Nyanko

Finally started reading Comyu! This main character looks so badass, but his personality is just so.. not badass, lol As far as I remember a lot of people actually weren't all too pained by Higurashi's adaptation, it was considered one of the better ones at the time, which is still a relative thing I guess. Also I remember you talking about reading the ps3 version? I think it actually has quite a bit of new content compared to the original sound novels.

I am very excited because so far, even being really sceptical about one of his works, Ryukishi's (07th expansion's) stories have never failed to emotionally touch me. I really hope this will be another long story, since that's where he shines.

Yeah a lot of artists actually worked on it, but Ryukishi can't just make something without at least drawing 1 thing himself (lol). Probably because people didn't praise Rose Guns Days enough! He decided it must have been the art and decided to go back to his own drawings for the new project.

The steam version is probably just fine except for the people that already read Grisaia (so they know what they'll miss), and the people that want to experience the exact same game as most of the other people experienced here in the west so far, which I can kinda understand if you're a big Grisaia fan already. This doesn't make the steam release bad though, it's even a release made by the same company so this means theres probably a large amount of people in Japan too that only played this version on their console. It should be no problem for people that are new to Grisaia to just pick up the steam version and enjoy it as much.

Woo~ I'll be playing Rose Guns Days to finally finish it.

You can import a physical copy in Japanese if you want all games, you can just buy Rose Guns Days - Last Season, it comes together with the first 3 seasons and it's relatively cheap. Unfortunately I couldn't find any way to buy the DL only.

Higurashi -> Umineko The what a beautiful series starting with Sekien

It's pretty hard to solve each twilight on its own (especially this one), because you need other hints from other episodes to form some theories. But let's give it a go. The victims were supposedly killed in the dining room because there is a remarkable amound of blood in there. There is only 1 key to the shed, which was in the servant's room and was brought by Kanon to unlock the shed after the corpes were discovered. Kanon says he was the one that discovered the mark on the shutter indeed. 1st twilight murders: Rosa, Shannon, Krauss, Kyrie, Rudolf and Gohda Gohda, Rosa, Kyrie and Rudolf are completely unrecognizable because of their smashed faces. Beatrice about this twilight (mentioned in a later episode): In regards to the unidentifiable corpses, I guarantee their identities. That is, there's no body-double tricks! This means we got the unrecognizable corpes of 4 people, but they are really those people, either alive or dead. It sounds cruel but its not impossible to make your face unrecognizable like that if you take the torn off skin (or half of it) from one corpse and place it on your own. Nobody will touch it in the first place to check if the wound is real. After everyone left the shed, it was not viewed that anyone reopened it. The life/dead status of those corpses in unknown since they had no physical wounds beside their faces being crushed, they'll deal with that in other episodes). On the gameboard with humans we would assume someone is dead if their face looks like that, so no thorough examination was done. Outside of the gameboard they were never proclaimed dead in red. If you look at the events in the rest of that episode it's very likely someone in that shed was actually alive.

I believed he referred to ep 1-4. Those didn't happen irl, but they are tools for you to understand what happened. The Ushiromiya family was murdered but not in one of those specific ways.

What you're saying for Umineko is the whole thing never happened to begin with and was all a lie. And yes, even his manga are horror/mysteries. Ryuukishi doesn't seem like the kind of writer to pull the "and then he wakes up and realises it was all a dream" type of bullshit, which is what you're saying it is. This is not what he is saying though, what he is saying is actually the underlaying meaning of the story. There are however many layers and it depends greatly on interpretation how you WANT to see those. It's not that the murders never happened, they didn't happen in a way that is described in ep 1-4 but they did happen. The written stories, ep1-4 are just there for you as tools, if you are a person that wants to solve the written murder mysteries you can, but that will be your own truth, not Ange's. Trying to solve the murder mysteries is a lot of fun, but it is not the main goal of the story. The main goal of Umineko is to learn you about feelings, interpretations and the significance of truth. - As many of Ryukishi's novels did.

You describe what I believe the big essence behind a story, however it is but one layer of it. Umineko is not about solving the written murder mysteries indeed, it is however written in such a way that they are solvable. It is a fact that the Ushiromiya family is killed/murdered on that island on those 2 days and that Ange is now alone, struggling with the true meaning of "truth". All of the 4 episodes are not the truth, who did it, how it was done, and why it was done, we will never know that truth with certainty. But I believe those stories were written by someone that understood the truth, and it is solvable. What you say about the meaning behind the later episodes (ep 5 specifically), the "control of the games being seized by wicked witches" is what the VN describes as "creating a gameboard without love". I always interpret this as that the before written games ep 1-4, the "gameboards made by Beato", are not without love. For those who want to solve the mystery as a murder mystery, they can do this by looking at these written stories, those 4 games written with love for the truth.

I/O Revision II - high mystery, some mind fuck, close to 0 romance, no h-content.

