What are you playing?

[Dreamysyu]

After another monthly delay, finished the third chapter of Fata Morgana, and it was awesome! It's definitely the best chapter so far. Heavy spoilers ahead.

Spoiler

I strongly suspected that Maria might be the one secretly pulling the strings, but it still managed to shock me somehow. And this ending! Even though I knew that stories in this VN don't end happily, I still hoped to the last minute that it might go some other way. But, well, at least Jacopo learned about Maria's actions in the end. I actually feared that he might die without learning anything. I would feel even more heartbroken then.

It's worth mentioning that at this point I felt that strongly only about two VNs: Umineko and Muv-Luv Alternative.

That said, this VN is extremely to my tastes at this point. I'm pretty tired of Japanese school settings, and this seems like a nice change of pace. I might not have time to continue to the fourth chapter right now, but I definitely going to finish it some day.

So far 9/10, with potential to increase.

[Funyarinpa]

7 hours ago, Dreamysyu said:

After another monthly delay, finished the third chapter of Fata Morgana, and it was awesome! It's definitely the best chapter so far. Heavy spoilers ahead.

  Hide contents

I strongly suspected that Maria might be the one secretly pulling the strings, but it still managed to shock me somehow. And this ending! Even though I knew that stories in this VN don't end happily, I still hoped to the last minute that it might go some other way. But, well, at least Jacopo learned about Maria's actions in the end. I actually feared that he might die without learning anything. I would feel even more heartbroken then.

It's worth mentioning that at this point I felt that strongly only about two VNs: Umineko and Muv-Luv Alternative.

That said, this VN is extremely to my tastes at this point. I'm pretty tired of Japanese school settings, and this seems like a nice change of pace. I might not have time to continue to the fourth chapter right now, but I definitely going to finish it some day.

So far 9/10, with potential to increase.

Buckle the fuck up

[Dreamysyu]

1 hour ago, Funyarinpa said:

Buckle the fuck up

Yeah, I have a feeling I might need to.

[Funyarinpa]

26 minutes ago, Dreamysyu said:

Yeah, I have a feeling I might need to.

It gets better. IT GETS EVEN BETTER. 

[Akimoto Masato]

Idk exactly what VN it is, its untranslated entirely, the case was in Japanese so idk ;-;

[kyrt]

I just picked up Da Capo III...and am not completely sure why but I'm now reading it. I'm hoping that despite being a school setting that it can actually be interesting and unique but I guess time will tell.

[littleshogun]

Finally finishing Yui's route after several times delay. Yui was kind of glutton (Same as our Flyable Heart MC Shou) and her favorite food was donut. After token triangle love from Amane, there's some sweet moment between Yui and Shou before finally found out about awful truth. Beware of spoiler below.

Spoiler

Namely that she and Shou was twins before finally confirmed it was not ie coincidentally just both of Yui and Shou were had same DNA. However, the biggest wham there was when Shou was revealed to be no existing in the world ie no data about him in the first place (Shou circumstance was not like Yuuji from Grisaia by the way), and yet he still remember about his dad which supposedly already dead four years ago. And Yui was knew about that as well. In the end, Shou was about to disappear and come Suzuno to save his live by giving choice between his former world and Yui's world because in the first place Shou and Yui couldn't be in the same world. In the end it all worked out somehow, and Shou was about to met Yui's new dad as well as his mom (She was supposedly dead when Shou was young). Oh, and apparently Suzuno was some sort of angel who could time travelling and dimension travelling although there's still some answer left at Suzuno's route though.

That's all that I could said, and sorry if I couldn't write it well. As for next route, there's only Suzuno route left so obviously I'll read Suzuno's (Duh). I t was unlocked after finishing previous routes (Mayuri, Sakurako, Amane, Kururi, and Yui) by the way.

PS - Oh, and speaking about seiyuu this time there's The Danza (Seiyuu and character name was the same by the way) in which Yui was voiced by Ogura Yui who also voiced Himiko from Eiyuu Senki, Nanase Rio from Imouto Paradise, and Yanase Eika from Ikikoi. 

[Canicheslayer]

Does that ring a bell? 

[Nandemonai]

1 hour ago, Canicheslayer said:

Does that ring a bell? 

So the Organization is these five girls, then?  I don't see why Okabe would be so hung up on it.  In fact, you'd think he'd be clamoring to join.

[pual]

Dracu-Riot! h-scenes are awful (mostly voices bother, overly done mosaic too), this is so far only VN where I voluntarily skip most of them with Ctrl. It's also focused on characters and not story. Also reading Root Double, which is pretty good :).

