Clephas

Now, this is one of those games where the Getchu description and the one on the site don't represent the reality. 
First, this game is a straight-out comedy.  The protagonist is a 'classic baka', a character who is easily distracted, daydreams about convenient scenarios with cute females, and generally makes trouble without meaning to.  Because of his perspective, the game is pretty high pace (and not really in a good way).
The heroines include:
Chuuni Hime- A real princess from another world who is the master of the renovated love hotel that is the central stage for the story.  She is apparently a genius and a great leader... but you would never be able to tell that from the pictures of her daily life.  She is a heavy gamer (doesn't leave her room for days at a time), and she has little interest in fulfilling her stated purpose for coming to Earth.  She has a real name, but nobody uses it.
Lagunaseca- Chuuni Hime's dark elven maid.  She is a workaholic.  Seriously, that is literally the entirety of her personality.  Her only reason for living is to give of herself to others, so she is literally incapable of considering a life outside of service.  She works several part-time jobs to feed the princess, and she only sleeps three hours a day.
Stella- Stella is a rather naive young knight from the same world as Chuuni Hime and in her direct service.  She was raised on stories of female knights being raped by tentacles and orcs, along with falls into pleasure and mind break, and as a result, she is extremely... weak.  She is terrible with a sword... so much so that she is liable to trip over it when she tries to draw it out.  Since she came to Earth, she has become a light novel author, and when her editor gets onto her, she locks herself in a defunct fridge. 
Suzuka- The only earthling amongst the heroines (ironically so) and the protagonist's childhood friend.  She has a terrible case of chuunibyou (think wearing a black cape in summer and transforming her room into an alchemist's workshop), and... that is about the entirety of her personality.  Unless you get on her route, she is almost a non-entity throughout the game. 
I'm going to be blunt... this game actually starts out fairly well, but as a whole, it is very... not worth the money I put down for it. 
The first reason is the writing.  For some reason, this writer fails utterly to do anything other than the comedy right.  Even momentarily serious or romantic scenes flop (at least partly because Masaki doesn't have the brains to carry those scenes off right) badly, and because of that, it becomes hard to even enjoy the humorous scenes. 
The second reason is the artwork.  I'm going to be blunt... this game's CG's and sprites are very... low budget.  It isn't noticeable for a non-art-bigot such as myself at first, but it became bloody obvious when it came to the h-scenes and the few scenes granted a CG.  If this game had been made in 2008, I probably wouldn't have noticed anything wrong, but for a game that is being sold at right about the average price for a VN on today's commercial market, that is a huge downer.
The third, and probably the most fatal reason, is the music and voice acting.  The soundtrack for this game is... terrible.  However, that could be forgiven if it weren't for the unusual fact that this game's makers managed to botch the voice-acting.  Most of the voices in this game are horrible, with the notable exceptions of Chuuni Hime and Suzuka.  I'm going to be blunt... considering how long ago they announced this game, it is ridiculous that this low level of quality in an area where the industry standard is about as level as it is possible for what is essentially an 'art' can even exist.  All of the VAs are established names, so it is silly to make excuses about the quality of the actors.  No, this had to be a massive direction and/or production failure. 
My conclusion is that, while the concept wasn't bad, the execution for this game was downright horrible. 

Now, this is one of those games where the Getchu description and the one on the site don't represent the reality. 
First, this game is a straight-out comedy.  The protagonist is a 'classic baka', a character who is easily distracted, daydreams about convenient scenarios with cute females, and generally makes trouble without meaning to.  Because of his perspective, the game is pretty high pace (and not really in a good way).
The heroines include:
Chuuni Hime- A real princess from another world who is the master of the renovated love hotel that is the central stage for the story.  She is apparently a genius and a great leader... but you would never be able to tell that from the pictures of her daily life.  She is a heavy gamer (doesn't leave her room for days at a time), and she has little interest in fulfilling her stated purpose for coming to Earth.  She has a real name, but nobody uses it.
Lagunaseca- Chuuni Hime's dark elven maid.  She is a workaholic.  Seriously, that is literally the entirety of her personality.  Her only reason for living is to give of herself to others, so she is literally incapable of considering a life outside of service.  She works several part-time jobs to feed the princess, and she only sleeps three hours a day.
Stella- Stella is a rather naive young knight from the same world as Chuuni Hime and in her direct service.  She was raised on stories of female knights being raped by tentacles and orcs, along with falls into pleasure and mind break, and as a result, she is extremely... weak.  She is terrible with a sword... so much so that she is liable to trip over it when she tries to draw it out.  Since she came to Earth, she has become a light novel author, and when her editor gets onto her, she locks herself in a defunct fridge. 
Suzuka- The only earthling amongst the heroines (ironically so) and the protagonist's childhood friend.  She has a terrible case of chuunibyou (think wearing a black cape in summer and transforming her room into an alchemist's workshop), and... that is about the entirety of her personality.  Unless you get on her route, she is almost a non-entity throughout the game. 
I'm going to be blunt... this game actually starts out fairly well, but as a whole, it is very... not worth the money I put down for it. 
The first reason is the writing.  For some reason, this writer fails utterly to do anything other than the comedy right.  Even momentarily serious or romantic scenes flop (at least partly because Masaki doesn't have the brains to carry those scenes off right) badly, and because of that, it becomes hard to even enjoy the humorous scenes. 
The second reason is the artwork.  I'm going to be blunt... this game's CG's and sprites are very... low budget.  It isn't noticeable for a non-art-bigot such as myself at first, but it became bloody obvious when it came to the h-scenes and the few scenes granted a CG.  If this game had been made in 2008, I probably wouldn't have noticed anything wrong, but for a game that is being sold at right about the average price for a VN on today's commercial market, that is a huge downer.
The third, and probably the most fatal reason, is the music and voice acting.  The soundtrack for this game is... terrible.  However, that could be forgiven if it weren't for the unusual fact that this game's makers managed to botch the voice-acting.  Most of the voices in this game are horrible, with the notable exceptions of Chuuni Hime and Suzuka.  I'm going to be blunt... considering how long ago they announced this game, it is ridiculous that this low level of quality in an area where the industry standard is about as level as it is possible for what is essentially an 'art' can even exist.  All of the VAs are established names, so it is silly to make excuses about the quality of the actors.  No, this had to be a massive direction and/or production failure. 
My conclusion is that, while the concept wasn't bad, the execution for this game was downright horrible. 

I honestly normally wouldn't bother explaining why I choose not to play a given VN in a given month, but with Hooksoft games, given their rather high popularity, there is a real need for me to say something.
First, I don't like Hooksoft games.  They are written well, are visually pretty, and generally have moe-stimulating heroines.  However, they are also perfect examples of every reason I can find not to bother with the genre at times.  The characters are cute, there is plenty of ichaicha and slice of life... and the protagonists, no matter their role, are always just 'normal guys'. 
This game, in particular, managed to make me lose interest inside the prologue, where most VNs manage to catch my interest.  The simple reason is that the protagonist's accomplishments have already occurred in the past, and all that is left is for him to literally pick one of the girls from his harem of the school's best beauties. 
To me, this felt right off the bat like a cheap excuse to avoid relationship formation issues.  Within the first thirty minutes, all of the girls have confessed their love to him, on one level or another, and he is put into the position of picking one of them. 
I'm going to say this straight out... I loathe this pattern.  If they'd gone through the student council election campaign in the prologue and hit this in the first or second chapter, I probably woold have been willing to forgive a lot more, but the decision to start in the middle of things was a seriously poor one in this case.
As such, I absolutely had to drop this one, as it kept putting me to sleep.

