[What are you playing?]

Thanks! I have two of those new Frontwing titles (Kinsenka and KANADE) on my radar, as well as Ushinawareta Mirai o Motomete, so it's good to hear they're decent

 

[Natsu no Ame —Summer Rain— [Dat Boi Translations]]

Great

Whatever the case - get someone for proofreading and possibly editing.
It's very difficult to find errors in your own text - even the obvious ones, the kind which you'd facepalm at after someone points them out

[Natsu no Ame —Summer Rain— [Dat Boi Translations]]

Good luck, it's indeed nice title!

I think 5 months estimate might be too optimistic, but maybe you're really that fast But I think you have to be ready for some slow-downs along the road, since they're almost inevitable.

[What are you playing?]

I just finished Time Leap

I approached it without big expectations, but it turned out to be quite good

While it features time travel as a major part of the setting, it doesn't approach it "scientifically" - it's just a magical plot device more related to "KEY magic" - but I'm okay with that, if only it gives me nice tale 

It will be a very slight spoiler, but without it it's difficult to talk about the plot at all, so let's just say that one thing that all people subjected to "Time Leap" have in common is some very strong feeling that makes them want to escape from the reality.

There are five routes, of which two are unlockable. 

My favorite girl - and first route I did - was definitely Ayumu (the "current" one  ).

I seem to have soft spot for this kind of fiery redheads and/or osananajimi tsunderes  (well, technically she's MC's adoptive sister, but whatever ). I also think that her route was most fleshed out among the three "basic" ones. And remember - never think lightly of her deadly round-kick  
Completing Ayumu's route unlocks Ayu (younger version of Ayumu that appeared because of "Time Leap").

But, sensing that Ayu's might be kind of "true route" (considering the premise) I saved her for the last playthrough, so the next route I got was Yuu - imouto-style heroine  

While I really liked her as a character, her route seemed to lack some impact compared to Ayumu. But I appreciate, that her (as well as Haruka's) route also was somewhat related to the "Time Leap" phenomenon - intially I thought that it will apply only to both Ayumu's versions.

Completing Yuu's route unlocks Haruka - the oldest sister, who currently works as a teacher in local higschool, where MC, Ayumu and Yuu attend.

I really love her look with her hair down:

 

That route was interesting, and a bit of emotional rollercoaster. There was also quite a plot twist. 

Spoiler

At the end of Yuu's route Haruka disappears via the Time Leap, saying that her job here is finally done - implying that she was there to bring Yuu and Seiji together. Actually, Haruka appeared in the shrine 8 years ago. And during her route we finally learn, that she was actually Yuu who jumped back in time, because of her unfulfilled feelings towards Seiji. 

Then there is kind of side-heroine, Komomo. She's Hisamitsu's (the town's rich idiot kid) maid, and a ball of cuteness  

While her route doesn't involve Time Leap directly, it still has themes of past memories etc (my favorite). And did I already say that Komomo is cute?

And finally Ayu - the Ayumu from 4 years ago.

Violent but cute, and her story has quite balanced mix of comedy and drama.

However, heroine routes are one thing, but the very important part of the VN is family as a whole. They all play important part in every route, which created very pleasant, wholesome atmosphere - in no small way thanks to the great side characters duo - the youngest children - Fuuta and Sakura.

If I had to point out weak points of this title, there would be mainly two:

• a bit unsatisfying (too short!) epilogues
• I'd like to see more CGs (or rather, in case of this title) "CG-like" scenes. PC version has some scenes done as 2d movies (with voiced MC) but console port has everything rendered using ingame engine. I still prefer PS3 version from technical point of view, since PC version lacks almost any UI, apart from black text box at the bottom of the screen. Also, console version has somewhat expanded scenario, as a replacement for removed H-scenes. 

All in all I really enjoyed this VN. While nothing groundbreaking, it's solid. Fully animated characters are nice feature, making scenes much more lively. So it ends up with my standard score for not-outstanding-but-good titles - 7.5/10

[What are you playing?]

