Decay

They're golden automatically. And I will agree with the mad people that it's probably overcosted, but it's also not worth getting mad about since it's purely cosmetic, so who cares. I guess the problem comes when you want to get multiple classes. $90 for the full suite. Then again, this is how cosmetics always are. Just look at Valve's hat store. The rest of the game is reasonable from a F2P standpoint so it's not worth complaining about.

Flamewaker tempo mage doesn't run antonidas, really. You're meant to blow all of your spells in your first 7 turns so you'll normally never be able to get him going. Anyways, who wants new shinies? http://www.hearthpwn.com/blue-tracker/topic/12683-heroes-emerge-new-hearthstone-heroes-are-coming New heroes for each class, purely cosmetic. Ten bucks a pop.

Well, if it doesn't have good graphics, gameplay, OR story, what's left? I guess you mean the combat. I guess bethesda games always did have weak combat. I thought the combat in New Vegas was almost acceptable. Maybe they can make this feel more like a proper shooter. I wonder if they'll keep VATs, it always felt a little out of place, like some cheap way to appease fans of 1 and 2. It never really fit in well, took you out of the action or was counter-productive to your immersion, and allowed you to cheese a lot of fights. Maybe now that there have been two first-person fallout games, they can just embrace that fully instead of clinging to the past. And I say that as a fan of the first two games.

I'm still skeptical. They say that it's not the creation engine, but it sure looks like it is. Rumors about Boston were around before that post was made. After FO4 was a no-show at E3 last year, it was an extremely safe bet that it would debut in June of this year. The two things that point to it maybe being real is that 1) the protagonist had voiced lines in the trailer, and 2) the institute stuff which wasn't part of any rumor (iirc) until they launched the hype site for the game. I dunno, some really safe guesses came true and a couple less-safe guesses did as well, doesn't mean I'll immediately buy into it.

I used to be really into Joe Satriani in high school. The man can shred. Portugal. The Man is a fantastic band which I've been following for a while, and I'm really glad they've gained some semi-mainstream popularity over the last few years, they deserve it.

Yeah, I feel like there isn't much actual mystery solving on the part of the protagonist in Cartagra, and it's a shame. And Kazuna is definitely best IG girl. The last part you talk about is why I suggest to anyone who will read both to read Cartagra before KnS. It just doesn't make sense to me to do it the other way around. If you read Cartagra first, that part in KnS destroys you.

Swan Song has no background music for the first hour or so.

Well, yeah, like I said they're still good for wandering the large worlds and exploring. But they do keep swinging hard at the narrative stuff. They make you sit through cutscenes and events, and you have to navigate poorly thought out dialog systems. They really jam their stories down your throat. And you end up spending a lot of time interacting with various characters, going on quests for them. But these characters are shallow, the storylines are rote, and the quests are often pretty linear and uninteresting. The latter is actually a pretty big gameplay concern that The Witcher 3 absolutely nails, the quests in that game are so good. The other two issues are still issues even if you're only interested in the gameplay, because Bethesda is trying to shove their epic stories down your throat, and they're so bad at it. It DOES bring down the experience no matter what you're expecting, and they really should find another angle to approach that side of things from. And like I said, I think over time I've just come to expect more. I still enjoy exploring these game worlds, but if that's all they have to offer, it can't hold my attention like it used to be able to.

They did not remove all of the dirty humor. There is still a lot of perverted humor.

You could try Cross Channel for a bit of mystery, and perhaps a bit of mental instability.

It is absolutely nothing like that. Taking out the mystery in Umineko would completely change the entire nature of the VN. The core components of all the story elements, including Angelic Howl, are still there in Grisaia. It's still the same story, just with some details altered. Don't be so hyperbolic.

lol at the art. Yeah, it legitimately looks like an XBox 360 game. Well, that's not all there is to a game. I was cynical last page about FO4 but I failed to actually convey my reasons. I DO have my reasons, I'm not just some mindless hater. I decided to elaborate on them, but I was getting so incredibly long winded, I decided to spin off my monstrosity of a post into a blog article: Fallout 4 Is Not Very Exciting to Me, and Here's Why. TL;DR: Although I do hope you read the whole article. I spent a decent amount of time on it.

