Clephas

This is based around the time it looks like magic will be revealed to the public but it is still secret. In Suzunone Seven, it has been established as a branch of science.

http://vndb.org/v13630 I just finished this VN (sorry to those who wanted me to play Futekikakusha first, but I'd already started this). First, like all Clochette games, this is a story-heavy charage with fantasy elements. This is based in the same world as Suzunone Seven, albeit a long time before the time in which that was based (as evidenced by the presence of a certain, much younger version of one of the sub characters from Suzunone Seven). To be honest... I spent most of this game either grinning or rofling. Yes, there are emotional moments to each of the heroines' stories, but most of the game is either heart-warming or just generally so hilarious you can't help but grin. The main reason I like Clochette was because of that ability to balance a reasonably interesting story with great character dynamics and humor. Like all charage, the story isn't spectacularly awesome, but it is definitely at the top of what you'll see out of this type of game. The protagonist, who is a total siscon gamer, is not an idiot (one of the prime blessings of Clochette games is that the protagonist is actually a person rather than a cipher) and the girls actually have a legitimate reason for falling for him (he has qualities that make it possible). If you've played as many games of this type as I have, you'll see this for the blessing it is. Last, my recommendations... this game is not for lolifans, as Clochette pulls its usual cast of oppaikko out of its hat, with a single normal/almost-loli heroine. However, if you do like to laugh and have a fondness for general fun and groups of friends, this is a good choice. Definitely a candidate for VN of the Month, though I'll reserve judgment until I've played Futekikakusha and at least one other game from May.

I almost said something about that decision to give up that I probably would have regretted (an analysis based on my speculations), but I'll shove my usual lectures about grammar and reading Japanese as Japanese, rather than translating it to your first language in your head. Instead, I'll say a few things to those who have begun to learn Japanese in general, yet aren't willing to go through the work to master the use of the text-hooker/furigana combinations. The only way you'll master it is by smashing yourself into the walls of text. A classroom will only do so much, and the goal of anyone learning a language should be to internalize it, as opposed to merely trying to lay it alongside the languages you already understand. Heck, my brain is a lot more efficient, since I began expanding the number of languages I could think in. I can think about matters more critically, and it is much easier for me to follow logic and create organization inside my mind. The benefits of learning another language and internalizing it, done for whatever reason, can't be underestimated. Yes, I learned Japanese because I liked anime. I learned Japanese because I was curious about what the people were saying when they were doing their level best to cut each other to pieces (I watched fantasy anime almost exclusively for my first seven years or so). As motives go, it isn't a bad one, and I gained a lot of other benefits as a result. The freedom of watching anime without being concerned about subtitles and playing VNs without a need for the intervention of a language as ugly as English is wonderful! Now, setting aside the rant... Oh wait, I just wanted to rant, lol.

Generally speaking, yes there are plenty of excellent VNs with gameplay out there. The Ikusa Megami series, which I'm currently marathoning (when I'm not working on the VN of the Month) - see my Random VN thread - is a spectacularly good rpg series. Ouzoku and Shinobi Ryuu by SofthouseChara are great... Escude occasionally manages to produce something decent... The only problem is that those with excellent gameplay aren't necessarily well-written and vise-verse. Kamidori has good gameplay, but its story is the second-worst amongst the games based in that universe (which include Meishoku no Reiki, Himegari Dungeon Meister, Madou Koukaku, the Ikusa Megami series, and the Genrin no Kishougun series). Even Soukoku no Arterial, which got bashed a lot by the Ikusa Megami fanboys, is several levels above it in terms of story Generally speaking, I'm all for people putting out interface patches, but hopefully we'll see more interface translations done by serious translators, rather than machine-translator-using lazybones and incompetents. The VNR or translation agg/jparser methods are both valid shortcuts for those who are shaky on kanji but can understand Japanese otherwise. Machine translations, as I will continue to shout out to the world until I start coughing blood, are absolutely, completely, and utterly worthless, though.

Check this: https://forums.fuwanovel.net/index.php?/topic/4689-what-does-hard-m-mean/ Moderators, lock this thread/merge it with the other one.

It isn't a 'rising trend'. It has been there from the beginning. Why do you think there are versions with the H-scenes cut out for Cross Channel and Tsukihime? If anything, it is less of a trend than it was before.

It's a problem with the English language end of things. Puritanical Christian influence results in disgusting slang and a lack of decent words and subtle terms that could serve as a counterpart to a lot of H scenes. Thus, you are forced to use the disgusting terms, and most tls aren't interested in the H-scenes at all in the first place. (also, Japanese fetishism is pretty reliant on mental aspects that generally aren't touched upon much in English sexual language).

