Recently, I've had reason to consider precisely what it is that makes the difference between a strong charage and a kusoge charage. There are a lot of important elements involved, from levels of character development to the overuse of the non-person protagonist. However, there was one element - or rather a tool - that seems to get overlooked a lot, despite its ubiquitous presence in almost every first-class charage. That tool is the heroine perspective.
The heroine perspective is where the narrative switches from following the protagonist to following one or more of the heroines. To be blunt, this is probably the single most powerful tool a charage writer has to make you fall in love with the heroine as a person, rather than as a one-dimensional talking doll. If a charage writer is failing to drop you into heroines' perspectives on a regular basis in the common route, it isn't a good sign. A single twenty-line peek into a heroine's head can often mean the difference between a wonderful, round heroine and a flat, boring heroine. Few heroines have the personal charisma necessary to leave memories inside your heart without at least one scene like this one, whether it is in a charage or otherwise. Whereas the everyday interactions between them and the protagonist provide you a broad outline of their character, it is the heroine perspective that is often needed to provide a drop of paint to the canvas, aiding in the process of filling in the lines.
I mean, cute only goes so far.
Traveling to other worlds is so common a plot element in otaku media that it has actually become a fantasy sub-genre in and of itself. This is actually one of my favorite plot elements... if it isn't screwed up magnificently (like in RE:Zero) by putting the wrong sort of person into the mess.
The first otaku media that hit me with this was The Vision of Escaflowne, followed by Fushigi Yuugi. The latter isn't one of my favorite anime, but I did like it up to a point. The former is one of my oldest favorites, about a girl named Hitomi who gets sent to another world where she gets wrapped up in a conflict between a massive fantasy Empire and those opposing its might. This is actually the standard for most of the early stories of the type, in this way: Most early anime and manga at the time and up to the turn of the century that used this kind of concept tended to plop a protagonist into that other world either as a virtually helpless piece on the board, acting more as a catalyst than as a true mover and shaker. This is the reason why the concept didn't really take off in the minds of fans until much later.
Another type is based off of the archetype from Maze, an anime where the protagonist gets sent to another world as a 'savior/messiah' character who is immensely over-powered and somehow manages to bumble their way into saving the world. In both cases, about 70% of the anime and manga of this type and the one above have the protagonist choosing to 'go home' at some point, though there are exceptions (such as Maze itself).
The third type is one where the protagonist is thrown into another world with a concrete role... but not necessarily the power necessary to survive on their own. Twelve Kingdoms falls into this archetype, as the protagonist is essentially cast adrift, possessing an important role in her new world but not the power or the personal maturity to carry it out. Twelve Kingdoms is a classic example of the type, in that the protagonist is unable to fulfill her role until she matures greatly in a personal sense and grows into her role somewhat. Depending on the role (ranging from 'hero', to 'dark lord', to 'king') they mostly tend to choose to remain in their new world, because of the sense of purpose it provides them (which is a contrast to the two types above). A more famous and long-running example of the type, with a somewhat lighter air, is Kyou Kara Maou.
The fourth type is the one that has become most popular... 'the comedic traveler'. This type, which began to appear en masse after Zero no Tsukaima initiated the concept, has relatively 'normal' protagonists being sent to other worlds to blunder their way to fame (or not) and generally amuse us with their antics, while also providing a serious story alongside. A more recent example of the type is RE:Zero or Kono Suburashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo. Generally speaking, the protagonists in these VNs are overconfident, vaguely idiotic, and generally ignorant individuals who have just one or two redeeming qualities. Depending on the anime, VN, or game, they can be immensely annoying as characters, too.
Of course, there are ones that don't fall into any of these types... but those are relatively rare. I like this genre, but I'm beginning to grow tired of the comedic traveler type, lol.
It has been a while since I bought a new jrpg and played it all the way through in under six months... To be blunt, most new jrpgs just aren't worth finishing these days. I gave up on Atelier shortly after Mana Khemia, Square hasn't produced anything interesting in ten years (for a story-addict), and most of the best old series are dead or in semi-permanent hiatus stasis.
Before this, I played Zestiria, and if you read my comments on it, I mostly liked it, though there were some aspects I wasn't particularly impressed with (the Armatization system, the translation of the skits, etc). If I were to give Zestiria a 7 out of ten for making a good effort and keeping my interest to the end, I'd rate Tales of Berseria a 10/10... the rarest of things, a modern jrpg kamige.
I almost never give 10 ratings, whether of VNs or of Jrpgs. The reason is simple... even kamige rarely get everything right. In the case of a JRPG, this is even harder than with a VN, since it not only has to have an impressive story and presentation... it has to reach a level with the gameplay, music, and visuals that is impressive as well, if not perfect. Tales of Berseria is one of those rare games that manages all of that. Since I'm not a technical critic, my impressions of the visual and sound aspects are emotional reactions more than anything else.
For character designs, the only character design that set my teeth on edge besides the Normin characters (returning from Zestiria) was Magilou... I have a serious distaste for jester costumes, and Magilou's is just plain ugly to me. This is an aesthetic comment, based on my personal sense, and I realize it won't be shared by everyone else. On the other hand, Velvet is... perfect. The visual change from the village girl, to the ragged prisoner, to the vengeance-seeking daemon in a ragged black coat, red bustier, and skirt was visually striking and very definitive of her in her roles in the early story. Most female character visual changes during a JRPG tend to be... unpleasant (I love long hair, so that tendency for some of the females to all of the sudden cut their hair drives me insane). Velvet was a rare exception in that. For fans of Zestiria, seeing Eizen not as a giant man-eating lizard but as a bad-ass pirate in black was a nice intro to the guy who had so much influence on Edna from the previous game. His fist-fighting style, his voice (Japanese), and his visual design are all as I would have imagined them, considering how Zaveid refers to him in Zestiria. In addition, seeing a younger Zaveid, before his Zestiria way of living was established, was a nice treat... and getting the background behind his words in the first game is also nice. Laphicet, who is essentially Velvet's biggest partner throughout the game's story, has a fairly mediocre design (someone has a shota-complex in that studio), but his magic is fairly awesome to see, and his voice is actually pretty good, for a child-styled voice (most are too high or too low, even in Japanese). Eleanor has a personality that will grate on some people, and her visuals fit it quite well, since she has a very straight-laced personality (though she does loosen up as time goes by). Rokurou is probably the third-best design of the group... his facial design, the movements of his eyes and expression during combat scenes, and his hybridized Japanese-style clothing all fit together nicely with his psychotic personality to create a solid character who partners up well with Eizen as one of Laphicet's male role models.
Story-wise, this game is essentially a long revenge story... it isn't about saving the world. The enemy is 'saving' the world. No, Velvet doesn't give a flying bit of monkey poo about the world. She is far more interested in murdering her step-brother for his murder of her younger brother in the incident that stripped her of her humanity and destroyed her village. She is cold, ruthless, and filled with hatred that, when combined with her daemonic hunger, makes her a pretty scary character. She would make an excellent second-to-the-last-boss in most JRPGs, simply because of how intense she is, retaining a level of humanity that strikes to the heart while acting in a manner that is almost too focused on the results to be a fully functional human being. Oh, she has her soft moments... but as the saying goes, even the worst of villains will sometimes be kind to a child or save a puppy.
That is perhaps what is most exhilarating about this game. Most of the player characters are unabashedly selfish in motive, acting solely for their own sake, regardless of the cost to those around them. For a world being consumed by a blight that is actually worse than the one in Zestiria in some ways, this makes them true villains, even if their enemies are just as bad in their own way. Velvet's fighting style is visceral, brutal, and it perfectly fits the action-oriented battle system of this series. Feet, fists, and blade all in one ball of fury (literally) that sometimes strikes out with a demonic claw to devour her enemies.
