Clephas

The latest version hooks it fine on my laptop... have you checked to make sure your antivirus isn't blocking the hooking function?

There are just general remarks about how Kou is an incredible solo fighter but he absolutely sucks as a leader. From other remarks throughout the game, Kou's squad was probably just people he gathered who had relatives/loved ones/etc at Ash-gray Christmas.

Baldr Sky Zero is an entirely different animal from Baldr Sky Dive. I say this as a warning for those who are looking for a complete duplicate of the experience. Baldr Sky Dive was very much like a post-apocalypse apocalypse story in some ways, with a bunch of revenge thrown in. There is much to recommend to both duologies but they are fundamentally different in some ways. This review is of the first half of the Zero duology, which covers the Sakura, Kei, and Fran paths. I chose to review it separately because the time between each game’s release was enough to make some differences to the experiences between the two games… enough to require me to feel a need to separate them into two different reviews. This path focuses on amnesiac Edward, a Simulcram pilot who is discovered in a corporate virtual space by the members of Squall, the SAS (Southeast Asian Sector) branch of Fenrir. He is ‘rescued’ (he mostly rescues himself) and brought back to the base, where – after some ‘interesting’ events – he joins Squall, which is probably one of the more interesting mercenary teams I’ve seen in a VN or anime. A few notes on the setting. This story is based a few years before the events of Sky Dive (which is why it is called Zero). The path that most fans believe to be canon to Sky Dive is Sakura’s (for reasons that become obvious during the last part of the path), and the rest of the paths are essentially parallel world paths similar to how Dive treated the non-true paths. The SAS is a different animal from the city Dive is based in. Unlike that city, people spend far less time in virtual space in the SAS, due to a psychological phenomenon that causes homicidal paranoia in those who spend too much time confined there called Black Dog. The SAS is in a constant state of low-level warfare, with people being born and dying at an exponentially faster rate than the rest of the world. The setting itself is in many ways far more brutal and cruel than the one you see in Sky. In the SAS, human experimentation is as common as soylent green, the body parts of debtors are sold on the open market (often by the debtor themselves before they are killed), and children are produced in lots to be trained as soldiers. Every newborn child has a chip similar to Kou’s in Dive, and the sheer rate of death has resulted in a far higher aptitude for Simulcram piloting than in the outside world. Squall, in this harsh setting, is a rare small elite unit… of what would seem to be complete psychopaths if you didn’t have a constant window into their daily lives and personalities. Squall has a horrible reputation for blackmail, extortion, and general carnage, but their abilities make them too valuable to be disposed of. As one character puts it, ‘The people in Squall seem perfectly normal, but once they get on the battlefield, they laugh and joke as they spread slaughter and carnage.’ To members of Squall, even more than to the average citizen of the SAS, war is just a daily activity, and killing not something to get concerned about to any significant degree. In just the common route, Edward likely kills more people than Kou does in both Dive games combined. However, outside of battle or preparation for such, the character interactions in this game are often humorous, regardless of the subject of conversation. Edward has very little impulse control beyond a certain point, Sakura has a serious potty mouth and a gambling addiction (really, all of them are gambling addicts), Kei is constantly eating, Merrill has no common sense, Reena is constantly ragging on the Commander about his brothel bills, Dmitri is a sadist who never loses at gambling and uses invisible floating turrets to get his point across, and the Commander is a whimsical bastard who loves war, women, and alcohol far too much. In other words, this cast of characters, and the atmosphere of the game in general, will be something of a shock to anyone coming straight from Dive or expecting a similar experience. Moreover, the shift to polygon-based 3D graphics for the combat makes the gameplay a significantly different experience. The gameplay is somewhat less fluid and streamlined than the traditional Baldr battle system, and the Giga team obviously didn’t have the programming talent at the time to really handle Unity (which means save frequently and expect random crashes even with the last game update). Kei Kei... is on the surface a stubborn genkikko with an excessive fondness for food in a world that has a serious dearth of good cooking (though Riina can make soylent green palatable through nanomachine reprogramming). However, underneath that somewhat fluffy exterior is a will of iron and a typically-SAS pragmatic attitude toward the mercenary life of risking her life and killing people on a daily basis for money. I mention the latter because, while all the characters share this attitude to one degree or another, it is an unexpected element to her personality in particular, given the template she seems to fill at first glance. Kei's route is, as should be obvious to anyone who reads through the initial encounter with her, a trip into her past with Edward (it is so blatantly obvious she knows him from the very beginning, so her efforts to obfuscate make no difference at all). It is pretty interesting and exciting, and it provides the most intimate view of what it is like to grow up as a normal child in the SAS (hint: It