I really suggest that you give up on seeing a lot of VNs with gameplay getting translated. Their scripts (at least for the good ones) tend to be huge, and as a result, most fantl groups can't handle them. In addition, most of the companies currently localizing VNs primarily do moege and/or nukige, with a few others thrown in for variety. Seinarukana, Aselia, and Yumina are exceptions to the rule. As proof of the burden on fantls.... the failure of the Daiteikoku project, which had huge community backing, as well as an enthusiastic team. While that game is bigger than the Rance games, it is still smaller than other, equal or better quality VNs with gameplay out there. Even with my Ikusa Megami Zero project, we'll struggle just to put out a partial, because of the sheer size of the script.

Think Grisaia levels of work, with a much less dedicated team. It would probably be three or four years for the average fantranslators... more likely, unfinished permanently.

No, it just has an interface patch, which translates the menus and the like.

Not really... Kamikaze has a lot of weird katakana usage, but no real weird kanji. Tsuisou, for how weird it begins, uses mostly plain speech and common kanji and kanji combinations. If you can't handle either of these using jparser, you probably need to go over or review basic grammar... or watch a few days worth of anime without the subtitles as a refresher course. Edit: It is rare for something that is mostly slice of life to not be relatively easy, though there are exceptions.

You can get those elsewhere, though...

You don't actually have to finish the EX dungeon to get access to the recipe. You just have to do both Louis's and Celica's versions of 霞の祠　down to B20 and beat the bosses there (including that gives you the Lax Haishiera)

I finished the True History path of Verita... and here are some of my thoughts. The story is immensely different - longer, more detailed - than that of the Light path, the last bosses are a lot harder (theoretically, as I was max-leveled across the board), and the sheer power of the story, especially seeing how it leads directly into the original and its remake's story, is intense for a fan of the series. Seeing Celica, as he begins to show something resembling humanity in is interaction with his apostles toward the end, is both heartwrenching and somehow beautiful (understand, if you haven't played Zero, you probably won't be hit as hard by this). In some ways, the Light path was simply a 'kinder' ending, but the True History path is much more powerful, giving real weight to what was occurring, not the least for the knowledge that it feeds directly into the original game. Also, if you don't dislike the Temples of Light in general by the end of this game (if you didn't already dislike them in Zero or the Genrin games), you'll come to truly despise them midway through the endgame of the True History, lol. I'll be digging into this month's releases briefly before I return to my marathon (continuing with the Darkness path twice, then the remake of the original). However, feel free to use my thread here: https://forums.fuwanovel.net/index.php?/topic/4993-ikusa-megami-verita-advice/ if you want to play the game yourself. Also, avoid the supposed 'interface patch' like the plague. It is completely worthless, not the least because they left the translation to a machine.

To get Astraea's sword (it isn't called that, but that is what it is) you have to have the drop from the Louis ending of the Darkness path, for instance. In addition, to get the 'promised holy sword', you have to have a drop from the rainbow slimes in a dungeon in the endgame of the True History. Stuff like that pops up a lot. Thankfully, the game takes a lot less time the second way through, if you got most of your grinding over with.