That brings me to the battle system... except for two major elements, this can be considered to be functionally the same as most other Tales games since Abyss. The first of these elements is the 'souls' system. In this system, you can gain more action points (SP) for future combat actions by inflicting status ailments or killing enemies, thus strengthening you at their cost... but in exchange, if you let them inflict ailments on you, you lose souls, and this severely limits how you can act once it gets down to one or two. The solution to this is the second element... the 'soul break', where you can, at three souls or above, sacrifice a single soul to use a special move that has various effects on how you fight. Since I fought with Velvet throughout the entire game, I'll just speak about hers. Her ability allows her to strike out with her 'claw' and 'therionize' (eat) a part of her enemies (incidentally also breaking their guard and leaving them open to further attack) and gain a boost of some sort based on the type of enemy she ate. The primary advantage of this state is that she can continue attacking until the effect runs out, ignoring her remaining number of souls. It also heals all status ailments and debuffs and some HP, as well as making you invulnerable to ailments and knock-backs. Unfortunately, it also immediately begins to drain HP, and if you maintain this state for too long, it is entirely possible to run yourself down to a single hp, if you aren't careful about getting hit. Since killing enemies can also restore hp, this isn't an entirely bad state to be in, and if you have enough souls stored up, you can maintain this state by 'eating' an enemy whenever it is about to run out. On Normal mode, I felt like I was playing a Tales version of Dynasty Warriors at times (with a greater variety of attacks), lol.
Second in importance for gameplay, at least as far as I was concerned, is the equipment skills... basically, every equipment type has a single skill that the equipable characters can learn permanently by earning enough Grade while wearing it. I had all of the ones available by the end, and I hate to imagine how much harder most of the game would have been without them. Why? Because stat increases due to experience gaining are insanely minimal in this game, leaving you reliant on equipment-enhancement and equipment skills to make up the gap... oh and player skills, but that goes without saying. On harder difficulties, it only gets worse (believe me, I had some horrible experiences when I set it to the harder modes for the hell of it until I got used to the changed rhythms of battle).
In any case, now down to the story... to be blunt, no other Tales game even gets close to this game in terms of story and presentation. Vesperia was good, but it didn't have anywhere near as much of an impact as this one did on me. I cried, raged, and laughed with the characters from beginning to end, despite having weeks-long gaps between my playing sessions. That is how deep an impression this game left on me, that I could pick it up after a fairly long hiatus and get just as absorbed into the narrative as if I'd never left. By the end, I was weeping for both sides of the conflict, while agreeing from the heart with Velvet and her crew, it was easy to empathize with Artorius, despite his inhumane actions and manner. As revenge stories go, it was far deeper than you'd expect, while retaining the essence of how it began from start to finish... a feat that is greatly impressive to me. Not to mention that Velvet and crew's journey was never, at any point, about saving the world... a huge advantage over other jrpgs in and of itself.
A few Linguistic comments
In the Japanese language terminology there were some really interesting (for me) differences in how the same elements were referred to between games. Whereas the Japanese term for the Malak in Zestiria had nuances of divinity to it, the term used in this one referred to them as 'spirits', with a nuance of something that could and should be used as a tool. As for the daemons, the difference in terms was even more telling between the games. In Zestiria, they are 'hyouma' (Hellions), a term which can be translated as 'possession demons', divesting the individual in question of built-in responsibility for what he has become. However, in Berseria, they are called 'gouma', a term which can be translated as 'sin demons'. This simple alteration of phrasing marks a drastic difference in attitudes between the Shepherd-equivalents (the exorcists) of Berseria's age and Sorey in Zestiria. This difference in attitude is reflected throughout the story, creating an atmosphere that is drastically different from the one in Zestiria. 'Subtle' isn't a quality you usually ascribe to JRPG makers, so I was all the more impressed with this game for the linguistic aspects.
EDIT: Ah, if you didn't figure it out from the text above, this game made me back into a fanboy for the first time in a while. Sixty hours across one and a half months plus complete satisfaction in how it ended and the process of how it reached that ending... such a rare experience for me these days.
Suisei Ginka is the latest VN made by Akatsuki Works, the makers of such classic VNs as Ruitomo, Comyu, and Devils Devel Concept. This was written by Morisaki Ryoto, the writer of multiple kamige including Hapymaher, Komorebi no Nostalgica (as an assistant writer), and Re:Birth Colony. He is one of the most flexible and skilled writers out there, and I've yet to fail to enjoy a VN he's had a hand in.
This VN is based in a port city half-owned by a company that caused a disastrous chemical spill there ten years ago. It begins with the reunion of Izana, a young woman with a rather unusual attitude toward life, and Tetsuo, a straightforward young man with an utter disregard for his own safety and survival. Naturally, this being an Akatsuki Works game, this is the beginning of numerous troubles and tribulations.
Structurally, this VN is pretty 'to the point', in that the story uses the bare minimum of slice-of-life to give life to the characters and setting, while constantly keeping a laser focus on what is moving in the shadows... and the disastrous potential it holds.
Maria
Looking at it in retrospect, I probably should have done this path second or third. However, I followed my instincts on the game's first major story choice, and as a result I got into this path. Maria's path is focused on the company that caused everything to go so horribly wrong, so it reveals details of some factors that spoil the other paths a little bit.
Maria herself is a classic 'expressionless loli' of the type that is common to a lot of chuunige that have loli heroines. Normally expressionless and nearly emotionless, she is very much like a cat, acting sweet to those few people she cares about and disregarding just about everyone else based on their use or lack of to her. Edit: That isn't to say she's completely devoid of emotion... but with the guy who acts as her guardian being the kind of guy he is... she's naturally a little warped.
This path has a lot of violence to it, primarily because of what the characters face in it. It is a solid path though... it is just one that I really should have waited on.
Seika
Seika is Izana's best female friend and more than a little bit prickly toward anyone who approaches her with ulterior motives (and because of Izana's easy manner and physical beauty, that is pretty common). She was raised by a strict asshole father who sees her only as a convenient object to augment his own ambitions for the family line, which is a lot of the reason why she is so prickly in general. Her sole point of softness is Izana, whom she would probably do anything for.
Seika's path is wrapped up in dealing with the plot element that drives most of the protagonist-side characters, in a very intimate manner. It's a fairly standard path for a game like this, serving as a fitting intro to the ins and outs of the story while setting the stage for elaborations in future paths. I liked how it turned out, though a lot of people might find it an odd ending. It is more solid than say... Benio's path in Comyu, which was fundamentally unsatisfying (for some reason, Hino Wataru sometimes chooses to drop a single weak heroine path in some of his games).
Momo
Momo is Tetsuo's guardian/oneesan/coworker. She is a heavy-drinker and a heavy-smoker and she is actually thirty, though she looks twenty. She is also a brilliant (genius-level) individual as well as being highly perceptive when it comes to people in general. She and Tetsuo have lived most of the last ten years around one another, and they know each other about as well as it is possible to know another person without being them.
After playing this path, I definitely realized there was a play order... Seika>Momo>Maria>Izana. The reason is fairly simple... Maria's path reveals too much about the 'causes' of all this, removing a great deal of the mystery about what the protagonist is trying to do at the end of Momo's path and the 'why' of certain elements of Seika's path. Seika's path, on the other hand, paves the way for things that are elaborated on in Momo's path. Izana's path is, of course, the true one.
