What are you playing?

[Nandemonai]

There is a reason people still want SKM all these years later

[akaritan]

I just finished MYTH, and I liked it, though it definitely isn't for everyone to say the least. MYTH is very, very confusing, which is either a selling point or a huge turn off. I found it to be a selling point- I had a lot of fun thinking about and trying to understand the numerous interwoven plotlines (something that I can't say I've succeeded at, even now). The music is also excellent. But the thing about MYTH is that if those things don't matter to you, or you outright dislike them, you're going to dislike MYTH too, because those two things are really the only reasons you'd read it. Sadly, I found the characters to be subpar and there was a lot of slice of life in the beginning where there didn't need to be, which kept me from liking it a lot more. It also very much feels like a doujin game. There is very little voice acting (a few segments towards the very end have partial), photographic backgrounds are used, and the sprite artwork can be a bit unpleasant to look at at times *cough*. With all that said, I found it to be a very charming and even cathartic, if also flawed, experience as a whole and I sure won't forget it anytime soon. Now that my brain is fried, I'm probably going to read a few lighthearted things to recover, ahaha. Maybe I'll pick up the new Sonohana, it looks really cute even if that isn't necessarily my thing most of the time.

[Vorathiel]

Finished Swan Song. Minor spoilers ahead.

Unbelievably well written characters with great development, really good setting, great depressing mood, good art, great presentation, good prose, very 'fitting' ero scenes, nice music, very good voice acting, but.... Plot is a little undeveloped. I just didn't found the whole conflict with the temple as 'gripping' as first 1/3 of this game, when they were just trying to survive. I'm sure there could be something much better.
And true ending. Jesus Christ. It sucks major balls.  Voice actress is screaming 'oniichan' directly to my brain, loli tsundere is slapping protagonist for things he didn't do, happy go lucky atmosphere instead of really great bittersweet 'normal' ending, and Himawari. I have a ptsd from sharin no kuni and everytime I see a field of sunflowers, especially as a 'sign of hope' I die a little inside. Sharin no kuni is a worst VN ever and should be killed with fire.... and I detoured again.
Anyway. True ending eve nincorporates the worst thing in Grisaia - veru rushed writting, which in merely 3 sentences sumamrize whole conversqations and full scenes instead of showing those conversations and events unveiling right before readers eyes. It feels like a 'summary' and not like a proper ending to a story.

So yeah, 'only' 8.7/10.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After that I started Remember11. I read that Ukikoshi 'mastermind' behind very disappointing and mediocre Ever17 is nowhere to be seen (on vndb), and overall he didn't do much on this. Nakazawa Takumi, guy behind I/O and the best route in e17 (You's route) is main concept planner, main senario writter and director of R11, so I get hyped. I'm only after prologue, but it's gripping from the start, mysterious, creepy, and very pleasantly written, so reading is a fast process. Much closer to I/O than E17. And I'm only around 45 minutes in, so I hope this trend will continue. 
I hear that this game have a 'non ending' ending, so it's even better. Ending to E17, and abundance of deus ex machina was probably the saddest thing about that VN. Especially that they explained 'everything', but not the most mysterious and interesting little things, which were presented in first four routes. I take open ending that explains not so much, ending which you must think about to made any sense out of, over any overexplained and dissapointing ending every time.
So, as you can see, I'm pretty hyped for R11.

[ChaosRaven]

2 hours ago, Vorathiel said:

Finished Swan Song. Minor spoilers ahead.

Unbelievably well written characters with great development, really good setting, great depressing mood, good art, great presentation, good prose, very 'fitting' ero scenes, nice music, very good voice acting, but.... Plot is a little undeveloped. I just didn't found the whole conflict with the temple as 'gripping' as first 1/3 of this game, when they were just trying to survive. I'm sure there could be something much better.
And true ending. Jesus Christ. It sucks major balls.  Voice actress is screaming 'oniichan' directly to my brain, loli tsundere is slapping protagonist for things he didn't do, happy go lucky atmosphere instead of really great bittersweet 'normal' ending, and Himawari. I have a ptsd from sharin no kuni and everytime I see a field of sunflowers, especially as a 'sign of hope' I die a little inside. Sharin no kuni is a worst VN ever and should be killed with fire.... and I detoured again.
Anyway. True ending eve nincorporates the worst thing in Grisaia - veru rushed writting, which in merely 3 sentences sumamrize whole conversqations and full scenes instead of showing those conversations and events unveiling right before readers eyes. It feels like a 'summary' and not like a proper ending to a story.

