their damn time with those. And all the backers already paid for those, so it's just natural that they want to see something for their money - and preferable still in this decade. There was also not much talk about MuvLuv, but the Kickstarter vaporized every Kickstarter record for VN's by a mile. There's also not much talk about F/SN anymore, but I guess most people can still remember the results of Conjuerors contest?! Talk of the day in Fuwa ≠ General popularity

Well, harsh lessons of the past made me somehow cautious of MangaGamer news. But in all honesty, I wasn't really serious. Who would tease bad news in advance and in that way?! Not even MangaGamer would do that. I agree that Decay's assumption of a Steam release is the most likely one. They should have done that from the start. Everyone with even remote experience could have predicted that it won't sell well without a Steam release if even IG stuff is struggling.

Don't think it's a new title or hardcopy since they would announce that at a con. 'Shocking' sounds more like something negative to me. Considering their recent news about Navel, maybe the license for Koihime Musou also runs out and they cut all ties to BaseSon too. And since they're just at it, they do the same with Innocent Grey and Caramel Box too. Hmm, maybe I'm too pessimistic...

If Frontwing are making a Kickstarter for Sharin no Kuni, then it would be nice if they would add the fan disc Yuukyuu no Shounenshoujo as a stretch goal. That would make the campaign a lot more interesting since the fan disc was never fully translated, it just got a partial translation. I already own the Japanese original so I'm a bit hesitant to back the whole thing. But if the translation of the fan disc would be an option, then things would look a bit different for me. Well, I guess I just have to wait until the campaign starts to find out...

Finished my first route in Aoishiro now. Although it was a bit slow I enjoyed it quite a bit. It had an overall mysterious atmosphere that always made you wonder what secrets might be hidden in the darkness. I also used the walkthrough only to correct choices that lead to bad ends and I ran in several of them that lead to either my or another chracters death. It was pretty funny though, since I really had to think about my choices and there was always the thrill of dying. And while I wasn't able to predict all outcomes in advance, correcting my last choice usually lead to a logical conclusion why the bad end was avoided. The only major exception was the route locking. I had to start with Yasumi but ran several times in a bad end because I was going for another character at first. I was actually surprised about the high production values. Although the art looks a bit dated it had lots of CG's, all characters drawn, animation effects and more. The story was a bit confusing though. Lots of info about Japanese legendary creatures and gods. I guess finishing the other routes will reveal more information and shed light to unanswered questions. Romance was also more on the light side so far. It could have also been just a close friendship. I'll continue with Migiwa now. Wasn't so sure about her at first, but she made some pretty cool stuff since then and I got quite fond of her meanwhile. I guess reading 4 VN's at the same time is starting to take its toll, because my overall progress seems to be rather slow currently.

It's far too early to make any final statements about the sales. It's a Steam title. Eden's initial sales weren't that great either, but a few Steam sales later it was the second best selling title of the year. Besides that, it's a title with no adult content, not particularly moegish art, overall average ratings and a reputation that it's mostly for hardcore chuuni fans because of an overabundance of battle scenes. Expecting top sales from MangaGamer's more adult content oriented customer base isn't particularly realistic. The real money will come from Steam sales when the title is cheap enough to be viable for its customer base.

The new Liarsoft VN Tokeidai no Jeanne is actually their first release in ages I'm actually interested in. I like their new art style, it's not written by Sakurai and the story sounds interesting - what could go wrong?! Would be nice if you'd give it a try and it turns out be a good title.

Maybe Fuwa contributors like the reviewers could get a bonus or first choice if they are interested in the title. That way they'd get a bit of compensation for their efforts.