adamstan

Since my last post I have completed quite a few...
 
Hanahira, Sonohana 11-15, Sonohana New Gen, Sonohana Angels 1-3, Sonohana Yuricycle, Senren Banka, Biniku no Kaori, Marco & The Galaxy Dragon, and 9-nine- Episode 1 so far. I'd recommend Senren Banka to any moege fan and Marco to nearly anyone. The Sonohana's to any yuri fan, although some aren't worth reading without having read some of the previous ones since for the most part they (New Gen and Angels being exceptions) are continuations of the same story. Biniku no Kaori was an interesting mystery / nukige hybrid thing that if you're into mysteries you'd probably like, but I'd recommend going straight for the true route with a guide, as the bad ends spoil quite a bit.
 
And now I'm reading 9-nine- Episode 2. At the rate I'm going, I'll probably finish this series out within a week.

Since this comment, I have finished Sucker For Love and Girls in Glasses.
Sucker For Love was a fun VN to read through from start to finish. The gameplay could have been better, but it did not bother me since the VN has other things to appreciate. Some of these things include the designs of the girls and their voice actors. Another commendable thing is how each chapter was different. Chapter 1 was simple to let the player get an idea as to how this game works. Then, Chapter 2 makes things a little tougher. Chapter 3 is where things get REALLY crazy. Also, the game is not that scary. There were a couple of frightening sounds and visuals, but they never made me feel like the game was trying too hard to scare me. Overall, it is an entertaining VN that can be a little scary at times. Lastly, the protagonist may not have a name, but he does have some funny lines. 7/10.
The story of Girls in Glasses goes like this. You follow Hidekazu as he starts a new spring semester at a private academy. By using the map system (it has been a while since I have read a VN with this), you can determine which heroine the protagonist will end up with. The story and characters are simple. Aside from being a bit of a marine nut and the one thing we learn about him in Kana's route, Hidekazu is just your normal protagonist. As for the heroines, you have an airheaded childhood friend, a quiet and shy bookworm, and an overworked student council president. The biggest problem that I have with this VN is the length of the routes. There is so much that could have been done with them. I was not tracking my time with these routes, but I am pretty sure it would take you at most 2-3 hours to finish one of them. Also, this VN does the thing where the other characters disappear from the story once you start a route. Despite my issues, I still enjoyed it because of the themes that were explored in the routes. Even with their short length, the themes were included in the story well. I may give it a 7/10, but I would not recommend picking it up anytime soon. There are A LOT of VNs out there. Sadly, Girls in Glasses does not do much to stand out from the others. 

Welp. I got to do 5 endings and the download version from Jast's website blocked the rest of them. There's a bug in that version right now - best I can tell - that there's a duplicate choice presented instead of a different choice, so the trigger for allowing a later choice isn't ever hit, so you can't choose one of the pathways at all, which locks Narumi's, Kokoro's, and Minamo's good and true ends as well as Mio's best ending. Other than THAT bit of mess, it was a subpar moege with a pretty thin story. I wouldn't have trashed it too much myself, but it was aiming for somewhere in the 3-4/10 range. Broken though = 1/10 for me.
 
Since that post I've already read Planetarian and Planetarian Snow Globe. I cried. Then I felt a little better with Snow Globe.
 
Now I'm onto Uchi no Kanojo.

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
 

White Album 2, currently at coda, has started playing the game since April but I am too scared to advance the story in Coda. Once I gather up my courage, I will continue reading...

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..

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").
And I really loved her ending.
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.

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)
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:
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

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.
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

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.
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

I started Mashiro-iro Symphony -Sana Edition- a little over a week ago. Currently, I am 11 hours into it.
Mashiro-iro Symphony is a great VN. Every character was used well in the story, all of the routes are good, and the visuals look nice.
I think some people would have an issue with the pacing for some of the routes. Personally, I was too invested in the plot for it to bother me.
Overall Rating: 8/10

Currently reading Heart de Roommate
 
Since last post, I finished SakuSaku's reread, read Secret Agent, Ninki Seiyuu, Majo Koi Nikki, Mashiro-iro Symphony, Mashiro-iro Symphony Sana Edition, Hello Lady Complete, and Koiiro Chu! Lips. I'd outright recommend all of them except Secret Agent (only to action or mystery fans, it's a bit short and the routes are a bit uneven), and Koiiro Chu! Lips (although if you're a moege fan I think it's worth a read). Reviews for all are up on VNDB.

