Clephas

http://vndb.org/v14760 Just finished Semiramis no Tenbin. This is by Caramel Box, a company that alternates between making mid to high quality charage and medium quality chuuni. They were responsible for the Otoboku series, as well as a number of games centered around youkai. Semiramis no Tenbin is one of those games that comes out of nowhere and completely blows your expectations out of the water. Given how it begins, you can't help but expect it to be a fantasy story... but it's nothing of the sort. It is a very human drama based in modern Japan, with a rather brutally honest portrayal of Japanese society's flaws, the uglier sides of human nature, and how they relate to those having to live within the bounds of society. It is seen through the eyes of Hayami Reiji, as he watches Kamio Ami and how she... umm... influences the people around her. As a protagonist, he manages to be more than a cipher. He is intelligent, quick to learn, and quite observant for someone his age. The fact that he seems like an idiot in comparison to Ami sometimes is just a measure of how scary she is, lol. The heroines in this game are all very high in quality, with some really unique personalities (the two girls on the cover especially). This game does have good endings for all the heroines, but - ironically - only Ami's path is rape-free (all the others have one non-heroine rape scene). The bad endings... to be honest, I don't recommend watching them. It made me feel a little sick, which is probably why they give you the option to get around the bad ends when you start the game by clicking the option at the right after beginning (you basically choose a heroine and it automatically sends you down the path to her good ending without having to make any choices). The narrative in this game is top-quality and the general theme definitely makes you think. Emotionally... to be honest, I only cried for Fumika's path, but that is because most of the other paths get so incredibly grim towards the end, not because they aren't touching. Like I said above, this game flashes a lot of the worst sides of human nature, and Reiji rarely gets overcome by emotion (he's surprisingly cool-headed). This game does have a main heroine, and it is Ami. I kind of regret doing her path first now, though the run up to the ending differs enough for each girl that it doesn't feel like they screwed any of them over. Doing the central heroine first is always a bad idea, but when I chose to do so, I wasn't aware she was that, lol. My conclusion? This definitely isn't for the faint of heart. Even the mildest of drama in this game can be a bit creepy because of Ami's involvement, and if you aren't already a misanthrope, there is a small chance this might push you in that direction. However, in terms of actual game quality, it is a level above everything else released this month. My conclusion? VN of the Month June 2014: Semiramis no Tenbin PS: A little warning... don't expect to ever be able to figure out precisely what Ami is thinking. The main reason she is so scary is that you literally have no idea where the lies start and the truth ends.

Flowmaps exist in some older VNs and mystery VNs. This: http://vndb.org/v10001 for instance. However, it is simply a mechanism to progress the story that can't quite be called gameplay. Also, in some cases, such as Tasogare no Sinsemillia, it is simply an alternative method to place-keeping saves to progress the story without wasting time skipping through already-read text. Also, Kamidori has event description in text, as do all Eushully games. So does Utawarerumono and TtT. Basically, if you are looking for something that defines VNs vs regular games... that's the one huge absolute. Narration takes precedence in storytelling over actual actions outside the text box. Another example of a game which had VN elements inserted, albeit as a sort of 'side-game' was Lost Odyssey's 'Thousand Years of Dreams' which told you about the protagonist's past in NVL form with a simple background and music.

What I meant by non-dialog text being a defining feature of VNs, is that event descriptions are generally done through text (and not someone saying 'oh, you just did this' or 'why did you do this and this?'). It isn't a terribly subtle difference... in fact, it is rather obvious. A pure jrpg tells the story through the dialog and the use of actual sprite actions and in-game movies (Opening movies in VNs don't count). Example: Say a demon knight is assaulting your people. In a pure jrpg, his sprite might draw its sword and slash (maybe at the character, maybe at thin air) or you might see a full-action movie before going into the encounter screen. In a VN, his actions might be described in text, as well as a short animation or a CG with sound effects. Edit: VNs are a storytelling method, not a game type, necessarily. The fact that gameplay is often added to a VN or that sometimes the VN storytelling method is used in a game merely serves to outline this fact. It becomes a hybrid when the story is told using the VN storytelling method. A good example that English-speakers can play is Agarest, which utilizes both the ADV text box and the VN storytelling methodology in addition to the traditional jrpg storytelling methods. Frankly, the existence of a textbox and tachie isn't enough, though they are features found in every VN.

You are using the wrong logic to decide whether it is a VN or not. For one part, it doesn't use the ADV or NVL storytelling methods,and there is no real non-dialog text in the game. This is a key feature of a VN, that to an extent, the story is defined to a large extent by the non-dialog portions of the text. The way you can go back and forth in time using the flow map is a gameplay feature, not an feature born of a VN.

... Steve... *shakes his head pityingly*

I'm pretty sure that I'm getting more value for my money.