1 hour ago, Bredan said:

Although it might be useless since you seem more knowledgeable than me and probably already know of this, as a thank you : if you don't know LunaTranslator, you might be interested https://github.com/HIllya51/LunaTranslator .

It's more akin to Textractor but is still maintained. It also works with quite a few emulated games as well. Warning though : It's detected as a malware by quite a lot of AV software but as far as I know, it is clean, although I can't guarantee (besides, it is not surprising that an app tinkering with memory might be considered malware by AV).

Yep, I know about Luna, and experienced firsthand that Defender detected it as malware While I feel it's too bloated for normal use, I someties find it useful to find H-code that I then could put into Textractor

1 hour ago, Bredan said:

EDIT : do you know where I can download the v0.1 of Agent ? Can't find a link to this old version.

Unfortunately it seems that older versions aren't available anymore. And scripts based on D-CODE and _ExecutionWatch indeed crash in current version - I just tried my script for Time Leap, and it didn't work

So it seems that currently the only option for getting script for yet unsupported game is to ask on their discord and hope that someone makes it...

[What are you playing?]

2 hours ago, Bredan said:

About Agent and this tinkering you speak of : is it easy to explain how to do it or do you know of any tutorial or something ?

I'm used to Textractor and such tools and I've also used Agent with a Switch game on one occasion but I have no clue on how to write a new script for Agent. Is there an easy way ?

There was a tutorial for the older version of Agent, about finding so-called "D-CODE" - and I used that method.

https://github.com/0xDC00/agent/wiki/Finding-D-CODE-(Deprecated)

It seems that ExecutionWatch script in latest version of Agent(0.1.4) is a little broken, and doesn't catch shift-jis encoded strings properly, so I'm using Agent v0.1.

Currently it seems that it's recommended to write custom scripts from scratch, but that requires more programming and inner workings of a given game/console knowledge, so it's a bit above my level

[What are you playing?]

So far I finished 3 out of 5 routes in Time Leap - and it's quite good (At last!)

While nothing outstanding in terms of plot or romance, I find it very enjoayble - there's some good comedy, a bit of drama and lots of heartwarming family moments I'll write more once I complete it.

 

[What are you playing?]

Damn, is this forum completely dead already?

Anyway, as predicted, I couldn't be bothered to continue Kimi ni Steady

Instead, yesterday I started Frontwing's Time Leap. Today I entered first route. So far I'm liking it - it plays many of my favorite tropes, like childhood memories with a bit of supernatural mystery.

It's also quite good looking despite using cell-shaded 3d models instead of sprites. The positive side of that is the dialogues feel much more lively.

I'm playing PS3 version - it works flawlessly with current version of RPCS3, and can be hooked using Agent after some tinkering

[What are you playing?]

I think I won't finish Kimi ni Steady While I love character design of some heroines, I liked the one route I finished, and I'd like to see some of the other heroines' routes - the dating sim gameplay is sooo tedious. What's worse, there's no clear walkthrough, conditions to trigger routes can be tricky, and the only guide that's available online for this game seems to have mistakes (or the game is partially random)... So I'm on the verge of dropping it.

[AIR just got official translation and Steam release!]

FWIW, When I played AIR long time ago with fan translation patch, I still used Takafumi's patch to turn the sex scenes off

[AIR just got official translation and Steam release!]

... and I haven't seen any news about it  

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2983250/AIR/

 

Might check it out later, since I don't have any official AIR release. And this one has both original and translated text included, not to mention it's ported for modern systems, got HD treatment and includes voices which previously were available only on console or via unnoficial patch. Nice

 

[What are you playing?]

2 hours ago, alexfang452 said:

The next VN that I will start is Adventure of a Lifetime.

I liked it. I also really enjoyed its "sequel" - Ano Hi no Tabibito, Fureau Mirai, but it's still untranslated. Perhaps "Adventure of a Lifetime" didn't sell well enough on Steam? (Even though I remember the translation being not bad for a PULLTOP )

[What are you playing?]

On 2/23/2025 at 5:10 AM, LostPomegranate said:

Also it does sound like a nightmare to run that PC version, so I'd go with the console version too, if only to not have to resize everything often when running it.