is horrifying even by the standards of a tin-pot dictatorship/banana republic). It is the route most often recommended to be played first, in part because of this fact. For most people who play this game, Kei is the least liked heroine, because she does better as a joke character and Merril's sidekick. Sakura Sakura is... a surprisingly complicated girl. Your first impression of her is as a foul-mouthed wildcard who has no self-control and a horrible gambling habit (all true), but she is also surprisingly innocent about some things and sensitive about the others on her team in a way that is only rivaled by Riina, who fundamentally misses nothing. Her path is focused on her own past and Church 22, a half-religious organization of virtual drug-addicted wounded and retired soldiers who constantly go on suicidal rampages throughout the SAS network. Let's just say that Church 22 is very much like a cult, and the Kool-aid is CGH (the virtual drug in question). It is also the canon link path to Sky Dive, for those who are interested. Fran Fran is Commander Goodman's daughter, an underdeveloped girl (the story calls her a loli, so she's a loli, lol) who has a tendency to take solo missions and act on her on recognizance more often than is probably wise. She is highly intelligent, but her social upbringing (in a mercenary organization that has a high rate of psychological cripples) has left her with a speech impediment when she is outside the spheres of warfare or hostile/semi-hostile interactions with her fellows. This is the only path I'll mark for its romance, though Sakura's was interesting that way too. This path's romance is very much a seduction by Fran. She essentially wears Ed down (not emotionally, since he falls in love with her early on, but rather H-wise) over time through sheer persistence. It is fairly hilarious to watch, though this path may be the reason this game will never get brought over here. This path is also about equal in length to the previous two combined (it adds an extra chapter and each chapter is around 25% longer). The reason for this is because the scale of what is going on is so much bigger than in the previous two paths. Elements of Sakura's plotline are included in this path, but those are incidental to what is going on, for the most part. Fran has a rather obvious grudge against Wotan and WALRUS, who are considered the most dangerous group in SAS's net wars (and that's saying a lot, considering how many threats exist). This path plows a really complicated path through the ins and outs of SAS politics, science, and history, and it has a great deal of potential for traumatizing the reader if they have a good imagination. If it weren't for Fran's and Edward's relationship being so utterly hilarious, this path would be downright depressing. However, the comedic parts of this path serve to lighten the atmosphere just enough to strike a balance between it and the darker elements. Conclusion If you go into this game thinking to see a carbon-copy prequel to Baldr Sky Dive, then you really need to change how you are thinking. In reality, this is a drastically different story, though it is still a Baldr story at heart. Horror, humor, and warfare all in one package... so whether the reader likes it or not will depend mostly on how the reader takes in the content. Short Guide to text-hooking Baldr Sky Zero I'm just going to come out and say it... all games that use mono or its successor Unity (VNs, that is) have text-hooking problems, for those of you who can't wait for translations but don't quite have the skill or the patience to read the kanji or just want the furigana for reference. Pretty much your only real options are Textractor and VNR (ITHVNR no longer being workable on Windows 10). The h-code up on the h-code wiki is a fake, so don't bother. Textractor is my recommendation for this game. VNR doesn't reliably pick up the threads that have the text in them, and it has a tendency to cause freezes, because you can't delete the excess threads that VNR continually detects, causing freezes, load problems, and general annoyance all around. It makes the game almost unplayable. Here is the guide to hooking this with Textractor without making it crash. 1. Start Baldr Sky Zero and either start a new game or load an existing one that is in the middle of a story portion. 2. Start Textractor (whether you have already hooked this game before or not, you have to do it this way or the game will crash before you can do the next few steps) 3. Hook the game then proceed one line forward in the text. Do NOT click like crazy to try to get it to work. Click once, then leave it alone until it proceeds. 4. As soon as it has proceeded to the next line, go back to textractor and click on 'remove hook'. 5. Look through the drop down list of threads until you find ones that seem to contain most or all the text. 6. Delete ALL hooks (by double-clicking on them) that don't contain the text in question. 7. Close the remove hook box. 8. Open it again after proceeding at least once more through the text, then repeat the process on any excess hooks that might have popped up. 9. Generally speaking, the textractor thread-linking function is unreliable with mono/unity games, so you'll probably have to deal with a few cut-off symbols in the thread that contains all lines (in my experience, it usually cut off the last one to three symbols, varying upon the line). 10. Configure game does not work properly with this game, so don't use it.

I got her too... and I didn't even have to dig into my wallet this time. Edit: Oh and Hokusai to NP2

I'm a mimikko addict, and even I don't replay Nekopara games. There is only so much slave-race girl-banging I can take before the warped part of my brain starts imaging leather collars and chains onto them.