First, I should mention that my original review of the first Hataraku Otona didn’t really do it justice. Oh, I mentioned what I liked about it, but I was busy as hell that month, so it was what amounts to a short commentary. As such, I’m going to go into more detail this time around.
Hataraku Otona 2 is the second game in the series (if you exclude the spin-off Hataraku Otaku no Ren’ai Jijou). The characters from the original game return as side characters, several years older, and it isn’t made clear who Oga Itsuki ended up with (though there are hints that it might be a harem situation, lol). Similar to Itsuki, the new protagonist is a socially inept salaryman at the same company (one of Itsuki’s subordinates, actually), who receives advice from Itsuki almost identical to that Itsuki himself received from his immediate superior in the original game. As a result, he sets out to try to turn his life around, seeking more connections with others and actively seeking to find a girlfriend.
Like the original game, the protagonist holds several one-night stands in the common route that both help give him confidence and help him grow as a character (since he honestly liked each of the women as people, even if they weren’t in love). However, the same as the original, it is inevitable that some will bash this game because the protagonist isn’t a lily-pure ‘one woman, one lover’ man (seriously...pfft).
The common route is perhaps a bit shorter than the average charage common route (though not by much), and mostly serves as a very basic introduction to the heroines (extremely basic). Most of the character development for the heroines is done in their paths.
Asahi
Asahi was an odd choice for my first heroine in this game. Normally, I’m not interested in ‘genkikko’, and I almost headed for Suzune instead. However, in retrospect, I don’t regret choosing her for the first heroine.
Asahi is a part-timer at her father’s izakaya (Japanese-style restaurant/bar) and several other places who always has a smile on her face. She is well-liked by the customers and is generally about as good at customer service as it is possible to be.
What I was startled by in this path is the sheer sensitivity with which her true character is slowly brought forth during her relationship with the protagonist. I honestly cried with Asahi when her emotions finally came out into the open, and I watched through the protagonist’s eyes as he waited for her to rely on him. The end result was also immensely satisfying, and I was surprised not to regret a single moment of reading the ichaicha in this path.
Suzune
Suzune is the newbie bartender at ‘Tama’ (the bar that is the central location for many of the events in both games). Her manner is refined and her movements graceful, but, unfortunately for her, she is one of those people who can get drunk on the fumes.
Suzune’s path is significantly weaker than Asahi’s, and it is in some ways a rehashing of Miyu’s path from the first game… watered down. Like Miyu, Suzune has parental issues, and those issues, rather than her interactions with the protagonist, are the center of the path’s events. Unfortunately, the problem is solved quickly and with no real build up (this is the weak point, compared to Asahi’s path), and I honestly felt that this path was handled much less sensitively than Asahi’s, to my disappointment.
Sora
Sora is a hikikomori working at her grandfather’s old book store (old book store as in antique books). She has trouble talking or meeting other peoples’ eyes, and she is very psychologically weak.
Predictably, her path is all about breaking out of the vicious cycle of hikikomori-ism… and she does grow quite a bit during the path. However, the pacing in this path is… not very good. Up until right before the end, it feels fine, but the game all of the sudden cuts to the ending right after what should have been her ‘turning point’. As such, it felt like the story lacked a real climax and was just an excuse for six h-scenes, lol.
Rikako
Rikako is a cheery, strong-willed nurse the protagonist meets when visiting Itsuki (the protagonist from the first game) in the hospital. Easygoing and generous on the surface, she is actually very much a straight arrow, and being a nurse is not just a job to her but a calling.
She is the oldest of the heroines (the second oldest, to my surprise, being Sora), being almost thirty. Her route is, given her job, predictably focused around the difficulty of matching a nurse’s irregular schedule with that of a lover. While there is little in the way of extreme drama, it hits all the points you would expect when it comes to a romance between a salaryman and a nurse.
Manami
Manami is one of the protagonist’s coworkers, sitting at the desk next to his. She is a shy and serious young woman with a slight hesitation to her speech patterns that seems to be a product of a generalized low sense of self-esteem.
Her path is my second favorite in this VN. Like Asahi’s path, it is written very well, and the emotions of both characters are portrayed with the utmost effectiveness. Manami grows a lot as a character in this story, and by the end she is almost a completely different person, in some ways. She quickly became the type of heroine you just have to cheer on.
Bad Ending
Yes, there is a bad ending in this game, and I went through the trouble of getting it as my third path…
This path is essentially one long series of one-night stands, adultery, and the like… a path where the protagonist never finds love. It ends… in a rather startling manner, to say the least.
Conclusions
There are a few negative issues with this VN. The first is that the writer gave a lot more emphasis to Manami’s, Asahi’s, and Rikako’s paths than the remaining two (believe me, it is noticeable). The second is that certain parts of the dating portions are completely patternized (to be specific, there is a beach scene/beach h-scene at about the same relatively point in every path). This is a huge negative, as it pulls you out of your vicarious experience with the heroine you are pursuing at the time. The last point is that the protagonist is definitely a cipher, unlike Itsuki from the first game. Sadly, while his basic personality remains the same from path to path (sincere, persistently caring, mildly shy, high sex drive), I can honestly say he doesn’t really grow as a person in any of the paths… and you never really get to understand him as a whole, round character like you did Itsuki from the first game.
On the other hand, this game does exactly what it advertises it will do… provide you with slice of life romance in an adult setting. That is a rare benefit, and -despite the negatives – this game does it relatively well. I honestly enjoyed playing this game, but I also saw numerous points at which it could have been improved by avoiding the patternizing I mentioned above.

 

The Otoboku series is often put forward as a prime example of a sub-genre that first gained popularity about eight years ago... the 'trap protagonist in a girl's school' type.  However, there are a number of aspects that make this series a bit unique... or at least make them feel unique.
One is their protagonists... despite their differences in personality and upbringing, all three protagonists end up taking a similar role in the common route, even aside from the 'Elder' issue.  To be straight about it, the Taishou-era 'oneesama' concept, where girls in an isolated environment form half-romantic relationships with older girls, is the biggest influence on these games.  The odd irony of a trap playing the same role as one of those 'oneesama' characters often had me smiling in humor and exasperation, but for some strange reason, Takaya Aya seems to make it work every time. 
Another aspect of these games that is unique is the rather blunt way each of the games portrays the 'old wealthy families' of Japan's attitude toward their females, as well as the attitude of the 'new rich' toward them as well.  Despite skepticism on the part of some when I've mentioned this in the past, it has to be noted that the wealthy in Japan still frequently use arranged marriages to form connections and incorporate capable individuals into the top of family-run businesses.  The former kazoku families, in particular, obsessively arrange the marriages of their children due to traditions going back over a thousand years (including a tradition of ignoring commoner's 'common sense').  While the most recent game is a bit lighter on that issue, you'll still hit it in several of the paths and even in the common route (though the common route is more like a gentle manipulation to try to stick two people together). 
Last of all, in every one of these games, at some point, gossip gets out of hand and causes at least some of the characters to suffer.  This is actually a common thing in games based in girl's schools, but the way Takaya handles it is generally more interesting and emphasizes the isolated nature of the gender-restricted environment.
All of this comes together to create a game that has a deliberate atmosphere of 'isolation from societal norms', one of Takaya's favorite themes in his games (every single one of this games does this, regardless of who he is working for at the time).  For this reason, the series has a rather unique 'taste' to it that isn't quite matched by any of the other similar games I've played.

The Otoboku series is often put forward as a prime example of a sub-genre that first gained popularity about eight years ago... the 'trap protagonist in a girl's school' type.  However, there are a number of aspects that make this series a bit unique... or at least make them feel unique.
One is their protagonists... despite their differences in personality and upbringing, all three protagonists end up taking a similar role in the common route, even aside from the 'Elder' issue.  To be straight about it, the Taishou-era 'oneesama' concept, where girls in an isolated environment form half-romantic relationships with older girls, is the biggest influence on these games.  The odd irony of a trap playing the same role as one of those 'oneesama' characters often had me smiling in humor and exasperation, but for some strange reason, Takaya Aya seems to make it work every time. 
Another aspect of these games that is unique is the rather blunt way each of the games portrays the 'old wealthy families' of Japan's attitude toward their females, as well as the attitude of the 'new rich' toward them as well.  Despite skepticism on the part of some when I've mentioned this in the past, it has to be noted that the wealthy in Japan still frequently use arranged marriages to form connections and incorporate capable individuals into the top of family-run businesses.  The former kazoku families, in particular, obsessively arrange the marriages of their children due to traditions going back over a thousand years (including a tradition of ignoring commoner's 'common sense').  While the most recent game is a bit lighter on that issue, you'll still hit it in several of the paths and even in the common route (though the common route is more like a gentle manipulation to try to stick two people together). 
Last of all, in every one of these games, at some point, gossip gets out of hand and causes at least some of the characters to suffer.  This is actually a common thing in games based in girl's schools, but the way Takaya handles it is generally more interesting and emphasizes the isolated nature of the gender-restricted environment.
All of this comes together to create a game that has a deliberate atmosphere of 'isolation from societal norms', one of Takaya's favorite themes in his games (every single one of this games does this, regardless of who he is working for at the time).  For this reason, the series has a rather unique 'taste' to it that isn't quite matched by any of the other similar games I've played.