When there's will, there's a way (yeah, I know I'm sick )

I managed to run bloody thing using WinXP virtual machine running in VirtualBox, and then hooking text with Cheat Engine

The only downside is that the japanese font in WinXP is kinda ugly But it works  

[What are you playing?]

18 hours ago, LostPomegranate said:

One of the few moege I've read where a lot of the H-scenes have true plot significance.

Yeah, that was funny - but the scenes were so over the top

[What are you playing?]

On 2/20/2025 at 4:38 PM, LostPomegranate said:

Sex Rockets (Byakko / Farther than the Blue Sky)

Wait, when did it get that title?

Anyway, it was quite nice game as far as I remember. I read it back in 2019, when the translation got released. I think I was disappointed with H-scenes (as usual ), and the romance felt underdeveloped, but I enjoyed all that rocket plot.

 

On 9/28/2019 at 11:21 AM, adamstan said:

I have an impression, especially after true route, that romance isn't focus of this game. It's a bit tacked onto main rocket story. And then there are h-scenes tacked onto the tacked-on romance - probably that's why they felt jarring to me. There were some nice parts, but overally they had "nukigey" feeling to me. And the way all heroines turned instantly into non-stop-orgasming sex demons was so over the top, that it felt almost like a parody.

 

*****************

Now I'm trying to decide what to read next. I'm kinda in a mood for another ancient moege, like You & I that I read last summer.

And so I stumbled upon similar title - Kimi ni Steady. But I have really hard time choosing between the PC and PS1 versions. The problem is that PS1 version, due to graphic hardware limitations has really bad quality low-res sprites, like this:

But it's hookable with CheatEngine and has really nice animated OP.

The PC version looks much better (and I really dig that character design)...

...but from technical point of view it's a hot mess - it runs only in fullscreen, in Win98 compatibility mode. Can be windowed using app like DxWnd, but it still behaves like it was fullscreen - you have to Alt-Tab out of it to use desktop. The engine itself has even less features than You & I , which already was pretty bare-bones. I couldn't find a way to enter any kind of options or save menu once the game started (and I read through two days on prologue) - there are icons, but they are all greyed out And when the game is wrapped via DxWnd, text hookers don't seem to see it  

So I'm quite stuck. I think I will go with console version and suffer inferior graphics, just because it's less of a bother to run and hook...

****************************************

Okay, I clicked through PC version until options became active, and maybe I should rethink my game choice, since this seems to be genuine dating sim, with map movement, presents, searching for date spots etc - and I often find such systems rather bothersome

[What are you playing?]

Few days ago I finished console version of Strawberry Nauts.

It was quite decent moege. Nothing less and nothing more All heroines are quite likeable, with my personal favorite being quiet Yao

I love the comments she makes on various occasions - short, but always amusing

The routes are unfortunately a bit uneven in quality. Definitely the most interesting and elaborate one was Houmi's story.
It featured some light supernatural/sci-fi parts, which was a bit unexpected, but they worked decently in the end. (And actually they aren't that rare in typical moege when you think about it). And this route had my favorite kind of ending when it comes to moege/romance VNs.

Spoiler

Marriage ending of course

Unfortunately I started the game with the weakest route - childhood friend Itsuki. While she's great character, her route felt very underdeveloped, especially in all-ages version. (Not that H-scenes made it much better ). It almost made me drop this game, but I'm glad I didn't, since all other routes were much better.

There are also some side-endings for other characters - the weirdest one being definitely the route for the "Upperclassman Girl #C", where we never learn her actual name . Those routes feel a bit rushed, since they are much shorter and come kind out of nowhere, with little connection to the common route - they really have the feel of "unlockable bonus content"  

There's also console-exclusive heroine - Marika. Her route was nice, but also a bit unpolished IMO.

The main highlight of this VN for (apart from quite likeable heroines) is humor - I found it quite funny, and laughed many times at character's comments or reactions.

