Nerathim

Ataraxia is worth it if you liked FSN. But it's really different, aside from the characters everything has changed, Shirou is still the same but it's a lot less shocking than in FSN because of the really light-hearted tone in easily 80% of the VN. (I skipped the h-scenes so I can't say anything about it ) There is a lot more of screentime for some characters that were underused such as Lancer and Kuzuki for instance, but very few fighting scenes. It also deepens the original background with Lancer,Rider,Caster,Kuzuki's stories, you learn new things about Ayako and Issei as well. Bazett is cool. It switches between funny scenes and serious (and disturbing) ones but as I said, there is a lot more fanservice describing the characters everyday life, one must be prepared for this. Personally, I liked FSN better and you might find FHA really boring if you didn't like the cast, there is a plot of course but the whole thing is too rambled to play it if you're looking for serious buisness only. Fanservice everywhere.

Mayuki's route is far too out of place to be in Comyu imo, while not being bad at all, it lacks that dark and attractive atmosphere. I finished Fate Hollow/Ataraxia, it was good but TOO long, I spent so much time in it, more than in any other VN. The story structure is really scattered, this might be why. Now I can resume Yu-No, it was awesome before I stalled it.

I don't really mind the faithfulness of a translation, if I can't experience the original works it won't disturbs me anyways. I like reading books and for instance, there is a controversial translator in my native language that worked on Dostoevsky's books, some people accuse him of being unfaithful, he recognizes it himself and he tries hard to provides a well written story in french, it respects the story while not being faithful to the original author's style (still, he takes inspiration in it), but nonetheless it's well written. When you look at translations that pretend to entirely respect the original works they're usually very bland. That said I don't care myself about the prose at all. Especially in VNs, I'm not even fluent in english. If I try to write review about a VN of course I will need to talk about the writing style but after all it doesn't affects what I think of it after I finished it, I can read a great story with a poor translation or style, it will remains good. But if the story is a total trainwreck, even if it's a pure delight to read in literary terms, it will be very bad imo. A good writing style is a plus during the time you read it but except in rare circumstances I don't find to be memorable over the long term. The only thing I want to be faithful are the character's personalities and I don't think it's really impossible to retranscribe.

The thing with Kagome is that she is one of the very very few girls in VN and animes that is capable and dependable. It's rather masochistic to have a girl that exposes her problems to the protagonist and also need to be helped or "saved" in some ways : that's it nearly everytime in a lot VNs. Kagome is really smart mouthed (oh yes she is) but she can also acts when it's needed, she isn't our small girl in distress and proves to be smarter and stronger than anyone else in the cast. She got a real, unique personality with a solid mind and that's worth mentioning. (Usami Haru from G-Senjou and most of the females in 07th Expansion works are also independent but that's still too few in the media, and Kagome's personality touched me more)

Talking about Yoruko, she definitely deserves more screentime. I think Comyu would have been even better if there was the same process than Ayakashibito : a perspective change (switching to Gasai's HQ for a moment, for instance), that could have been really good on some characters. I remember some change of perspective with Benio and Izawa but this was limited to Akihito's coµ each times.

I don't think that any author in their right minds would do something so oblivious as putting the same scene over and over while not realizing it. The red color spam is intentional, I don't see it as a real flaw, it's part of the game being pretentious in terms of forms, you may not like it but don't forget that it's just a feature of the VN (probably butchered by the translation anyways, even though I liked it in english) and not something worth complaining about again and again, unlike Hisoka's development...

So the main problem is just Benio and your complain is about her idiocy and Akihito's ? The protagonists aren't always kind, lucid or clever, even less rational. They can be view as bad guys and unlike many other VN, Comyu is nuanced,you can't except to have the best solution possible each times. Not to mention that in Benio's route the ending is close to being "perfect" because Akihito's coµ aren't the main characters of the world they're in. Gasai has much more influence and has the will and the strenght needed to complete its projects, Akihito as the bad guy could have killed Caesar at the end because he was the exact opposite of him (he's emotional, he's acting selfishly and abandons his group) but Benio slaps him to make him remember that he musn't do that because he's fighting for justice. Gasai leaves victorious and nothing changes. I see it that way : by being slapped by Benio, Akihito realized that he has failed to maintain his frail ideal (so he wasn't really that influenced by Benio) by forgetting that he musn't kill, so he reverts to an ally of justice with her but he loses because he has not only lost sight of what he was doing but the ideal he shares with Benio is totally unrealistic too, the only one being realistic is Gasai thus he can't match the King because he and him want to do the same thing (broadly speaking : protect the weak) except that their ways of doing things is different, I view this as Akihito's incapacity to look at the truth. I think he could've killed Gasai if he weren't pulled out of his berserk mode because this time he was coherent with himself. Akihito and Benio were doing the right thing only to their eyes, they lose and they're just extras at the end, it's a failure for the protagonist of the story but a victory for Gasai the real hero, doing the "right thing" for far more people. Akihito is human : emotional, inconsistent and impulsive. If I'm not wrong, just before the fight scene at one of their meeting at the bridge Gasai has said that humans can only learn from experience , it shows that Akihito clearly lacks experience and pairing with a girl with even less life experience than him doesn't help haha. Haru just doesn't care about what they're doing, Mayuki is a child and often complies to the majority, Izawa is always ready to fight and Kagome has nothing to do with the coµ : not surprising that the route ended that way. Well, I got carried away here, I wonder how many spelling mistakes I've done... tl;dr the route doesn't really ends in an "ally of justice way", it's the case from Benio's point of view but they didn't change anything, they struggled for nothing and they couldn't face Gasai.With a bit of hindsight it's not bad at all, imo. And don't forget that this route was only an introduction, that's one of the reason why Akihito was paired with the character of lesser development potential at the beginning.