From the Steam page:
 

I already read the fan-TL (while disabling the horrible h scenes) and have japanese Memorial Edition in a box, but I look forward to this Steam release.
Having it officially released in HD, with voices and multi language support is great.
(It seems that it's goint to be a port of 2023 Switch version)

https://noisypixel.net/classic-key-visual-novel-kanon-english-release/
 

To each their own. But for the record, h-scenes in Key novels are known to be horrible.

As for sex scenes, honestly just play fan translation if someone is very desperate for it. That said, it's very understandable people didn't consider Kanon sex scenes are good, especially when there's a patch to remove the sex scenes even back then, which mean there are people who prefer to play old version without the sex scenes. But if some find the sex scenes in Kanon are very arousing, well good for them.

Okay so, hear me out, there's been a long ass drought of Ace Attorney, and so you should totally checkout Tyrion Cuthbert: Attorney of the Arcane. It's a heavily inspired Ace Attorney indie VN that'll make you feel right at home. Kinda pricey at 20 bucks, but you get the standard 5 case Ace Attorney experience with all the fun point and click exploration/investigations and climactic cross examinations with moderatos and allegros and slightly over the top characters you could ask for. And yes Arcane is in the title because there's also magic. Like, this 'dumbass noble mage totally used the magicks to commit this crime' type of magic 💀
^This clown here's Nick- I mean uhh Tyrion Cuthbert (Teer-ee-on? Ty-ry-on? Cooth-bert???). Yo Idk dafuq kinda name the devs were going for, but at least he got the desk slams like Nick.
 

^This cutie here is Maya Fey. She's a mage named Celeste this time around, and Tyr's actually competent sidekick/bodyguard. Btw Tyr has his own built in Athena Cyke's Mood Matrix via his "Eye of Horus" where he can involuntarily pick up on people's thoughts and emotions (yellow text + purple/blue emojiis above). Kind of makes him overpowered at times with the level of omniscience he can get but it's cool. Not every day you get a protag who can Maximillion Pegasus Millenium Eye these fools
 
^This hottie's Aria Steelwind. The female Miles Edgeworth I guess. She's cool. Ice princess type.
 
There's also romance, if you care for that LOL!
 

Go play it

Mashiro-Iro Symphony is often mentioned as being the peak of the company's moege/charage era games.  It was made during the latter-stages of the 'golden age of JVNs', in 2009 (The 'golden age' is generally seen as being from 2005 or 2006 to 2011 or 2012, depending on who you ask), and it was an example of quality in a time when VNs had only just branched out into distinctive genres and sub-genres but before the templates had been set in stone.  
As games of the type go, it is an excellent choice for localization.  

Frontwing is totally doubling down on the whole cute young poster heroine in an oceanic setting lol. Finished Ginka and currently reading ATRI


"I'm something of a Ginka-lover myself"

Playing Aonatsu Line. Giga games rarely surprise me but aonatsu line surprised me by just being normally good and pulling off tropes i normally see. What I really am surprised about Aonatsu Line is the male side character Chihiro, IT IS INCREDIBLY RARE AS HELL FOR ANY school life romcoms in VN to have cool and reliable male side characters that fulfill the typical best friend roles ( while also having a sprite). Its a big positive thing for me if a male side character in a school life romcom vn is not incredibly perverted, exist only to make the protag look better in comparison, and doesn't really have any redeeming qualities and is used only for laughs.
Im only a few hours in but color me surprised

Please forgive my spam, but I really have to share it with you (and I'm actually listening to it on repeat for a last few days )
Recently I did a cover of "Yume no Tsubasa" (a song written by Yuki Kajiura, originally from "Tsubasa Chronicle" anime). I love this song, and wanted to do it for a long time, but it absolutely needs a female singer. And some time ago Yoko Matsuura (japanese local singer-songwriter from Otsu, whom I befriended thanks to very unexpected chain of events) invited me to do a collaboration video - so I suggested doing cover of this song together, and here's the result:
I played the keyboards and did all the programming and editing, while Yoko played piano - and we're both singing of course
 

Thanks - I'll check it out when it goes on some kind of sale (Steam Winter Sale perhaps?) - full price is too much for me 😮 (I guess it's still too "new" game for price drop).

yeaah, i think the first one has a ton of problems and the endings being one of the biggest issue.
 
try true colors. i was amazed on how much i loved that game.

