ChaosRaven

I appreciate the words, but there won't be a Mask of Truth for me. The slice of life in Mask of Deception actually made me despise most of its characters, so I'm realistic enough that just some slight improvements in its successor won't change anything for me. But this being essentially an JRPG, I'm actually thinking about giving the new edition of Tales of Vesperia a try. It's famed to be the best of the series next to Berseria, even though the gameplay itself in Berseria didn't exactly blow me away. But Kami no Rhapsody will probably be the next JRPG/VN hybrid I play anyway, so there's still time to decide.

Finished the third Flowers VN (actually already a few weeks ago) and it was definitely my favorite part of the Flowers series so far. Not just because it focuses on my favorite characters Yuzuyuzu and the twins, but also because for once they picked a couple with Nerine that actually harmonates with each other instead of trying to force two polar opposites into a relationship. Despite being mostly slice of life with some light drama thrown in, the visual novel has a certain maturity that makes the characters more believable and engaging than your typical moe blob. It's just refreshing when characters show their serious side from time to time to remind you that they aren't just stock anime tropes fullfilling their cliche, but also have real personalities and deeper thoughts and worries to flesh out their characters. The other characters were also nicely written. Erika with her cynical comments and funny interactions with Chidori. The shy and composed but smart and observant Suou. Even Rikka was kinda nice this time around and didn't behave like Satan's first-born for a change. It's a pity that the VN, just like the other parts of the series, doesn't really have a bigger scope with more complex and interesting mysteries and story lines tied to it. From a more objective point of view, they certainly didn't overexcert themselves. Sprites and backgrounds are pretty much all recycled from the previous parts and no new characters were introduced this time. It does have some gorgeous CG's from Yuzuyuzu in particular though. But knowing what Innocent Grey actually is capable of in terms of complex stories, it's still hard to shake of the feeling that this series mostly exists to finance Kara no Shoujo 3. Heroine ranking: Yuzuyuzu > Twins > Nerine > Suou > Erika > Chidori > Rikka Overall rating: 7/10 Okay, I finally dropped Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception. Despite having a rather decent start, the massive decline in quality later on was just unbearable to endure. I'm not sure if I've ever read an actual 'story VN' that was so incredible boring to read. I even fell asleep multiple times during my time with it. Real plot lines barely exist and when something actually happens for a change, then it involves mostly side characters and the main cast is just watching from the side lines. You know that a writer has given up on a story when he doesn't even bother ordering his scenes anymore and just gives you a massive slice of life scene gallery where you can arbitrary pick the ones you want to read at the moment. Their content is just so meaningless, that it absolutely doesn't matter when or in which order you're reading them. And the majority of the text is structured that way. The whole thing might have still worked out if at least the characters would pay off. Unfortunately, in the understanding of the writer cute = dumb and so he tried to make them as dumb as possible to make the cast cute. While the starting cast with Kuon and Rulutieh were still kind of okay, the heroines introduced later on got just worse and worse. Just look at Nosuri, she gets her whole gang killed out of stupidity, but doesn't feel a glimmer of regret about it. Or the two royal sex slaves who were obviously written for a nukige. Even Kuon got kind of annoying, though in her defense, with such a pathetic protagonist, it might be hard to avoid turning into a bitch. The protagonist is certainly one of the main problems. Being introduced as somewhat weak but smart at the beginning, he degenerates more and more into a retarded clown later on. He even had to be reminded once, that they were actually going to war and not to a picknick. But his main purpose was to act as an entertainment clown for the loli's and as punching ball for the rest anyway, so that didn't really matter. The side characters were also somewhat baffling. There were actually a few rather decent ones among them, but the writer had such an akward obsession with dull and goofy characters that he almost exclusively focused on the likes of Maroro or Dekoponpo instead. However, all that doesn't change the fact that the VN actually had some impressive production values under its belt. The game engine in particular was frequently used to showcase animated sequences which could occasionally get almost epic dimensions with lots of characters. The art was rich and fitting for the setting even if the sprites were a bit too simple for my taste. It's a pity that they picked such a failure of a writer for this project, there's just so much wasted potential. I actually played Tales of Berseria along with this and it was almost a difference like night and day in terms of story and character quality. It's a pity I can't refund the successor Mask of Truth anymore - 30+ bucks down the drain. Should have waited with buying until Mask of Deception showed me it's worth it. But well, lesson learned for next time. Heroine ranking: Rulutieh > Kuon > Don't care Overal rating: 4/10

It's strange that Mashiro Iro Symphony wasn't translated yet. We got SakuSaku and almost the whole 9-nine series from Palette, so the absence of Mashiro Iro Symphony is a bit weird.