Thanks for your opinions it's interesting to get an idea of what different people think of Japanese reading difficulty and I agree with both of yours. I was curious to know because I notice it's often hard to think back on when you started learning. People tend to forget that something was actually really hard on them even though it's actually so easy with a bit more knowledge. Like I said, I agree that Totono is rather easy to read.. and based on my own read-through I would also say it's a perfect VN to start with. I can say this now that I have a decent amount of reading experience and a good feeling for the grammar, know some common vocab and kanji. But a fun fact is that I actually started Totono before, when I just learned kana and basic grammar and didn't have any experience in reading Japanese text, only some example sentences in the grammar guide. It was (as I think back on it now) surprisingly hard on me back then. There were just too many things I had to remember while reading an average unvoiced sentence, too many things to keep in mind. It didn't feel natural to me yet. So based on that experience I'd say it's a great starter novel if you already have some feel for common JP language in one way or another.

Past month I've been rereading Umineko ep 1-4 through the manga, but I really missed the music so I felt like re-reading Umineko ep 5-8 as VN. So I started ep 5, first time with the umitweak patch. (Oh god.. that badass Battler voice!) Had to get used to the voices a bit but I really like it now. Even though I fell in love with the old Ryu art after 100+ reading hours (lol), the new sprites are so pretty and the voices add a lot to the experience, even though I wasn't really missing anything without them either. On a side note: I agree with Totono being rather easy to read but just curious here for the sake of research : could you define "basics" and "beginning stages"? Does this mean; you got most (raw knowledge of) grammar and kana down by reading some guides and you're ready to expose yourself to a Japanese piece of text with the help of j-parser/texthooker for the first time ever? Does this mean; you have learned only some basic grammar and kana but also already had a lot of exposure to the Japanese language through voiced VNs, anime? Does this mean; you already know a decent amount of vocabulary and its kanji too? Could you tell me what you think is necessary to be able to read something that's "easy", for example in case of understanding and comfortably reading Totono.

I picked Miyuki because I felt like she has a lot more personality, but I didn't expect her ending to be this short. I also need to find a way to completely remove everything from my pc because when I reinstall it goes back to my finishing screen.. or maybe someone that read Aoi route could give me a nice summary?

I might be a bit picky but; I prefer the h-scene in a VN to mean something special, the visualisation of the romance between the main character and the heroine. It would be optimal if there was only 1 special scene per heroine, or multiple with a decent amount of story in between, just to keep them special. My optimal H-scene would be with either no voices or everything voiced (main character included). The transition between normal conversation and a h-scene should be smooth. I also agree that they shouldn't be talking too much, and imo they shouldn't be writing out all those "uh.. ahh.. ughh... ohh" if it's voiced.

Yeah, it is the most guide un-friendly VN I've ever read, but because of that it was really fun to play. Also, I didn't know either... if I did then I wouldve been more careful LOL..

Anyways, I finished one ending now. I picked Miyuki.. which I kind of regret now, seeing how short it was. I looked up a guide and saw Aoi's was longer.. I figured there would be some more special information in her ending.

Finished Totono (after a lot of troubles and crashes and even 1 reinstall...). It was all worth it! It was actually shorter than I expected.. I just uninstalled it and going to reinstall it again to read the other route. Since I already played through most of the game twice, why not a third time! It's actually not much effort.. After I properly finish Totono I'll pick up ley-line again. Not sure if I head straight for the sequels after or just go for something different first.

For me it's all about the factor of enjoyment. In the beginning I used to read 1 at the time though. But later I found myself starting something that was not as good or fun as I expected, and then I'd start something else next to it.The thing is, I'm kind of a completionist, so I had to finish the one I already started too. I ended up reading the best one first and put the other one on hold, so it's still kind of reading 1 at the time. Nowadays I have one translated title, one untranslated title and in the "worst case" scenario there is something for both on hold. Like at this moment I am reading Totono, I have Grisaia common route and second route in Ley-Line (which is installed on my PC instead of laptop) on hold, and I was reading An Octave Higher (finished it now). Because I'm enjoying Totono a lot (on my laptop) at the moment it keeps me reading, so it automatically put Ley-Line on hold. This means I'm probably going to end up finishing Totono first and finish Ley-Line after before I start anything new. As for books, I also never start another next to the one I'm reading either. I think the difference between books and VNs is that you can physically see how far you are into the story. There is an estimated reading time for VNs, but reading speed is too variable. With books, independent of your reading speed, you can kind of guess how much longer it will take you to finish it. I can imagine, at least for myself, it makes it easier to finish something before you start something new.

Play Danganronpa 2.

But you don't take just SOMETHING next to it, you take on Umineko next to it. Obviously you won't read those other 2 things or anything for the next couple of weeks! Anyway, (my personal fan opinion aside.. ) 3 isn't that bad, because you will get to a point where you can't stop reading one of them, which results in you reading the one you like most I guess. Thats a good thing! But 10 is a bit too much though o.o how did you even end up in that situation, lol

Could your senses tell me if its a good series to start my journey through the atelier games?