All in all - 7.5/10, which is my "base" score for decent games. It might go higher when there's something special about it, or I will detract points for annoying  or badly made things. I consider anything 7 and upwards to be good. (I even enjoyed some of the 6.5 or 6 titles, but the shortcomings were too obvious to rate them higher )

[What are you playing?]

I had some break in reading after finishing GINKA in July, but today I finally decided what to read next - and I started reading console version of Strawberry Nauts. I just finished the prologue. It might be clichey, but I think I like where it's going - it promises to be feel-good moege, and that's just what I'm needing right now

Might try something more serious next however

 

[What are you playing?]

20 hours ago, LostPomegranate said:

Currently I'm reading "Figures of Happiness". An oldge from JAST, only a little over an hour in and it's okay so far...bit different.

I'm looking forward to your opinion when you finish it. I remember stumbling upon this title while starting my VN journey, but I never actually read it. I only remember that some reviewers trashed it, and also I don't like the art style (character design) - those faces look worse than early KEY titles, and that's something

[What are you playing?]

On 7/22/2024 at 3:15 PM, adamstan said:

I'm late to the party again, but I just started playing GINKA.

(I found pretty good deal on DLSite - weak JPY combined with some discount coupon that I had meant that it was 40% off compared to Steam price)

It looks great, and after two hours it seems to be ticking almost all the boxes for me It seems to be the VN that could be put on a shelf next to Natsuzora Kanata and Summer Pockets, both of which I loved. (I haven't read ISLAND yet...)

Aaand... finished

The story is nice, even though it seems a bit like "the best of" compilation album from different "summer & island" nakiges - I saw familiar tropes from things like Summer Pockets, Natsuzora Kanata or AIR, but nevertheless liked it. However I feel like the writing and pacing is a bit too messy, with constant flashbacks, visions and jumps - especially in later chapters, which somewhat weakens the emotional punch of some scenes/arcs. Still had decent amount of tearjerkers, so I won't complain too much But the script would definitely benefit from a few more clean-up iterations

Art is good, characters likeable, and the music is great.

All in all, I think it gets an 8 from me

 

[What are you playing?]

I'm late to the party again, but I just started playing GINKA.

(I found pretty good deal on DLSite - weak JPY combined with some discount coupon that I had meant that it was 40% off compared to Steam price)

It looks great, and after two hours it seems to be ticking almost all the boxes for me It seems to be the VN that could be put on a shelf next to Natsuzora Kanata and Summer Pockets, both of which I loved. (I haven't read ISLAND yet...)

 

PS For my first playthrough I'm going to read in Japanese. Then perhaps I will check out the translation afterwards.

[What are you playing?]

Yesterday I finished You & I. It was much better than I expected.

Even though it was very generic school-slice-of-life charage, somehow it turned out to be quite enjoyable. Also, I guess back then in 1999 all those cliches weren't as clichey as today - 25 years later

The premise is simple - the protagonist missed few weeks of school because of traffic accident (he got hit by a car). He returns to school at the beginning of June, and there he meets (and possibly falls in love) with heroines - the game takes place over one month (and few days). There's no bigger overarching plot or story* - like elections in Princess Evangile or gliders in Konosora - just school slice of life. Sometimes MC complains that everything feels a bit unreal to him, like he was seeing a dream, but is there more to it?

You can definitely sense strong dating sim roots here - but it is IMO handled much better than, for example, first White Album which bored me to the point of dropping it. Here there are no "generic" repeatable scenes, and there's no map movement (yay!). However the common route is very long - basically the whole June is common route, and then there are relatively short endings. And there's insane amount of choices - well over 100 . I noticed is that many scenes in common route play out differently depending on your relatonship level with given heroine - there might be additional text, CG or different set of choices. Nice attention to detail.

*except in Sayaka's route.

Heroines are quite likeable, there's also usual funny MC's male friend - here he's named Fujita, and is class' president. Your usual Sunohara type - although he predates Sunohara . He reminded me of Makoto from Sakura no Kisetsu (which was also done by Tiare).

I started with Misaki's route.