The Otoboku series is often put forward as a prime example of a sub-genre that first gained popularity about eight years ago... the 'trap protagonist in a girl's school' type.  However, there are a number of aspects that make this series a bit unique... or at least make them feel unique.
One is their protagonists... despite their differences in personality and upbringing, all three protagonists end up taking a similar role in the common route, even aside from the 'Elder' issue.  To be straight about it, the Taishou-era 'oneesama' concept, where girls in an isolated environment form half-romantic relationships with older girls, is the biggest influence on these games.  The odd irony of a trap playing the same role as one of those 'oneesama' characters often had me smiling in humor and exasperation, but for some strange reason, Takaya Aya seems to make it work every time. 
Another aspect of these games that is unique is the rather blunt way each of the games portrays the 'old wealthy families' of Japan's attitude toward their females, as well as the attitude of the 'new rich' toward them as well.  Despite skepticism on the part of some when I've mentioned this in the past, it has to be noted that the wealthy in Japan still frequently use arranged marriages to form connections and incorporate capable individuals into the top of family-run businesses.  The former kazoku families, in particular, obsessively arrange the marriages of their children due to traditions going back over a thousand years (including a tradition of ignoring commoner's 'common sense').  While the most recent game is a bit lighter on that issue, you'll still hit it in several of the paths and even in the common route (though the common route is more like a gentle manipulation to try to stick two people together). 
Last of all, in every one of these games, at some point, gossip gets out of hand and causes at least some of the characters to suffer.  This is actually a common thing in games based in girl's schools, but the way Takaya handles it is generally more interesting and emphasizes the isolated nature of the gender-restricted environment.
All of this comes together to create a game that has a deliberate atmosphere of 'isolation from societal norms', one of Takaya's favorite themes in his games (every single one of this games does this, regardless of who he is working for at the time).  For this reason, the series has a rather unique 'taste' to it that isn't quite matched by any of the other similar games I've played.

The Otoboku series is often put forward as a prime example of a sub-genre that first gained popularity about eight years ago... the 'trap protagonist in a girl's school' type.  However, there are a number of aspects that make this series a bit unique... or at least make them feel unique.
One is their protagonists... despite their differences in personality and upbringing, all three protagonists end up taking a similar role in the common route, even aside from the 'Elder' issue.  To be straight about it, the Taishou-era 'oneesama' concept, where girls in an isolated environment form half-romantic relationships with older girls, is the biggest influence on these games.  The odd irony of a trap playing the same role as one of those 'oneesama' characters often had me smiling in humor and exasperation, but for some strange reason, Takaya Aya seems to make it work every time. 
Another aspect of these games that is unique is the rather blunt way each of the games portrays the 'old wealthy families' of Japan's attitude toward their females, as well as the attitude of the 'new rich' toward them as well.  Despite skepticism on the part of some when I've mentioned this in the past, it has to be noted that the wealthy in Japan still frequently use arranged marriages to form connections and incorporate capable individuals into the top of family-run businesses.  The former kazoku families, in particular, obsessively arrange the marriages of their children due to traditions going back over a thousand years (including a tradition of ignoring commoner's 'common sense').  While the most recent game is a bit lighter on that issue, you'll still hit it in several of the paths and even in the common route (though the common route is more like a gentle manipulation to try to stick two people together). 
Last of all, in every one of these games, at some point, gossip gets out of hand and causes at least some of the characters to suffer.  This is actually a common thing in games based in girl's schools, but the way Takaya handles it is generally more interesting and emphasizes the isolated nature of the gender-restricted environment.
All of this comes together to create a game that has a deliberate atmosphere of 'isolation from societal norms', one of Takaya's favorite themes in his games (every single one of this games does this, regardless of who he is working for at the time).  For this reason, the series has a rather unique 'taste' to it that isn't quite matched by any of the other similar games I've played.

I apologize if this post seems a bit disjointed, but this game was long enough that I felt a need to write as I finished the paths.
First, Otoboku 3, as the nickname implies, is the third game in the series begun with the original Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru. Unlike the previous two games, which were based in the same school, this is based in a sister school a few years after the original game (probably a few years after Futari no Elder, which apparently happened about a year after the events of the original). The biggest proof of this is that Shion, from the original game, is a teacher of several years experience at the school the protagonist attends (meaning that at least four, most likely five years passed, plus the several years of experience… so probably about eight years after the original).
The protagonist, Hisoka, is a young orphan who was raised by a friend of his parents to serve the game’s main heroine, Orihime. Hisoka is… one of those characters who can literally do just about everything to a certain extent. He can fight, he gets the highest grades, he can play piano (and pipe organs), he can cook (and do any other form of housework perfectly), and he can even draw.
He does have one huge personality flaw though… he is one of those protagonists who completely disregards his own needs, always putting others before himself. This is what gets him trapped into becoming Orihime’s bodyguard… while attending the girl’s academy with her.
He tries to live quietly, but that doesn’t last long (since Orihime instantly takes a liking to him). Before long, he is one of the three Elder Stars of the school (rofl, first it was one Elder, then 2, and now it is three of them… a bit obvious, isn’t it?). Being kind-hearted and perceptive, he ends up capturing the heart of just about every girl in the school, none of which know he is a guy.
Now, I should say that the common route of this game is… loooooooooong. In fact, it is even longer than that of Futari no Elder, which was pretty long itself… longer than Grisaia no Kajitsu’s common route, for that matter. As such, this isn’t a game for those looking for a quick common route followed by romance and sex galore. The sexual content in this game is actually quite low, lol.
I’m going to be straight with you… if you played Futari no Elder and enjoyed it, you’ll probably enjoy this one. The atmosphere is pretty close to identical, the protagonist’s role is identical to the previous two games, and probably the biggest difference is that this game is based somewhat later on in the same timeline. The reason this is important is because the game doesn’t ignore the real world… and as a result, the setting doesn’t allow for the kind of completely-closed environment the previous two games essentially were (in other words, far fewer of the characters are ‘ojousama’).
There is also one other thing that differs from the previous two games… this one has a much, much bigger emphasis on ‘slice-of-life as the story’. To be blunt, ninety percent of this game is Hisoka dealing with the various characters’ personal issues on one level or another while going about her daily business. While the same can be said, to an extent, about the first two games, the first two games also had a much more extensive focus on the heroines (longer individual heroine paths).
There are two main heroines in this game (well, obvious ones, anyway), Orihime and Mirei. Orihime is a pushy princess type, who has just been given a year of freedom after following orders her whole life. Mirei is your classic ‘new rich ojousama who is embarassed by/dislikes her father/parents’. She is sharp-edged, has an inferiority complex, but she nonetheless finds it impossible not to like the protagonist (there was one of these in both the previous games, lol).
Orihime’s ‘whim of steel’ is her defining trait throughout the game (partially encouraged by Hisoka). This continues into her path and is accompanied by her tendency toward ‘classical romanticism’ when it comes to falling in love (knight in shining armor BS).
Mirei’s growth during the game is perhaps the most obvious of the heroines, because she starts out as a living mass of inferiority complexes, defiance toward her position in life, and jealousy. The fact that, underneath all those negative aspects, she is actually fundamentally a good person (if somewhat dry and cynical by nature), is something that gradually comes to the surface during the course of the story. Mirei’s path is stand-alone, and it can be said that it has the strongest independent character development of all the paths in the game. There are several reasons I can think of for this, but the main one is that Mirei, due to her position at the school and as an individual, spends less time around Hisoka than the other heroines (most of the other ones aggressively seek Hisoka out or live in the same dorm).
Hana takes the same role as Kana-chan and Fumi from the previous two games, being the protagonist’s ‘imouto’ at the school. She is very devoted and innocent, but her clumsiness makes her an object of constant humor and moe for the people around her. Hana’s path splits off from somewhere just short of the midpoint of Mirei’s path. As a heroine, she is easily the weakest of the group (this can be said of her predecessors, Fumi and Kana as well), as she spends most of the game essentially being an appendage of the protagonist, her role almost exclusively involving making him look good (to be a bit overly blunt, lol). As such, she was the last heroine I chose to follow (I wrote the character intros before I actually played the paths).  This path, unlike most of the others, has little in the way of 'outer influences' to create drama.  This is because Hana is essentially a 'normal' girl.  To be honest, I don't like the way that Takaya excessively modeled certain of this path's aspects after that of Kana's from the original Otoboku (though there is no attempt to grasp for tears in this one).  It didn't really fit Hana's personality or character as a whole, though having Hana gain more confidence and take a more active role in her own life was a definite positive element.  Really, the best would have been to avoid having Hana as a heroine at all, but having the 'imouto' as a heroine has become an Otoboku tradition...
Ayame and Sumire are twins who share a route in this game. Sumire is serious and straightforward, even slightly uptight. She prefers to act on logic and have a rational basis for any action she takes. Ayame is more intuitive, an artist by nature. Sumire is the school president and Ayame is the student council secretary. Their path is a rare twin love path (one of my favorite types), but it is pretty clear from the beginning that Takaya didn’t take this path that seriously, since it is easily the weakest one in the game.
Ibara Kyouko is the protagonist’s collaborator and backup bodyguard, a young woman with a sharp tongue and a fondness for teasing Hana in particular and everyone else in general. She obviously has some kind of darkness in her past, but she is very weak to Hisoka in general, though she is good at hiding it (or at least better than everyone else, anyway). Her path splits off from Orihime’s path (literally, the two paths split off at the end, just before things spill over into romance), and the ending is fairly amusing, given the personalities of the three involved (sharp-tongued and logical Kyouko, the whimsical dreamer genius Orihime, and the natural mediator Hisoka).
Matsuri is the game’s resident yurufuwa heroine. She is a violinist in the middle of a slump, who was sent to the school (which doesn’t have a musical support program) to recover after she became unable to use her arm properly for reasons unknown. Like Ayame, she is an artist, but she is very soft-natured and slow to speak. She is also probably the ‘happiest’ heroine on the surface of things, as very little seems to get her down, at first glance (another quality she shares with Ayame from the twins). Her path is surprisingly long (of the individual paths, it is probably the third longest), and I honestly enjoyed having her as a heroine.
For the information of those who are interested, depending on which of the final choices you picked, you get a different set of scenes for summer vacation, and depending on what heroine you ‘picked’ (based on your choices as a whole), who the protagonist spends his free time with at the culture festival changes. This is pretty much the only major change made to the common route based on your choices before the heroine routes, which might bother some of you.
For the most part, the endings in this game meet my approval, showing the characters years later, as opposed to merely just after the climax of the story. This applies even to the twins, who have the weakest path in the game. This is probably because the common route ends only a few months before graduation for Hisoka and the other third year students…
The writing in this came, as is par for the course with any game written by Takaya Aya, is first-class. Despite this game mostly being slice-of-life, I can’t really all it a charage or a moege, since not one scene in this game is meaningless, for all its immense length.
Visually, this game is Caramel Box to the core. If you like Caramel Box’s visual style, you’ll like the artwork. Otherwise, you won’t.
Musically, this game reuses some tracks from the previous Otoboku games, but I honestly only noticed this because I compared it on a whim. The important thing is that the music is used quite well.
It should be noted that about 1/3 of Hisoka’s lines are voiced, which is about standard for all of the recent works from Caramel Box and is effective for helping create Hisoka’s character and give life to him.
Overall, this is a first-class game. In some ways, it falls short of Futari no Elder… but Futari no Elder was something of a miracle kamige, so that was inevitable. I do wish that they’d spent more time on the individual heroine paths, but the degree to which the characters were developed in the course of the common route really made long heroine paths unnecessary. Oh, incidentally… I wish Miimi was a heroine, since she was my favorite character. I also loved her narration during the play scene.