That's true of all VNs, really.

There is a good possibility that they got bought out when Greenwood offloaded their assets. Akabeisoft2 is currently the most likely culprit, lol.

Fortune Arterial was the game that came to be the base for the 'August Game Rules'. 1) August games have good concepts, good protagonists (heroines tend to be hit and miss). 2) August will always make their games look pretty. 3) August will always fumble the execution for the last third of the game. Tsuki to Majo to Taiyou to is a Silver Bullet game... that in itself says a lot, but I'll elaborate. Silver Bullet games always make serious attempts to escape the mundane trends that were beginning to take over when they were formed, but they always fail, due to a lack of writing talent. Poor Silver Bullet. Their last three games were almost total disasters (I should know, since I played them) and Consome is the best game they've made... and it is still not something I would go out of my way to play now. Hanafubuki and Kachou Fuugetsu (based in the same setting) are interesting games that nonetheless inevitably feel derivative, even if they are sometimes eerie in atmosphere. Setsuei is one of those games that would satisfy the mild horror romance crowd and few others (ironically, this was one of their few games I felt escaped being mediocre in concept, if not execution).

The mind-break is pretty extreme in Hypno though... because while it is the best Venus Blood, it is also the darkest, potentially. Chaos Leonhardt is easily the freakiest villain protag ever (especially with his beloved Chaos Anora by his side). It is a lot like if you extracted the comedy from Soul Nomad & the World Eaters Demon God ending and slapped a bunch of tentacle sex and mind-breaking/soul-corruption into it.

Ragnarok is very much a downgrade sequel. I don't say this to be mean but simply to state facts. The world in which the characters are operating is a much 'lessened' but still 'the same' world as the one Frontier was in, so it is a bit less exciting... and in general, the whole setup makes less sense than Frontier did, story-wise. It's fine if you are a true diehard fan of Frontier and just want more time in the setting, but it isn't as good a game in general. Not to mention it was released after Hypno.

Hypno is easily the best Venus Blood game in every aspect, from story to gameplay. Definitely worth investing in. Edit: In Hypno's world, the demons, long confined beneath the earth, unable to access the power they needed to sustain themselves from humans, discovered a way to convert the souls of the weak into artifacts called Tactica that could be used to fuel (literally, since using a Tactica gradually burns through the confined souls) their powers. They then escaped the underworld and invaded Helvetica (a simplification) and killed the Goddess, claiming the lands for themselves. Now, the four major factions have split off, and the stage is set for a new war of demons on demons, all of them wielding the souls of the dead as weapons... Leonhardt and Anora, the game's protagonists, are a brother-sister pair who are so intimately connected (emotionally, sexually, etc) that they are almost literal extensions of one another. Leonhardt is ambitious and ruthless, willing to do anything to escape the control of the Queen, and Anora will do anything to fulfill his wishes, shaving her own soul away bit by bit to serve the ends of her beloved brother.

*pukes a river of sugar* *wipes his mouth clean* Ok, I'm better. This game is very much what you would expect if you came in knowing nothing of Lump of Sugar's past works and only knew the name of the company itself. It is sugary sweet, adorable, and generally interminable to someone who likes a nice balance between the cuteness and ichaicha and other aspects of a VN. That's not to say it doesn't have good points... the common route is pretty funny, if you are a cat lover, and I can honestly say the heroines are attractive, though not all are my type. I will also be frank that I only played one path (and it was long), Tsuki's path. I only played one because, by the time the path was over, I was dealing with ichaicha overdose symptoms (including a headache and a desperate urge to go to sleep). Understand, I could see from the beginning what type of game this would be, but mimikko girls are my primary fetish, so there was no way I wouldn't at least try to play it. If it had merely been a standard charage with a standard-length route and a standard level of ichaicha, I probably would have had a better end impression. Instead I got a game that had me plowing through literally hours worth of ichaicha in the heroine path before the atmosphere changed and there was some nakige drama that I couldn't fully enjoy because of how tired I was. If you want a game with an excessively fluffy atmosphere and a large amount of ichaicha scenes, this is a good choice. Otherwise, there are better games out there, lol.

Do it in whatever order you please... though, to be honest, Kaja route's version of the common route makes me feel like I'm tormenting Flow, since you have to make so many choices that disappoint her.