I buy in 3-month periods, selecting what to pre-order well in advance through a friend in Japan, who later ships me three months worth in a crate by ocean (takes a lot longer, but it is a lot cheaper). I generally spend about two hundred to four hundred dollars a month on VNs (depending on how many interesting ones are out there). He knows to go ahead and pre-order anything even remotely chuuni, without even asking me, but I sift through everything else pretty carefully. I met him when he was living here about sixteen years ago, and we kept in touch when he moved back to Japan along with his parents. Considering I've been doing that for over five years now, with a round average of three hundred a month... it rounds out to about eighteen grand in USD total, not including what I pay for importing jrpgs and other Japanese games that interest me. I do get a small discount from him, because I give him the 店特典, which is why he agreed to this in the first place (he collects goods as well as the actual games). He was delighted when I got into VNs... and the next thing I knew, I'd added importing VNs to my importing habit. Edit: tbh, importing and collecting jrpgs is mostly a habit now. I have dozens of unopened packages sitting on my shelves... mostly because once I started, I didn't really see a reason to stop. I don't have a girlfriend or kids, so I have no reason not to spend my 'free' assets on whatever I feel like (in other words, assets that aren't directed to my early retirement plan). Most of my VN collection is sitting in a massive wooden crate in my closet... because I don't see a reason to open the real thing, lol.

Same as everyone else, anime-sharing and sukebei version of nyaatorrents. I also buy roughly 70% of the games I put up here.

If yall played it patched and didn't buy the Japanese version, buy the official release when it comes out... we need to support this kind of thing. *Clephas plans to preorder, despite the fact that he already has the Japanese version*

*Clephas sighs* Well, I just finished Scramble Lovers by Aries (yes, it is that short). For a number of reasons, I'd intended to leave it to last, but I decided to get it over with so I could spend the rest of the month on more enjoyable pursuits. First, I'd like to clarify my position on cliches. People who game a lot always start mentioning cliches and tropes. This is unavoidable, as your knowledge of a medium spreads. I will state that even though I will frequently mention tropes and cliches sarcastically, I don't judge a story on its use of tropes or cliches. A good formulaic response in the right place can frequently make for a better story, so it is wrong to deny a game's quality based solely on use of cliches. However, there are games that take the use of cliches too far. At first, I thought the fact that all the heroines, including the little sister, were transfer students, was a sort of spoof on the trope by the maker. However, it became obvious as I played that it was no such thing. He was using it as a convenient excuse to get four girls to surround one guy who, while not as bad as the normal protag in this kind o situation, is still a 'normal' dude. He can cook, he can clean, and his hobby is town exploration. However, he is also a perfectly normal guy who has no business being surrounded by four beautiful girls. The actual story flow is decided by numerous map choices and regular choices (basically, the single most annoying way a moege can be structured). I wanted to gag when they used the 'fall in love at first sight' trope with one of the heroines... there is a reason that one fell into disuse. What makes it worse is that the heroine routes are basically ichaicha followed by a short bit of drama that all turns out well in the end... and has no real epilogue. What happened to the heroines and the protagonist after the rather weak climax? We don't know, but we are supposed to assume it was a happily ever after story. Needless to say, this game is a perfect example of failure to use tropes and cliches in moderation, as well as a failure to escape all the worst habits of moege as a genre. The fact that I've come to expect this of Aries only makes it that much more depressing, because I should have known better than to think they'd redeem themselves, lol. The problem is that they use an interesting art style, with some really good expressions, so I'm always hoping they'll do something serious that will let the artistic talent they obviously have on board flower into something beautiful. Heck, I'd be satisfied with a decent charage at this point, if they were using the same artist. Final Verdict: Can't recommend this to anyone, even fans of moege junk food

In English or Japanese? In Japanese, I can name two from last year that are both kamige and have wide appeal... if you let me run with my favorite types, I can add two more, from my chuuni list, lol.

Irosekai really is one of those games you can't help but enjoy. As for game comments on untranslated VNs... I do that every month in my VN of the Month thread, so I don't see a problem with him doing this.