In the Fallout 4 thread here, I was seemingly cynical on the game for no reason. I have reasons, I just didn't post them. So to not be that bitter pointlessly cynical guy, I'll talk about why I'm still not very excited for FO4. I'll start by talking about Bethesda's older games, because a lot of posters here weren't around for them, and I'll establish the trends that make me skeptical of more Bethesda-produced open-world RPGs. Bethesda started the Elder Scrolls series as just some self-insertion sandbox for their in-office D&D campaign. This is fine, Arena was a charming game in its own right. But it had nary an ounce of narrative to it, which was normal for anything other than adventure games at the time. The world was threatened and you were given a vague directive at the start, you went from dungeon samey dungeon, and eventually found the bad guy, killed him, and won the game. With Daggerfall, you had a bit more introductory story. The world was in trouble and only you can save it. You had to accomplish several tasks before confronting the big bad. Every once in a while you met with an NPC who had small amounts of exposition. There were more side-quests strewn about with some pretty basic objectives, mostly without any story behind them. The game was procedurally generated (not on the fly) so that's to be expected. There were also books around that explained the world a little, it was pretty interesting. You went from dungeon to samey dungeon, killed the bad guy, won the game. By this point, people started expecting more from not just RPGs, but from games in general. Narratives were becoming a big thing, Bioware and Black Isle started doing their things with storytelling in RPGs, and Metal Gear Solid in action games. Bethesda felt like they had to adapt, they had to tell cool stories with strong narratives in their games, too! Morrowind was actually a pretty dang good first attempt at this. The world building was surprisingly strong, the setting was unique and interesting. It held inspiration from Heart of Darkness, which was fairly bold for a fantasy RPG. There was a complex political climate with clashes between colonizers and the colonized, on top of this world-threatening event that's going down. You met many of the people deeply involved with the sticky situation the island finds itself in, including the local god-king Vivec who is holding the island hostage by artificially suspending a giant meteor above it (including preserving its inertia) and claiming that if followers stop worshipping him, the meteor will crash and kill everyone. Welp. There's lots of cool stuff like this strewn about. But here's the thing, it's all relating to the setting and the backstory. Anything beyond that is pretty threadbare. Your mission was to find the savior the dark elf prophecies speak of so this person can save the world from some looming evil. You go from dungeon to samey dungeon, and BIG TWIST: you were the savior the whole time! You save the world, game over. You saw a lot of cool stuff along the way, but it felt more like a sightseeing tour than a proper narrative. You were an agent following the whims of others the whole time, too. You get the sense that no one at Bethesda had any experience writing these kinds of stories. But the world-building was so cool that you wanted to keep exploring for hours on end, seeing the unique sights of Morrowind and getting involved in their conflicts. The main quest kind of sucked, but the side quests were a lot of fun. They themselves didn't have particularly strong stories and were mainly filled with one-dimensional characters who just wanted a task done, but there was some real neat stuff thrown in there, like the last dwarf alive, in some plague colony, with his lower body replaced by mechanical spider legs. Cool! It was also the first TES game with an extensive mod community. (Morrowind was full of bizarre flora, fauna, and architecture) Oblivion was a disaster in a lot of ways. The industry was firmly planting itself in support of strong narratives in not just certain kinds of games, but ALL games, now. While Half Life did a lot for storytelling in shooters at the time, it was nothing in comparison to Max Payne, an intense third-person shooter with a lengthy, twisting plot and plenty of dialog. There was Warcraft 3, a real-time strategy with an epic fantasy story attached (the previous WC games had stories that were more window-dressing than anything). If your game didn't tell a long, complex story, it was junk. It didn't matter what kind of game it was. Even Rockstar got in on the trend with their nonsensical murder simulators, Vice City and especially San Andreas. Bethesda could not afford to release an open world RPG without an absolutely epic story. But here's the thing, they SUCK at at storytelling! They're good at writing backstory, at worldbuilding. Every other facet of their writing is terrible. But gosh darn if they weren't going to try. They splurged on several very expensive voice actors to deliver their surely incredible dialog, then only had a handful of VAs rest for the rest of their hundreds of characters. Oops. The dialog in the main questline was as generic as possible. There were no truly interesting hooks to it, the player didn't have to make any difficult decisions, and the characters were as flat as cardboard. You were tasked to find the savior, did so by going from dungeon to samey dungeon, doing a LOT of busywork in closing those damn oblivion gates, and BIG TWIST: there is no twist! You find the savior and he defeats the final boss, saving the world for you. You weren't even the main hero! Bethesda's one saving grace, their world-building, failed them here. Cyrodiil was originally written as a dense jungle with interesting, dynamic cultures, but was retconned because they deemed verdant plains and deer-filled forests to have more mass appeal in the US and Europe. They spent a lot of money developing a complex AI system where every NPC would have needs and wants, and would seek out their own methods to fulfill them, and then disabled it because it didn't work at all. One thing Bethesda did do is up their game on the side quests. A lot of them were generic, but there were these main guilds in the game, and each one had their own storyline, and some got reasonably involved. They were mostly kind of middling, but the star of the show was the Dark Brotherhood questline, where you join a guild of assassins. There were twists and turns to its story, shady characters with grey-area motives, many assassination contracts had complex setups, and there were multiple endings to the quest line. It felt like its own game. Looking back on it, it's really nothing special, but it was like a small pond in the middle of a scorching desert, an oasis players took solace in and gathered around as a shining example of how to do questing in an open world game. One man wrote and designed all of these