Yaho, time for another one of my sporadic shilling of the few VNs that I've read over the past few months.
SHINRAI -broken beyond despair- it was an alright Halloween Party murder mystery between 10 middle school friends. What's great about it is that you can have totally logically sound but incorrect deductions at the very end as to who the master mind is and you'll feel like a total dumbass afterwards when the protagonist realizes her mistake. 7/10

"Remember, these are a buncha middle schoolers lol."
 
Fragment's Note+ & Fragment's Note 2+ This was apparently a mobile-VN made 10 years ago, remade for the Switch recently as + versions. Gee, wonder how their sales went lol. Anyways Fragments Note is a standard charamoege high school slice of life, with the twist being that in the first game the protagonist's future daughter travels to his time in order to prevent a tragic fate that would befall him if she were to not intervene. That's pretty much the only thing that kept me interested in this VN, cuz I just can't with HS SoL nowadays lol. 7/10

"Guys I'm not a Lolicon I swear lol, but Miu is just too cute."
 
Fragment's Note 2 is an indirect sequel taking place 1 year later at the same high school, but with a different protagonist. What I found particularly interesting is that this protagonist was only briefly mentioned in the first game, and now he has his own story! Talk about Ascended Extra. I'm a sucker for these types of continuity in stories. Even better, one of the unromanceable heroines from the first game (because plot) is actually romanceable this time around hehehe. Unfortunately, most of the plot is wasted on the protagonist's trauma, because a core theme of this VN is to conquer your inner demons and move on type of deal. 7.5/10

"^This here's Ayame. And hori shi she might just be my most guilty pleasure character ever lol. She's the doting gentle older sister type. Totally gives my pink-haired heroine bias a run for its money"
 
Paranormasight: Hoh boy, if you are ever looking for a supernatural battle of wits murder mystery, look no further. Paranormasight's gotchu covered. Simple premise. 7* Mysteries of Honjo, 7* Curse Bearers with relics/kill methods based on those mysteries, and you're in for a good time. Only gripe is the whole deathnote-style kill or be killed thriller gameplay is literally reserved only for the PROLOGUE, yes only the PROLOGUE, and the rest of the game after that is piecing together the mystery/lore/character motivations and does away with the climactic character confrontations. Also kind of short, clocking in only 10-15 hours. 8/10

"Give me a 30hr VN that's purely more about these type of character confrontations sizing each other up before going for the killing blow and you'd have a masterpiece lol"
 
Yurukill: Four pairs of "Prisoners" and "Executioners" are taken to a 'theme park' Yurukill Land and the winning pair that makes it through all the 'attractions' will get the Prisoner exonerated from their crime, with the Executioner having any wish of theirs granted. This VN seriously doesn't know what it wants to be, murder mystery, escape game, Danganronpa logic puzzles, bullet hell shoot 'em up... it implements all of these mechanics, so like a jack of all trades but master of none. Fun enough though. 7/10

"Totally unrelated comment, but Rina totally looks like someone who would appear in like Fata Morgana or something LOL"
 
Suhoshin: Another short (~5-7hrs) murder mystery VN (see a trend here?) this time taking place in a more medieval setting. Interesting, up until you get to a certain midway point and get one of those infodumps that totally ruins the intrigue because the characters just know too much about what they are dealing with at that point. 7/10

"Oh yes, you'll totally always frustratingly be one step behind the killer lol -_____-"
 
Currently reading: Kunado Kokuki Gee, Purple Software really liked the Kotodama gimmick that they made in Amatsutsumi didn't they >.>. I didn't get very far in Amatsu before I got bored of the high school SoL as usual, but Kunado Kokuki is set in post apocalyptic man vs machine setting and the Kotodama gimmick is quite intriguing there.

"And let's be real, Haruhime (center) is a God-tier heroine lol. Ruler of the nation, gorgeous as fuh, and has the same exclusive Kotodama powers as the protagonist. It's a match made in heaven."

Yesterday I finished "Life Is Strange". Overally it was enjoyable and interesting (except for annoying stealth sequences in final chapter), but the endings kind of sucked.
Seriously, we need "ustuge" tag outside VN world. I guess I should expect that with this kind of setting, but still...
The ending where
is very sad, but kind of makes sense, even if it is rather fatalistic. But I'd consider it "true" end.
And the second ending, where
it made me feel like shit, although I can imagine some people could consider it "good end" - but not me 😕

@HataVNI Honestly, I'd recommend at least creating discussion threads for the content posted on the main site. I believe it used to be the norm in the past. The discussions were often pretty interesting, and it would make the main site more visible for those of us who mostly visit forums.