Clephas

It was the introduction of voice-acting to games that basically began the slow death of the nameable protagonist in jrpgs.

Oh and Hibiki Works, except for Shiden, has only produced mindless games with nothing of interest to someone looking for a story. Edit: I probably shouldn't be such a jerk about this, but there are limits to my patience. I liked Hoshi Ori (after I went back and finished it slowly, one route at a time, spaced out over several months, rather than all at once, as I usually would), but that was despite naming the protagonist. Naming the protagonist did, in fact, damage the quality of the game experience for me. Hatsukoi 1/1, on the other hand, is a huge steaming pile of third-rate moege crap, so my statement on that convention and companies that use it stands. The sheer amount of money they had to pour into Hoshi Ori (as is evident just by playing a few hours) is frightening, as even major companies generally don't pump that much money into a single game.

All of those are nukige companies with no non-nukige, except F&C, which produces third rate romances and moege, and Tone Works, which has produced precisely one good game. This is more a matter of the voices of other characters, the way they are addressed in general, and the way the reader identifies them. To be blunt, nothing breaks my empathy with a character more than no one calling them by their first name or everyone calling them by a pronoun such as anata or omae. This weakens social aspects of character interactions, and it is generally jarring to someone used to the flow of Japanese language. When I say there is a reason this convention is dying, I mean that that reason is that it is a particularly offensive convention to people with a second-nature understanding of Japanese. How a name is called, which name is used, and how naturally it is used all indicate aspects of relationships that are so subliminal to someone who has internalized Japanese that nameable protagonists can't help but ruin the experience. The reason it is mostly dead is because Japanese, the primary audience for VNs, don't like it. It is restricted almost entirely to crappy rpg hybrids and nukige for this reason. Companies making serious, non-nukige know it is too much of a risk to use, because such a large portion of their potential consumer base dislikes it. It also increases costs immensely if they want to use a name-voice synthesis system like was used in Hoshi Ori (proper, commonly-used Japanese names only). For nukige, where basically people want to pretend they are having sex or are just using it as fapping material, this is not an issue, because very few situations can be ruined by this 違和感. There isn't anything to ruin in the first place, no content that is subtle enough to be disturbed by subtle issues like this. It is fairly rare for you to find someone worshiping a nukige the way people worship the best of other VNS... and most of those that do receive that worship are almost not nukige in any case. Edit: Incidentally, the two most costly aspects of producing the average VN are voices and CGs. Voices are flat-out the most expensive aspect, except in some games that have large amounts of unique CGs. Edit2: No, programming is not a terribly expensive aspect, as most VN-producers simply reuse an established system like Kirikiri, Siglus, or Reallive. Edit3: I should also note that nukige cut corners in numerous ways - including major nukige companies. Usually only heroines - and sometimes only during h-scenes - have voices. Other noises and music are straight-out reused from their other games or are public domain. CGs are repaints or slight alterations of ones from previous games or are done by no-name artists who want to get into more serious game art. Tachie are usually cosmetic alterations of low-cost productions by those same no-name artists. Game systems are almost always Kirikiri, which is available for free. Writers are generally in-house or are beginners. I could go on, but the point is that nukige are extremely low-cost affairs for the most part (there are exceptions, and I'm sure Steve or some of our most experienced nukigamers could point them out, but I'm not interested) and even with minimal sales, they still turn a moderate profit. This is versus even the crappiest moege, which will often require five or six times the sales of a nukige to take the company out of the red. For a chuuni game or a nakige on the level of Key's games (which ate up a million dollars or more each) sales generally need to be even higher than that.

Nukige companies and ones that stopped producing before 2009 don't count.

As I said before, there is a good reason this convention died.

Sadly, Overkill is not far wrong on Aria... I just finished my second path - of a girl who is obviously a primary heroine - and I am more than a little exasperated in the drop in quality from their previous games. Even Damamuko was better than this. I'd heard Will took a financial hit last year, with the poor sales from some of their flagship subsidiaries' releases... but I hadn't realized it was so bad that this year's stuff would be so half-assed. I'm going to have to drop this. That the common route was so short doesn't bother me (you all know how I feel about the common route being the mainstay of the VN), but that the heroine routes were so lacking in anything interesting was... sad to say the least. They cut a lot of corners with this game. First, only the main characters - including the protagonist (which was nice) - are voiced. This is usually a sign that someone was running on a limited budget. Second, it's subtle, but they recycled most of the character models with alterations from previous games... as well as some of the CGs (though that takes a wide knowledge of the company to recognize). All I can say is that it is really apparent that Will - through Ensemble - was just looking to capitalize on Ensemble's remaining popularity after the failure of Golden Marriage (for those who liked it, yes it was a failure, or at least by Will's standards) in order to make a quick buck. Is there anything good about this VN...? No, or rather, the good points are basically buried in disappointment for me. I wasn't expecting a masterpiece, but I was expecting something of at least equal quality with Damamuko or Golden Marriage, as that has proven to be well-within the Ensemble team's capabilities at their worst. This isn't a kusoge, but it is demoted to the ranks of mediocre moege/charage without a second thought from me. Sorry, no chance I'll list this as VN of the Month.

Put the videos in spoilers tags so they don't slow the page loading for those with slower connections.

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm22761000 Also, this from Hapymaher can still break my heart, even just heard in passing. And of course, the obligatory OP Lyrics translation Done in five minutes, lol. It is surprisingly rare for one of the central conflicts of the VN to be so... obviously represented in the opening song's lyrics.