Momo's path focuses on one of the more obvious, if mid-boss type antagonists. This antagonist is a 'rationally insane' type who has no morals whatsoever outside of their personal ruleset. In addition, this path has more death than the other two paths combined, lol. I will say I liked the ending of this one, as well.
Izana
Izana is the true heroine of this VN. She is also one of those 'always involved with the protagonist's life' heroines in the style of Kagome from Comyu or Suzu from Ayakashibito (meaning that even if they aren't lovers, they never really separate). Izana is a very odd young girl... she seems at first to be something of a tomboy, but when you get to know her, she also shows a kind of quiet wisdom that the average tomboy heroine just doesn't possess. Rather than being intelligent, she really is just 'wise'.
Her relationship with Tetsuo is so strong that it is unchanged by the ten years of parting between them. They both care deeply about one another and trust each other absolutely, without reservations.
Her path, true to the form of true paths in chuunige, is the most exciting of the paths, bringing together all the elements of the other paths with a focus on the central conflict that isn't resolved in the others. Tetsuo shows off his manliness quite nicely in this path, as well as his own bit of wisdom (If he was a D&D character, he'd be a true neutral barbarian with an intelligence stat of 9 and a wisdom stat of 16), though it is born of him having such a solid sense of who he is, where he stands, and how he intends to live and die.
Neither Tetsuo nor Izana is the type to hesitate or stand around worrying about consequences, as they both have very distinct senses of priorities.
I honestly wept at the climax of this VN. I couldn't help but cry for a certain character who got the sharp end of the stick from beginning to end throughout this story (even mentioning her name is a spoiler). A toast to those who suffer so that others can be saved! *Clephas smiles sadly and clings his glass of rum against an empty one*
A few extra comments
One thing you should keep in mind when reading this VN is that neither this writer nor Hino Wataru produces 'standard' romances. Their romantic elements are generally good, but they are almost universally 'romance born out of a stressful situation', so don't expect a charage-style romantic element in here. What romance is in there is good, at least from my point of view, and Tetsuo is straight-out one of the manliest protagonists I've seen in a chuunige (since most chuunige protagonists tend to have issues that make them fall a bit short of that standard).
I'm glad that this VN kept up the four year tradition of good VNs coming out on or near my birthday, hahaha...
One of the single biggest elements of most VNs in existence is slice-of-life. This entire post is based on this fact, and it isn't one that can seriously be argued against by anyone who has read more than a hundred VNs.
So what is slice-of-life? With VNs, it is a type of scene where bits and pieces of daily life, without any particular conflict, are portrayed. These can be humorous, mildly touching, or informative.
So what is the value of slice-of-life as a tool for storytelling? For one thing, it provides an opportunity to portray and develop the characters in their most 'natural' setting. Do you want to know what a character is like in peaceful times? Slice-of-life scenes are generally the tool used. Do you want to slowly develop a mild romance between two characters? Then slice-of-life is your friend.
In this sense, slice-of-life is a highly valuable tool. While extreme scenes, such as violent scenes or ones with psychological or intellectual conflict, are also valuable for developing characters and their relationships, it is the slice-of-life scenes that form the skeleton to which the conflict and/or drama adds flesh later on.
However, the problem with slice-of-life is that it is basically an exclusion of extremity. It is difficult - virtually impossible - to give flesh to a character with only slice-of-life. For better or worse, people bare their true strength and value (or weakness and uselessness) in situations where they are being tested by circumstance or opposition (whether intense or mild). This applies to VN characters, as well.
Slice-of-life is your friend... unless that's all there is. Sadly, a lot of writers make the mistake of thinking otherwise. I can't count how many VNs I've experienced that make this mistake, to one extent or another. Slice-of-life as a tool is a valuable friend and ally... but as the sole tool for constructing a story, it falls pathetically short all too often.
Edit: Understand, I came to these conclusions as a result of playing numerous VNs that made that particular mistake... and I'm including 'standard Vn romance' as slice-of-life. Romance is something I'll touch on separately in the next entry.
Why did I pick this game to play? Because, when I went into Shugaten, I was actually wanting a bit of charage goodness. So, it seriously pissed me off when I got a mindless loli moege. As a result, I decided to pull out one of my favorite fetish games, Otomimi Infinity.
Otomimi Infinity is based on island in a world where beast-people and humans live side by side (it isn't mentioned often enough to reinforce this, but the beast-people were originally artificial creations). On the island, prejudice against the beast-people has gotten so bad that a right-wing politician has managed to get a segregation law passed. The protagonist, Segawa Yamato, is a beast-girl loving guy (in the sexual sense, and not limited to their humanoid forms, lol) who gets seriously pissed off at the new law. After a series of events, he ends up working for Otomimi Transport, a company that basically takes care of shipping packages all over the island and from the mainland. This company is all beast-girls, except for him... (so naturally, he is in heaven)
There are a lot of laughs in this game... in particular the pirate group led by Sango (a side-character shark-girl) and Dr. Forest (real name: Hakumi), a mad scientist who keeps trying to use her high-tech AI android to steal bbq meat from Otomimi Transport's trucks (and failing miserably) stand out as absolutely hilarious. Not to mention the company's 'mascot', Akuta (which uses the kanji for 'garbage'), a do-M AI implanted in a fat squirrel stuffed animal who can't resist making perverted statements.
I was also surprised in retrospect at how seriously the game handles the elements of prejudice... and the negative elements of Japan's society that show through. The position of the beast-people is pretty weak, mostly because the average beast-person isn't that good at thinking before acting (those that are are the exception, rather than the rule). Humans call them 'worthless burdens on society' (it bears an eerie resemblance to the attitude of the US right-wingers to immigrants) and it was apparently really easy to get the segregation law passed. Also, falling in love with a beast-person and vise-versa is considered perverted, lol.
Anyway, as well as jokes there are some good feels in here... as well as some really good endings (considering that this was written by the same guy who wrote Shikigami, Shiden, and Pretty X Cation 2, that is actually pretty surprising). For some reason, fetish games sometimes have stories a lot more interesting than the average VN, lol.
The game's heroines are:
Chachako- A clumsy and airheaded dog-girl who somehow always manages to land on her feet, anyway.
Tetora- A tiger-girl who is a scientific genius but categorically incapable of admitting when she doesn't know something or is wrong... or when she is lost (she has no sense of direction).
Kon- A fox-girl whose first love in life is teasing others and getting her way through fast talk. She is highly intelligent and has a solid grasp of people in general.
Hanemi- A bunny-girl who gets lonely ridiculously easy... and is a speed-demon whenever she gets behind the wheel or control stick of any vehicle whatsoever (thankfully, she is also a genius at using them).
Chizuru- The protagonist's older sister... who has an insane, obsessive brother complex that extends to waiting half-naked in his bed and stalking him whenever she isn't running the family corporation.
Mayoi- A cat-girl and the game's 'true' heroine. She is a lazy gamer who hates working, has a foul mouth, and who only really cares about the people working at Otomimi Transport.
Overall, this is a VN for people who love their mimikko. My first fetish was neko-girls and my second was kitsune, so naturally this game fits me well. It also has a good, well-told story with a fun set of characters even if you ignore the heroines.
Sadly, I couldn't bring myself to finish this one... for a certain type of person (moe-addict plus lolicon) this is a heavenly game, but... it so boring for someone who actually wants some substance under the fluff. This is one of those cases where there is no possibility whatsoever that an ending could justify me going through twelve hours of torture (four hours was enough for me to want to sell the game on Ebay...).