 

Well, as of thirty-nine minutes ago, it is officially my birthday (as of the time I checked at the beginning of making this post).  I have a lot of things to reflect on this year. 
I am now thirty-six, settling into the beginnings of middle-age, knowing my lifestyle will probably kill me before I hit fifty. 
I'm a sugar addict, I love fatty foods, I make my own alcoholic drinks (this year, a mixed fruit wine that actually turned out well and was much easier than the rum and hard root beer I did last year). 
I sit on my ass eighty percent of the time, I am hugely fat...
... and I'm surprisingly happy.  I won't say I don't have my down moments.  Looking back, I regret not going for more athletic pursuits while my knees and back could still stand them.  I regret not trying for a more regular and less... frustrating line of work.  However, I can honestly say that, for all its frustrations, I actually seem to like being a fat, balding otaku who has pretensions at being  some kind of VN guru (lol).
I do wish that I could fit into a plane seat, lol.  If I ever go to Japan, it is going to have to be a sea trip, since buying two plane tickets for one person is both embarrassing and more than a little expensive.
I hate my work, but I'm good at it and, in good times, it pays well, so I keep doing it.
So what would I change? 
Honestly, it is hard to say.  I won't pretend I'm all love and joy when it comes to life.  I have too much toxic waste going through my brain for that (I just happened to have gained just enough maturity not to feed the trolls constantly *smiles dryly*).  I'm fundamentally a passive person once I set foot outside my hobbies, preferring not to do anything I don't absolutely have to do.  I'm also negative and misanthropic... but is that stuff I actually want to change?
*shrugs*
I've never been any other way, so it is impossible to say.  However, every year I hit this day and wonder what could have been, which probably says everything that needs to be said about my experiences with life, for all my proclamations of relative happiness.
 