http://vndb.org/v10304 Just finished this. First, a few statements. Lolicons, rejoice, you have a new shinigami-loli to love. For those who like nakige, you can also rejoice, because that is what this is. lol Now, to go farther into this... I'll be honest, I dislike Palette as a company, because it is very good at presenting a good face to the world with its games, so you can't always tell its whether it is great or a kusoge until you are stuck in the middle of it. With most companies, I can figure out whether the game is any good well in advance, and when I play them for this little column, I find myself unsurprised by how godawful they are, haha. Anyway, enough complaining. First, this game is a mix of old-style nakige and high quality charage. The two paths that are pure nakige are Tina's and An's, whereas the other three heroines' routes are more of a charage route in nature. I won't say they aren't nakige routes... but for poignancy, those two I just mentioned are much higher on the 'weeping Clephas' list. The visual quality, as you can probably see from the images available on the game's official website and the opening song, is very high. Story-wise... it holds to the tradition of nakige, producing an emotional story that is well-paced and told well enough to evoke emotion and a strong attachment to the characters. Unlike a pure moege or a charage, ichicha doesn't take up seventy percent of the heroine routes (though it is definitely there) and what is there manages to avoid the interminable meaningless scenes, despite the fact that the heroine routes are actually longer than is the norm. Though I'm not disposed to compliment games by this company (despite the fact that I loved Moshimo Ashita ga Harenaraba), I still managed to enjoy myself. Overall, this is a game that is dead-center for the nakige crowd and caters to people who like supernatural settings but don't want violence or horror. I will say that the shinigami in this game are a more traditional existence, though I won't spoil it by telling you what I mean. Also, the protagonist is not a faceless nobody, which in itself puts this game well above the low water mark set by moege in general. If you want something that will give you mild catharsis, regular laughs, and warm fuzzy feelings, without the mindlessness of a normal moege, this is definitely a good choice for you.

I understand where you are coming from. However, this serves a number of purposes. 1. Reduces the thread clutter 2. Produces a central location where people can post their ideas without worrying about them being buried completely after a week or so. 3. Keeps ideas from being buried completely once they've been pushed back by other threads To be blunt, if we only get two new ideas a month, that's still two more pieces of unnecessary pieces of clutter for those sifting through the threads in the forum. For the recruitment: I understand why you'd want to separate that into a different thread. Understand, the template is only a suggestion. Also, recruiting is a pain in the butt in general (artists are the hardest, if you have something specific in mind in terms of style). It would be easier if we had a separate sub-forum for VN creation, and I wouldn't have even felt the need to make a thread like this. One of the problems with this particular section of the forum is that it is too generalized, and thus we end up with a lot of clutter, lol.

Since this is coming up more often now, I figured I'd make a thread where people could post their VN concepts and have them evaluated by their peers, without spreading them across a dozen or so threads (mods, I suggest merging the existing threads of this type into this one). Here is a template for it. Name (not required): Setting: Character Profiles: Over-arching theme: Technical details: Recruitment (if applicable): State what positions you need here, such as a programmer, writer, music director, and artist if you are serious about getting it made.

You are going to have to get really specific about how the abilities manifest, why some people can manifest some things and not others, etc. To be blunt, this looks like a recipe for pure Hell on earth, if people can do it subconsciously (I've read a lot of books like that), and if there are restrictions, it looks like another version of the haves and have nots. Writing in English, the community probably won't be as forgiving with you as they would be with a Japanese writer (no love goggles).

It's just not possible to marry at all, so it isn't acknowledged legally (thus your extra wives/husbands can't get benefits). At least, that's the way it is in the US. Also, in Japan.

Most pre-Christianity cultures were polygamous. If you had the wealth and means to support a large family with multiple wives, you were actually expected to do so, as your duty to the community. Rulers especially were expected to have multiple wives and concubines. Poor people with harems... not a chance. You have to have wealth and/or other means of support to have multiple wives, practically speaking. Monogamy is a relatively recent invention, from a historical perspective.

Sorry, not possible for the English.

Harumade, Kururu Draculius Strawberry Feels Tiny Dungeon (series, including Endless Dungeon)

If the book was a grimoire that summons Cthulhu Mythos gods, and he becomes obsessed with the evil power shown to him inside it, then I'm all for it.