Similar to how I did with Soukoku no Arterial, I'm going to give some light advice about playing Ikusa Megami Verita in Japanese. 1. Grinding- you can't avoid it, and if you don't do it, you'll regret it. 2. Skill levels- The higher your character level, the faster this grows per use of a skill from that tree or a weapon of that size (small, middle, and big). Over-focusing on increasing skill levels before you hit level 200 is somewhat wasteful, as your characters probably won't have enough TP or MP to handle the higher skills early on anyway. 3. When grinding, auto-battle and the へタレス Labyrinth are your friends. If you set your auto-battle to random and disable item use in the auto-battle menu, you can raise a character's level really, really fast in that dungeon, while facing enemies that don't grow stronger in parallel to you. I suggest only using a single character to fight them once you pass level 130, as you probably won't need anymore than that. Also, stop leveling individual characters there once they pass level 250 or so, as you start to get diminishing returns at that point. Also, it is a good way to build up money and healing items on your first playthrough. 4. Leveling Celica and Louis is different from leveling the rest of the characters in the game. You actually manually expend experience to increase certain stats. The stats, starting from the top, are attack power, stamina, defense speed, attack speed (these might be reversed, lol), intelligence, resistance (well, it acts like resistance, but it isn't), and charisma. Attack power and stamina are obvious (single-attack damage and HP/physdefense focus), but attack speed and defense speed literally effect the number of times your character can attack in a single attack or defend from a single attack. Since your enemies will also benefit from this, it will become rather obvious when they exceed your capabilities, because you'll receive uber-damage and die so easily it will make you want to scream, while you won't do anything to them. For both Celica and Louis, these two stats are a major priority, even over attack power and stamina. Intelligence and resistance both have a strong effect on MP growth, while intelligence focuses on increasing magical attack and resistance focuses on magical defense. The last stat... charisma. It effects everything, literally. Keep it even with your favored stats, because it will aid you, no matter how you build your Louis or Celica. 5. Growing Celica: Celica has sword techs, lightning magic, Tantric magic (charm, capture, life-drain, and death spells), and magic sword attacks (combines lightning with his physical techs, usually over a relatively wide area). Despite this, you'll want to put a slight focus on developing him as a swordsman over a magic-user. I'd suggest using these proportions for leveling him up, going from top to bottom (5 4 5 5 3.5 4 5). While it might be tempting to either focus him extremely as a sorcerer or a swordsman, neither will benefit you in the long run... and most likely leave you dead against the more powerful bosses. 6. Growing Louis: Louis only has two skill trees, a sword-tech skill tree and a magic sword skill tree. Both are heavily dependent on his attack power and attack speed. As a result, he is going to be a bit more tilted to being a physical attacker than Celica. (5 4 5 5 3 4 5). Does this still seem a bit too balanced to you? Try playing with Louis weak to magical attacks... considering his only companion that joins without the 2.0 characters early in the game is weak to magic... and think about the consequences of that on your survivability, lol. He also needs a medium amount of MP to use his magic sword techs, so don't hold back. 7. Regardless of how you choose to level them, when you hit level 500, you'll have maxed all of Louis and Celica's stats, and - bare of equipment - they will be much more powerful than the other characters around them outside of a few magical attackers having greater natural magic attack. Also, if you have Haishiera from 2.0, her native power is the best overall in the game at the end, with access to pure-element magic, earth magic, and powerful physical attacks, as well as bare stats equivalent to or surpassing the protagonists' in some areas. In exchange, she levels more slowly than any other character in the game. I suggest equipping her with one of the experience-boosting accessories as early as possible, simply to balance that out. 8. Luna Clear and Monalka are both great healers, with access to the Healing and Regeneration magic branches. Both are only on the Light route. For this reason, I really, really suggest playing the Light route first. 9. Do NOT play the Darkness route first, even if you have the characters from 2.0. My reasons? Without Marinya's thief techniques, you won't be able to get certain rare drops from late-game bosses that are needed to make Celica's ultimate weapons. 10. Leveling the Haishiera Sword versions: The first level-up requires you to have maxed the first version, be at a certain level, and have the four support characters and Tetori that you can get up until that point (if you missed Meki in the Graveyard of the Gods, you are screwed) then you have to fight her in a duel in the Red Moon Temple. You have to be Level 400 with Celica to get the Lax Haishiera, the most powerful version of her sword (you can't use his magic sword techs without versions of her weapon) and armor, and you also have to defeat a boss at the bottom of Celica's version of 霞の祠. Understand, these weapons are the most powerful you can get for him on your first playthrough, so don't miss them. 11. You can start hunting はぐれ魔神 after Beelzebub's Temple, but I'd really suggest you avoid doing so until you have your party about level 350. They are hard, almost as hard as the last boss in some cases. Ratiniel, who can become a party member for Celica (as opposed to a summoned demon or a support member), is the most important. She is a very powerful all-rounder, which gives you another arrow in your quiver, late-game. Astaroth, the last from Louis's side of things, also gives you the last key you can get on your first playthrough, letting you get to treasures that would otherwise be inaccessible. I'd really suggest you have five of the accessory 手加減の腕輪　so that you don't accidentally kill them without using the Tantric magic tech 捕縛 to finish them off. You can unequip or equip any accessory at any time in the combat menu without using up any in-battle time, incidentally, which eliminates the problem of battle preparations in most cases, lol. 12. There is a very short frame, early in the game, in which you can get access to Celica's hit-all lightning spells. You do this through a request at the inn at Barata. It is in chapter 2, I think, but you'd do well to check it every time you get to the world map early in the game. 13. 　霞の祠　is the challenge dungeon for your first playthrough. There are few healing points, most of which disappear on a single use, the transporter points are rare, the enemies are hard (relatively speaking, for when you able to access each area), and you'll be forced to go there repeatedly in order to fulfill certain requests and obtain certain quest items. I suggest exploring it frequently and opening up its transport points as early as possible, as it will both let you level up along the way and save yourself time later. 14. Himegari's protagonist and Lily. Lily is the ONLY character in the game that starts at level 1... and she can use every weapon and armor type in the game. She is decent sorcerer and an average fighter. You can also get her early enough that it doesn't feel like a waste of time to level her up. 15. There is a really easy way to max the small weapons skill of any character that has access to staves. Use the alchemist's shop to make a Healing staff 癒しの杖, equip it on that character, go to the へタレス　Labyrinth, start a battle with that character alone, all counter skills deactivated, and all support characters remove... and go away for two or three hours to do something else. When you come back, their small weapons skill will most likely be maxed, lol. It will go even faster if you weigh down your ctrl button with something so that it skips the battle animations and accelerates battle speed, lol. 16. Ultimate and M-rank weapons are only accessible on your second playthrough, with max-level characters. The only exception is the Lax Haishiera, the final form of the Haishiera sword. 17. Focus on leveling Ekuria's magic and levels early on (especially her pure-element magic tree), as there will be several times where she is fighting alone against horrible odds. Also, equip her with a whip rather than a snake sword as early as possible, as her physical attacks are virtually worthless, in comparison to the speed with which she can make enemies lose heart for battle using a whip. 18. While most of the time, Darkness magic is perfectly awesome, late-game there are lots of enemies that are resistant to it or absorb it. Both Petrene and Naberius have access to fire magic as well... level that as much as possible early on. 19. Magic that attacks the will to fight (usable by a few characters like Luna Clear) is very powerful against regular enemies but useless against bosses. However, the magic in that same tree that boosts your will to fight is like a form of healing magic, as well as a boost to your stats, as your attacks and defenses are more powerful with higher FP and some enemies attack FP, which kills you if it hits zero, just like HP. Every time you are attacked, you take one point of damage to your FP, a fact you should keep in mind before thinking you can settle into 'defense mode' in boss battles. This game encourages being aggressive over being defensive, most of the time. 20. In dungeons, the farther the meter in the top right hand corner is to the left, the higher the encounter rate and the more powerful the enemies that appear. はぐれ魔神 appear most often when it is at the far left, whereas it is almost impossible to get them to appear at the far right. The only way to move the meter to the left is walking around, whereas you can use items to move it to the right. When you just want to walk through a dungeon on the way to an objective, without a lot of fighting, I suggest using 支配者の杖, an item that can be bought at the Church, to move it over to the right. Even when the meter is at the far left, the rate at which hagure majin appear never gets above 2%.

