What are you playing?

[Fred the Barber]

I remember most of the choices being fairly trolly throughout the entire VN.  Admittedly, some were less so than others, but I tried reading without a walkthrough and using common sense to progress, but it took way too long since common sense was completely screwing me over when it came to picking the right choices.

 

Yeah, I had the same experience. A lot of the choices really felt like a coin-toss as to which one was the "right" answer. I wish the game just had fewer choices, so I wouldn't accidentally die so often.

 

Well, to be clear, I'm fine with games that have lots of choices in the common route which influence my subsequent fate. Once I'm on a route (or failed to reach any route, though this generally only happens to me when I intentionally do it, or in Katawa Shoujo because that game hates the way I think), I'd be perfectly happy with the rest of the game being on rails and having no bad endings. Bad endings tend to just upset me.

 

I actually quite distinctly recall the first Bad Ending I ever experienced, while playing Haruka's route in Little Busters!.

I hate lying, and I guess I insert myself somewhat when playing games, because I also hate it when a game forces my playable character to lie. So I first took the "wrong" choice that involved telling the truth, and hit her bad ending. The resulting feelings of despair were downright traumatizing - way worse than a merely violent F/SN Dead End.

[Getsuya]

Wow. The last chapter of Eustia is incredibly crappy. I'm glad the rest of the game wasn't like this. It's strange because usually the final, 'true' end is supposed to be the best of the whole game but in this case it's shaping up to be the worst. I'm basically speed reading by this point just to get it all over with.

[Fred the Barber]

Having finished all three routes once last night, tonight I wrapped up the remaining two endings to Fate/Stay Night (the "Good" ending for UBW and the "Normal" ending for Heavens Feel). My thoughts on the endings for those two routes:

UBW "Good" ending: Sure everything's fine and everybody's happy here, but the tone of it just made me feel bad for Rin - she deserves better than the cards she gets dealt in this ending.

vs.
UBW "True" ending: This one was just the perfect level of bittersweet for me, with the main protagonists moving forward happily together, but still having sad memories to cling to and reflect on.

 

Heavens Feel "Normal" Ending - Having your main character die kinda sucks. I can deal with it, and I've played other games that execute it well and make it feel "worth" it, but I want to feel like I got something good in exchange for it. Compared to the "True" ending, there's no trade-off. What I really wanted from this ending was maybe a nice Ilya scene. What I got was... nothing? Right, nothing.

Heavens Feel "True" Ending - Again, a very solid bittersweet ending. The way they played it close to the chest as to whether Shirou was "alive" seemed kinda dumb, though - there were too many hints dropped already that he was just fine for it to be believable. The best thing about this ending, though, was probably seeing the new sprites for so many characters. Damn, Sakura looked good.

 

And aside from those thoughts specifically about endings, here are some thoughts about the Heavens Feel route in general:

It was a great read, but I strongly prefer UBW for entertainment and personal satisfaction, mostly because Heavens Feel was simply too dark. There are a few themes that make me very uncomfortable, and both rape and torture are on that list, so those elements being very prominent in this route made it a lot less enjoyable for me. That said, I loved seeing more of Ilya, and in a better light than previously (can Ilya be my little sister?), and I appreciated how the full story came together here. In addition to Ilya, Kotomine and of course Sakura only became fascinating characters on this route. Fate/Stay Night really feels like an impressively-architected work of art when you reach Heavens Feel, as all the disparate pieces finally start clicking into place.

[Funyarinpa]

Chapter 4 is the designated Feels Chapter. Although the short glimpse you get into the life of Maria in Ch. 2 is pretty surprising, to say the least. And that fucking ending. God, I want to reread umineko again even though it's only been six months. I'm patiently waiting for that full PS3 to PC port some crazy russian fan team is working on.

I guess I will wait for that too, no matter how much I bashed EP7&8 when I was reading.

[Decay]

I guess I will wait for that too, no matter how much I bashed EP7&8 when I was reading.

They have a test version of the first episode now so they're making progress. It will be a full feature-perfect replica of the PS3 version. They're even doing additional TLC and edit passes on the english translation.. Although one issue is that it's pretty much a full-on illegal pirate version that will not require the original games or anything, they're just packing everything into their version and that's all they'll offer. We won't even be able to link it here when it's done.  