So, in some sort of Halloween event, MangaGamer announced three new titles. Don't remember them ever announcing stuff on that occasion, but considering Covid 19 killed most cons this year, I guess that's the fallback. First is a double package consisting of Wanting Wings: Her and Her One Month Romance and its sequel Faraway Feathers: Her and Her Valentine’s Romance from BaseSon. Yeah, that's certainly what everyone wanted from BaseSon. Second is Funbag Fantasy 3if from Waffle. It's interesting that they went straight for the extended if-version this time, but I certainly won't complain since it means that we'll get the new heroine Athena already, who is a real looker. Anyway, I'm pretty sure Waffle fans will be happy with this. And last but least there's How to Live a Healthy Hentai Lifestyle! from Clock Up. (NSFW) This seems to be a 'normal' nukige for a change instead of a splatter festival. No idea if that's the title Clock Up fans wanted to see translated. Though I have to say that Hamashima Shigeo's art was better than this one. Nevertheless, I don't touch Clock Up titles, so I don't really care.

Hm, it's tagged as Mystery 3.0. That's certainly interesting, especially considering it's from the same writer like Flowers. The art style reminds me more of Fatal Twelve though. A bit worried about the ratings though - nowhere near either of those.

Evenicle 2 is also about to be released soon. And no VN/RPG hybrid suggestion with Eushully classic Kamidori Alchemy Meister of course and Kami no Rhapsody just got recently translated. And then there are the old Xuse classics The Spirit of Eternity Sword 1 & 2. There's also one title of the Venus Blood series translated: Frontier. Soon to be followed by Hypno. But those are apparently very tentacle rapy, so those are more for peole with such fetish interests. There's also another series, but I can't remember the name at the moment. Rapey protag minus the tentacles. - a bit like Rance but not as popular.

As much as I like vampire VN's, guro is a bit too much for me.

Finished some visual novels, so it's time for some short mini reviews. Overall rating: 7.5/10 Since the series is really shaping up to get something bigger, I'll rate the first episodes up to 7.5 as well. Overall rating. 8/10 (Could get even higher or lower when the second part gets released) Overall rating: 6.5/10 Regarding VN's I'm currently reading, I've just started with Flowers part 3, which I'm liking quite a bit so far. I'm also almost finished with Mako's route in Senren * Banka. Didn't read that much lately though, since her route is pretty dull even if I like the character. Furthermore, I'll probably drop Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception, since it does focus too much on clown characters like Dekoponpo or Maroro, the character cast got worse and worse with crap characters like Nosuri, Atuy, or the two royal sex slaves and it's just dreadful boring with literally no (serious) plot to speak of.

Yes, it's certainly a different type of visual novel with its main focus on romance. Still, I really hope KnS3 will be finally released this year and translated to English as well. It's been about 5 years since the last one and nobody else makes VN's with that unique style and quality.

The previous two titles didn't exactly blow me away, but they did have a certain charme. I'll certainly read this one, because it focuses on my favorite characters. At last, Yuzuriha gets her romance arc now. I also hope, they improved the quality of the mystery plot for a change and toned down the meaningless choices a bit. But we'll see...

Well, if they really left some H-CG's in the data archives of the game, they can only blame themselves this time. They should know the routine by now and how critical Steam are in that regard and should have done a final check before releasing it. Checking the images is certainly the easiest thing among all data sources. That said, they are still human and make mistakes like all of us. So they probably just missed the CG's somehow - shit happens. The adult patch probably just adds copies of it, instead of using the left-over images. I hope they can clear up the misunderstanding fast now and think about ways to ensure that it doesn't happen again. It's just annoying and additional work for both sides.

Finally some insights of what has happened. Since adult patches for VN's are fairly common, I wonder how they got the idea that this one in particular was just activating hidden content. I assume that MangaGamer is telling the truth here, so I guess a hater probably claimed that he can prove that the title has hidden adult content in its files and Valve fell for it. But well, at least there's some communication going on again, so hopefully the case can be clarified now.

Hm, seems like I could at least find some info why Germany is a special case here: Apparently the age protection of Steam isn't good enough to ensure that only adults get access to titles with explicit content. I think I heard that some time before already, but it seems like they are getting serious now. I checked all titles I own on Steam and it seems only Acting Lessons and Being A Dik are banned so far, although I can still access them in my library. However, the vast majority of the titles I own on Steam are all ages, even if many of them have optional adult patches. Evenicle is banned as well, even if I don't own that. The only titles left with adult content in my library are Depraved Awakening, Kara no Shoujo and the Funbag Fantasy series. I expect those to be banned soon as well. Fortunately, they at least don't seem to care about the adult patches. That said, apparently the age protection is good enough for USK 18 titles like The Witcher 3 - surely there's no disturbing content to be found there that might be inappropriate for kids. I wonder... *sigh* Still, at least there's some logic behind what they are banning, which can't exactly said for random bans like the one of Bokuten in all countries.