I apologize if this post seems a bit disjointed, but this game was long enough that I felt a need to write as I finished the paths.
First, Otoboku 3, as the nickname implies, is the third game in the series begun with the original Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru. Unlike the previous two games, which were based in the same school, this is based in a sister school a few years after the original game (probably a few years after Futari no Elder, which apparently happened about a year after the events of the original). The biggest proof of this is that Shion, from the original game, is a teacher of several years experience at the school the protagonist attends (meaning that at least four, most likely five years passed, plus the several years of experience… so probably about eight years after the original).
The protagonist, Hisoka, is a young orphan who was raised by a friend of his parents to serve the game’s main heroine, Orihime. Hisoka is… one of those characters who can literally do just about everything to a certain extent. He can fight, he gets the highest grades, he can play piano (and pipe organs), he can cook (and do any other form of housework perfectly), and he can even draw.
He does have one huge personality flaw though… he is one of those protagonists who completely disregards his own needs, always putting others before himself. This is what gets him trapped into becoming Orihime’s bodyguard… while attending the girl’s academy with her.
He tries to live quietly, but that doesn’t last long (since Orihime instantly takes a liking to him). Before long, he is one of the three Elder Stars of the school (rofl, first it was one Elder, then 2, and now it is three of them… a bit obvious, isn’t it?). Being kind-hearted and perceptive, he ends up capturing the heart of just about every girl in the school, none of which know he is a guy.
Now, I should say that the common route of this game is… loooooooooong. In fact, it is even longer than that of Futari no Elder, which was pretty long itself… longer than Grisaia no Kajitsu’s common route, for that matter. As such, this isn’t a game for those looking for a quick common route followed by romance and sex galore. The sexual content in this game is actually quite low, lol.
I’m going to be straight with you… if you played Futari no Elder and enjoyed it, you’ll probably enjoy this one. The atmosphere is pretty close to identical, the protagonist’s role is identical to the previous two games, and probably the biggest difference is that this game is based somewhat later on in the same timeline. The reason this is important is because the game doesn’t ignore the real world… and as a result, the setting doesn’t allow for the kind of completely-closed environment the previous two games essentially were (in other words, far fewer of the characters are ‘ojousama’).
There is also one other thing that differs from the previous two games… this one has a much, much bigger emphasis on ‘slice-of-life as the story’. To be blunt, ninety percent of this game is Hisoka dealing with the various characters’ personal issues on one level or another while going about her daily business. While the same can be said, to an extent, about the first two games, the first two games also had a much more extensive focus on the heroines (longer individual heroine paths).
There are two main heroines in this game (well, obvious ones, anyway), Orihime and Mirei. Orihime is a pushy princess type, who has just been given a year of freedom after following orders her whole life. Mirei is your classic ‘new rich ojousama who is embarassed by/dislikes her father/parents’. She is sharp-edged, has an inferiority complex, but she nonetheless finds it impossible not to like the protagonist (there was one of these in both the previous games, lol).
Orihime’s ‘whim of steel’ is her defining trait throughout the game (partially encouraged by Hisoka). This continues into her path and is accompanied by her tendency toward ‘classical romanticism’ when it comes to falling in love (knight in shining armor BS).
Mirei’s growth during the game is perhaps the most obvious of the heroines, because she starts out as a living mass of inferiority complexes, defiance toward her position in life, and jealousy. The fact that, underneath all those negative aspects, she is actually fundamentally a good person (if somewhat dry and cynical by nature), is something that gradually comes to the surface during the course of the story. Mirei’s path is stand-alone, and it can be said that it has the strongest independent character development of all the paths in the game. There are several reasons I can think of for this, but the main one is that Mirei, due to her position at the school and as an individual, spends less time around Hisoka than the other heroines (most of the other ones aggressively seek Hisoka out or live in the same dorm).
Hana takes the same role as Kana-chan and Fumi from the previous two games, being the protagonist’s ‘imouto’ at the school. She is very devoted and innocent, but her clumsiness makes her an object of constant humor and moe for the people around her. Hana’s path splits off from somewhere just short of the midpoint of Mirei’s path. As a heroine, she is easily the weakest of the group (this can be said of her predecessors, Fumi and Kana as well), as she spends most of the game essentially being an appendage of the protagonist, her role almost exclusively involving making him look good (to be a bit overly blunt, lol). As such, she was the last heroine I chose to follow (I wrote the character intros before I actually played the paths).  This path, unlike most of the others, has little in the way of 'outer influences' to create drama.  This is because Hana is essentially a 'normal' girl.  To be honest, I don't like the way that Takaya excessively modeled certain of this path's aspects after that of Kana's from the original Otoboku (though there is no attempt to grasp for tears in this one).  It didn't really fit Hana's personality or character as a whole, though having Hana gain more confidence and take a more active role in her own life was a definite positive element.  Really, the best would have been to avoid having Hana as a heroine at all, but having the 'imouto' as a heroine has become an Otoboku tradition...
Ayame and Sumire are twins who share a route in this game. Sumire is serious and straightforward, even slightly uptight. She prefers to act on logic and have a rational basis for any action she takes. Ayame is more intuitive, an artist by nature. Sumire is the school president and Ayame is the student council secretary. Their path is a rare twin love path (one of my favorite types), but it is pretty clear from the beginning that Takaya didn’t take this path that seriously, since it is easily the weakest one in the game.
Ibara Kyouko is the protagonist’s collaborator and backup bodyguard, a young woman with a sharp tongue and a fondness for teasing Hana in particular and everyone else in general. She obviously has some kind of darkness in her past, but she is very weak to Hisoka in general, though she is good at hiding it (or at least better than everyone else, anyway). Her path splits off from Orihime’s path (literally, the two paths split off at the end, just before things spill over into romance), and the ending is fairly amusing, given the personalities of the three involved (sharp-tongued and logical Kyouko, the whimsical dreamer genius Orihime, and the natural mediator Hisoka).
Matsuri is the game’s resident yurufuwa heroine. She is a violinist in the middle of a slump, who was sent to the school (which doesn’t have a musical support program) to recover after she became unable to use her arm properly for reasons unknown. Like Ayame, she is an artist, but she is very soft-natured and slow to speak. She is also probably the ‘happiest’ heroine on the surface of things, as very little seems to get her down, at first glance (another quality she shares with Ayame from the twins). Her path is surprisingly long (of the individual paths, it is probably the third longest), and I honestly enjoyed having her as a heroine.
For the information of those who are interested, depending on which of the final choices you picked, you get a different set of scenes for summer vacation, and depending on what heroine you ‘picked’ (based on your choices as a whole), who the protagonist spends his free time with at the culture festival changes. This is pretty much the only major change made to the common route based on your choices before the heroine routes, which might bother some of you.
For the most part, the endings in this game meet my approval, showing the characters years later, as opposed to merely just after the climax of the story. This applies even to the twins, who have the weakest path in the game. This is probably because the common route ends only a few months before graduation for Hisoka and the other third year students…
The writing in this came, as is par for the course with any game written by Takaya Aya, is first-class. Despite this game mostly being slice-of-life, I can’t really all it a charage or a moege, since not one scene in this game is meaningless, for all its immense length.
Visually, this game is Caramel Box to the core. If you like Caramel Box’s visual style, you’ll like the artwork. Otherwise, you won’t.
Musically, this game reuses some tracks from the previous Otoboku games, but I honestly only noticed this because I compared it on a whim. The important thing is that the music is used quite well.
It should be noted that about 1/3 of Hisoka’s lines are voiced, which is about standard for all of the recent works from Caramel Box and is effective for helping create Hisoka’s character and give life to him.
Overall, this is a first-class game. In some ways, it falls short of Futari no Elder… but Futari no Elder was something of a miracle kamige, so that was inevitable. I do wish that they’d spent more time on the individual heroine paths, but the degree to which the characters were developed in the course of the common route really made long heroine paths unnecessary. Oh, incidentally… I wish Miimi was a heroine, since she was my favorite character. I also loved her narration during the play scene.

 

I apologize if this post seems a bit disjointed, but this game was long enough that I felt a need to write as I finished the paths.
First, Otoboku 3, as the nickname implies, is the third game in the series begun with the original Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru. Unlike the previous two games, which were based in the same school, this is based in a sister school a few years after the original game (probably a few years after Futari no Elder, which apparently happened about a year after the events of the original). The biggest proof of this is that Shion, from the original game, is a teacher of several years experience at the school the protagonist attends (meaning that at least four, most likely five years passed, plus the several years of experience… so probably about eight years after the original).
The protagonist, Hisoka, is a young orphan who was raised by a friend of his parents to serve the game’s main heroine, Orihime. Hisoka is… one of those characters who can literally do just about everything to a certain extent. He can fight, he gets the highest grades, he can play piano (and pipe organs), he can cook (and do any other form of housework perfectly), and he can even draw.
He does have one huge personality flaw though… he is one of those protagonists who completely disregards his own needs, always putting others before himself. This is what gets him trapped into becoming Orihime’s bodyguard… while attending the girl’s academy with her.
He tries to live quietly, but that doesn’t last long (since Orihime instantly takes a liking to him). Before long, he is one of the three Elder Stars of the school (rofl, first it was one Elder, then 2, and now it is three of them… a bit obvious, isn’t it?). Being kind-hearted and perceptive, he ends up capturing the heart of just about every girl in the school, none of which know he is a guy.
Now, I should say that the common route of this game is… loooooooooong. In fact, it is even longer than that of Futari no Elder, which was pretty long itself… longer than Grisaia no Kajitsu’s common route, for that matter. As such, this isn’t a game for those looking for a quick common route followed by romance and sex galore. The sexual content in this game is actually quite low, lol.
I’m going to be straight with you… if you played Futari no Elder and enjoyed it, you’ll probably enjoy this one. The atmosphere is pretty close to identical, the protagonist’s role is identical to the previous two games, and probably the biggest difference is that this game is based somewhat later on in the same timeline. The reason this is important is because the game doesn’t ignore the real world… and as a result, the setting doesn’t allow for the kind of completely-closed environment the previous two games essentially were (in other words, far fewer of the characters are ‘ojousama’).
There is also one other thing that differs from the previous two games… this one has a much, much bigger emphasis on ‘slice-of-life as the story’. To be blunt, ninety percent of this game is Hisoka dealing with the various characters’ personal issues on one level or another while going about her daily business. While the same can be said, to an extent, about the first two games, the first two games also had a much more extensive focus on the heroines (longer individual heroine paths).
There are two main heroines in this game (well, obvious ones, anyway), Orihime and Mirei. Orihime is a pushy princess type, who has just been given a year of freedom after following orders her whole life. Mirei is your classic ‘new rich ojousama who is embarassed by/dislikes her father/parents’. She is sharp-edged, has an inferiority complex, but she nonetheless finds it impossible not to like the protagonist (there was one of these in both the previous games, lol).
Orihime’s ‘whim of steel’ is her defining trait throughout the game (partially encouraged by Hisoka). This continues into her path and is accompanied by her tendency toward ‘classical romanticism’ when it comes to falling in love (knight in shining armor BS).
Mirei’s growth during the game is perhaps the most obvious of the heroines, because she starts out as a living mass of inferiority complexes, defiance toward her position in life, and jealousy. The fact that, underneath all those negative aspects, she is actually fundamentally a good person (if somewhat dry and cynical by nature), is something that gradually comes to the surface during the course of the story. Mirei’s path is stand-alone, and it can be said that it has the strongest independent character development of all the paths in the game. There are several reasons I can think of for this, but the main one is that Mirei, due to her position at the school and as an individual, spends less time around Hisoka than the other heroines (most of the other ones aggressively seek Hisoka out or live in the same dorm).
Hana takes the same role as Kana-chan and Fumi from the previous two games, being the protagonist’s ‘imouto’ at the school. She is very devoted and innocent, but her clumsiness makes her an object of constant humor and moe for the people around her. Hana’s path splits off from somewhere just short of the midpoint of Mirei’s path. As a heroine, she is easily the weakest of the group (this can be said of her predecessors, Fumi and Kana as well), as she spends most of the game essentially being an appendage of the protagonist, her role almost exclusively involving making him look good (to be a bit overly blunt, lol). As such, she was the last heroine I chose to follow (I wrote the character intros before I actually played the paths).  This path, unlike most of the others, has little in the way of 'outer influences' to create drama.  This is because Hana is essentially a 'normal' girl.  To be honest, I don't like the way that Takaya excessively modeled certain of this path's aspects after that of Kana's from the original Otoboku (though there is no attempt to grasp for tears in this one).  It didn't really fit Hana's personality or character as a whole, though having Hana gain more confidence and take a more active role in her own life was a definite positive element.  Really, the best would have been to avoid having Hana as a heroine at all, but having the 'imouto' as a heroine has become an Otoboku tradition...
Ayame and Sumire are twins who share a route in this game. Sumire is serious and straightforward, even slightly uptight. She prefers to act on logic and have a rational basis for any action she takes. Ayame is more intuitive, an artist by nature. Sumire is the school president and Ayame is the student council secretary. Their path is a rare twin love path (one of my favorite types), but it is pretty clear from the beginning that Takaya didn’t take this path that seriously, since it is easily the weakest one in the game.
Ibara Kyouko is the protagonist’s collaborator and backup bodyguard, a young woman with a sharp tongue and a fondness for teasing Hana in particular and everyone else in general. She obviously has some kind of darkness in her past, but she is very weak to Hisoka in general, though she is good at hiding it (or at least better than everyone else, anyway). Her path splits off from Orihime’s path (literally, the two paths split off at the end, just before things spill over into romance), and the ending is fairly amusing, given the personalities of the three involved (sharp-tongued and logical Kyouko, the whimsical dreamer genius Orihime, and the natural mediator Hisoka).
Matsuri is the game’s resident yurufuwa heroine. She is a violinist in the middle of a slump, who was sent to the school (which doesn’t have a musical support program) to recover after she became unable to use her arm properly for reasons unknown. Like Ayame, she is an artist, but she is very soft-natured and slow to speak. She is also probably the ‘happiest’ heroine on the surface of things, as very little seems to get her down, at first glance (another quality she shares with Ayame from the twins). Her path is surprisingly long (of the individual paths, it is probably the third longest), and I honestly enjoyed having her as a heroine.
For the information of those who are interested, depending on which of the final choices you picked, you get a different set of scenes for summer vacation, and depending on what heroine you ‘picked’ (based on your choices as a whole), who the protagonist spends his free time with at the culture festival changes. This is pretty much the only major change made to the common route based on your choices before the heroine routes, which might bother some of you.
For the most part, the endings in this game meet my approval, showing the characters years later, as opposed to merely just after the climax of the story. This applies even to the twins, who have the weakest path in the game. This is probably because the common route ends only a few months before graduation for Hisoka and the other third year students…
The writing in this came, as is par for the course with any game written by Takaya Aya, is first-class. Despite this game mostly being slice-of-life, I can’t really all it a charage or a moege, since not one scene in this game is meaningless, for all its immense length.
Visually, this game is Caramel Box to the core. If you like Caramel Box’s visual style, you’ll like the artwork. Otherwise, you won’t.
Musically, this game reuses some tracks from the previous Otoboku games, but I honestly only noticed this because I compared it on a whim. The important thing is that the music is used quite well.
It should be noted that about 1/3 of Hisoka’s lines are voiced, which is about standard for all of the recent works from Caramel Box and is effective for helping create Hisoka’s character and give life to him.
Overall, this is a first-class game. In some ways, it falls short of Futari no Elder… but Futari no Elder was something of a miracle kamige, so that was inevitable. I do wish that they’d spent more time on the individual heroine paths, but the degree to which the characters were developed in the course of the common route really made long heroine paths unnecessary. Oh, incidentally… I wish Miimi was a heroine, since she was my favorite character. I also loved her narration during the play scene.