[Funyarinpa]

They have a test version of the first episode now so they're making progress. It will be a full feature-perfect replica of the PS3 version. They're even doing additional TLC and edit passes on the english translation.. Although one issue is that it's pretty much a full-on illegal pirate version that will not require the original games or anything, they're just packing everything into their version and that's all they'll offer. We won't even be able to link it here when it's done.

Will we be able to name the group that made it or will it be considered as linking to a torrent site or something?

[Mugi]

Finished Grisaia no Kajitsu, moving on to Majikoi S. Not sure what i'll read after this, probably Muvluv, Shuffle, or Princess Evangile

[Getsuya]

Got the final end on Eustia. The last chapter sucked pretty much the whole way through. I'll probably get into it in my full review once I get that up, but I need to finish all the bonus/sidestories before I can write that. Basically the big problem is Caim, who is a really awesome and strong character for the rest of the game, suddenly becomes just another weak-willed whiny emo protag like any of the very worst VN MCs. I skipped through most of the text except for the important stuff because everything in between was Caim either whining or wallowing in self-pity and loathing. It made me really sick after how amazing and strong the writing for everyone was up to that point. It's like they got a completely different guy to write Eustia's story, and I wouldn't doubt if that were true considering how out-of-place Eustia and Eustia-chapter!Caim are in the rest of the story.

 

At least the actual final ending was decent and wrapped things up in a satisfactory way. I just wish I hadn't had to slog through so much melodramatic filler to get there.

 

... oh and the final ending theme was really mediocre too. I wish they had just used the same ending they used for all the other chapters. It wasn't great, but it wasn't as bad as the one they did use.

 

Man I'm burnt out of that game. I guess whenever I recommend it to people from now on I'll say 'Get to where all the big secrets have been revealed and then just hold down skip til you hit the ending, everything in between is crap.'

 

Sorry for the rant. I just feel like I wasted half a day off on reading something really worthless.

[Funyarinpa]

Dropped Grisaia no Kajitsu. Had my fill for romance for a while.

 

I really want to play Chaos; Head, so I'll try to retry downloading it.

[SanadaShadow]

I tried to play it but I was having real difficulty getting into it. I have expectations for later down the li, but I need some definite free time so I start playing it again.

 

Down the li?

I can understand dropping it early on, I had the same thoughts for a long while. It's really just the ending that made it worth the bullshit I had to go through.

 

Finished Grisaia no Kajitsu, moving on to Majikoi S. Not sure what i'll read after this, probably Muvluv, Shuffle, or Princess Evangile

 

Try Evangile. From what I've seen so far, it's pretty damn fun. Protagonist's pretty cool too.

[Mr Poltroon]

Down the li?

I can understand dropping it early on, I had the same thoughts for a long while. It's really just the ending that made it worth the bullshit I had to go through.

I presume my computer froze up while I wrote 'line'.

[TexasDice]

Deardrops is really great. Moderately-slow paced and lots of build up, but I enjoy that, as long as it pays off. And it does. Also, you can't break out of that title screen, it's impossible!

Next, I will read one of the two "bad" routes. Let's see how that goes.

 

Lastly: Knowing the Deardrops characters did not improve my opinions on Curtain Call one bit. Curtain Call is still awful.

[FinalChaos]

Well the choices in F/SN aren't that hard to get through. 

 

What you have to do is basically switch off your logical brain and do stuff that would be considered heroic (and really stupid).

[AnimalSoundss]

Danganronpa and Majikoi. HIGHLY reccomend both, even though i have yet to complete either one lol.

Deardrops is really great. Moderately-slow paced and lots of build up, but I enjoy that, as long as it pays off. And it does. Also, you can't break out of that title screen, it's impossible!

Next, I will read one of the two "bad" routes. Let's see how that goes.

Lastly: Knowing the Deardrops characters did not improve my opinions on Curtain Call one bit. Curtain Call is still awful.