Yes, it is another Takaya Aya game... to be specific, his joint work with Morisaki Ryouto (known for his sci-fi bent and work with Applique). This work is also considered to be one of his penultimate masterpieces, which is ironic, since the company he created got bought out almost immediately after this game was released, hahaha. Anyway, Komorebi no Nostalgica was one of two contenders for my VN of the Year 2013 and lost out to Hapymaher. However, given how Hapymaher has proven somewhat difficult to replay (the Christmas arc puts me to sleep every time), and the way I find new things in Komorebi every time I replay it, I'm going to go ahead and say that that decision was probably a mistake, lol. Komorebi is a meticulously-written game, with so much attention to detail on the part of Takaya and Morisaki that it is literally impossible to pick up everything on one playthrough... and more importantly, it has a strangely powerful emotional impact that can't help but make you reflective on the issues it brings up. The setting of Komorebi no Nostalgica is based in the twenty-fifth century, long after the changing climate sank wide swathes of the world's land beneath the oceans and fifty years after a humanoid AI rebellion that resulted in what amounts to a negotiated draw (mostly because the AIs didn't want to wipe out humanity). The AIs in question are self-aware machines that possess human looks and emulate human emotions using a quantum processor and a unique set of self-developing algorithms. They are called the Metosera and live alongside humans in a larger society that coexists with human society while they dwell in 'Arks', large towers in the major cities that take on the maintenance and 'procreation' of their race. The government is now a world government, mostly because the nations that existed before the war were utterly dependent on Humanoids for most forms of manufacturing and manual labor and couldn't continue to exist on their own. This VN focuses on a group of friends that discover an extremely high-spec pre-war Humanoid hidden in the walls of their school building, and the discoveries they make as they rebuild Cinema (the Humanoid in question) and learn from her. Cinema is not a heroine, but she is undeniably the centerpiece of the story. The mysterious 'Store Manager' that customized her (to the extreme) and his intentions become central issues in several paths, and her unique aspects come into play in others. However, the universal aspect is that her presence sparks a number of issues that were dormant to rise to the surface during the course of the paths. Main Characters Shimazu Shouta is the protagonist, a guy who loves retro machines and is great at repairing old hardware and jury-rigging solutions to mechanical problems. By default, he is the homemaker of the family, since the two women living with him (his stepmother Kagari and his adoptive sister Akira) are both programming geniuses incapable of taking care of themselves. What stands out in regards to his character is his adaptability and his acceptance of the way the world is. This is important because it is what makes him an excellent partner for Fluorite in her path and gives the perfect perspective on Cinema. Shimazu Akira is Shouta's adoptive little sister, a natural-born hacker with a neural implant and way too much talent for her own good. Unfortunately, her impulsiveness and intolerance of 'inelegant' solutions to programming problems lead to constant trouble, since she has no impulse control. She is utterly dependent on her brother, to the same extent as her mother, without the wisdom of years to stabilize her. Fluorite Alvega is a Metosera who has spent most of her formative years with the 'group of friends', making her somewhat unusual for her kind, who usually end up spending more time with their own than with humans. While she has the Metosera tendency to think in straight lines and constantly analyze the world around her, she is more self-reflective and tolerant of the flaws and foibles of humans than many, who tend to be overly straight-laced. Kaja Fruhling is the daughter of two of Kagari's (Shouta's stepmother's) coworkers and was born in Germany. She is an easygoing girl who shares Shouta's love of motorcycles and scuba diving, and she is generally easy to get along with. While has some tomboyish aspects, she is surprisingly perceptive and compassionate beneath the surface. She is an all-around athlete who often gets recruited by the athletic clubs for help, but she isn't interested in joining any of them permanently. Sawatari Itsuki is a sharp-tongued young woman who is the most reserved and bookish in a group that is full of straightforward people. Of the group, she is the most 'balanced' in terms of talent, being a general prodigy (as opposed to one-point monsters like Seijuurou/male-Momoka, Flow/humanoid AI, or Akira/genius hacker). She is bookish and tends to get put in positions of responsibility, but this is mostly because she has a surprisingly forceful personality that is at odds with her appearance. She is also feared because of her tendency to wield 'correctness' as a weapon while being perfectly willing to ignore it if it is inconvenient to her personally. Cinema is the Humanoid uncovered in the school's secret room. Last active the year the Two Years War began, she was designed by someone even Akira describes as a 'genius'. She displays reactions that can only be described as 'emotional' and 'alive' in a fashion even the Metosera have difficulty managing, and certain aspects of her design indicate an extremely unusual design philosophy. However, she is undeniably too low-spec to gain sentience in the same way the Metosera did... so the question is just how is it that she leaves such a non-mechanical impression on those who see her...? Samon Seijuurou is the last member of the 'group of friends', a muscleheaded martial artist who is infamous for knocking the classroom door off its rails as he runs in just before the bell. At one point in the past, he wanted to become the strongest fighter in the city and went around picking fights with delinquents from other schools, but he eventually ran out of people to challenge. He is very simple-minded and straightforward and disinclined to question things. He has a good heart, but his inability to understand subtlety often trips him up (not to mention that he is an idiot and an open pervert). Important Side Characters Shimazu Kagari- Akira's birth mother and Shouta's stepmother. A genius programmer who is utterly incapable of taking care of herself (a quality her daughter shares). She has a very childlike manner and tastes, but she is in actuality very intelligent and mature (if in an odd way) beneath that appearance. Her attitude toward parenting is very much a 'wait and see while taking everything in' approach, and this has resulted in her daughter becoming a hacking wild child (who is essentially good natured) whereas Shouta became a mature homemaker despite his natural tendencies. Samon Munenori Seijuurou's grandfather and the master of the dojo that Seijuurou, Shouta, and Kaya attend. He is a veteran of the Two Years War and one of the few veterans who managed to get past his resentment of what amounts to humanity's defeat by their creations (it was only a draw because the Metosera avoided killing humans directly, though some died due to complications later or because they helped the Metosera). Celes is Fluorite's 'mother' and the Elder of the New Capital's Ark, the home of the city's/region's Metosera. She is a veteran of the Two Years War and one of the first Metosera to obtain sentience. She has a gentle manner and is deeply compassionate, and her attitude toward Fluorite and her friends resembles that of a gentle grandmother, as she merely laughs off the antics and trouble they got into in the Ark as kids. She sees Fluorite's oddities, born of her mixed socialization, as a source of hope for the future of her race, and she treasures the relationships that her 'daughter' has