Just finished Harvest OverRay, Giga's VN for this month. A few thoughts... this game's setting is somewhat similar to that of Cocoro@Function in that technology is at a point where computers effecting people's vision and hearing are becoming a part of everyday life. The protagonist is a hardcore gamer, and the game's common route is pretty much just fun and games, save for a few specific scenes. Except for Yuuka's route and the endgame drama for each of the other heroine routes, this game is a fairly straightforward charage. Yuuka's route is the true route, and it has a much deeper story as a consequence. It also draws in the elements that come up in the other three heroine routes and gives you a view of the whole picture, which is nice. Tbh, my biggest problem with this game is Giga's excessive use of foreshadowing and suggestive conversations in other views. In the heroine routes other than Yuuka's, I pretty much knew how everything was going to play out before it happened, because of that. That was more than a little irritating, because if they'd cut out a little more of that excessive foreshadowing, this would have been a much better game. Thus, the three regular heroine routes left me feeling somewhat disappointed, despite the actual high quality of the scenario design. When a game uses such a 'normal' progression of events (believe me, the actual basic outline of the first three heroine routes is very much in line with the formula for their archetypes), the best thing to do is to only hint at the possibility of what might happen in a roundabout way, while adding in a few surprises that won't necessarily be picked up by someone relying on the foreshadowing for their guesses about what is going to happen. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case here. Now that I've spouted about what I didn't like, I'll talk about what I did like. This game is fairly humorous, with a decent character dynamic (if not a great one). The one weakness of the character dynamic is that there wasn't a 'sounding board male' character (a Sunohara) to get rid of some of the 'harem feeling' the almost all-girl cast gives off. The mascot character mermaid guide AI is pretty hilarious, providing the kind of cheap laughs you all know you like. Yuuka's route (the true route), is fairly interesting, finally bringing all of the loose ends that came up in the other heroine paths together into a single cohesive whole (which is the role of a true route and true heroine). As for the protagonist... to be honest, he wasn't all that interesting. It was obvious they were trying to grow him as a character, but I don't really think they carried that part out very well. He's the classic 'indecisive protagonist' and that pissed me off more than once. The fact that they turned that into a joke throughout most of the game didn't really ease my irritation that much. Overall, this game would probably please those looking for something light but not too light (in other words, they don't want something that is all laughs and happy-go-lucky, but they don't want something seriously heavy either), but I wouldn't recommend it for someone who wants a truly great story. This kind of game is really the reason why I stopped playing games by this company in the first place. Their games tend to hint at the possibility of greatness, but they somehow manage to fall short, which only leads to greater disappointment, in my experience. However, I doubt the average reader would pick up on this kind of thing. My bad habit, born of the sheer amount of literature in general that I've read, is that I tend to overanalyze based one what I would have done with the existing elements... and that is backseat driving, no matter how you state it, lol. To be blunt, that particular frustration, while not unique to me, is probably something you won't experience.

The more niche a genre or medium is, the more likely you'll stumble on kindred spirits. Since I've been dumped into the middle of niche communities for most of my life for my hobbies, I'm more or less used to it... and occasionally I want to grasp my head and roll around on the ground in embarrassment when I find someone saying the kind of things I would have said five to ten years ago... but overall, niche communities are a lot more fun than the massive ones.

Most rpgs don't use either the ADV or the NVL storytelling (also, they don't have tachie). Exceptions like Disgaea exist... but Disgaea just intermittently uses an ADV mode rather than using it for all the storytelling. There are eroge that are VNs but not all eroge are VNs. Nukige are all VNs and they are also all eroge. 'Nuki' is basically one of the many Japanese slang words for masturbation, and it was pasted to 'ge' which is the word for game. It is a game whose sole purpose is to 'nuku' (masturbate) whereas there are many eroge that focus primarily on plot or characters. Many classic-style jrpgs use an ADV-style dialog box, but because they don't have the tachie (with rare exceptions) they can't be considered to be part-VN for the most part. Really, it would be more correct to say that ADV-style text boxes evolved from jrpg text boxes and went in a completely different direction with it. The Agarest series is considered a hybrid because it tells most of the story in VN-mode, with tachie and everything, if you want an example of a console hybrid. Like 'VN' 'eroge' is an all-encompassing umbrella, whereas nukige are a sub-genre that falls under the aegis of both VNs and eroge. As opposed to this, galge (non-ero romantic VNs) fall under VNs but not under eroge. On the other side, Illusion's sex fantasy games would be considered eroge, but they can't be classified as VNs, because they don't utilize VN storytelling techniques. 'Moege' is another all-encompassing umbrella that takes in most of the galge genre, all of the charage and nakige genres, and a good chunk of the VN and eroge medium. Generally speaking, unless a type of game is put out in large enough numbers and is distinctive enough to be placed in its own category, you won't see an actual sub-genre name pop-up over there. 'Chuuni', for example, is a relatively rare type of VN, and because of that there really isn't a name for it over there, though when I mentioned my name for it, my Japanese friends nodded and laughed because they knew exactly what I was talking about. Utsuge, which were more popular between 2001-2008 than they are now, were given their own name, because enough were put out during that period for them to 'earn' an independent classification. Many utsuge are also chuuni (the early Nitroplus games were mostly utsuge, at least some of the time), but some fall into no other category and others even have enough moe in them to be considered part-moege and charage. Basically, it is one huge mess. To an extent, people like me, who have experience with all of this shit, can give you some guidance, but a Venn diagram isn't going to do you any good, because none of this is set in stone permanently (as evidenced by the fact that galge is falling out of disuse as a term, as fewer and fewer romantic-leaning games are produced without erotic content in the VN style). However, the basic definitions for eroge, nukige, and VNs are basically correct. You have to grasp that 'VN' is a term mostly used here, whereas it is only used over there by the actual corporations that own the companies that make them. Understanding that a nukige is a genre, whereas eroge is basically a wide-encompassing umbrella term, is the most important thing you should draw out of my early statements.

All nukige are eroge. *rolls his eyes*