If you liked Deardrops, also try out Kira Kira, another music themed vn. In fact, not long ago they came out with a DD vs Kira Kira vn, since they are so similar. Havent read it yet tho...

PS: sry for the double post

[Funyarinpa]

Danganronpa and Majikoi. HIGHLY reccomend both, even though i have yet to complete either one lol.

 

 

Just get off the internet and complete DR. 

 

Otherwise, you'll get spoilers.

 

And no Tiag, this isn't exclusive to me, people look up the name of their favorite character in CH1 to find some character art or hentai or something and "<said character's name> execution" just pops up. Even the game's own trailers and OP are spoilery. Video name and thumbnails are spoilery on YouTube. 

 

May be with you

[Eclipsed]

All of the Danganronpa connections being made in the Fuwa Ambidex game makes me wanna read it; highly considering reading it next after I finish up Princess Evangile this weekend(?).

[Funyarinpa]

All of the Danganronpa connections being made in the Fuwa Ambidex game makes me wanna read it; highly considering reading it next after I finish up Princess Evangile this weekend(?).

 

Kaguya (and several others) find it to be underwhelming, I personally also have quite a few qualms with it but I cannot help but love it for what it is than hate it for what it could have been (kind of the same with Virtue's Last Reward, really).

[Mr Poltroon]

And no Tiag, this isn't exclusive to me, people look up the name of their favorite character in CH1 to find some character art or hentai or something and "<said character's name> execution" just pops up. Even the game's own trailers and OP are spoilery. Video name and thumbnails are spoilery on YouTube. 

I'm surprised you knew my automated idiot calling was about to come. 

But honestly, anyone who goes search about characters and expects not to get spoilers is an idiot. I am fully expecting to get spoiled when I look something up.

[Satsuki]

Lost hope patience with Clover Day's translation. Started on Anzu route. So much ichaicha!

[LinovaA]

That is Ep. 3 down of Umineko.

Holy shit. Like. What do I even say to that? XD

 

I marathoned the entire episode today... best decision I ever made.

 

Also:

Just wanted to say that Kyrie and Rudolf were fucking awesome in their fights with those two Sisters of Purgatory.

 

 

Edit: Now comes the hard part of resisting the urge to keep reading further and just wreck my sleep schedule.

[Decay]

Haha, wow, I thought I went fast when it took me a month to read all 8 episodes. Episode 3 is like a setup episode. It also introduced how absurd the action can get and had some awesome moments because of that. Episode 4 is probably my favorite, so look forward to that.

[Wonderfullyevil]

All this Umineko talk makes me wanna re-read it, ugh.

Just finished Sharnoth, and I loved it. Now, I kinda want to re-read it to get all the details, but I'll probably get bored. 

I wonder if I have a high tolerance for endings considering I was fine with the ones of Umineko, R11, and Sharnoth too. 

 

Now I want to play Saya no Uta, but I dunno how to tell my parents I want it.

[Kosakyun]

Endings? I don't find the ending of Sharnoth to be something that should be tolerated.

Sure, it ended on a mysterious note, but it was part of its beauty, I guess.

 

Now I want to play Saya no Uta, but I dunno how to tell my parents I want it. 

 

"Mom, I want to buy a porn game!" You don't. 

[Turnip Sensei]

Just finished Sharnoth, and I loved it. Now, I kinda want to re-read it to get all the details, but I'll probably get bored. 

 

Now I want to play Saya no Uta, but I dunno how to tell my parents I want it.

 

 

Glad too see you liked Sharnoth, now I feel good that I recommended it.

I have same kind of problem. My sister is going to Japan this summer, but I can't really ask her to buy me eroge.

[Wonderfullyevil]

I liked Sharnoth's ending, but a lot of people don't, so~.

 

"Mom, I want to buy a porn game!" You don't. 

XD I felt so awkward asking if I could get Umineko on MGs site. I mean, the first thing you see is a voluptuous girl in a skimpy bikini.

 

Glad too see you liked Sharnoth, now I feel good that I recommended it.

Thanks for that, haha. I praised it like crazy in my VNDB.

 

I guess I'll settle for what's on my laptop, maybe Symphonic Rain for a change of pace.