formed. Fluorite Path If you want the joy of discovering the details of the setting for yourself, do not open the spoiler box. I'm essentially getting extremely nerdy in the paragraphs in the spoiler box, so if you want my usual completely spoiler-free commentary, just ignore it. I considered just leaving it in the open, but I concluded that some people would not want to be spoiled about the setting to this degree. As I say above in the spoiler box, Flow has a rather stunning gap-moe thing going in her route, with her normally calm, almost flat manner showing serious cracks when she is around Shouta (hints of this can be seen in her reactions to Cinema in the common route as well). The early part of this route is very telling about both Flow personally and the Metosera as a whole, revealing a great deal about how they think (analyzed partially by Shouta himself, who has spent most of his life around Flow as a friend). The latter half is fairly action-focused, with Cinema's issues taking center stage (really, in all the paths this happens), and it is very strongly focused on the legacy of the Two Years War. The climax of the path would have anyone in tears, and I honestly found my heart breaking each of the four times I played this game and this path in particular. The box below has a very general setting spoiler involved with this path. Itsuki Path First I'll say that the romance in this path is fairly conventional. Itsuki and Shouta have known one another for a long time, and they already care about one another, so there is a lot less of a hurdle for Shouta in getting together with her than with Flow, where he had a moral dilemma born of him worrying about how he affected Flow. As such, I won't comment on the romance any further, since it is little more than a device to help the story along in this path. There is an excellent fight scene (by non-chuunige standards) toward the end of this path, and that is something to look forward to for action fans. However, the true spotlight of this path is Yep, that was me geeking out again. Essentially, this path contrasts the Metosera's evolution with Cinema's once again. This is one of the primary themes of the game, and Itsuki's path provides another point to build things up for the reader. Also, the epilogue to this path is as good as Flow's if in a different way. Kaja Path One thing that is interesting about replaying VNs is that you realize the reasons why you forget things and remember others. All of the heroines in Komorebi no Nostalgica are extremely close to the protagonist, and all the ones other than Akira can be considered 'osananajimi' (childhood friend) characters. However, Kaja fits the most perfectly into the osananajimi template, especially in the romantic elements of her path. Kaja's role with Shouta is as the 'friend he doesn't really see as a woman', a trope that gets pulled out a bit too often in VNs for my taste (it isn't so bad when they aren't heroines, but when they are heroines, the romance is usually wince-worthy at best). Because of this, it is no surprise that I avoided this path on future playthroughs, despite the insights it provides on Cinema. I should note that this path is one of those where there is a massive wall of text between the actual love confession and them becoming lovers (meaning the 'worrying about this and that' period is that long). Unlike the previous two paths, this path doesn't have a major action scene, though it does have some drama. While this is a much better path than charage equivalents of the same trope, I still hate that trope, lol. The epilogue, like the previous two, is a 'several years later, after graduation' epilogue, which is always nice, since it is great to know how things turn out for the characters central to the path. Akira Path If Komorebi was based on D&D rules, Akira would have an intelligence stat of 40 and a wisdom stat of 5. To be blunt, Akira is something of a spoiled brat whose talent, mother's social position, and Shouta's tendency to spoil her have shielded her from most of the sticks and stones that would have hit someone like her. Her hacking ability is extremely high (helped by her uncontrollable curiosity and disinterest in restraining herself), but she tends to outright forget common sense in any number of situations. One thing that stands out about the romantic part of this path (other than Shouta over-thinking things, as usual) is Kagari is a great mom, despite being incapable of cooking, cleaning, or doing the laundry (Shouta does all these things, lol). Her tendency to see through Shouta and the others is present in all the paths, but it is particularly in the open in this one. Let's just say that this path has less of a philosophical bent than Flow's or Itsuki's and less of a romance/SOL focused bent than Kaja's. This path's drama is mostly focused around the search for 'Tenchou's' identity and fate after he concealed Cinema. While there is some action, the actual stakes involved are far less than in Flow or Itsuki's path. Last Episode Last Episode is a chapter unlocked by completing all four heroine paths. It is very revealing about how and why 'Tenchou' vanished from the public world, and it also provides a conclusion to the story as a whole. Certain aspects of this chapter change based on which heroine you choose at the very first part of the chapter, as this determines which heroine is your canon heroine, lol. Of course, I always choose Flow... if there is a choice between human and non-human, I will always choose non-human. There are some seriously teary moments in this episode... particularly To be blunt, this chapter is really about Cinema and the final purpose for which she was created. If you, like me, have come to love Cinema by this point, you will probably break down in happy tears. Extra There really isn't anything to the extra chapter (accessed using the usual Takaya Aya code nkmr). It's basically a short joke skit written for people who have finished at least one of the paths. Conclusion A few stylistic comments first. Each chapter of this game has an episodic preview that hints at a key aspect of the next chapter. It is done using the second opening song and credits, and I thought it was worth noting, because while it hints at what comes next, it does so without spoiling things. It is also notable that the second opening song is just as beautiful as the first one (in retrospect, the music in Komorebi is top-tier, but Hapymaher's god-tier BGMs are so beyond the pale that comparing them at the time couldn't help but be a win for Purple Soft's flagship game). Komorebi no Nostalgica is one of a very small number of VNs that is 'complete' in every conceivable way. For better or worse, most VNs leave an opening for fandiscs, sequels, or dlc. However, Komorebi ties off all the loose ends and provides the answers any sane reader having experienced this story would want to know. Moreover, it does so in a manner that is not detrimental to any of the four heroines or their paths, which is, in itself, an incredibly unusual thing (essentially providing a true path that applies to all the heroines). Komorebi no Nostalgica also touches on a wide range of philosophical and ethical topics, in particular relating to AI and information technology in general. That this was done without compromising the emotional aspects of the story at all is a tribute to the genius of the writers. Final Comments If I have any advice for someone playing this game, is that the magic (not the devil) is in the details. This is a game that rewards people who actually take the time to think about or look up things they don't quite understand from what they are reading, and both Takaya and Morisaki rather obviously created this as a work of love and art, not just business. There is food for both the intellect and the heart in almost every (non-H) scene, and the characters, especially the main ones, are all well-written and brought to life well in the course of the story, which is in and of itself both touching and food for thought.