There is no such thing as bad Evolimit music.

Sometimes, it is interesting to turn the voices off in your favorite VN... and some VNs don't really need voices. Edit: A VN that utilizes music and writing to effectively create atmosphere doesn't really need voices.

As a rule of thumb, long is better. However, long charage and moege are frequently just boring, so I'm reluctant to state it as an absolute. A good chuuni game should last upward of thirty hours (for me and around eighty for someone else), and if you want to make a good nakige, you frequently need a twenty-five to thirty hour game. I've found the games that I most wanted more of in recent years were the ones that didn't have enough length... mostly because companies decided to skimp on funding during an off year. On the other hand, there were a few games I played that were interminable because there was no substance to their length. Grisaia is on one end of the spectrum, a game and a series that definitely benefited from its extreme length. The Tiny Dungeon series, on the other hand, benefited from putting out its games as shorter stories that created a larger story (together their length is about equivalent to that of Grisaia's first game). However, there were games I've played that really only needed the one main path... G-Senjou is one of those. If they'd cut out the side-heroine 'routes' (it is hard to call them that, since they really aren't) the game would have been more enjoyable. Sharin no Kuni, on the other hand, would have benefited with more unique text in relation to which heroine you went with. It's a hard thing to balance. I've played some short games that really were great. Konakana comes to mind... as does Eden*. On the other hand, about two thirds of the games I've read/played that had short lengths also failed to properly develop the characters and failed to make them sympathetic without using cheap sentimentalism.

1. Because in Fate and UBW Sakura was avoiding involvement in the War (also, Rider dies in both cases before the old man has reason to intervene and make Sakura take over). 2. She didn't eat Gilgamesh in those two (mmm.... Seeeervaaaant....)

Sakura really is the Master in Fate and UBW, but she grants control over Rider to Shinji through a ritual that transfers her Command Spells to a book (at least that is what I recall). The reason why Shinji does the people-dissolving ritual is because he doesn't have significant mana (less than Shirou, even) so Rider really does need the mana drained from somewhere else.

Oh and Code Geass's English vocals, particularly Lelouch, were incredibly disappointing... no chuuni-spirit in Lelouch.

Hmmm... if it is that bad, you might consider asking someone to upload their updated version of it so you can download it in case the link you used has a damaged file in it. Otherwise... just where do you have it set up? Is it on your desktop, or did you place it somewhere else? Edit: Oh, a friend of mine says it is really glitchy running on any OS other than Windows Vista or after... He can get it to work on Linux, but when he tested it on Mac, it crashed regularly.

Worst dubbed anime... all anime except the Slayers dubbed before 2000? Some people say the dubs today are bad, but the ones back then were far worse.

Mmm... maybe it is because I live so much inside my head, but I've never fallen in love with a place. However, I do have a strong affection for the blood running through my veins. I used to stare at the veins in my wrist for minutes at a time...

I was going to suggest the same thing... but also, VNR eats resources like crazy, so if you have a low-spec PC or laptop, you should remember to shut down all excess programs while playing. I suggest copying your walkthrough to a notepad document and shutting down your internet browser, any download functions, Steam, etc. while you use it just in case. I had to do that with Baldr Sky Zero, because VNR slowed things down so much that even my gaming PC had trouble keeping things going at a decent rate. Edit: By low-spec, I mean having an integrated video or graphics card (causes overheating in the motherboard, thus lowering the overall specs of your computer), poor cooling system, a RAM of less than 3GB, etc. To be blunt, VNR is probably the clunkiest program of its type in existence.

Too bad no Japanese... otherwise I'd recommend Abyss Homicide Club.

I'm starting the new Ensemble game, Otome ga Kanaderu Koi no Aria. This is by the makers of Koi no Canvas, and I'm getting something of a similar aura from the protagonist (he's more confident though), so it looks like they are trying to milk the Otomekoi name as well as the storytelling, concept, and visual styles. It'll be interesting if they had the guts to give the writer a free hand like they did with Otomekoi...

Mmm... in my case, I'm just too paranoid to live with a real person as a spouse. I have to have my doors closed and locked, with only me inside, when I sleep. I used to sleep with a gun under my pillow before I moved back in to save money because I was paranoid that my neighbors were plotting against me. I had a girlfriend in high school... but I split with her when I realized that even though I loved her, I would quickly grow to hate her for being close to me if I were to live with her. While I call myself a misanthrope, that really isn't the word for it... for me, the presence of other human beings irl is like sandpaper scraping across my nerves. It doesn't matter if I hold affection for them or if I enjoy their company, it is always the same. Trust doesn't even enter into the equation. I can trust someone, love them, and hate them outright at the same time... a revelation that disturbed me greatly when I was younger. On the other hand, I never had that problem with my imagination, so 2D girls were easy to love - and only love - early on. I'm just too much of a pragmatist to hold to that view forever. On the other hand, holding a permanent affection for a character based on an intellectual attraction is still something I can do... it is just rare for a character to make that kind of impression on me.

Too much focus on gameplay aspects - that were poor imitations of another game's style (P3/P4) - and a weak story, a silent protagonist (not always a minus, but definitely one in this case), and too much character reuse (I know it was fanservice, but still...).

Idea was good, execution was incompetent.

Yeah... about the only thing Iiked was that Caster was Tamamo no Mae.