 

Well, as of thirty-nine minutes ago, it is officially my birthday (as of the time I checked at the beginning of making this post).  I have a lot of things to reflect on this year. 
I am now thirty-six, settling into the beginnings of middle-age, knowing my lifestyle will probably kill me before I hit fifty. 
I'm a sugar addict, I love fatty foods, I make my own alcoholic drinks (this year, a mixed fruit wine that actually turned out well and was much easier than the rum and hard root beer I did last year). 
I sit on my ass eighty percent of the time, I am hugely fat...
... and I'm surprisingly happy.  I won't say I don't have my down moments.  Looking back, I regret not going for more athletic pursuits while my knees and back could still stand them.  I regret not trying for a more regular and less... frustrating line of work.  However, I can honestly say that, for all its frustrations, I actually seem to like being a fat, balding otaku who has pretensions at being  some kind of VN guru (lol).
I do wish that I could fit into a plane seat, lol.  If I ever go to Japan, it is going to have to be a sea trip, since buying two plane tickets for one person is both embarrassing and more than a little expensive.
I hate my work, but I'm good at it and, in good times, it pays well, so I keep doing it.
So what would I change? 
Honestly, it is hard to say.  I won't pretend I'm all love and joy when it comes to life.  I have too much toxic waste going through my brain for that (I just happened to have gained just enough maturity not to feed the trolls constantly *smiles dryly*).  I'm fundamentally a passive person once I set foot outside my hobbies, preferring not to do anything I don't absolutely have to do.  I'm also negative and misanthropic... but is that stuff I actually want to change?
*shrugs*
I've never been any other way, so it is impossible to say.  However, every year I hit this day and wonder what could have been, which probably says everything that needs to be said about my experiences with life, for all my proclamations of relative happiness.
 

First, I should say that I disapprove of releasing visual novels in pieces.  I'm perfectly willing to wait three or four years for a good story, but I hate nothing more than being interrupted in the middle and having to wait another year for the next one. 
The habit of releasing VNs in chapters was a vice mostly restricted to doujin VNs in the past.  The more obvious reasons are people like me who hate having their stories interrupted, the previous dominance of physical media, and other issues.  However, as digital releases have become more common, companies have begun to try to find ways to suck more blood out of their readers without investing as much money.  The result has been a rash of fragmentary game releases, like Corona Blossom, Grisaia Phantom Trigger, and the Uso series by Campus.
Now, while I used them as an example, those are mostly positive examples.  All three constructed their 'pieces' so they could stand on their own.  Phantom Trigger takes an episodic approach, making each entry feel like an anime episode in a series or a novel in a series that does a good job of concluding the events of each entry, so that you don't become desperate waiting for the next.  The Uso series by Campus made each entry so that it stood on its own without needing previous knowledge of the other entries, despite their interlinked setting and characters.  These are probably the two best ways to approach micro-releasing VN stories... but in both cases, I would actually much prefer to read all the chapters at once, lol.
I say I hate micro-releases, but that is because I see VNs as game hybrids.  For me, I only want to invest money in a game once.  I hate subscriptions, I hate microtransactions, and I absolutely despise random additional (paying) content.  I can justify buying a season pass along with the game itself, but that is because it is a one-time transaction that gets me everything without having to concern myself with continuous pushing of bits and pieces of essentially worthless digital merchandise.
In other words, I hate that this has become more common because I instinctively fear the day when some 'brilliant genius' manages to incorporate true microtransactions into a pure VN.
 

Well, as of thirty-nine minutes ago, it is officially my birthday (as of the time I checked at the beginning of making this post).  I have a lot of things to reflect on this year. 
I am now thirty-six, settling into the beginnings of middle-age, knowing my lifestyle will probably kill me before I hit fifty. 
I'm a sugar addict, I love fatty foods, I make my own alcoholic drinks (this year, a mixed fruit wine that actually turned out well and was much easier than the rum and hard root beer I did last year). 
I sit on my ass eighty percent of the time, I am hugely fat...
... and I'm surprisingly happy.  I won't say I don't have my down moments.  Looking back, I regret not going for more athletic pursuits while my knees and back could still stand them.  I regret not trying for a more regular and less... frustrating line of work.  However, I can honestly say that, for all its frustrations, I actually seem to like being a fat, balding otaku who has pretensions at being  some kind of VN guru (lol).
I do wish that I could fit into a plane seat, lol.  If I ever go to Japan, it is going to have to be a sea trip, since buying two plane tickets for one person is both embarrassing and more than a little expensive.
I hate my work, but I'm good at it and, in good times, it pays well, so I keep doing it.
So what would I change? 
Honestly, it is hard to say.  I won't pretend I'm all love and joy when it comes to life.  I have too much toxic waste going through my brain for that (I just happened to have gained just enough maturity not to feed the trolls constantly *smiles dryly*).  I'm fundamentally a passive person once I set foot outside my hobbies, preferring not to do anything I don't absolutely have to do.  I'm also negative and misanthropic... but is that stuff I actually want to change?
*shrugs*
I've never been any other way, so it is impossible to say.  However, every year I hit this day and wonder what could have been, which probably says everything that needs to be said about my experiences with life, for all my proclamations of relative happiness.
 