In a month? Between four and six VNs, depending on the level of quality available.

Mmm... so far, I'd say: http://vndb.org/v13631 http://vndb.org/v13108 http://vndb.org/v14270 http://vndb.org/v12987 http://vndb.org/v13224 http://vndb.org/v13342 http://vndb.org/v12609 ... are the best so far this year.

In most serious action VNs, the romance is either weak, twisted in some weird way, or something that isn't really romance. It is simply a matter of emphasis. Moege and their spin-offs (nakige like Clannad and other Key games and charage like Cocoro@Function) tend to be at least 70% romance and friendship/character dynamics, the rest of the game story. The fact is, when you get two humans together that might possibly be attracted to one another in an extreme situation, the likelihood that something will happen is relatively high. Case in point... Sakurai Kei in Dies Irae despises the protagonist, Fujii Ren, almost from the beginning, but in her path... However, would that seriously be considered romance? That is a matter for debate. Romance, being directly linked to one of humanity's three great needs (sustenance, sleep, sex), the one that is most intimately linked with the ambitions of the average person beyond immediate needs, is difficult to get around, and most people are turned off by a story without at least a little backhanded chemistry. Now, to answer the two questions at the top... About 70% of all VNs are based in a high school for the simple reason that most of the audience is relatively young (late adolescence to mid thirties) in Japan. The near-middle-age people have a nostalgia for the non-existent glory days that might have been in high school and high schoolers want a more glorious (and sexually/romantically active) life than they have. Not only that, there is a built-in assumption to Japanese society that everyone desires their 'normality', and that is heavily reflected in anime and VNs in general. As for why the young people in those VNs are so passionately obsessed with pursuing the opposite/same sex... just what do you expect? The average teenagers' consciousnesses are made up of one third sex, one third a random mix of emotionally-charged juices, and one-third hunger. If you have a young protagonist, you expect them to act a little bit that way...

Sub-characters...