The ban is quite odd, considering all the H-content was removed and it was so long on Steam already. I assume it was reported by some VN haters and Valve banned it as a reaction. However, I don't really get why the same doesn't happen to other titles with a lot more questionable content. Evenicle 2 in particular seems to have some pretty rough scenes and it was actually banned in Germany some time ago at least. It's hard to believe that such a title was spared from attacks. Popular titles like Nekopara also seem to be immune to such attacks, even if their characters look very young. I actually wouldn't be surprised if there's an automatism in play, that bans a title if the number of malicious reports exceeds a certain percentage of its owners. That would explain why the actual publishers are not explicitly informed about the ban by a Steam employee, and also why popular titles seem to be almost immune against such bans. So the victims would be mostly niche VN titles with few sales. I'm still not sure why some titles are only banned in some regions, while others get banned everywhere. On the other hand, since Germany forced green blood into Command & Conquer more than 20 years ago, I suppose no other country takes them serious anymore concerning censoring stuff. Though, it could have been also when we started censoring Harry Potter movies, that we just lost all credibility.

I finally finished Ouka Sabaki (aka Master Magistrate) and it was a very nice read overall. The combination of a murder mystery with a past Japan Bakumatsu setting, staring the Shinsengumi, was certainly quite unique. It was also the first time I've played a VN with Phoenix Wright style court gameplay. That said, I'm not sure if the gameplay really worked in favor of the VN or against it. While it was certainly interesting, I had the feeling that its somewhat comical execution with the whole 'talking down' and 'showdown' stuff, lessened the dramatic impact of the story a bit. Though that might be just personal preference. The plot structure of the VN reminded me a bit of Sakura no Mori † Dreamers. There's a very long common route with several connected cases and the heroine routes are more or less just tagged on. The plot itself was actually pretty good. There are four major cases, although the first one could be considered more a tutorial case to learn the gameplay mechanics. What was definitively impressive was how interconnected the cases were. Some events I first thought were relevant for a former case, actually got important in a later case. And some later cases were a direct consequence of the outcome or events of the former cases. That was definitely better as in Sakura no Mori † Dreamers, where the cases had a bit too much of a 'monster of the week' pattern. Another thing I really liked was the rather large cast of well-made side characters. Almost every case introduced new characters and existing characters could play a different role in the new cases. I was particularly impressed about the voice acting. Not only were all and not just the main characters voiced, the overall quality of it was also pretty good, even the male characters. I'm actually a bit curious about the voice acting royalties of this VN. That said, not everying was gold. While the character sprites were quite decent for the most part, I can't really say the same for the backgrounds. There weren't too much and most of them looked a bit bland. Ironically, that actually helped to find certain key items in the investigation scenes. XD The CG's were also a bit of a hit and miss. The black and white sketch CG's didn't really fit to the overly bright and colorful backgrounds, and I would have vastly preferred less but fully colored ones. The audio tracks also felt a bit sparse and repetitive. This combined with the bland backgrounds and the focus on the court gameplay made the VN frequently feel a bit dry. In general, the VN felt a bit too light for a murder mystery. Though, on a positive note that also means that I'd recommend this VN to people who don't want a full gloom and doom murder mystery like Kara no Shoujo. But for me personally Sakura no Mori had a stronger emotional impact even if the story of Master Magistrate was objectively better. The routes also felt a bit weaker here, the ones of Sakura no Mori at least had a final epilogue case. The gameplay nature of this VN also made the matter of prove a bit difficult in some cases. If there's definitive prove to convict a suspect, it can make the case too easy to solve. But if almost everything is guess-work it can be pretty hard to prove. I think the first three major cases had a good balance, but the last one? Sorry, I think if the culprit wouldn't have rewarded every correct guess with a willing confession, a conviction would have been almost impossible without further investigation. Nevertheless, most conclusions and actions felt logical, there was only one thing I simply didn't understand: Nevertheless, with the exception of the short and tagged on wannabe routes, I enjoyed the VN quite a bit. Heroine ranking: Iroha > Rimu = Sakura > Koume >> Shino Final rating: 7.5/10 I think I enjoyed it as much as Sakura no Mori † Dreamers, so I decided to give it the same rating. Both had rather different strengths and weaknesses though, so the experience itself was different.