First, I should say that I disapprove of releasing visual novels in pieces.  I'm perfectly willing to wait three or four years for a good story, but I hate nothing more than being interrupted in the middle and having to wait another year for the next one. 
The habit of releasing VNs in chapters was a vice mostly restricted to doujin VNs in the past.  The more obvious reasons are people like me who hate having their stories interrupted, the previous dominance of physical media, and other issues.  However, as digital releases have become more common, companies have begun to try to find ways to suck more blood out of their readers without investing as much money.  The result has been a rash of fragmentary game releases, like Corona Blossom, Grisaia Phantom Trigger, and the Uso series by Campus.
Now, while I used them as an example, those are mostly positive examples.  All three constructed their 'pieces' so they could stand on their own.  Phantom Trigger takes an episodic approach, making each entry feel like an anime episode in a series or a novel in a series that does a good job of concluding the events of each entry, so that you don't become desperate waiting for the next.  The Uso series by Campus made each entry so that it stood on its own without needing previous knowledge of the other entries, despite their interlinked setting and characters.  These are probably the two best ways to approach micro-releasing VN stories... but in both cases, I would actually much prefer to read all the chapters at once, lol.
I say I hate micro-releases, but that is because I see VNs as game hybrids.  For me, I only want to invest money in a game once.  I hate subscriptions, I hate microtransactions, and I absolutely despise random additional (paying) content.  I can justify buying a season pass along with the game itself, but that is because it is a one-time transaction that gets me everything without having to concern myself with continuous pushing of bits and pieces of essentially worthless digital merchandise.
In other words, I hate that this has become more common because I instinctively fear the day when some 'brilliant genius' manages to incorporate true microtransactions into a pure VN.
 

First, I should say that I disapprove of releasing visual novels in pieces.  I'm perfectly willing to wait three or four years for a good story, but I hate nothing more than being interrupted in the middle and having to wait another year for the next one. 
The habit of releasing VNs in chapters was a vice mostly restricted to doujin VNs in the past.  The more obvious reasons are people like me who hate having their stories interrupted, the previous dominance of physical media, and other issues.  However, as digital releases have become more common, companies have begun to try to find ways to suck more blood out of their readers without investing as much money.  The result has been a rash of fragmentary game releases, like Corona Blossom, Grisaia Phantom Trigger, and the Uso series by Campus.
Now, while I used them as an example, those are mostly positive examples.  All three constructed their 'pieces' so they could stand on their own.  Phantom Trigger takes an episodic approach, making each entry feel like an anime episode in a series or a novel in a series that does a good job of concluding the events of each entry, so that you don't become desperate waiting for the next.  The Uso series by Campus made each entry so that it stood on its own without needing previous knowledge of the other entries, despite their interlinked setting and characters.  These are probably the two best ways to approach micro-releasing VN stories... but in both cases, I would actually much prefer to read all the chapters at once, lol.
I say I hate micro-releases, but that is because I see VNs as game hybrids.  For me, I only want to invest money in a game once.  I hate subscriptions, I hate microtransactions, and I absolutely despise random additional (paying) content.  I can justify buying a season pass along with the game itself, but that is because it is a one-time transaction that gets me everything without having to concern myself with continuous pushing of bits and pieces of essentially worthless digital merchandise.
In other words, I hate that this has become more common because I instinctively fear the day when some 'brilliant genius' manages to incorporate true microtransactions into a pure VN.
 

First, I should say that I disapprove of releasing visual novels in pieces.  I'm perfectly willing to wait three or four years for a good story, but I hate nothing more than being interrupted in the middle and having to wait another year for the next one. 
The habit of releasing VNs in chapters was a vice mostly restricted to doujin VNs in the past.  The more obvious reasons are people like me who hate having their stories interrupted, the previous dominance of physical media, and other issues.  However, as digital releases have become more common, companies have begun to try to find ways to suck more blood out of their readers without investing as much money.  The result has been a rash of fragmentary game releases, like Corona Blossom, Grisaia Phantom Trigger, and the Uso series by Campus.
Now, while I used them as an example, those are mostly positive examples.  All three constructed their 'pieces' so they could stand on their own.  Phantom Trigger takes an episodic approach, making each entry feel like an anime episode in a series or a novel in a series that does a good job of concluding the events of each entry, so that you don't become desperate waiting for the next.  The Uso series by Campus made each entry so that it stood on its own without needing previous knowledge of the other entries, despite their interlinked setting and characters.  These are probably the two best ways to approach micro-releasing VN stories... but in both cases, I would actually much prefer to read all the chapters at once, lol.
I say I hate micro-releases, but that is because I see VNs as game hybrids.  For me, I only want to invest money in a game once.  I hate subscriptions, I hate microtransactions, and I absolutely despise random additional (paying) content.  I can justify buying a season pass along with the game itself, but that is because it is a one-time transaction that gets me everything without having to concern myself with continuous pushing of bits and pieces of essentially worthless digital merchandise.
In other words, I hate that this has become more common because I instinctively fear the day when some 'brilliant genius' manages to incorporate true microtransactions into a pure VN.
 

Well, as of thirty-nine minutes ago, it is officially my birthday (as of the time I checked at the beginning of making this post).  I have a lot of things to reflect on this year. 
I am now thirty-six, settling into the beginnings of middle-age, knowing my lifestyle will probably kill me before I hit fifty. 
I'm a sugar addict, I love fatty foods, I make my own alcoholic drinks (this year, a mixed fruit wine that actually turned out well and was much easier than the rum and hard root beer I did last year). 
I sit on my ass eighty percent of the time, I am hugely fat...
... and I'm surprisingly happy.  I won't say I don't have my down moments.  Looking back, I regret not going for more athletic pursuits while my knees and back could still stand them.  I regret not trying for a more regular and less... frustrating line of work.  However, I can honestly say that, for all its frustrations, I actually seem to like being a fat, balding otaku who has pretensions at being  some kind of VN guru (lol).
I do wish that I could fit into a plane seat, lol.  If I ever go to Japan, it is going to have to be a sea trip, since buying two plane tickets for one person is both embarrassing and more than a little expensive.
I hate my work, but I'm good at it and, in good times, it pays well, so I keep doing it.
So what would I change? 
Honestly, it is hard to say.  I won't pretend I'm all love and joy when it comes to life.  I have too much toxic waste going through my brain for that (I just happened to have gained just enough maturity not to feed the trolls constantly *smiles dryly*).  I'm fundamentally a passive person once I set foot outside my hobbies, preferring not to do anything I don't absolutely have to do.  I'm also negative and misanthropic... but is that stuff I actually want to change?
*shrugs*
I've never been any other way, so it is impossible to say.  However, every year I hit this day and wonder what could have been, which probably says everything that needs to be said about my experiences with life, for all my proclamations of relative happiness.
 

Well, as of thirty-nine minutes ago, it is officially my birthday (as of the time I checked at the beginning of making this post).  I have a lot of things to reflect on this year. 
I am now thirty-six, settling into the beginnings of middle-age, knowing my lifestyle will probably kill me before I hit fifty. 
I'm a sugar addict, I love fatty foods, I make my own alcoholic drinks (this year, a mixed fruit wine that actually turned out well and was much easier than the rum and hard root beer I did last year). 
I sit on my ass eighty percent of the time, I am hugely fat...
... and I'm surprisingly happy.  I won't say I don't have my down moments.  Looking back, I regret not going for more athletic pursuits while my knees and back could still stand them.  I regret not trying for a more regular and less... frustrating line of work.  However, I can honestly say that, for all its frustrations, I actually seem to like being a fat, balding otaku who has pretensions at being  some kind of VN guru (lol).
I do wish that I could fit into a plane seat, lol.  If I ever go to Japan, it is going to have to be a sea trip, since buying two plane tickets for one person is both embarrassing and more than a little expensive.
I hate my work, but I'm good at it and, in good times, it pays well, so I keep doing it.
So what would I change? 
Honestly, it is hard to say.  I won't pretend I'm all love and joy when it comes to life.  I have too much toxic waste going through my brain for that (I just happened to have gained just enough maturity not to feed the trolls constantly *smiles dryly*).  I'm fundamentally a passive person once I set foot outside my hobbies, preferring not to do anything I don't absolutely have to do.  I'm also negative and misanthropic... but is that stuff I actually want to change?
*shrugs*
I've never been any other way, so it is impossible to say.  However, every year I hit this day and wonder what could have been, which probably says everything that needs to be said about my experiences with life, for all my proclamations of relative happiness.
 