quests, Emil Pagliarulo, and his work stood out so much from the rest of Bethesda's offering, they handed him the reigns to all of Fallout 3. Fallout 3 was a cool game, although it didn't feel very much like a real Fallout game. I'm not talking about the shift in perspective and gameplay, but the shift in tone, storytelling style, and world design. And you know what? Bethesda's writing still sucked. It became clear that Emil Pagliarulo is not an especially skilled writer. When taken out of the sea of shit the rest of Oblivion was, Emil's quest design and writing was shown to be fairly amateurish and not actually all that interesting. The story still felt uninspired. It was a personal story to find your father (and maybe save the world in the process), but therein laid the problem. The player character was still nameless, mute, and devoid of personality. Can you really tell a personal story involving family with that kind of setup? Well, you can, but you can't get anyone to care. And while the world design was reasonably interesting in its own right, with plenty of unique sights to see, the setting overall was a total failure. It was meant to be 100 years after the apocalypse, but it felt like it was just one year, with no organization, barely anything in the way of factions (other than two shadowy organizations), and people still scrambling and scavenging to survive. I still had more fun with it than I did with Oblivion, but it felt so lacking in so many areas. A couple years later, New Vegas came out developed by a different studio, one staffed by members with experience developing previous Fallout games, Obsidian Entertainment. And it totally clowned Bethesda and their attempt at a Fallout game. It had its own set of downsides, but gosh was New Vegas fun. Many characters individually had more depth to them than the combined depth of all of FO3's characters combined. The quests had a wealth of options, diverging branches, and alternate outcomes. The dialog was often witty and compelling to listen to. The world truly felt like how a post-apocalyptic world should feel like, with budding governments, organized banditry, and more overt faction wars competing for territory with the citizenry caught in the middle. They even managed to make the story feel personal despite your character being a no-name cipher. Many of the dungeons felt more unique. There was more loot with a crafting system. The combat, armor, and weapon systems felt more balanced and more fun. The one point I will concede is that aimlessly exploring the wasteland felt a bit more frustrating and less rewarding. (an example of the branching structure of one side quest in New Vegas) Would Bethesda learn from their mistakes in Oblivion and Fallout 3, and Obsidian's triumphs in New Vegas? Yes and no. Skyrim was fun. Bethesda's world-building strength has returned to them Skyrim was gorgeous, varied, and a joy to explore. They incentivized exploration in some really smart ways. Character leveling didn't feel so broken. The story, though, was still a problem. Bethesda is still shit at writing. You are the chosen one, overcome these trials, delve through dungeon through samey dungeon, kill a dragon or two, and save the world! It was still stock fantasy fair, without a hint of depth or creativity. That's okay though, because exploring the world is fun. What about the questing in the rest of the world? Well, the faction quests felt like stepped-up versions of Oblivion's faction quests. They had a bit more dialog, a bit more story to them, but most of them were still kind of mediocre. The characters were still largely one dimensional. Most of them did allow you to make a decision or two, which could affect the outcome in some inconsequential manner. The stand-out side-plot in this game was the civil war. It created an interesting political climate, but how much did it really impact the world? You could side with one faction or the other, and each had their own quest line. The faction I sided with lead up to a cool battle where we laid siege to a major city, and assaulted it. There were missions that lead up to it that determined the effectiveness of the soldiers, siege weapons, etc. When you finally got into the battle, and catapults were going off, spells were firing, and soldiers were charging the gates, it was so cool! Then the scripting broke at multiple points, requiring reloads. Well, it's an Elder Scrolls game. Then you won the battle, some buildings were smoldering a little, and a different man sat on the throne. That was it. You could go into towns occupied by the opposing faction and no one would bat an eye at you. It felt like the battle had no impact whatsoever. It was all a bit underwhelming. Bethesda repeatedly teases the players in their games, make grand promises, and fail to deliver time and time again. I'm kind of getting sick of being disappointed. I'm getting sick of being a no-personality mute who is little more than an errand boy. I'm sick of the samey dungeons in every single game. I'm sick of the quest design that feels like you're going down a straight predetermined line instead of doing things your way. I'm sick of the shoddy writing, the shallow characters with crystal clear motivations, the stale and generic dialog, and the simple boilerplate storylines. Yes, Bethesda makes some great worlds to explore, but you know, I've played every single Bethesda game. I've played plenty of other compelling open world games. I've kind of had my fill. I watch the Fallout 4 trailer and am filled with apathy. I'm not saying Bethesda should ditch the open world, not at all, but I need something more. I'm looking forward to E3 this year. I'm a long-time fan of Bethesda's games, and I desperately want them to prove me wrong. But I won't hold my breath for it. ---------------------- On a side-note, The Witcher 3 has been giving me that something more. Its characters are all fascinating, even the minor ones. The story is a compelling search for your adopted daughter in trouble. The quests are sprawling with many avenues of approach and outcomes, even the side quests. The writing is entertaining and never fails to capture your attention. You are prompted with so many decisions on such a constant basis, all of which have some impact on the world big or small, that it no longer feels like you're playing a god controlling the fates of these characters, but you ARE Geralt of Rivia, in the world, making these decisions. It's an incredibly immersive experience. You end up never wanting to reload and take back your decisions, because they become so personal. And the open world is not sacrificed even a little in the face of this narrative experience, with a huge world to explore with an enormous amount of things to discover. The Witcher 3 allows us to have our cake and eat it, too. What is a Bethesda game in the face of this? (as I write this, I'm itching to jump back into The Witcher 3)