Nothing like Nier.

The protagonist is supposedly a genius at something, but the moment the heroine routes begin, his abilities seem to disappear (Most of the Ensemble games for the last seven years, Tsuki ni Yorisou, Otome no Sahou 2). This convention is a plague on charage in general, since there is a tendency to want to weaken the protagonist's individuality in the heroine routes to fit the heroines' needs. This is an effort to reduce potential for conflict, but it also makes the game less interesting and/or disappointing.

I wish I could find a download version of this for purchase... when I first heard of it, I couldn't find a copy and forgot about it. This went for a lot of Ocelot games, because that company seemed to be horrible at advertising and distributing their works.

I left most of the game to fun2novel during my period of offloading games I wasn't interested in, but the roles of magistrates in Edo-era Japan included roles of judge, jury, and investigator head. One of the reasons this led to so much corruption in the later part of the era was because it essentially offloaded all responsibilities of keeping order for an individual area of a town, region, or area to a single individual with only the tacit understanding that they were to make sure as little trouble as possible would make its way up the grapevine. As long as there was no real unrest in the populace and incidents were resolved quickly, the higher officials were happy with the magistrates in question. There were declarations and laws that absolutely had to be followed (sakoku for instance), but magistrates were given a great deal of discretion to either deal with things or not. This is why the yakuza and police are usually so thoroughly in bed with one another in Japan's major population centers... as long as the yakuza don't cause trouble in the open, the officials don't care what they do beneath the surface. It's tradition, lol. Well, my point is that when the judge and jury are the same person and people aren't allowed representation, it isn't going to be like Ace Attorney, hahaha.