The biggest problem was the fact that there is no balance to the reality that the game is almost entirely dialogue, with even less narration than in your standard charage, making me label this as a 'pure' moege, in the old sense. What non-dialogue lines there are are minimal and immensely frustrating, and the humor is so... fourth-rate. There are a lot of points where they were trying to make the game funny, but I honestly couldn't laugh, as I wasn't able to care about the characters (again, the sparseness of the narration is the cause).
Sadly, for people who are into VNs in order to be able to read a story, this VN has little to offer that I could see.
Because I'm a mystery-hater, there is an even chance I'll drop this VN somewhere along the line, so I'll describe what those who are interested should look at when it comes to this game.
For lovers of the Ace Attorney games who don't mind or like ero content, this game is looking to be an interesting one. Each chapter has an evidence-gathering part, followed by a part where the protagonist and his allies (I say allies because several of them are backed by outside influences or are outright under the control of individuals hostile to the protagonist) talk about who they think the culprit is. Last of all is the judgment stage, where the protagonist uses evidence such as physical objects, the shapes of the rooms, the statements of the suspects and others, and other issues to figure out who the culprit is in a public forum, preferably gaining a confession of guilt in the process (this is fairly standard for Japanese police even today, as there is a strong preference for confessions over going to trial).
There is also violence involved, since not all suspects are willing to come along quietly, lol.
For a lot of old fans, this is Softhouse Chara's defining masterpiece... and with good reason. It has superb, complex gameplay that rewards careful forethought and strategic thinking and more than thirty unit types to play around with, running from common infantry to dragons. It also has a solid story with decent storytelling (though, true to Softhouse Chara form, it isn't the focus of the game).
First, I should say that the first time I played this game, I seriously screwed up in my early unit choices and ran out of money halfway through. About the time Qoenis becomes available during the main story, I ran out of money and most of my 'normal' (generic) units were dead before I noticed. I managed to drag things out to the end and barely beat the game, but I can't say that I actually enjoyed the process all that much. As such, I never rated the game, because I came to the conclusion that at the level of Japanese I was reading, I wouldn't be able to master the battle system (also, I was doing it without the walkthrough).
In this, my second playthrough, the first thing I did was purchase three supply units (the best healer units, in the shape of a horse and wagon) and concentrated on putting together a solid attack force for three full squads. This worked out far better than my previous playthrough, which was miserable, to say the least. This time, once I got access to Dungeon 2 and grind-maxed three full squads of units (including a Black Knight and two Dragons for the firepower for each) I was basically able to ream the rest of the units in the game (though I tended to rearrange things for lower costs during side-mission and ones that only needed two squads).
In other words, i went around happily breaking the game balance in precisely the way I've done with every other Softhouse Chara game I played, lol.
In any case, some comments on the story... I'll be straight with you. This game's story falls more than a little behind Eushully's Ikusa Megami series and most of its related games. The best parts of the story are during the formative stages and the epilogue, with most of the rest being consumed with raping heroines into loving (pfft) submission in a style reminiscent of Bunny Black. In fact, Darcs and Jin have almost identical personalities, which shouldn't surprise anyone, lol.
I will say that the ending scenes were nice, in that they provided a short after-story for all the characters whose endings I'd fulfilled the conditions for. A lot of them made me rofl.
Overall, it is easy to see why this game is a classic... depending on how you play it, you can either sit back and enjoy strategic battles where a single slip-up means ruin, or you can play it as an evil, overpowered, balance-broken overlord of the battlefield who knows not defeat. This is standard to SofthouseChara, since in most of their games, they've built a way to make the game easier into it, while making it difficult on the surface.
This month was almost a no-brainer... while there were some halfway-decent charage releases, there weren't any that made a significant impression. I'm afraid I don't have time to read Giga's newest half-hearted-but-pretty-looking charage (work is busy) and I haven't actually played any VNs since i finished Ninki Seiyuu last week.
Silverio Trinity is VN of the Month January 2017. Normally, I wouldn't name a sequel as VN of the Month, on principle. However, in this case, the game itself warrants it. Silverio Trinity is one of those rare sequels I could actually conceive of standing on its own, because even when I extracted my prior knowledge of Silverio Vendetta, I still felt that it was an enormously enjoyable VN. The only point on which it doesn't stand on its own is in background knowledge about the Esperanto and the Great Apocalypse that is only infodumped in incomplete form in Trinity. Of course, not having full knowledge of the events at the end of Vendetta's path in Vendetta is a handicap, but not as much of one as it would have been with another game, lol.
For those wondering about VN of the Year 2016, I'm still reviewing the candidates... I've narrowed it down to three potential winners: Tokyo Necro; Karenai Sekai to Owaru Hana; and Amatsutsumi. The most unlikely of those is probably Amatsutsumi, despite its feels (I knocked Floral Flowlove out of the competition last week). For those who complained to me about the fact that I'm not considering Senren Banka or Gin'iro Haruka, I actually have solid reasons besides personal tastes... I just don't feel like making a wall of text to explain the precise reasons why Gin'iro isn't in the running and I never really even seriously considered Senren Banka, lol.
Edit: Keep in mind that VN of the Year is the competition I spend the most time on every year, using up a minimum of the first two months of the year each year since I started, lol. Not to mention that 2016 was one of the best out of the last ten years in terms of high-quality releases (though the ones that weren't high quality tended to be singularly awful).
List of VN of the Year Winners so far
Hapymaher (2013)
Nanairo Reincarnation (2014)
Kikan Bakumatsu Ibun Last Cavalier (2015)
Again, 2015 is probably the single worst year for VNs out of the last ten, and so Kikan Bakumatsu is actually lower in quality than several releases from both 2014 and 2016, so I almost didn't name a VN of the Year 2015, lol.
I've been asked in the past many times, 'How can you replay VNs?' and 'Isn't that boring?'. In fact, I get asked that a lot with my 'Random VNs' posts. I thought I'd answer this question...
Replaying VNs is a matter of passion. To be blunt, if it is in a genre I don't like or hits my pet peeves too hard, I can't bring myself to replay it. The fact is, VN experiences don't change through multiple playthroughs, and in this way they are much closer to a book than to the interactivity of many games.
Something I should make clear is that I am a story-lover above all other things. I don't just mean that I love games, anime, and VNs for their stories... I mean that I'll do practically anything to experience a good, well-presented story. Hell, I learned Japanese for that reason.
This is actually the reason why I have so much trouble with pure romance, mystery, and charage. These three types of stories follow some of the most 'confined' story patterns in existence, with a very limited selection of story elements, and as a result they are far easier to predict than many fantasy, sci-fi, or even conspiracy-drama stories... at least for me. This is particularly fatal for mysteries, since a lot of the attraction of the genre, at least to me (when I still liked them) was how much trouble figuring out 'whodunnit' or 'what is going on'.
Now, I have become experienced enough that very little surprises me. Particularly, in the last five years or so, this trend has become marked in my own subjective point of view when it comes to VNs. The issue now is the subject matter... what do I enjoy enough to experience pleasure with on a second run? The genres I can take pleasure in on a second playthrough are limited... almost entirely to the sci-fi, fantasy, and conspiracy genres. Rare exceptions exist, but that is due to a sheer, overwhelming level of quality or due to a powerful emotional experience that doesn't fade quickly through multiple playthroughs (Uruwashi no is an example of this type).
To be blunt, with most VNs, replaying them is impossible. There are no new angles to explore, the feels no longer touch me, and I honestly have no interest in re-experiencing slice of life scenes, lol.