So yeah, 'only' 8.7/10.

lol, a review consisting of 90% ranting, but still a top rating at the end - just priceless! 

[Vorathiel]

I just can't do it differently xD I mentioned all those things I really liked at the beginning though. ;d

Edited November 27, 2016 by Vorathiel

[akaritan]

5 hours ago, Vorathiel said:

Finished Swan Song. Minor spoilers ahead.

Unbelievably well written characters with great development, really good setting, great depressing mood, good art, great presentation, good prose, very 'fitting' ero scenes, nice music, very good voice acting, but.... Plot is a little undeveloped. I just didn't found the whole conflict with the temple as 'gripping' as first 1/3 of this game, when they were just trying to survive. I'm sure there could be something much better.
And true ending. Jesus Christ. It sucks major balls.  Voice actress is screaming 'oniichan' directly to my brain, loli tsundere is slapping protagonist for things he didn't do, happy go lucky atmosphere instead of really great bittersweet 'normal' ending, and Himawari. I have a ptsd from sharin no kuni and everytime I see a field of sunflowers, especially as a 'sign of hope' I die a little inside. Sharin no kuni is a worst VN ever and should be killed with fire.... and I detoured again.
Anyway. True ending eve nincorporates the worst thing in Grisaia - veru rushed writting, which in merely 3 sentences sumamrize whole conversqations and full scenes instead of showing those conversations and events unveiling right before readers eyes. It feels like a 'summary' and not like a proper ending to a story.

So yeah, 'only' 8.7/10.

In spite of the terrible "good end", I'm glad you liked Swan Song, it's one of my favorite VNs. I would honestly recommend treating the normal end as a true end. It's very clear that the good end was tacked on just because there needed to be one, while the normal end fit the tone of the rest of the VN perfectly and was satisfying and beautiful in its own way, even though it wasn't a happy ending, to say the least.

[Vorathiel]

Yeah, I was aiming around 8.9 before 'true end'. So I like dit very, very much.

[kilicool64]

On 27.11.2016 at 5:10 AM, akaritan said:

I just finished MYTH, and I liked it, though it definitely isn't for everyone to say the least. MYTH is very, very confusing, which is either a selling point or a huge turn off. I found it to be a selling point- I had a lot of fun thinking about and trying to understand the numerous interwoven plotlines (something that I can't say I've succeeded at, even now). The music is also excellent. But the thing about MYTH is that if those things don't matter to you, or you outright dislike them, you're going to dislike MYTH too, because those two things are really the only reasons you'd read it. Sadly, I found the characters to be subpar and there was a lot of slice of life in the beginning where there didn't need to be, which kept me from liking it a lot more. It also very much feels like a doujin game. There is very little voice acting (a few segments towards the very end have partial), photographic backgrounds are used, and the sprite artwork can be a bit unpleasant to look at at times *cough*. With all that said, I found it to be a very charming and even cathartic, if also flawed, experience as a whole and I sure won't forget it anytime soon. Now that my brain is fried, I'm probably going to read a few lighthearted things to recover, ahaha. Maybe I'll pick up the new Sonohana, it looks really cute even if that isn't necessarily my thing most of the time.

I was considering giving MYTH a try myself one of these days, but the fact that it has the "Graphic Violence" tag on VNDB worries me a little. How graphically explicit is the violence in it? I can handle depictions of blood or small wounds just fine, but anything beyond that makes me uncomfortable.

[Mr Poltroon]

Sexual humour may be within the field of Grisaia's expertise, and although it is not a style I much prefer, I can try to appreciate it on occasion. Unfortunately, The Leisure of Grisaia contains so very much of it, it feels like they've hardly attempted to do anything other. This is not a problem I felt I had with other titles in the series, as their humour varied wildly from absurd situations to, quite frankly, just very funny exchanges and conversations between characters.
 Here all these exchanges appear to make mention of a sexual element or other at some point. Perhaps what's lacking is Yuuto's utter immunity to such matters, as he does not pay them much heed and ensures the conversation quickly moves forward. And then gets stuck at the first mention of common sense.

[Firemonk]

Turns out I missed a route on if my heart had wings.....I hate myself for missing asa and yoru 

[ChaosRaven]

Playing Hanachirasu now, which I picked up during the black friday sale. Start is pretty cool with a ferocious ninja attack on a mansion in a dark and gritty setting.