I absolutely loathe the variation where the protagonist ends up spending the entire game as a coach without ever really getting back on his feet. What's the point of a recovery that isn't a recovery? It's one of the three reasons I hate Aokana (along with the protagonist's reason for quitting being pathetic and all but one of the heroines being boring). It's one thing to find another way in life, but in that case, I want them to make a complete severing from the activity entirely. I don't want to see an entire route where he keeps looking back on the good 'ol days and wondering about what-ifs. About the only VNs that use this trope well are Walkure Romanze and Fake Azure Arcology (where the protagonist actually has a huge heap of traumas that make it feel real). Edit: Oh, the protag of Kizuna Kirameku Koi Iroha is really solidly behind his own decision to give up competing. It was a decision he made for the right reasons and is mostly at peace with. However, it isn't quite the same thing, lol.

Lots of familiar games in that list... but nothing I really want to comment on. Most of them weren't memorable or are in English already, lol.

Might want to take the 'e' out of plotge. *smiles dryly* A small correction on moege vs charage... moege is a generalized term for all games that carry the 'stylized cuteness' that is 'moe'. As such, similar to charage, it is closer to an umbrella term than an actual genre. If one were to show a family tree, it would show that charage and nakige both come from moege but sometimes edge themselves out of the larger umbrella. Charage are a product of the mid-2000's, whereas moege and nakige first began to appear just before the turn of the century as they dragged themselves out from the nukige muck. Charage are essentially an evolution of moege born of the fans wanting deeper characterization and character interactions (as opposed to the purely surface-level interactions that were common early on). Tsukihime created the chuunige genre, though most people consider Dies Irae the flagship game of the genre as a whole (as in, the one that went the farthest off the deep end, lol). One stipulation about utsuge and nakige... the greatest difference between a nakige and and utsuge lies in the endings. Nakige almost always have happy endings (there might be a bad ending or a normal ending, but these are exceptions). Their purpose lies in catharsis born of release from stress and joy in renewal. Utsuge, however, are essentially games with similar (but darker) themes that don't end well for the characters in general. There are supposedly two different 'levels' of utsuge, 'soft' and 'hard'. Soft utsuge tend to focus more on sorrow and loss, and they don't necessarily drive the characters off the edge, though the endings are sorrowful and/or bittersweet at best. A few examples of a soft utsuge are Konakana and Tapestry, both of which are focused on a protagonist with a terminal illness as he tries to come to terms with his inevitable death and what it will do to the people around him. 'Hard' utsuge are focused more on despair and extreme suffering. Swan Song is an obvious example of this 'level' of the genre in English, whereas Houkago no Futekikakusha is an ideal Japanese-only example. Even a 'hard' utsuge might have one ending with a certain level of salvation, but it usually comes at a massive emotional cost for both the reader and the characters involved.

