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[Decay]

21 minutes ago, LemiusK said:

 

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The anime's censor of Psycho-Nae was stupid, not to mention having Braun killing Moeka.

This is probably the only major flaw I could find, albeit one that really affects the quality of the anime.

I'm not sure you can call that "censorship." It didn't strike me as such. To be honest, I felt that little side plot felt very out of place and I'm glad the anime version didn't include it.

[Zidan209]

I finished Sachi's route in Grisaia yesterday.

Spoiler

Blowing up the school was certainly too much. I didn't like how they handled the good and bad endings. IMO, they could have just removed the whole bad end, since it's pretty useless. I sometimes look for a meaning even in bad endings and try to get a grasp on what are they like, but Sachi's bad end was certainly stupid and brought nothing whatsoever (maybe anger towards the writer at most). But it would be probably hard to be satisfied with an ending when i did not even intend to go for Sachi first

 

[LemiusK]

15 hours ago, Decay said:

I'm not sure you can call that "censorship." It didn't strike me as such. To be honest, I felt that little side plot felt very out of place and I'm glad the anime version didn't include it.

It strike me as such because it felt like they didn't want to show a child going through such a f-ed up thing. In addition, on a related note, they also censored Mayuri's fate, the fate of a child (pre-teen?) in episode 12, so there's that. But I could certainly understand why it felt out of place. On the other hand, I felt it lessened the impact of Steins;Gate dark message: don't f*** with forces you don't know about, including time itself. The whole thing with Nae was meant to show the consequences of time travel, and I felt like that scene with Nae really hit home the point even more than before. If anything else, I'm just curious what could've driven Nae into such a fate, and the writing in the VN certainly left me intrigued. It felt like an interesting sub-plot they wasted by not including in it at least an OVA or something.

On a side note, Nae's sub-plot was also interesting because it showed the possibility of

 

someone being able to time leap 15 years into the past, let alone into the body of a child. Kurisu has mentioned that leaping into your younger mind can have drastic side effects, so it was nice to see that insanity seems to be one of them, or whatever circumstances that convinced Nae's f-ed up mind to time-leap as many times as she did.

Anyway, I agree in part that it did feel a bit unnecessary, and that it could've been done more tactfully. I did feel a bit put off by

 

Nae's description of Okabe's torture.

It made sense, but it was off-putting all the same. That said, the real change I had a problem with was Braun's personality, and what he chose to do with Moeka. That was butchered characterization if I've ever seen one. I felt he became a less likable character than his VN counterpart. It made no sense at all and is the real out-of-place plot element IMO. I know they needed to change it because of what happened with Nae, but that's just lazy writing.

Edited May 31, 2017 by LemiusK

[pual]

Just started YU-NO. Looking at this jewel chart is pretty unnerving . Apparently items decide where you can go which helps a bit.

[Vokoca]

Haha, that flowchart just makes it needlessly complicated, YU-NO isn't that difficult at all. Once you get onto a route it is mostly linear, and the game does let you know when you can cross onto a different world-line, so you at least know when to look out for what you pick.

As for me, I've took the plunge and re-read Cross Channel in Japanese some time back. I've always wanted to do this, considering its reputation and the... embarrassing TL it has in English. hoping I'd find much more enjoyment in the VN this time around. And I did - the writing was playful and funny, a lot of the laughs I had while reading came from the writing alone. The nuances themselves were also fun for sure - but my overall issues I had with the VN my first time throuh remained. That is, the entire true route is just incredibly boring, and it explicitly hand-waves a lot of the plot details away, since they (usually) don't even matter that much to the VN's plot. Now, I'm not saying every story should explain everything in minute detail - I am a big fan of works that leave certain things to interpretation - but there is a big difference between details that were purposefully omitted, and details that didn't even exist in the first place. I feel like Cross Channel falls into the second category, as in one point the author almost directly tells you that he doesn't have to explain shit because nothing of it even matters anyway - and while I can agree with him to a certain point, it did kind of leave bad taste in my mouth. It's also baffling how incredibly bad the voice acting is even after all these re-releases, and how none of the pacing issues are fixed either (I was reading the Final Complete version, that essentially ended up being the exact same as the original, just with a bunch of worthless stuff on top no one asked for),  but I suppose I can't blame the writer for that too much.

Overall a very enjoyable read with some great comedy and intriguing characters, but I feel like there was room to improve. But hey... maybe I just don't get it. 