Unfortunately the game already crashed on me, which made me painfully aware that I'm playing a Jast game. *sigh*

Well, I hope it doesn't happen too often... 

[kilicool64]

1 hour ago, ChaosRaven said:

Playing Hanachirasu now, which I picked up during the black friday sale. Start is pretty cool with a ferocious ninja attack on a mansion in a dark and gritty setting.

Unfortunately the game already crashed on me, which made me painfully aware that I'm playing a Jast game. *sigh*

Well, I hope it doesn't happen too often... 

Didn't know JAST's VNs had a reputation for being buggy. Well, except for School Days and Shiny Days, but their Japanese versions apparently weren't any better in this regard, so those were clearly 0verflow's fault. Steins;Gate's original English PC version on the other hand was supposedly a lot more stable than its Japanese counterpart.

BTW, just to make sure, you did read my last post in the Root Double topic, right? Bit confused since you didn't respond to it and started a new VN in spite of my warning that you missed out on quite a bit of content in RD.

[akaritan]

9 hours ago, kilicool64 said:

I was considering giving MYTH a try myself one of these days, but the fact that it has the "Graphic Violence" tag on VNDB worries me a little. How graphically explicit is the violence in it? I can handle depictions of blood or small wounds just fine, but anything beyond that makes me uncomfortable.

If you have to ask about that, I don't really think I'd recommend it. I didn't think it was that bad, but a lot of it came out of nowhere and there's one scene later on in particular that isn't necessarily very explicit, but man was that some weird stuff and I can easily imagine it making someone of weaker constitution feel uncomfortable. More details in spoiler, I wouldn't look if you think you'll read it but if you're not sure it might be a good idea.

Spoiler

In chapter 1, a character's head explodes out of nowhere, which wasn't all that bad, but later there's a hallucination sequence where the main character is talking to two others, one of which has a mosaiced red spot for a face and the other which has no head at all. Image in spoilers if you want to see it. From what you said, you might not, but I'm linking it just in case. There were also a few segments with cannibalism, but there weren't any images, only backgrounds. Again, tl;dr version if you're squeamish or easily made uncomfortable I probably wouldn't recommend it. 

Spoiler

And then later on... well...

Spoiler

 

I'm sorry if I was over or under detailed, I hope this helps!

Edited November 28, 2016 by akaritan

[ChaosRaven]

1 hour ago, kilicool64 said:

Didn't know JAST's VNs had a reputation for being buggy. Well, except for School Days and Shiny Days, but their Japanese versions apparently weren't any better in this regard, so those were clearly 0verflow's fault. Steins;Gate's original English PC version on the other hand was supposedly a lot more stable than its Japanese counterpart.

They have a reputation for little quality assurance, causing all kinds of problems from being buggy to lacking translation. But apparently their releases have improved, at least I didn't hear much complaints about Seinarukana or Flowers.

1 hour ago, kilicool64 said:

BTW, just to make sure, you did read my last post in the Root Double topic, right? Bit confused since you didn't respond to it and started a new VN in spite of my warning that you missed out on quite a bit of content in RD.

Yeah sorry, I almost missed it and saw it just recently. Thing with Root Double is, that I wanted to get finally finished with it since it's such a long title that I was reading almost half a year on it. I'm not really a completionist that has to read everything, and just reading left over puzzle pieces with lots of redundant text isn't that fun. It would be different if it was a complete route. But the way it is, I think I'm fine with what I got so far.

[kilicool64]

24 minutes ago, akaritan said:

If you have to ask about that, I don't really think I'd recommend it. I didn't think it was that bad, but a lot of it came out of nowhere and there's one scene later on in particular that isn't necessarily very explicit, but man was that some weird stuff and I can easily imagine it making someone of weaker constitution feel uncomfortable. More details in spoiler, I wouldn't look if you think you'll read it but if you're not sure/leaning on not it.

  Reveal hidden contents

In chapter 1, a character's head explodes out of nowhere, which wasn't all that bad, but later there's a hallucination sequence where the main character is talking to two others, one of which has a mosaiced red spot for a face and the other which has no head at all. Image in spoilers if you want to see it. From what you said, you might not, but I'm linking it just in case. There were also a few segments with cannibalism, but there weren't any images, only backgrounds. Again, tl;dr version if you're squeamish or easily made uncomfortable I probably wouldn't recommend it. 

  Reveal hidden contents

And then later on... well...

  Reveal hidden contents

 

I'm sorry if I was over or under detailed, I hope this helps!