Edited January 23, 2017 by pual

[Akimoto Masato]

Well ;-; I'm out of ideas on what to read next, OFF TO THE RECOMMENDATION SECTION!!

[Kurisu-Chan]

So, i started Fate/Stay night, the Fate prologue was cool so far. 

[onorub]

Played Rizu's route from A Profile, and it made me wish Kaine was the actual MC.

Also, i thought rejecting the H scene would lead to a bad ending and it turned out to be a better ending, lol.

Edited January 24, 2017 by onorub

[ChaosRaven]

So I finished Dracu-Riot! now, or to be more precise Rio's and Miu's routes. Originally, I planned to at least play Nicola's and maybe even Elina's routes too, but decided against it at the end. Dracu Riot has a great prologue, a funny and entertaining common route, but somehow after that, as soon as the individual routes start, it stops being good. And there are several reasons for that.

First, I had the impression that they pretty much run out of budget when they finished the common route since almost nothing new was drawn anymore except for the H-scenes. You can count the number of event CG's for each route more or less on one hand and even major characters aren't drawn anymore. I appreciate Yuzusoft's attempt to add an interesting story, but it's not particularly convincing if they abbandon it half-way and don't even give a rats-ass about it anymore. They kept a good balance until the common route ends, but after that... ugh! 

The second major problem is that the romance scenes and the H-scenes in particular are akward at best and cringeworthy at worst. Yuzusoft's biggest strength is the comedic interaction between the characters, but the actual routes focus more on rather unconvincing romance scenes and a half assed story instead of that. It was a real chore to go through it. Though partly that's also a general problem of comedy VN's. Good romance requires a certain amount intensity and sincerity, which comedy VN's usually lack.

The VN is also a bit too 'light' for a vampire VN. The characters are far too over-cutified for vampires and the whole theme is more about comedic detective work than vampires anyway. Dracu-Riot might be a good comedy VN, but it's certainly not a good vampire VN. And considering how the overall quality drops in the individual routes, I would also call the story barebones at best.

That's not to say they wouldn't have had have some funny ideas. I'm still awed that one of Dracu-Riot's 'greatest' vampire strengths is that they can drink booze with 100% alcohol without dying. 

On the other hand, where's the fun if you don't even get drunk from it... 

Overall, it was still a solid read thanks to the great start, the entertaining common route, the good comedy and not to forget, Yuzusoft's great sprite dynamics which are almost unrivaled in the business. But yeah, two routes were enough for me.

Heroine rankings: Miu > Nicola > Elina > Mera > Rio

Overall rating: 7 / 10

Edited January 24, 2017 by ChaosRaven

[onorub]

1 hour ago, ChaosRaven said:

Dracu-Riot thoughts

I think you should give Mera's route a try, as that was the best route IMO (a bit cliche with the racial approach, but is more than you can say for the other routes). You can skip Elina's and Nicola's routes no problem though. (Elina's was 2 hours of decent romance and then 4 hours of build-up for a villain that ended up crappy and Nicola's was 3 hours of sexual tension until a new character tries to save the route and fails)

Edited January 25, 2017 by onorub

[Decay]

Part of the problem with the common route having better comedic writing than the heroine routes is that the common route was (partially) edited while the heroine routes weren't, save for Miu which had a quick pass that will be getting a second pass. Don't say we didn't warn you, though, this kind of inconsistency is what you get when you grow impatient and read unpolished, unfinished patches.

[BookwormOtaku]

Been playing more of Maya's route in DC2PC and I'm quite enjoying it. The two have surprisingly good chemistry and the story so far is taking advantage of getting us to learn more about her as a character compared to the little we do in the original along with having that go along with Maya herself getting to know more of the core cast better as she her interactions with them are implied minimal in the original too. I'm currently at the winter holiday portion and I must invoke the meme "Is this a JoJo reference?"

http://imgur.com/a/POdPt

 

[ChaosRaven]

14 hours ago, Decay said:

Part of the problem with the common route having better comedic writing than the heroine routes is that the common route was (partially) edited while the heroine routes weren't, save for Miu which had a quick pass that will be getting a second pass. Don't say we didn't warn you, though, this kind of inconsistency is what you get when you grow impatient and read unpolished, unfinished patches.

This goes deeper than just a mere editing pass. The common route is more about 'friendship comedy' and the individual routes more about 'romance comedy'. And if it comes to Yuzusoft's comedy styles, I like the former but the latter not so much. It's more a matter of taste. I had similar issues with Noble Works. I'm also not the biggest comedy fan anyway, and it therefore speaks for Yuzusoft's writing quality that I can still appreciate it to a certain degree.