Class' vice-president, very friendly, gentle, caring and hard working girl. She seems to have crush on the MC right from the beginning. Her route is nice (if a bit naive) "first love" story. I also think that her H-scene was quite nicely and tactfuly written (for an old eroge).

Haruka is Misaki's best friend, and has very different personality. She's very energetic, with some tsundere vibes. Keeps "fighting" with Fujita. Her route was a bit weird..

Spoiler

She falls in love with MC, but she also knows about Misaki's feelings, so she's conflicted. To make matters worse, she also has/had crush on Fujita. So one day she comes to MC's house under the pretext of studying, and kind of forces herself upon him - and then says something like "It's OK if you don't love me, I'll just go away now". Now, depending on your choices in the common route, the route splits into two versions. In the main one MC confesses to Haruka and they get together.

But there's also weird second ending, where they can't make a decision, and continue an unresolved love rectangle - Misaki likes MC, MC likes both Misaki and Haruka, Haruka likes MC, but cannot decide between him and Fujita - and Fujita stays completely indifferent towards her. It all ends with graduation CG (quite nice BTW), and Haruka running towards MC - I guess after trying to confess and being rejected by Fujita.

Haruka also appears as a final boss in Misaki's route - she confesses in tears to MC on the school roof, saying that she's OK to be just his secret fuckbuddy. Of course if you agree, you get kicked to the bad end

Asaki - quiet, mysterious girl. Her story has some nice twists and plays a bit with the reader and setting (let's just say that to enter the route you need a specific item - a book titled "The Existence of Parallel Dimensions").

Spoiler

At some point Asaki claims that she's an alien/person from another world, and perhaps MC is also the one, and that's why he feels "unreal"/out of place. I immediately thought about Ruu \^^/ from ToHeart2. But then they drop it - after all she's just an ordinary girl who felt lonely - especially since she's an orphan.

And I really loved her ending.

Spoiler

Marriage/family ending - sweet

Here I also encountered first weirdness of this game's system. In addition to making right choices in the common route, you have to select right prologue when starting new game (there are two) and make right choices there as well. Otherwise the route ends prematurely right after the H-scene - that's really cruel

Megumi - shy, introverted girl, member of library committee. Her route has the most drama.

Spoiler

She gets bullied because of her hair color. The bullying intensifies when she gets closer to the MC. Because of that, and because she already decided to change schools from the next term, she starts to avoid MC. You get the picture

Miyu senpai - an idol with pretty zealous fan-club of self-proclaimed bodyguards in school. I quite liked her scenes in common route, but her ending was rather disappointing

And finally there's Sayaka - MC's little sister

I spent over 10 hours of constant replays trying to get this route! And let me tell you - it's almost impossible without walkthrough. There's even a review over on EGS where someone complains that they couldn't get that route. And there's no walkthrough available on any of the usual sites, like seiya-saiga or sagaoz. I finally found one on some archived page from 2001. And yeah - many choices were rather counterintuitive. Basically it seems like instead of focusing only on Sayaka, you have to keep balanced "relationship score" between all heroines, and cannot neglect anyone, at least in the first half of comon route.

However the route was interesting, and quite meta. (Heavy spoilers below)

Spoiler

It start as your typical imouto route - characters falling in forbidden love. However just when they're already naked in MCs bed and are about to have sex, he's unable to cross that boundary. "Incest, huh... If only you weren't my sister..." - and after thinking that he blacks out, and wakes up in hospital, with the same CG we saw right at the beginning of game with Sayaka, Misaki and Fujita next to his bed.

But Sayaka calls him "Ryou-kun" instead of "Onii-chan". WTF? He's utterly confused.

And then it turns out he was right, when he was feeling like in a dream during common route - basically the whole game up to this point was MC's dream he was seeing while being in coma after the accident. And Sayaka was not his sister but actually his girlfriend (also, right before the accident they were on the verge of breakup). Then MC leaves hospital, we get final H-scene, and they rebuild their relationship. Whew...