That's not too extreme. I can handle that kind of stuff as long as it's pixelated. And I'm generally far less sensitive to text than to visuals. Thanks for the information.

[akaritan]

Just now, kilicool64 said:

That's not too extreme. I can handle that kind of stuff as long as it's pixelated. And I'm generally far less sensitive to text than to visuals. Thanks for the information.

No problem, I hope you like it if/when you pick it up! 

[littleshogun]

Currently I'm stalled Flyable Heart again here (Hopefully I'll be able to continue this), although I could tell a little about Yui's route for now. What I want to said is that the first part of Yui's route was just alike Amane's route, two girls were had feeling for Shou so not much new content there (There's also fake fiancee plot). And of course instead of Amane, Shou choose Yui as his lover if some people want to nitpick. That's all for now that I could shared here.

[onorub]

Finished all Dracu-Riot routes. Good time waster overall, but nothing i'd beat myself over for not reading.

Spoiler

I feel a wasted opportunity was not having an harem route where the MC could go up against the big mastermind behind the whole "lychantrope manufaturing" organization.

 

[pual]

Reading Killer Queen's second part now. I think length should be medium in vndb instead of short but that depends on reader..

[Vorathiel]

I think is something like Eden. Little too long to be short (up to 10 hours) and still too short to be called medium (10-30). Both took me around 11 hours.

[Decay]

Eh, Eden took me around seven-ish hours.

The VNDB playtime system isn't meant to be based on firm hour counts, it's meant to be comparative. Saya no Uta being one of the listed examples for "Short," I feel Eden was roughly on par with that, maybe just a little bit longer. Basically think about what VNs it's equivalent to length to and look at what those are rated at on VNDB.

Edited December 1, 2016 by Decay

[Suzu Fanatic]

Torn between Dracu-riot and Root double - just finished I am Setsuna, and was llooking to play a VN to mix things up~ That or wait a few more days for Himawari.

[ChaosRaven]

Finished Feena's route in Yoake Mae yori Ruri Iro na now and as much as it hurts to say, but it was horribly generic. Considering that Feena is supposed be a moon princess you might at least expect a visit in a moon city, but there was nothing like that. Just ultra simplistic school life moege. Presentation wise it's still quite decent despite it's age and it also has some surprisingly good soundtracks, but besides that it has very little to offer. It's neither particularly funny nor dramatic, the romance wasn't particularly engaging with little to no chemistry between Feena and the rather bland protagonist and there's no interesting story either. And by removing the H scenes you can't even play it for fan service anymore.

Overall, I'm thinking about dropping this completely and just ignore all the other routes. I always wanted to play Feena's route since she kind of stood out with her moon princess charme, but the rest of the cast simply lacks that appeal. So I think I move on to Dracu Riot now besides the Hanachirasu I'm also currently playing. It's supposed to be pretty good, and considering Noble Works was already a quite decent moege it at least shouldn't disappoint.

[Chuee]

2 hours ago, ChaosRaven said:

Finished Feena's route in Yoake Mae yori Ruri Iro na now and as much as it hurts to say, but it was horribly generic. Considering that Feena is supposed be a moon princess you might at least expect a visit in a moon city, but there was nothing like that. Just ultra simplistic school life moege. Presentation wise it's still quite decent despite it's age and it also has some surprisingly good soundtracks, but besides that it has very little to offer. It's neither particularly funny nor dramatic, the romance wasn't particularly engaging with little to no chemistry between Feena and the rather bland protagonist and there's no interesting story either. And by removing the H scenes you can't even play it for fan service anymore.

Overall, I'm thinking about dropping this completely and just ignore all the other routes. I always wanted to play Feena's route since she kind of stood out with her moon princess charme, but the rest of the cast simply lacks that appeal. So I think I move on to Dracu Riot now besides the Hanachirasu I'm also currently playing. It's supposed to be pretty good, and considering Noble Works was already a quite decent moege it at least shouldn't disappoint.

You just finished her initial route, right? I'd at least recommend going through her second route that unlocks after you clear all the routes. It's a lot better than anything in her initial route. 

[ChaosRaven]

33 minutes ago, Chuee said:

You just finished her initial route, right? I'd at least recommend going through her second route that unlocks after you clear all the routes. It's a lot better than anything in her initial route. 

Yes, just her introduction route that unlocks the other heroines, I didn't know that there's also an after route so to say. Hm, yeah I still liked Feena so why not. I probably give it a short break for now to get motivated again and pick it up sometime later.

Thanks for the info.