I didn't want to deal with too many categories, so I've put nakige under the moege umbrella as the more drama-heavy branch of it. And since the major sub-studios of Visual Arts are either moege or nakige, it was the most fitting place for it. Key is admittedly a bit of an edge case, because I'd consider at least Rewrite and Angel Beats as story VN's. But the majority of their titles are still what they are famous for: Nakiges. So even if Key would be separate form Visual Arts, I'd have probably included them in the moege section as well. BTW, it wouldn't have been necessary to quote the whole text wall again. Just the relevant part, like Plk_Lesiak did, would have been enough. Oh, the never ending story about the mysterious Tsukihime remake, they apparently want to release some day in the far future. Well, I believe it if I see it.

Guess I will also try some crystal balling... Overall, I expect Japan to stay the dominant force for visual novels with 2D art, while I expect the west to take the lead for visual novels with 3D render art. I think the latter is already the case with DrPinkCake (Being a DIK, Acting Lessons) and PhylliGames (Depraved Awakening, upcoming City of Broken Dreamers) probably being the most successful 3D VN producers on Steam. I don't really count Japanese Illusion in that category, since they use real time 3D engines and their titles barely qualify as VN. Anyway, I think visual novels will stay a niche, but a stable one with several established producers and a sleeper hit from a no-name studio from time to time. The most successful company's will be the ones that manage to establish a solid fan base around their franchises, extending the pure VN sales to merchandising articles, animes and mobile & game spin-offs. The most successful titles will also not be pure VN's, but JRPG and gacha game hybrids. Bigger companies with several franchises and sub-studios that can afford a few failures are obviously favored. Personal prediction of which companies will stand out here the most: Moege: Visual Arts: With studios like Key, Saga Planets and tone work's under their belt, they certainly won't go down easily. Nexton: They have two successful franchises with BaseSon's Koihime series & Azarashi Soft's Amakano series, and they also have a reasonable successful nukige studio with Liquid. Yuzusoft: Although they are still an independent studio, they seem to do a lot of things right for quite some time now. They are highly popular in Japan and on the best way to get a similar status in the west. If they continue like that, I expect them to grow and take over other studios sooner or later. Nukige: Lilith: They are pretty good at milking the Taimanin cow with their Battle Arena game (no idea how they got that on Steam), tons of merchandising articles and H-animes. And their unique Kagami style adult art is more or less out of competition. Atelier Kaguya: They have two of the most popular nukige studios with Bare & Bunny & HonkeyTonk Pumpkin. One excels in static art and the other in animation. And the third studio CheshireCat is also slowly getting more popular. Although they aren't big in merchandising yet, I see them at a strong technological advantage with top artists in static and animated art. (Choco Chip & Yoppy) Gameplay: Alice-Soft: They have a strong foothold both in Japan and the west with their gameplay titles, and an iconic franchise with Rance. They also produce some rather high quality milf nukiges from time to time, so they aren't just a one-trick pony. Eushully: Although the ratings of their games seem to have declined in recent years, I still see them in a stable position. Maybe because they still don't give the slightest fuck about the west. Apparently they can afford it - their titles are still top sellers in Japan. Besides full JRPG's their only serious contender seems to be AliceSoft anyway. Story: Type-Moon: Ha ha, I know... wouldn't it be nice if the studio that probably has more money than the rest of the bunch together, would actually create a new VN again? Innocent Grey: Would I like to write... but unfortunately, I just can't see them as a save and future proof studio. But seriously, after Light went down (or not?!), I don't even consider Nitroplus a save contender anymore. Pure story VN's are far too hit & miss to be a save investment. Hybrids are the way to go now and probably also in the future. Moege/Nukige/Gameplay with 'some' story is way safer.

This goes way back to Cartagra. He can be considered an insider... maybe not joke, but a humorous acquaintance. Besides that...

Isn't Light supposed to have gone down with their owner Greenwood? They sound pretty lively and full of plans for a dead company. Though the Silverio series certainly sounds interesting.

Also looking forward to Liar-Soft's Jeanne. I'm admittedly a bit worried about the low VNDB rating, but the vote count is rather low and the EGS rating apparently a lot higher, so I'm still optimistic here. Not sure what to expect from the MuvLuv spinoffs. I think I'll need more info and maybe a review about them before I can make a decision about them. The other stuff doesn't seem particular interesting, though I guess there's more to come. I wonder when MangaGamer will announce their annual Rance title this year...

The adult DLC is free btw.

Hm, maybe I'm misreading things, but according to the Eustia Progress Tracker the translation is 100% finished. Isn't that actually a great thing?

The time loop is certainly my least favorite plot type. I think only Stein's Gate did it right, because the whole story was pretty much about time travel theory. But most others just use it as a cheap way to unnecessarily stretch the length of their story by reusing plot arcs, and that gets repetitive very soon. Most VN's are already slow - no reason to make it even worse and drag them down to snail pacing by repeating stuff over and over again. That's not to say that I'd dislike all titles with time loop, some are actually quite decent, but most of them would be better without it.