Decay

This kind of thing is very common in visual novels. It's just how most branching ones are designed. The larger plot points are still the same but the smaller details differ heavily, such as the individual character actions. These don't necessarily have to happen due to the player's choices. VNs don't try to be simulation games, or adventure games where you affect the plot, but basically multiple stories where your choices dictate which story you read. So it doesn't need to be consistent in this regard. Consider the different routes to be completely different timelines. If it makes you feel better, they DO actually construct plot points that tie the routes together and allows you to make sense out of some of the differences, which most VNs don't even bother attempting to do. This happens during the true route.

Short answer: The different routes don't necessarily exist in the same timeline and there may be differences, some big, some small. The longer answer lies within the Moon and Terra routes. Boy, this sure was a really old thread you resurrected.

There are barely any VNs that prominently feature sports at all, let alone winter sports specifically. Da Capo 2 has a possible story arc during the common route that takes place in a ski lodge, with some skiing happening. That's pretty much all I got for you. Not even Snow Sakura, which takes place in Hokkaido and has snow everywhere has a lick of winter sports in it.

Yeah, I saw this game a year or more ago, it's been in development for a while and I've been looking forward to it ever since. Not a VN, but it seems really cool.

Tsurumiku. I really love their artist's art style, and the subject matter is appealing, too. Not that I can actually read it.

Not even remotely close to 8-bit on either front, but yes, the music and art are both really good in a semi-retro way.

admins, please make this a real emoticon, tia

Well they were talking about delays, but they were also saying the download version would still be available on the 25th despite that. Now they just said the download version will be delayed too, mere hours before it was meant to go live. gdi, JAST. Every time I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, something like this happens.

Why do people keep reading KnS before Cartagra? That's the reverse order! This is actually somewhat important!

Yeah, don't expect much on that front. Do him a favor and temper his expectations. I'd be shocked if the complete patch releases this year.

You're right, but there's still a point where it becomes too overwhelming for new players. MTG gets around this by having limited formats and phasing out old sets. So new players only need to buy a starter pack and some boosters from the most recent sets, instead of having to worry about buying boosters from all sorts of sets from the last twenty years. Hearthstone can get around this issue by offering mild discounts to older content, or maybe bundle deals (e.g. buy Naxx and BRM together and save 30%). I think what makes Hearthstone appealing to a lot of people is that it is indeed cheaper than MTG or Yugioh, but Blizzard risks losing that factor if they never do anything like this.

I wouldn't be surprised if the old adventures get discounted as new ones are released. They would probably discount Naxx before BRM (just as well, since Naxx is more essential anyways). Becoming good at arena is the best thing that ever happened to me, must suck to not be on this level. (for real though, the new player experience is probably going to diminish as more adventures are released and they really should find a solution for that to make things easier for more casual players)

Well, the people who play with regularity are the ones who give them the most money, and in order to keep them on board they have to release a regular stream of new cards or else they'll get bored and leave. I can understand that this is overwhelming to people who only play every once in a while but you can't make a game that caters to those people. I'd probably stop playing if they released cards at a slower pace.

So TGT comes out tomorrow. Anyone excited for it? I haven't really talked about it here beyond the initial reveal but I'm excited for a bit of a meta shakeup, especially in arena. I suspect the class balance will change quite a bit in arena and we might see more diversity across our opponents. Constructed is probably going to change less than a lot of people want but I'm still excited to see what kinds of new decks we see there. I don't plan on spending any money on it, but I'll probably buy 20-30 packs with gold and see if I get anything good. I also plan to play Arena all day tomorrow and as much as possible the next day, just because I expect a large influx of inexperienced arena players to prey on for some easy wins and gold.

Why not use the restoration patch if it bothers you that much?

I mean, I kind of figured that but it could have been a couple other characters and I guess I'm actually just kind of surprised how someone could dislike Toko so much.

I really wonder what character Slowpoke is talking about.

You know, I can't actually remember anything about Chiho's route. Except for the school festival, which was really lame.

Don't worry, there's a sequel where you'll assuredly get the good ending you're looking for! edit: If you haven't finished it but are very close to the end, please finish it.

It is actually kind of telling that Setsuna is a lot of people's favorite character because she's practically a non-entity. She has no real personality to speak of, she's barely a character. She's just a voice of sanity and Sekai's pillar of support, but she herself seems barely existent. The fact that this non-character can be so many people's favorite maybe says a thing or two about how everyone views all of the other characters. I'm really curious how they're going to build an entire game around her.

Actual real life (animal) clones are born from a surrogate mother. That is not at all odd... if you want to accept human clones from long-dead warriors as being possible.

Maybe you should hit up Black Dragon Hunt on twitter about this: https://twitter.com/BlackDragonHunt

Its so good~ edit: p.s. their new album is streaming on npr first listen and it's really good.

They are releasing 18+ VNs with no all-ages versions, but they're shorter budget doujins. They've yet to announce a big eroge with no all-ages plans, and I doubt they ever will but I won't rule out the possibility. In FrontWing's case, they were really against releasing the 18+ version of Grisaia at all and it was actually SP who pushed back on that. And, lo and behold, it is primarily FW's fault for the repeated delays on the 18+ version. FW also has a ton of rather insane restrictions relating to how Sekai Project can promote 18+ content at the same time as Grisaia which has lead to stuff like how SP had to indirectly hint that they will release 18+ versions of most of their applicable titles via denpasoft during Otakon instead of being able to say it directly. I think SP will be pretty happy once they're able to shed FW for good. The situation reminds me of how controlling Nitro+ was with JAST back when they first struck that deal, but somehow even worse.

I believe Cartagra was coded in a custom Unity engine built by MangaGamer, and it handles higher resolutions and scaling much better than KnS1 did. I do not believe the art assets are higher resolution but the upscaling was simply much better in Cartagra. As far as actual art design and art quality goes, I prefer KnS to Cartagra.