[onorub]

Finished A Profile and definitely think i enjoyed it more than most people. All 3 girls are creepy weirdos, btw.

[littleshogun]

Bored here, and decided to read this VN. Let's just said the VN was had the worst character development and I don't care whether someone died or not (It's only around less than 15 minutes duh). But at least it allow us to save, in which there's some certain VN which forgot that. Although it's definitely not the best VN in term of story (It's parody in the first place anyway, from Reddit to be exact), at least I'm interested in two characters from the VN who also Fuwanovel member (Bigfatround0 and Superange there). Other than the parody nature, there's no much to talk about here. By the way, it's free just in case some user here asking what's the price for the VN itself.

[Dreamysyu]

Fata Morgana, finished chapter 4 and started chapter 5.

Spoiler

At first I was a bit disappointed with the fourth chapter, but then I got to the revelation at the end, and... Did they actually make a mediocre chapter, and made the fact that the chapter is mediocre a major plot point? I am not even sure if it was a great or a stupid move. On the other hand, it certainly made the revelation even more shocking. Also, the backlog acting like crazy throughout the whole chapter certainly added to the experience, and made the whole thing more interesting, though it was a bit inconvenient, to be honest.

Now, a few words about the revelation. Well, it was... great, I guess? And pretty confusing at the same time. Right now the thing I am most concerned with is connected to the White-Haired Girl. Just, who exactly she is? It doesn't seem like she appears in this time period, so I am pretty clueless right now. She kind of looks like Michel, so... His descendant, perhaps? Also, I am a bit worried about the phrase of the protagonist, that she was never at the mansion. I am not sure if he referred to this time period, or the mansion as a whole. Even though I don't think it's something like that, I would be quite sad if the girl turns out to be some kind of a fictional character, I quite liked her. Well she is a fictional character anyway, but you get what I mean. And I am not even sure if it is the same mansion in every chapter, because the location was clearly different each time.

By the way, it's pretty funny that the Maid's lie is exactly what I thought was happening, when I was reading chapter 2 or so. It didn't exactly add up, so I dropped this idea a bit earlier.

Also, a small question to those who already finished the game. I managed to get the right option (well, I guess it was the right option) to the choice at the end of the 4th chapter on the first try, but I'm pretty curious about where other options lead. So, what do you think, should I finish the VN first, or try other options right now?

Anyway, I'm finally completely hooked! I'm not sure about how much free time I have right now, but I am probably going to spend a bit more of it on this VN.

[Vorathiel]

Branches from choices are pretty short, so you probably should check them all 'on the way'.

[Dreamysyu]

10 hours ago, Vorathiel said:

Branches from choices are pretty short, so you probably should check them all 'on the way'.

Thanks! I'll try them then.

[Mr Poltroon]

In preparation for Da Capo III I decided to finally finish Da Capo II. Right now I believe I am missing Minatsu's, Otome's, Yume's and Sakura's routes, so I started with Minatsu. Additionally, I don't remember finishing Nanaka's route, but I do remember at least starting it...

Minatsu Route Thoughts:

Spoiler

First of all, little effort was put into making her look like a convincing robot in any fashion. Unfortunately it manages to make the entire premise look ridiculous because there is literally no real factors that differentiate her from humans.

This being said, and although the route focuses on her being a robot and the consequences attached to that, I think it really shines in the romance department. Her frankness, lovableness, when accompanied by her rapid growth as a 'person', make for a really interesting route.
Frankly, the romance and character interaction were what made the route, not the whole robot shenanigans, which was amateurishly crafted at best. People changed their view from "I hate robots" to "I love robots" at the drop of the hat, and even if there were some attempts to clarify that not everyone so whimsically changed opinions, when pretty much the whole school boycotts classes for the sake of the robot there is little else I can think.

On the topic of the 'Mu', I had hopes they would take centre stage this route. It seems it was not to be...

 

In other news, Sawase Maya.

I love the class president's voice actress -- that should be made clear. Unfortunately, I don't believe she should have been cast as the class president. She's very good at making her characters sound troubled, mad (in a comedic sense), and just generally humorous. Unfortunately, the only facet of the president I feel she can accurately represent is her exasperation. Her decisiveness and assertiveness are immediately thrown out of the window by her... sort of goofy voice. Not necessarily from being badly voice acted, mind you, but from the fact I know her other roles.
Worse still, I've seen her in other roles. Other more serious roles, where she seemed to manage decently. In short, I'd go so far as to claim that whoever's responsible for directing the way she voices her character is at fault.

[Dreamysyu]

How dare you, Fata Morgana!.. How dare you giving me hints, that my craziest idea might be correct!