Doddler said that it was at around 3,000 when it was pulled. Grisaia is probably selling reasonably, but it's definitely not lighting the charts on fire. Again, it's probably because of the price. That's to be expected. Maybe it will have a good long tail, especially when it gets heavier discounts.

Well, Bethesda's version of Fallout is kinda lame. If this isn't Obsidian developed, I'll probably end up cynical on it up to its release. Either way, we live in a post-Witcher 3 world now, I'm not even sure Obsidian could produce something that would terribly excite me. Where's Cyberpunk 2077? (In 2017) Except for Pillars of Eternity, which is a very substantial game that was also pretty dang polished and didn't feel rushed at all. It's what they can do without a publisher breathing down their neck.

Good luck on your recovery, Krill.

I updated the ToHeart2 entry, because it's fully translated! I didn't remove, though. I mean, it's not finished, but it's also not a partial... It's partially fully translated... no, fully translated partially into english... no, into partial english... no, fuck it. Just play it! And give Ittaku props for sticking with it for seven years of his life.

eh, the VN is hot garbage anyways.

You seem mistaken about something. The default windows soundtrack is not the original, retro soundtrack. But is a worse, redone version. The music pack on tlwiki is the soundtrack ripped from the original pc-98 version. Depending on how you got the game, though, you may already have that pack.

Related to that Gaokao game we were posting about last page: lmao

Konosora has thousands of unfortunate buyers on Steam alone... Also: http://store.steampowered.com/app/347620/ It uses actual barely-edited machine translation. It is selling a shocking number of copies. It's even outselling Grisaia right now. It's a shame, but the vast majority of VN readers don't actually seem to give a shit about translation quality. The text could be pure gibberish and they'd still lap it up if it had cute girls.

The point is, them blocking western IPs is not an indication of an unwillingness to work with westerners. Case in point - The people behind Eiyuu Senki are also the people behind Romanesque, which was released officially by JAST. I believe Little Witch's site also IP blocked westerners. And Temco probably wouldn't mind a western release otherwise they wouldn't have licensed it at all. If it doesn't happen, it's probably because the licensee decided to drop the project, not Temco, because they don't want to compete with a console release by another company.

Some horrible dark urge compelled me. I am playing this now. So far, it is NOT a Bliss. Interesting note about it, the game starts with you hooking up with a friend in the intro. But there are multiple heroines, so you are given the chance to break up with that first girl. I wonder if there is two-timing as well. Also, the voice acting seems bad. I mean, I can't understand it, but it's all kind of unenergetic, like none of the voice actresses give a shit. The art IS actually alright, though, and the music is even decent. This might have been a surprisingly acceptable title if the translation wasn't godawful. edit: Give this game to Kratoscar, it will be his new favorite edit 2: I don't think that's quite the right term, Joey. Also... "Joey"? Also, opening things with an Evangelion reference, interesting choice... Also the teacher's nickname is "Medusa" which is not something I'd expect from a chinese game. It seems to be that way in the chinese version, considering her hair seems deliberately made to resemble a gorgon's. I've always thought of China as one of those countries that do not hold other cultures in high regard and wouldn't be likely to teach or reference greek mythology. Although you got me on whatever a "Window School" is meant to be.

I am the last person you should be asking. edit: Accurate depiction of a chinese classroom, still equipped with a chalk blackboard and no TVs. But they do have the luxury of having two wall-mounted rotary fans.