It's he, but referring to this : http://www.tenshi.org.uk/sdb/pages/seiyuu/Suwabe_Junichi.html he did it under another name. Not really surprising, Nasu once said that he loved Ayakashibito and has recommanded it, I think that's why he chose Suwabe to dub Archer for the release of a first voiced version of FSN. (it's just a guess)

Kuki is not only strong, his voice is godlike too and contributes to his great charisma. (same seiyuu as Archer but his acting is even better in Ayakashibito imo)

Count me in !

And Kotarou is even better outside Terra, he had such a great sense of humor OP => Try Sengoku Rance, I can't tell you for sure that you will like the protagonist but he's definitely an unique character.

A good reason ? Lucia's route, nothing else. (and it's a DAMN GOOD reason) And if you're looking for a detailed argument there is the message above mine, of course.

I'm GAR for Gasai, he totally saved Benio's route in Comyu (a-ma-zing) and he added even more quality to the almost perfect Kagome route. I can say the same thing for Ayakashibito, but in that case Kuki saved most of the VN, not that I find it to be bad otherwise but given that it is a chuuni VN, something would clearly be missing without him, Ten, Chuu and the rest of Dominion are not charismatic or interesting enough to play the role of antagonist. (Kaoru's route would have totally sucked without Kuki to cleans up that mess with his badassery) Kotomine Kirei also saved Heaven's Feel in FSN, I hate Sakura (and her dubbing) and while the route itself was really good I found it to be really lacking, character-wise. Thankfully Kirei was here. It's sad to see that male characters are more more often interesting that female's ones in VN, a lot less hackneyed, a lot more depth or better personnality at all. It's possible to write girls who stand out but in VNs and animes the problem of the otaku-pandering remains, japaneses fictions got one of the worst public ever seen and often "need" (there is no need in fact, but if they want to sell their work, they must do it) to make sacrifices and because of that a lot of females share the same stereotyped characteristics or aren't nuanced at all (TV drama's problems do not counts, I look at you Key, using the same methods over and over isn't something to boast about) because their goal is to stuck to the protagonist and to end in his bed. There are exceptions like 07th Expansion's VN where the characters are really credible for example and where females are CAPABLE beings who can do more than just expose their problems to the protagonist and whine until the end of their routes to got their problems resolved by him.

I'm already a bookworm, so visual novels didn't really affect my desire to read or whatever, however I have to say that it is a very good way to improve in english. I must say that I developed all of my english skills from VNs, I'm not fluent when it comes to communicates but I can definitely read and understand practically everything (even "well-written" books). I don't really see the point in saying that VN are useless in this field "Translations are like girls, they're cute and unfaithful or ugly and faithful " - (I forgot the author) Anyways english isn't my native language so I'm probably wrong if we're talking about deepening one's mastery of the language through VN (writing beautiful sentences etc.)

Since my last message I can say that Clannad takes the place of Muv-Luv Extra as my worst VN experience... (maybe I should use a proxy, I don't want to end up with a knife stucked in my throat), at least I haven't read After Story yet but that school-life part...oh my god. It was boring and extremely long, a lot of stereotyped events and characters ( that cast is full of drama queens, it's a parody, really) and most of all repetitive. (bento,sunohara being irritating, bento, sunohara being irritating*repeat ad nauseam, not to mention the plot revolving around reality show's problems) Well I guess it's not my thing but it bugs me, I'm not the biggest fan of SoL but I liked Little Busters, I expected the same thing from Clannad. And another one, Steins;Gate, no as a bad experience but more of a big disappointement, given its reputation I was expecting it to be better in a lot ways, especially the characters (again) and the second part of the VN.

Finished Symphonic Rain, I'm really satisfied by Phorni's route and Al Fine, made me forget the bad pacing from before and now I can end this VN with a good impression. Now on Yu-No and FHA. I think now I'm gonna read either Comyu or If my heart had wings Glad that you enjoyed it, and I'm impressed to see that you gathered the courage to meet the oppai ending requirements. (too bad that Rewrite wasn't entirely written by Ryukishi )

(Rewrite)

Gotta agree that you should drop it, you're struggling on the first route that doesn't have many flaws in view of its objectives and its genre : the rest will hardly be better to your eyes... (except Mayuki's route maybe, its orientation is sorta different)

Finished Torta's route in Symphonic Rain. I didn't think much of it until the epilogue : seriously, what the fuck?! And then, back to the main title, just like that. It's so sudden that I don't even know what to think about it. My mind right now :