So, it comes down, as I said above, to taste. I can replay VNs i love multiple times. However, I will never be able to replay say... Subahibi or Aiyoku no Eustia.
First, I should say that, left to my own devices, I would never have played this VN. You ask me why? It's because I avoid show-business themed VNs and anime like the plague. If a rl friend hadn't begged me to try it, I would never have picked this VN up.
I should say that one thing I didn't like about this game is that it has a similar protagonist to the one from Aokana... a former talent in his field who gave up and ends up helping others 'rise to the occasion'. To be honest, I loathe VNs where the protagonist is a has-been who doesn't even face his inner demons properly in most of the paths.
Now, getting that bit of salt out of the way, I can say that, without that, this VN is actually fairly high quality, both visually and story-wise. The heroines felt 'alive' (an important aspect if you want to inject seriousness into the story), and their worries were ones even someone not involved with the industry can realistically imagine, thus making it relatively easy to relate to them. The downside of this is that the protagonist is only a cipher for telling the heroines' stories and providing an excuse for h-scenes, so it will probably split opinions somewhat.
The biggest problem, for me, was that I had no interest whatsoever in the subject matter. I don't care about voice-actors and I couldn't care less about actors, singers, etc in general. I'm only interested in the finished product, to be blunt. I don't want to hear stories about show business, and I rarely take an interest in a talent one way or the other (writers being an exception).
As such, for me a lot of this VN was involved in fighting down my distaste for the entire mess as I went along. For those who like the subject matter and don't mind the protagonist issues, this VN will be a good read. Unfortunately, this isn't a VN I'll ever be able to appreciate without my own bias getting in the way.
To be honest, Parasol is one of those companies I have extremely mixed feelings about. Roughly half of the games I've played from them, i dropped before finishing out of frustration or boredom. This company is primarily a charage maker, so this probably won't surprise a lot of the people who read this blog, lol.
That said, this game was a surprisingly good one, wiping away the foul taste left over from Hoshi Koi. It also told me that I'd judged Hoshi Koi about as fairly as I ever do with that type of VN, since this one really is a straight-out charage.
The protagonist of this story is a young painter named Shou who is threatened with losing his scholarship due to his failure to paint... because he has gotten obsessed with making anime figures. Shou is a pretty cheerful and open guy, though he shares the annoying quality of extreme density (denser than lead) when it comes to romantic issues. He is an artist at heart, and it shows in his reactions to the heroines and how he deals with their problems (each of the paths follows a pattern of him resolving the heroines' issues then resolving his own).
True to charage form, the ichaicha in this one is pretty heavy-handed. Honestly, it fell just within the reach of my ability to tolerate dating, sex, and lover's issues in a story. This VN doesn't fall back on the shitty trope of the 'meaningless ichaicha date' that cripples so many moege/charage, so in that sense I can praise the writer honestly and without reserve.
Don't expect any deviation from charage forms though. This VN isn't attempting to tell a story that transcends the characters. However, if you ask me if that is a problem, my answer would be no. While this isn't my favorite type of VN, it definitely served its purpose of helping me recover after the trauma of Hoshi Koi.
As a first effort from a new company, I didn't go in with any real expectations... and that was probably a good thing.
To be blunt, this VN is one of those that keeps showing signs of promise then tripping itself up along the way. It follows the pattern of 'charage with true endings', in that it has a central story that involves elements from the non-true heroine paths... unfortunately, the endings are a total write-off. I'm not kidding. I don't think I could have written a more frustrating set of heroine endings if I tried. Yes, the romantic issues are resolved, but they drove me insane hinting at the tribulations destined for the near future, and they had a bunch of after-stories that were just h-scenes and meaningless jabber, adding nothing to the paths of any real value.
The visual design of the story is extremely 'ecchi', with the protagonist's little sister, Soraha, being the most obvious example (wearing nothing but a parka with the zipper open as pajamas, having oniichan dress her, etc). That didn't bother me... but the extreme low quality of the h-scene CGs was jarring when I compared it to the high-quality sprites. The fact is, for me to notice 'low-quality' in the details, it has to be a pretty blatant screwup.
Last of all, I condemn the true path. Nagi is the most boring of the four heroines, despite the 'revelations' in her path. While there are some emotional moments, I honestly never felt attached to her as a character, so i felt no deep emotion at the events going on in the true route.
As a first effort, this was an overreach by a new company that should have stuck to something they might have actually been able to do properly... such as a nukige.
It's been a while since a single VN burned me out completely, but Silverio Trinity managed it. That VN had many of the best elements of its predecessor, while being more balanced, having added unique soundtracks, and overall creating a mostly new experience that, while it didn't completely transcend the original, still managed to stand on the same plane.
Unfortunately, it was a highly emotional experience, with a lot of excitement along the way... so I know I won't rate any VNs I play at this moment fairly, regardless of genre. As a result, I'm taking a week's break from my VN of the Month to recover my sanity, lol.
Shin Koihime Eiyuutan is something of an alternate fandisc for Shin Koihime, including characters from the 'extra materials' that have come out over the years and a canon story flow from the original that seems to be based on Kazuto somehow being on all three sides at once during the wars (lol). To be honest, for consistency, Moeshouden was much better, because it uses the Gaishi setting to explain everything, lol.
Having played all three, I can safely say that it is a very satisfying after-story for someone who liked the original Shin Koihime Musou. However, one thing I also noticed was that, for all that it went first, the Shoku version was the weakest of the three by far. Part of it is that in the original, both Go and Gi's paths were far deeper than Shoku's (Shoku=Shu, Go=Wu, Gi=Wei), with Kazuto taking a far more unique role in how things played out. For better or worse, in the Shoku path, he was mostly the voice of rationality behind the idealist throne that was Touka, whereas in Go he served as a husband and one of the tacticians, and in Gi he was given the role of setting up the training of new troops and the implementing of his own idea for policing the capitol. This difference in roles was part of the reason why the stories each differed so wildly.
To be honest, one thing I'm glad they did away with was certain events revolving around Sheren (Sun Ce) and Meirin (if you are familiar with history, you know that sad stuff happens). While the scenes involving those events in the original Shin Koihime were awesome in every way, I still felt a sense of relief that canon had changed that particular aspect.
Most of the events in the three versions are either emotionally touching (for those that read the original material), mildly interesting intellectually (though mostly with Gi and Go), or H-events (lots of them). I was surprised that Yue was sort of pushed to the side in the Shoku disc, as she was one of the top-rating characters on the old character polls, lol. On the other hand, all the Gi and Go characters made appearances and had their own little scenes during the game.
Overall, this is just a treat for those who played Shin Koihime. While the Shoku disc was something of a disappointment, both the Gi and Go discs were interesting enough that I didn't feel cheated for paying for them. I do wish they had put it up on dlsite or Getchu instead of DMM though... fooling DMM's region-locking setup is a serious pain in the butt.
Edit: I recently finished re-playing Shin Koihime Musou (one of the VNs I've been replaying bit by bit over the last five months)... and I'm debating on whether I should do a full post on it, lol.
With Tales of Berseria coming out today, I pulled Zestiria out of my long backlog last week and began playing it.
I've been playing the Tales series since Tales of Destiny came out for the PSX in the nineties, and I've played most of the mainline series, though I regretted it in some cases. To be blunt, Tales of Vesperia is still the last truly great Tales game, even after playing this one. However, my conclusions will probably differ somewhat from the reviews out there on the net, which were mostly hype complaints and comments about other issues that have nothing to do with the actual game in question.