I'd play Zero, regardless. Skipping the first Genrin is forgiveable, because it isn't really playable by today's standards, lol. Edit: One more piece of advice... definitely update the game to 2.0 and play the extra scenario before starting the game. This gives you four extra characters from the very beginning and lets you access the Maid Card system from the start, thus letting you get the four Eushully girls in your party. If you want to do the Darkness route or just want more characters to use on Celica's and Louis's routes early in the game, they can be a serious advantage. Haishiera, in particular, is very effective, as she possesses a powerful physical attack tree, an earth magic tree, and a 'Pure' magic tree, which uses pure energy attacks (and that very few enemies in the game have resistances to). Seeing as Louis party is all physical attacks early in the game, having three characters with powerful magic available (Irina being useless, mostly) is a huge help.

lol, then you should provide a trainer... the first game was too painful... Edit: Genrin 1 needs a remake even more than the original Ikusa Megami games did... for one thing, that time limit that is hanging over your head from the very beginning is...

Ok, just finished my first playthrough of Verita. I did the Light route out on my first playthrough and am aiming for the True History route on my second way through. First, the gameplay. Visually, it is greatly improved from the previous game, with actual graphics for the spells, lol. The actual battles haven't changed all that much, save for the inclusion of specialized support characters and the ability to summon certain creatures/people has changed so that they basically support your party from the rear with attacks and spells. However, the growth part of the game has changed a bit more... for one thing, you not only have to use a type of magic over and over to increase that magic path's level, but you also have to max out the individual skills/spells in a path to open up the next, even if you have the necessary skill-type level to access them. This makes leveling up your magic more time consuming than in Zero, and it is one of the aspects of the game that makes it something of a grind. Yes, this game has a lot more grinding than you saw in Zero, not the least of which is because you are pretty much forced to reach a certain level of power and then even it out across the various characters, due to the fact that enemies have a minimum level, then grow in level to a certain cap based on your characters' levels. On the plus side, the 'hagure majin' in this game are much easier than they were in Zero, though they are still not easy, and you can capture them using the 'hobaku' skill in Celica's and Karian's Tantric Magic skill trees. The downside is that you have to get to a pretty high level in order to get the final stage of that skill (with Celica it was around 350...). For fans of Zero, Naberius, Rita, Haishiera, and Luna Clear are playable characters (Haishiera only with the 2.0 patch and having completed the extra game beforehand). New game plus lets you keep all your characters, their levels, basic alchemy shop level, Ragil Shop levels, non-key items (including the versions of Haishiera's sword and armor) and turn off random encounters (which I'm doing, since if I need to grind, I can just use the search function on the pop-up menu), and change the battle difficulty (which ranges from normal to enemy strength times five). For the story... one thing anyone who is considering playing this game should consider is that this game is incomprehensible without having played Zero and at least read Eien no Ikusa Hime (it comes along with the first append disc or can be downloaded from the official site for free) if you don't want to push through the Genrin games. The story is based right after Genrin 2, and it is based off of the Law-leaning but not perfect Law end (anyone who played Genrin 2 should know what I'm talking about and what that changes). You switch between Celica's and Louis's perspectives and parties throughout the story. The Light path... is basically what happens if Louis tips his own life-view and politics towards benefiting the Temples of Light and their gods, rather than remaining neutral (True History). This dramatically effects the ending, and it changes which of two characters that join his party (the naga-like angel Monalka for Light, a slightly psychotic and foolish demon for True History and Darkness). It also saves the life of a certain character that dies in both of the other paths, which was my main reason for choosing it. As for quality... it is above-average for Eushully (certainly better than Kamidori), though the need to grind weakens the story more than it did in Zero. Remember, this game is basically the in-between for Zero and the Genrin games and the original series and their remake/s. It has a huge story that is pretty long, and that story is as dramatic as you could hope. Celica... is very similar to how Celica was in the last parts of Zero leading up to the final battle, except slightly less emotional. . I won't spoil it for you, but certain adversaries that will cause various reactions from Zero make a return, one of them as a major endgame antagonist. Also, you get to see how one of the extra characters from Kamidori got born (though she is one not directly related to the story). Incidentally, the routes are decided very early in the game, and the actual story-split is a certain event in the eight chapter right before you head into the final chapter, which alters everything after that point. Now... on to the True History route.

lol, I passed sixteen hundred kanji the other day... unfortunately, I got obsessed with the 'dead' kanji and have been out on a tangent for the past few months. It helps that I already know the language itself, but since I'm currently going for a degree in linguistic anthropology, I suppose it isn't a bad thing to head for the archaic kanji.