I briefly mentioned that when talking about Misaki's route, but generally I liked H-scenes in this VN. There's only one relatively short scene for each heroine, and I think they are quite tactfuly written, especially for old eroge. Of course there are some usual cliches, but nevertheless it doesn't feel like characters got entirely replaced by their porn stunt doubles. They're having sex, not acting out an JAV scenario - which was my main complaint towards many H-scenes in VNs, and what steered me towards console/all-ages editions

Also, for each route we get very nice "pillow talk"/"morning after" scene Just have a look at this Misaki's morning CG:

Spoiler

Now for the downsides. This VN is pretty bad when it comes to engine/QoL side. With this insane amount of choices, and one very difficult to get route, you get

• no backlog
• only unconditional skip mode
• only 9(!) save slots, and loading a save always rewinds to the beginning of the scene
• no keyboard support at all

There were also some typo's / editing errors (like repeated words or characters) here and there.

Also, the game is only partially voiced. Basically, common route is unvoiced, except for one scene (for each heroine) during sports festival. And only main heroines are voiced. The voices themselves aren't great, but that's quite old title, so I guess it can be forgiven. The music was nice.

Considering all of the above - on one hand, quite enjoyable content, but on the other - tedious gameplay, I rated this VN at 7/10

And now, can someone tell me WTH am I writing this wall of text about an obscure 25 years old moege nobody will ever play?

Also, for posterity - Here's the walkthrough

[What are you playing?]

I forgot to report, that I finished Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai (console version - including spinoff and FD) around a week ago

Overally it was very enjoyable read. With 40 endings and 90k lines it took some time, but I almost never felt bored - this VN created nice environment, where it was just enjoyable to spend time with the characters.

On 6/16/2024 at 6:53 PM, adamstan said:

Lots of humor and feel-good moments, nice dynamics between characters - and all spiced with just the right amount of drama.

Yeah, after finishing whole game I stand by that opinion

I also still find the amount of event CGs not enough - but that's a minor gripe.

As for "True routes", I think the naming might be a bit misleading. There is just one true route, and main heroine of that route is Nagi - but it also has optional branches for other girls. However, I'd treat that as an extra, since those endings aren't as fleshed out as the "normal" routes for the girls.

I'd also like to mention the console-exclusive route for new character - Kingyo. It was great, among the best routes in the whole game That's the second (or even third) time I encountered that phenomenon - the other one being Wakaba's route from Tenshin Ranman, (and perhaps also Chihiro from Kono Aozora ni Yakusoku o).

FanDisc provides very nice supplement for each heroine. And spinoff Houkago Shippo Days is just a nice short mini-VN in the same setting. Nothing great, but I liked it nevertheless.

**********************************************************

And currently I'm reading perhaps the most random VN so far - You & I. It's the last title by JAST/Tiare (best known for Sakura no Kisetsu, Meisou Toshi etc). It's also their first VN that ditched the command-based adventure game system, and went with Ikura GDL engine (Crescendo, Kazoku Keikaku, Yukizakura etc).

This title got released in June 1999, so it's as old as Kanon. But the writing is more in-line with Sakura no Kisetsu So far it seems to be very generic old-school charage, but for some weird reason I'm enjoying it

[What are you playing?]

38 minutes ago, LostPomegranate said:

Currently reading Heart de Roommate

That was a pretty good one from what I remember. Have fun

I'm currently somewhere in the middle of reading Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai untranslated Switch version. I finished all "normal" routes for main and side heroines, and I'm now on first of the "true" routes - Kodachi's.

So far I'm loving it Lots of humor and feel-good moments, nice dynamics between characters - and all spiced with just the right amount of drama. I only wish it had more CGs, since there aren't too many - or perhaps they were saving them up for "true routes"? We'll see.

 

[Recent (Japanese) Things You Have Purchased]

During April and first half of May I went to Japan again.

This time I bought less games than last year - only 3 PS2 VNs

However I brought back much more music in analog formats - 12 records and 8 cassettes,

I also got a cute portable tape recorder from 1968:

 

[[project] Sakura no Kisetsu Ren'py remake project]

No, it isn't dead yet

I will finish it someday, although have to admit - currently it's stalled.