First, I'm going to address the Alisha issue, since it was the one that pissed off the Western fans (the Japanese fans apparently didn't feel 'cheated' like some of us did, lol).
The second issue that tended to drive some Western fans nuts was the use of a pure-hearted hero protagonist. To be blunt, I thought this ignored the struggles of the characters in the story, as well as the honest way Sorey faces the dirty realities of the world he lives in. While Sorey's personality is generally straightforward and pure-hearted, that doesn't mean that he lacks complexity... he doesn't. In fact, the struggles with the pitfalls of a pure-heart in a world that seeks to destroy or corrupt such individuals are pretty much the central issue of the story toward the end. I was impressed at the twist the Tales team put on this over-used character type.
Last of all, I'm going to address the setting, which is probably the most impressive part of the story-related issues. Rather, I'm going to talk about how... Japanese this setting is. Most jrpgs, for better or worse, pick a mostly Western underpinning to their settings... and visually, this game seems the same. However, that visual aspect is mostly just a facade, if you know what you are looking for.
As an example, the 'Lords of the Land' system is a fairly straightforward reproduction of the Japanese concept of the 'tochigami', or a kami whose duty is to watch over and provide blessings to a particular area in Shintoism. The Seraphs and Hellions are also obviously based off of Shinto concepts, as well as the idea of 'malevolence' (a more correct translation would be corruption, filth, or taint, but this is Namdai's localization team we are talking about...lol).
Even the way Sorey has the seraph members of the team reside in his body resembles the 'kamioroshi' concept in Shinto.
Overall, the setting was a rather fascinating utilization of Japan's unique embedded culture, from my point of view... which is probably why it didn't translate that well to most Western audiences, lol.
Now, for an obligatory gameplay comment... this is perhaps the easiest system of any Tales game after they went three-dimensional with Abyss to master. The battle mechanics of the Tales series have, since Abyss, been somewhat unfriendly to the less dexterous fans of the series. While they could be played and enjoyed to an extent even by the more fat-fingered fans, the fact was that such fans ended up grinding to much higher levels just to be able to handle things in the last few entries in the series. In that sense, this game was a victory of design.
Now to the downside... the way levels make so little difference. I'm not kidding. Levels in this game make little to no difference due to the micro-level stat increases and their relatively limited effects on the battlefield. If you want a shortcut to victory in this game, equipment fusion is the god at whose feet you should be worshiping, as putting together the right set of equipment skills and enhancing your equipment to a certain level is far more important to victory than simply gaining levels. Unfortunately, since skills on equipment and equipment drops and appearances in shops are a matter of random virtual dice-rolls, this process was needlessly cumbersome and time-consuming, though it does mean that you can theoretically strengthen the first tier of weapons to a ridiculous level of power given enough time and effort.
The gameplay, which was praised far more than the story, is in some ways the game's greatest weakness... at least from my point of view. To a customization geek, it is heaven, but I went into the game wanting a straight jrpg experience, so it was tedious for me.
EDIT/UPDATE: I forgot to add a section on the Alisha's story dlc, mostly because i didn't think about it at the time. My opinions on the way this game ended are at least partly based on the existence of this DLC. My reason is that this story, while it sucks as a sop to people who thought Alisha was supposed to be the main heroine of the game, is great for tying off loose ends, of which there were many because of the 'classic' way they chose to close out the epilogue (lots of pictures, very little dialogue).
A few extra comments on the story: Considering the amount of salt puked out by reviewers and western players, I was thinking this game would be a worse abomination than Abyss, and I was prepared to lose interest and drop it halfway through. However, for a JRPG with a pure-pure protagonist, there were almost no true head-desk moments outside of the comedic skits. That is a huge plus, since the Japanese tendency to have parties full of dreamy idealists (even the ones who seem cynical) is perhaps the worst habit of the industry. Sorey is indeed, by most standards, naive, but he is quite capable of accepting and comprehending other people's viewpoints while creating his own opinions, which is perhaps the one point on which he surpasses most protagonists of his type.
Perhaps the most interesting way they approached the role of the Shepherd was in how they present his proper role as one only involved in purifying Hellions and malevolence, avoiding excessive interference in everyday human affairs. This means, unlike most protagonists of the type, he has to turn his back on people at times simply because it is not his duty to intervene. To the inexperienced, this might seem like a minor touch, but it is one I marked as a welcome departure from the surrealist hero-has-to-save-everyone ideas most JRPGs seem to get infected with.
Mistel Valentine
For those who have played Vendetta, look in the spoiler box for a small gift.
Anyway, Mistel is a Paladin of the Japan-worshiping Holy Country of Canterbury, which is based in the same region as Britain is today. She is an older woman with a strong sense of compassion, her duty as a warrior in service to her faith and her country, and a lot of experience with the ups and downs of life. As one of the three heroines, she shares one quality they all possess... a deep love of Ash.
This path focuses on Dainsleif as an antagonist, and as a result... it is one massacre after another. That guy is even crazier than Strayed from Vendetta and is an equal in his own way to the puppet-masters on the Empire's side. As is common in games with a true path, this one reveals a few elements of the protagonist's past and what is going on behind the scenes that isn't covered in detail in the other paths.
This path, like Aya's, left me crying... multiple times.
Rain Persephone
Rain Persephone is a mercenary working for the 'Sea of the Rising Sun' mercenary band who has a strong personal attachment to Ash, as well as a virulent hatred of Valzeride-style heroism that is pretty nostalgic for those who played Vendetta. That said, she is essentially a 'good' person at heart, and her priority is Ash's salvation, so she doesn't have that hopelessly black-hearted personality that Zephyr had... or that weird love of Vendetta's.
Anyway, Rain's path focuses on Cerberus and the issues relating to him and the influence of the Underworld on what is going on. As a result, it is perhaps the most... nostalgic of the paths so far. In particular, the final battle brings back memories of great times, hahaha. The downside is that, like the others, it has a sad ending... or rather an inevitably sad ending, for the same reason as the others.
Again, this path is classic Light, setting things up for a Grand/True route, and I seriously recommend that anyone who reads this game read this path after the other two heroine paths, as it reveals way too much about certain aspects of the story that kind of spoil things for the other paths. That isn't to say that the elements from those paths are included in this one, but rather, too much vital information is revealed that would probably interfere with full enjoyment of the other two. In fact, the order in which I did the paths is probably the best one, looking at things in retrospect.
True Path
This path shows off one of the few areas in which this team completely surpasses Masada... they can make a direct sequel that feels as strong in its own way as the original, without being entirely dependent on it for everything. For better or worse, Masada is terrible at reusing characters... as was proven with Bansenjin.
This is Ashley Horizon's path, above all other things. It brings all the elements introduced in the other paths together and confronts the biggest issues and antagonists head on. It is also incredibly brutal to everyone involved, as is the habit with both of Light's chuunige teams. This path is long... longer than the heroine paths by about a third. It is also highly reminiscent of Dies Irae's Marie path in the way it comes together (to be blunt, this team always builds tributes to Dies Irae into its games, both subtle and unsubtle, so that wasn't much of a surprise). The biggest difference between the two is that Ashley is closer to Marie and the girls are closer to Ren in role and personality, hahaha... I honestly think that was meant as a subtle joke on the part of these writers, a bit of an elbow to the gut for those who expect the males to always be the endlessly combative ones.
That said, these deliberate surface resemblances and subtle/not-so-subtle tributes to this team's favorite game aside, this was a fun ride. I will say that enjoying this game to the fullest requires that you have played Vendetta. Otherwise, there are huge holes in your knowledge that they aren't about to bother to fill in. While this team lacks Masada's poetic approach to everything, they do have a rhythm of their own that is hypnotic in its own way. The problem is that they sometimes let their Masada-worship get out of hand (it was worst with Zero Infinity).