First, I should say that I disapprove of releasing visual novels in pieces.  I'm perfectly willing to wait three or four years for a good story, but I hate nothing more than being interrupted in the middle and having to wait another year for the next one. 
The habit of releasing VNs in chapters was a vice mostly restricted to doujin VNs in the past.  The more obvious reasons are people like me who hate having their stories interrupted, the previous dominance of physical media, and other issues.  However, as digital releases have become more common, companies have begun to try to find ways to suck more blood out of their readers without investing as much money.  The result has been a rash of fragmentary game releases, like Corona Blossom, Grisaia Phantom Trigger, and the Uso series by Campus.
Now, while I used them as an example, those are mostly positive examples.  All three constructed their 'pieces' so they could stand on their own.  Phantom Trigger takes an episodic approach, making each entry feel like an anime episode in a series or a novel in a series that does a good job of concluding the events of each entry, so that you don't become desperate waiting for the next.  The Uso series by Campus made each entry so that it stood on its own without needing previous knowledge of the other entries, despite their interlinked setting and characters.  These are probably the two best ways to approach micro-releasing VN stories... but in both cases, I would actually much prefer to read all the chapters at once, lol.
I say I hate micro-releases, but that is because I see VNs as game hybrids.  For me, I only want to invest money in a game once.  I hate subscriptions, I hate microtransactions, and I absolutely despise random additional (paying) content.  I can justify buying a season pass along with the game itself, but that is because it is a one-time transaction that gets me everything without having to concern myself with continuous pushing of bits and pieces of essentially worthless digital merchandise.
In other words, I hate that this has become more common because I instinctively fear the day when some 'brilliant genius' manages to incorporate true microtransactions into a pure VN.
 

First, I should say that I disapprove of releasing visual novels in pieces.  I'm perfectly willing to wait three or four years for a good story, but I hate nothing more than being interrupted in the middle and having to wait another year for the next one. 
The habit of releasing VNs in chapters was a vice mostly restricted to doujin VNs in the past.  The more obvious reasons are people like me who hate having their stories interrupted, the previous dominance of physical media, and other issues.  However, as digital releases have become more common, companies have begun to try to find ways to suck more blood out of their readers without investing as much money.  The result has been a rash of fragmentary game releases, like Corona Blossom, Grisaia Phantom Trigger, and the Uso series by Campus.
Now, while I used them as an example, those are mostly positive examples.  All three constructed their 'pieces' so they could stand on their own.  Phantom Trigger takes an episodic approach, making each entry feel like an anime episode in a series or a novel in a series that does a good job of concluding the events of each entry, so that you don't become desperate waiting for the next.  The Uso series by Campus made each entry so that it stood on its own without needing previous knowledge of the other entries, despite their interlinked setting and characters.  These are probably the two best ways to approach micro-releasing VN stories... but in both cases, I would actually much prefer to read all the chapters at once, lol.
I say I hate micro-releases, but that is because I see VNs as game hybrids.  For me, I only want to invest money in a game once.  I hate subscriptions, I hate microtransactions, and I absolutely despise random additional (paying) content.  I can justify buying a season pass along with the game itself, but that is because it is a one-time transaction that gets me everything without having to concern myself with continuous pushing of bits and pieces of essentially worthless digital merchandise.
In other words, I hate that this has become more common because I instinctively fear the day when some 'brilliant genius' manages to incorporate true microtransactions into a pure VN.
 

Well, as of thirty-nine minutes ago, it is officially my birthday (as of the time I checked at the beginning of making this post).  I have a lot of things to reflect on this year. 
I am now thirty-six, settling into the beginnings of middle-age, knowing my lifestyle will probably kill me before I hit fifty. 
I'm a sugar addict, I love fatty foods, I make my own alcoholic drinks (this year, a mixed fruit wine that actually turned out well and was much easier than the rum and hard root beer I did last year). 
I sit on my ass eighty percent of the time, I am hugely fat...
... and I'm surprisingly happy.  I won't say I don't have my down moments.  Looking back, I regret not going for more athletic pursuits while my knees and back could still stand them.  I regret not trying for a more regular and less... frustrating line of work.  However, I can honestly say that, for all its frustrations, I actually seem to like being a fat, balding otaku who has pretensions at being  some kind of VN guru (lol).
I do wish that I could fit into a plane seat, lol.  If I ever go to Japan, it is going to have to be a sea trip, since buying two plane tickets for one person is both embarrassing and more than a little expensive.
I hate my work, but I'm good at it and, in good times, it pays well, so I keep doing it.
So what would I change? 
Honestly, it is hard to say.  I won't pretend I'm all love and joy when it comes to life.  I have too much toxic waste going through my brain for that (I just happened to have gained just enough maturity not to feed the trolls constantly *smiles dryly*).  I'm fundamentally a passive person once I set foot outside my hobbies, preferring not to do anything I don't absolutely have to do.  I'm also negative and misanthropic... but is that stuff I actually want to change?
*shrugs*
I've never been any other way, so it is impossible to say.  However, every year I hit this day and wonder what could have been, which probably says everything that needs to be said about my experiences with life, for all my proclamations of relative happiness.
 

Well, as of thirty-nine minutes ago, it is officially my birthday (as of the time I checked at the beginning of making this post).  I have a lot of things to reflect on this year. 
I am now thirty-six, settling into the beginnings of middle-age, knowing my lifestyle will probably kill me before I hit fifty. 
I'm a sugar addict, I love fatty foods, I make my own alcoholic drinks (this year, a mixed fruit wine that actually turned out well and was much easier than the rum and hard root beer I did last year). 
I sit on my ass eighty percent of the time, I am hugely fat...
... and I'm surprisingly happy.  I won't say I don't have my down moments.  Looking back, I regret not going for more athletic pursuits while my knees and back could still stand them.  I regret not trying for a more regular and less... frustrating line of work.  However, I can honestly say that, for all its frustrations, I actually seem to like being a fat, balding otaku who has pretensions at being  some kind of VN guru (lol).
I do wish that I could fit into a plane seat, lol.  If I ever go to Japan, it is going to have to be a sea trip, since buying two plane tickets for one person is both embarrassing and more than a little expensive.
I hate my work, but I'm good at it and, in good times, it pays well, so I keep doing it.
So what would I change? 
Honestly, it is hard to say.  I won't pretend I'm all love and joy when it comes to life.  I have too much toxic waste going through my brain for that (I just happened to have gained just enough maturity not to feed the trolls constantly *smiles dryly*).  I'm fundamentally a passive person once I set foot outside my hobbies, preferring not to do anything I don't absolutely have to do.  I'm also negative and misanthropic... but is that stuff I actually want to change?
*shrugs*
I've never been any other way, so it is impossible to say.  However, every year I hit this day and wonder what could have been, which probably says everything that needs to be said about my experiences with life, for all my proclamations of relative happiness.
 

Well, as of thirty-nine minutes ago, it is officially my birthday (as of the time I checked at the beginning of making this post).  I have a lot of things to reflect on this year. 
I am now thirty-six, settling into the beginnings of middle-age, knowing my lifestyle will probably kill me before I hit fifty. 
I'm a sugar addict, I love fatty foods, I make my own alcoholic drinks (this year, a mixed fruit wine that actually turned out well and was much easier than the rum and hard root beer I did last year). 
I sit on my ass eighty percent of the time, I am hugely fat...
... and I'm surprisingly happy.  I won't say I don't have my down moments.  Looking back, I regret not going for more athletic pursuits while my knees and back could still stand them.  I regret not trying for a more regular and less... frustrating line of work.  However, I can honestly say that, for all its frustrations, I actually seem to like being a fat, balding otaku who has pretensions at being  some kind of VN guru (lol).
I do wish that I could fit into a plane seat, lol.  If I ever go to Japan, it is going to have to be a sea trip, since buying two plane tickets for one person is both embarrassing and more than a little expensive.
I hate my work, but I'm good at it and, in good times, it pays well, so I keep doing it.
So what would I change? 
Honestly, it is hard to say.  I won't pretend I'm all love and joy when it comes to life.  I have too much toxic waste going through my brain for that (I just happened to have gained just enough maturity not to feed the trolls constantly *smiles dryly*).  I'm fundamentally a passive person once I set foot outside my hobbies, preferring not to do anything I don't absolutely have to do.  I'm also negative and misanthropic... but is that stuff I actually want to change?
*shrugs*
I've never been any other way, so it is impossible to say.  However, every year I hit this day and wonder what could have been, which probably says everything that needs to be said about my experiences with life, for all my proclamations of relative happiness.