This is a list of my favorite artificial (non-magical) heroines. The reason I thought this up was because I am currently replaying Komorebi no Nostalgica, which is pretty much the top for an AI-focused VN. Emmy from Akabanzu https://vndb.org/c42670 Akabanzu itself is an unusual game in that it is a charage focused on a protagonist being forcibly rehabilitated from game addiction. The AI in this game, Emmy, focuses on a support role, which makes for a surprisingly interesting (and comedic) story. She isn't one of my absolute favorites, but failing to note her would leave the ignorant with no way to know such a VN existed. Tsukuyomi from Kamikimi https://vndb.org/c85636 Tsukuyomi is a pretty interesting individual AI. Designed from the beginning to answer the protagonist's desires, she is somewhat... excessively enthusiastic about what she considers to be her duties. However, her story as a heroine and a side-character in the other routes is powerful, so I honestly consider her a good choice for a robot waifu. Himefuuro from Missing X-link https://vndb.org/c78927 Himefuuro is an AI designed to form empathic links with her master, one of two projects (the other conflict-oriented). I'll be straight and say she is a lot like a cross between an older sister who spoils her younger brother rotten, a psychological therapist, and a maid. Her role is rather unusual while at the same time being the epitome of what a young male with a scarred psyche would seek from an empathic AI. Accela from Reminiscence https://vndb.org/c12819 In the underground arcology that Reminiscence is based in, robots like Accela serve a number of service roles, and they have evolved a great deal since the age of Akagoei (which was centuries before). However, Accela is unusual in that her limiters (especially on emotional reactions) have been removed. She is the glue that keeps Aki and Hidetaka from breaking into pieces, a dear friend to Aki, and the holder of an emotional debt he won't even allow himself to speak of to Hidetaka. Fluorite Alvega of Komorebi no Nostalgica https://vndb.org/c11680 A member of a race of self-aware and independent AIs in the twenty-fifth century, she is straight-out a member of the 'group of friends' in the game, having grown up with them quite literally. She is still in the process of developing emotionally (a process that never really ends, apparently), and her mechanical origins are obvious by her choice of wording and mannerisms. However, she does display emotion (if subtly) and cares about her friends (and Shouta in particular) greatly. As the member of a publicly-acknowledged machine race with equal rights to humans, she is unique on this list. Neueblau T MILLA of Re:Birth Colony https://vndb.org/c44998 An AI 'child' born of the genius of a single scientist and grown inside a partially biological body, she is unusual on this list that while her origins are entirely artificial, she is nonetheless partially biological. She is an agent and diplomat for another arcology, and she acts as such, partly out of her duty to search out and handle dangers born of pre-Disaster projects. As a lover, there is little difference between her and the average human, save that she can switch bodies at need. Her older sister is married to the protagonist of Fake Azure Arcology in the story's canon and is also an AI. Misora of Shiawase Kazoku-bu https://vndb.org/c23258 What can I say about Misora? Think 'standard-issue anime robot heroine' and you won't be far off. The game itself is more notable than her, similar to Akabanzu. Ripple of Aekanaru Sekai no Owari ni https://vndb.org/c58825 The mischievous AI main character and main heroine of the sci-fi VN Aekanaru Sekai no Owari ni. I could say a lot about her, but not without spoiling the game. The game gets mixed reviews from those who like this kind of thing (mostly because of its age), but Ripple is a pretty good AI heroine, if one that is less 'convenient' as a heroine than most (you'll understand what I mean if you play the game). There are other AI heroines out there (many of whom I have probably forgotten or don't consider to be heroines) but these are the ones that came to mind when I asked myself about AI heroines from games I could feel safe recommending.

The 'fake girlfriend' trope. I want this one to die forever. It is the most idiotic trope in existence. It never has non-embarrassing-to-watch results. The 'reform the protagonist' trope. This one pops up in a lot of games where the protagonist has a dark past or a hidden job that requires some dirty work, and it usually has the heroine trying to 'reform' him in various ways. It annoys me about every time it pops up. I usually like the protagonist just as he is in cases like this, lol. I don't have any problems with the arranged marriage trope myself. It doesn't happen often enough anymore to be a major issue outside of ojousama-ge, where it is standard fare. Heroine has to move away happens even less often... maybe one in forty new VNs have this one pop up nowadays. Incurable disease is relatively common, with nakige in particular having a tendency to rely on this trope (without the heroine dying, of course). However, it is also a matter of execution (lol)... The incurable disease trope is something that has to be used intelligently and believably to work. Dekinai Watashi ga, Kurikaesu; Inochi no Spare; Tapestry; Kin'iro Loveriche; and Konakana all use this trope effectively to tell their stories. However, there are just as many who plop it down just for the hell of it, so I see where you are coming from.

Mmm... I'm going to be clear that the idea behind this has me a bit skeptical. I'm going to state my reasons below. 1. The Nazis didn't make exceptions for 'useful' Jewish people. During the war, while individuals might shelter or help a Jewish individual escape from the pogrom, you didn't see them being spared from the camps or execution in the open. 2. People who get involved in the kind of dogma you see here don't change their minds easily. A three hour VN wouldn't provide a 'feels real' experience for a Nazi party member from that era changing their colors, no matter how you worked it. Even more so with people in positions of authority, since the party of the era selected loyalists for positions of any sort of influence, and people who showed any sign of wavering didn't make it up through the ranks. This is even more so with women, since women in positions of influence (rare to the extreme) were usually 'mothers of the Aryan Race'. 3. This is a reinforcement of 2, in that it needs to be stated that logical arguments do not change the minds of dogmatists. 4. Timing. This is really, really bad timing. With what is going on right now, Nazi-related fiction is radioactive. It doesn't matter how you handle it, it will backfire against you. Edit: To clarify, I'm not trying to be a jerk about this. I'm merely warning you that this is likely to be the reaction from people who really think about your game's concept. My advice is to eliminate the romantic elements completely or cut out one of the heroines.

There is a reason that this is considered to be one of Akatsuki Works two weakest chuunige (Shiden being the other). I could go into all sorts of detail on this, but the fact is that its weakest points are its prologue and its protagonist. With chuunige, h-scenes are a crapshoot, so I don't even consider it worthy of remark.