Anyway, this is an excellent addition to Light's lineup and my pick for one of the best direct sequels ever, lol.
**** WARNING WARNING it is impossible to talk about Silverio Trinity without talking about the events of Silverio Vendetta, so this post is going to be full of spoilers. Until and unless you have played Silverio Vendetta, do not under any circumstances read this post!!!!****
Silverio Trinity is based three years after the events in Vendetta's path in Silverio Vendetta, in the city of Prague. The technology to make Esperanto warriors has been leaked to other countries, and as a result, the 'old capital', as it has become known in the New Era, tends to resemble certain other city-states that had the misfortune to be occupied by multiple powers in the past.
Ashley Horizon (seen above) is a new Esperanto soldier in service to the Military Empire of Adler, which was the setting for the first game. I'm going to be straight with you... if you thought Zephyr was seriously fucked by circumstances in the first game, Ashley is actually worse off, once you get to know what is going on. A large part of that is that the main antagonist and instigator is even worse than the two main antagonists of the original game.
Like the original game, this one starts with bloodshed and memories of the bloody massacre ten years before. Of course, that is the scene portrayed in the videos previewing the original game, and it symbolizes the role that the Fuhrer Valzeride played in the eyes of the people.
In both games, there is a definite sense - and this is actually a blunt truth - that the protagonist is forced to live out a role forced on him by people who want something that has nothing to do with him personally. Sadly, this doesn't prevent them from tearing his life and even his sense of self apart in a search for what they want, and you get a pretty solid idea of just what the main antagonist wants in the common route.
There are three heroines in this game, the first of which I picked was Aya Kirigakure.
Yes, Aya is a relative of that yandere yuri ninja from the first game. Pity the individual that gets one of that family in love with them... or happens to get in the way of that love. Like their relatives, the Amatsu, this family seems to have an endless capacity for obsessive affection... and Aya herself admits that it isn't uncommon for members of both families to be perfectly happy stealing the men and women they love from others and ruining any number of lives in the process.
Aya herself is a 'yamato nadeshiko' (the ideal of the Japanese woman) combined with the battle skills of a first-rate soldier and assassin. She also has some of the best 'scary woman in love' expressions I've seen on a VN female's face in a year or two, lol.
Her path has a focus on the Empire side of things, quite naturally, and as a result, it shows off the various insanities leftover from the Fuhrer's era. Unfortunately for Ash, he has experienced some of those first hand, lol.
I rate this path highly, but it definitely feels a lot like Kei's path from Dies Irae. It isn't meant as a 'true' path, and the ending itself is... sad. This is unavoidable considering the circumstances, but I still cried. Unlike Zephyr from Vendetta, Ashley isn't a coward or a natural survivor, so it is perhaps inevitable that his endings will be somewhat more obviously tragic in nature.
As is common with non-true paths in Light games, this path leaves certain elements of the story unresolved and leaves behind the seeds of disaster that are likely to bloom long after the story is over. It also doesn't hesitate to show you that that is the truth. That said, the final battles are classic Light in every way, with some seriously brutal combat scenes full of wonderful narration - both of the combat itself and the characters' thoughs and emotions.
A few more general impressions that I thought I'd relay to you is that Ash, for better or worse, is no Zephyr. He lacks that particular insane attachment to his own life and that peculiar haunted terror of victory and its aftermath that defined Zephyr's character. So, don't expect a Zephyr clone as a protagonist. I will say that he isn't what he seems on the surface or even in his own thoughts, though.
Yes, you were waiting for it, all you tentacle-loving freaks... this is the newest game in the Venus Blood series, as full of tentacles and sex-training as any of the others... I come to you having finished the Law route and after being forced to go back a chapter in order to get to the Chaos route on my second playthrough (apparently you absolutely have to start the 'goddess insanity' chapter, by failing to complete one of the monster-hunting side-quests).
The gameplay will be familiar to anyone who played Hypno, though there are differences introduced in the unit-creation screen, just as in all the others in the series (every game puts its own twist on this aspect). It is the sequel to Frontier, occurring some three hundred years later, and it is based off of a partial 'fallen goddess but still on Law Route' path.
The biggest difference in the gameplay from previous entries is the introduction of a 'research' system where you basically have to open each step in a tree to get access to other units. You expend medallions to get particular units on each 'block' that you've opened up, and what medallions are available to you determine what units you can access and how much of each tree you can complete (it is impossible to get access to all medallion types and units in the first or even the second playthrough due to difficulty and route issues). While this might not sound that different in fact, it was a great difference visually, making access to the various monster types more obvious than in previous entries.
The system of 'leveling up resources' is back from Hypno, allowing you to use research to level up your auto-healing, auto-experience gaining, and automatic resource allowance (at the end of each turn) independent from what places you've captured. I advise anyone planning to do multiple playthroughs to get everything as high as possible (focus on healing over experience and all the other resources before gold, since gold is the most plentiful resource).
Story-wise... it is standard Venus Blood. You come, you conquer, and you decide whether to make the goddesses love you normally or just drive them crazy through sex training. The actual basic plot is inferior to both Frontier and Hypno, though it it is more 'stable' in that it doesn't trip up in the last chapters like in the previous games. Unfortunately, this game suffers somewhat from being a direct and obvious sequel, as the shadows and persons of characters from the previous game pop up everywhere, distracting you from the protagonist's story.
I need to say something about the Venus Blood games here... it really is a shame that this company doesn't go 'legit' and start making non-ero games. The complexity of the skill system and the way you can make levels almost irrelevant through simply combining the right units in the same squad is incredibly rewarding. This is actually only the second game in the series where I actually explored this aspect of the game in-depth, but I was seriously impressed with the degree to which you can customize your army, creating the ultimate force. In fact, it wouldn't be far from the truth to say the outcome of all battles is entirely determined by the way you design your squads.
Sanah is something of a hard-ass when it comes for this game, always beginning on Hard mode... but I honestly don't recommend that for newcomers to the series. For one thing, the basic endgame difficulty level is pretty high even on normal difficulty, and playing hard mode on the first playthrough has certain annoyances like running short of resources at key points.
Anyway, for gameplay, this, like most of the Venus Blood games, is fairly enjoyable. As a story? Lots of potential here, some really interesting points, but in retrospect the story pales somewhat in comparison to previous entries in the series as a whole, despite exceeding most previous games when it comes to the endgame story.
At present, I'm conflicted between playing Silverio Trinity, a VN I've been anticipating for quite some time, and continuing Tales of Berseria, which I'm enjoying immensely. Right now, the balance of my thoughts is caught perfectly between the two, so I'd like yall to decide by tomorrow morning, lol.
Kono Sekai no Mukou de was the first game made by Orange Yell, and it is based in the same world as their second game, Sakura Nikagetsu. This company is a low-budget maker that produces comedy/nakige (from the time between each release and the low budget, I'm guessing they are almost completely self-funded). While they are nothing special visually or in terms of the audio, their games 'have heart' as some people put it.
Kono Sekai starts out just after the protagonist, Asobu, discovers his parents have disappeared, leaving him with a massive amount of debt. What makes it worse is that that debt is owned by yakuza who have made it very clear he is going to have to 'sell a lot of things and go far far away', lol. As he goes out to have his last meal using his final paycheck, Asobu finds himself on a street in front of a strange shop, unable to pass it by. Helpless to do anything else, he enters... and finds an expressionless loli named Suzu waiting for him.
Suzu offers him a job... in exchange for 'saving' a dying girl named Kazari, he is given the money necessary to pay off his debts, and he is told that he will have a chance to change his own future once he has fulfilled his part of the bargain. At first, that doesn't seem like such a bad deal... but he finds that he is living in his apartment with Suzu and a shinigami named Touko.
To say it straight, this VN sets out from the beginning to grab your emotions. It doesn't even make an attempt at hitting the intellect very hard, and it doesn't have the budget to grab the moe-addicts. So, this is a VN you go to if you want to laugh and cry, which is precisely why I wanted to go back and replay this.
You are forced to do Kazari's path first, since she is the obvious center of the story, followed by Touko's then Suzu's paths. This VN is full of heart-warming moments, minor laughs (mostly manzai-style comedy and him poking fun at the girls' expense), and - toward the end - tears. While this VN doesn't try to do anything out of the ordinary with its story, its appeals to your emotions are so straightforward that it doesn't even need to go out of its way to grasp your heart.
One thing about this game and Sakura Nikagetsu is that they both blur the lines between life and death, treating them almost casually, which is an unusual occurrence even in VNs where you have a ghost or megami heroine.
If you aren't an art bigot, this company's games are an excellent choice for stories that tug on the emotions, and I'm glad I went back to this one for a refresher.
Before I announce the VN of the Month, I'm going to go ahead and apologize to those who wanted me to play Honoguraki... to be blunt, I don't have the energy for it. Ragnarok sucked me dry, and I need to get away from undead and demons for a while. Moreover, I hate zombies in the first place (so many reasons), so I'd be unlikely to give a pleasant review or comment anyway.
Now... it is kind of startling how so many great games got packed into a single month. December 2016 was a monster month for story-focused VNs, with a relative dearth of charage/moege (with only two released). I played as much as I could, but after six games, including the monster known as Venus Blood Ragnarok, I feel drained and tired. The main reason I don't deny the existence of charage utterly (other than the occasional shining diamond I find in the piles of icarabu shit) is because even I need a break from bloodshed and darkness sometimes.
There were three releases that had the potential to become VN of the Month this time around...
Akiyume Kukuru
Ryuukishi Bloody Saga
Ou no Mimi ni wa Todokanai!
Now, to be blunt, Ou no Mimi would be my first choice. Why? Because, without the art bigots interfering, it is the most solid of those three candidates by several degrees. In fact, if this were six years ago, all things equal (including art), I would without hesitation have named it VN of the Month. While AXL doesn't escape its own unique formula, there is a reason why this company is a consistent seller despite reusing character art and music constantly.
However, we come to Ryuukishi, which is only a few steps behind story-wise and has the advantage of being an immensely creative story that doesn't fall back on tropes for the most part. It also has a more modern art-style that is highly-detailed, illustrating battle scenes and some of the more shocking guro scenes in loving detail.
Last of all, we have Akiyume Kukuru, which didn't fail to please as the third (and possibly final) game of Sumikko's 'Seasons' series. As usual, it provides the kind of meta-science mystery combined with violent and sexual humor that the company has become infamous for. For a certain type of reader, this VN is pure crack, though if you aren't the type it is aiming for, it will be a huge miss.
So what is the conclusion? In the end it came down to Ryuukishi and Ou no Mimi. I balanced Ou no Mimi's solid, well-narrated story against Ryuukishi's more innovative approach... and in the end I chose Ryuukishi Bloody Saga as VN of the Month December 2016. While AXL's works are really 'at-home' for me, I felt that Ryuukishi will probably have a larger impact on the VN community as a whole in the long run... and they were dead even on how I enjoyed them.
Now... look forward to VN of the Year 2016, which I probably won't finish considering until sometime next month. Fortunately or unfortunately, 2016 was almost as good as 2014 and 2011 for VNs...
Akiyume Kukuru is the third (and possibly final) game in Sumikko's 'Seasons' meta-sci-fi series. It centers around a group of five 'Holders', people genetically altered at the embryo stage to possess possibilities that don't otherwise exist in Earth's evolution using artificial DNA and RNA known as XNA.
These five people are individuals whose actions or abilities have made them a threat to society/the government/etc., and they have been exiled to Ruruan, a closed city in Hokkaido where a quantum bomb was detonated, obliterating the possibilities of the area it covered. In this area, objects and time move on a one-day time loop, causing objects and the shattered remnants of the people (blobs known as WASPs) to return to the state they were the previous day. The only way for an object to cease looping is for an individual to purchase it, thus 'observing' it as being their own ('observation' in the Schrodinger's Cat meaning of the word).
Anyway, despite what sounds like a bunch of spoilers above, this is all basic everyday knowledge for these five people (six if you include their human loli-teacher). These five were placed there both as an exile/punishment and in order to see what effect their presence would have on the damaged region.
This VN is classic Sumikko in one sense... in that it is full of meta-ideas and insane over the top happenings, as well as an immense amount of sexual and violence-related humor (which is also a signature of this series). To let those interested know, this one is as distinct from Natsukumo as Natsukumo was from Harumade. What that means is that the ideas it explores are fundamentally different while still being involved in concepts drawn from quantum physics and ideas (ideas versus the scientific meaning of theory). To be blunt, most of the scientific terms involved are ones that are beyond the understanding of someone who doesn't major in physics (well, beyond a surface understanding anyway), so I advise anyone reading this to focus on the protagonist's interpretations, since those the ones most likely to be relevant (obviously).
I honestly loved the characters - both the heroines and the protagonist - and I thought the game as a whole was a really enjoyable read. I laughed a lot at this one, and other parts made me think. I came to the conclusion that Sumikko is the only company I've ever encountered that can manage this meta-crap without making it sound like a pretentious teenager quoting Nietzsche. That's mostly because the writer is rather open about the fact that he/she doesn't care if we understand every detail of what is going on, as well as noting (in a really subtle way) that all of this is a bunch of convenient interpretations of various thought experiments.
Anyway... this is a fun VN if you can stand a few infodump-related headaches and like Sumikko's peculiar brand of violence and sex humor (think heroines that casually make serious death threats out of love/friendship and others that get hooked on not wearing panties...). The characters are all nicely twisted, whether it is the ex-male (had his/her balls shot off during the conflict) Noa who used to be a bomber or Saori's belief that making her breasts sway is an art form... so that in itself would have made for a fun game.
Don't expect any really huge mindfucks in this one, in comparison with the previous two. For whatever reason, they didn't really focus on fooling you on the big points, preferring to catch you on the details (there is a mindfuck hidden in the story, but it is relatively mild compared to Harumade or Natsukumo).
December was a month with a ridiculous number of highly-anticipated VN releases... and after having played three of them in such a short time, I felt a need to recall which ones I hadn't.
Currently, I'm playing Shinsou Noise, which is a dark fantasy mystery written by the Liar-soft team and drawn by the Silky's Plus team (of Nanairo Reincarnation fame).
What remains after that that I planned to play is:
Venus Blood Ragnarok (sequel in the 'main setting' of the series)
Akiyume Kukuru (apparently the final game for the makers of Harumade Kururu)
Honoguraki Toki no Hate Yori (a horror game by Moonstone)
Now, the question is... do I go ahead and play all of them, or do I ignore at least one? To be honest, in most months I tend to limit myself to four VNs given a choice. With those three, the number goes up to seven... and to be honest, even I think that is a bit ridiculous. If I do not play one of them, which one should it be? I honestly can't see myself not playing Akiyume, given my fondness for Natsukumo and Harumade...