[douggle]

I just started Dies Irae, I've waited 5 years for this VN, been curious in it since I started reading em anyways back to it

Edited June 1, 2017 by douggle

[Kenshin_sama]

I can't believe I'm really reading this right now. It's been such a long wait.

Absolutely fantastic prologue. The hype has already sunken in with me.

[roastedmushroom]

Hmmm currently playing Katawa Shoujo. Don't really like the prose or style of writing. Or the way they present some of the character interactions.

 

Guess I'll play on a bit more and see. 

[Fred the Barber]

I finally finished all of Chrono Clock. I'd finished all the actual story stuff quite a while back, but after that I still had five H scenes left (one Makoto, two for each of the last two routes), which I'd been putting off because, well, I just don't typically care for marathoning H scenes. But I got the last remaining three finished today and was actually somehow delighted to see that doing so unlocked the ability to select the title screen splash image for myself, even though I'm pretty unlikely to ever open the game again, simply because I thought the second splash screen that unlocked after finishing the first four routes was actually super lame boring compared to the original splash screen. Of course, since I was suddenly presented with even more choices than I expected, I promptly switched to the one with just Misaki on it, because she's best girl.

After spending some time away from the actual game, I think this is probably the second-best moege I've read, behind KonoSora (ignoring the MoeNovel translation issues and just assessing the game on other elements...). Chrono Clock has hardly got any plot (which is what puts KonoSora firmly above it), but it's a masterpiece when it comes to characters, and as I realized when I started playing this game, that really can be good enough to make a VN a delight to play.

[RadicalCarenChan]

I seem to lack any desire to continue reading the Nekopara I downloaded ages ago. It's not that I hate it, it's just that I'm not interested enough to start reading it again. For that reason and some others I decided to just get a new VN to read and downloaded Dies Iraes.

I've read it until about chapter 4 and so far it's quite enjoyable. The soundtrack and art aren't really to my taste for some reason, but imo they aren't bad by any means, just not exactly to my taste. My opinion may change as I keep reading it tho, and I'm enjoying the experience.

I'm also downloading Majikoi. I'll probably start reading it after finishing Dies Iraes's Common Route because I'm too broke right now to buy the DLCs right away.

Edited June 6, 2017 by RadicalCarenChan

[littleshogun]

As for mine, try to juggle between Dies Irae and Everlasting Summer here. Quite hard choice indeed here.

[Canicheslayer]

Finished Kanon. It was a beautiful (retro) experience despite a perfectible writing (for example, some endings were bad/botched and the H-scenes were horrible). Similarly, it was refreshing to follow a good and likeable protagonist (for once, he's not a stupid donkan).

Girl Ranking : Akiko (she's like a summer ray of sunshine just in the middle of Winter) > Nayuki (sweet sleepyhead) = Shiori = Kaori (but no route for her  ) = Sayuri > Makoto (funny but too childish) = Ayu (funny but too much uguu kills the uguu) = Mai (a mysterious coodere...but a bit too quiet)

Route Ranking : Shiori (the classic moving story but with a truly satisfying closure)> Makoto (surprisingly touching) > Mai (the ending left me slightly puzzled...otherwise it was pretty, mysterious and poetic > Ayu (nice but too predictable) = Nayuki (interesting until we discover a rushed ending) > Sayuri (she deserved better)

Edited June 7, 2017 by Canicheslayer

[douggle]

Finished Dies Irae, that was a hell of a ride, cant even begin to put into words how awesome that was. Thinking about breaking for the day and then finishing up the Grisaia trilogy 

[Trickay]

Started reading Steins;Gate 0, only just a couple of hours in. I was surprised how the first scene with the amadeus really gave me a sad feeling, even though I know this is set on the beta line. 

[Vorathiel]

13 hours ago, Trickay said:

Started reading Steins;Gate 0, only just a couple of hours in. I was surprised how the first scene with the amadeus really gave me a sad feeling, even though I know this is set on the beta line. 

Remember that feeling, cause you'll not feel it much more. Almost everything in this VN feels 'irrelevant', because it's beta timeline and its' offshots. There are a couple of really intense scenes, great moments, but they will leave you with empty feeling of "actually nothing happened".

[Fred the Barber]

I finally played Saya no Uta yesterday. It was very good; not like exceptional or earth-shattering, but very good. Just as importantly, it was also extremely different from what I usually read, and it's nice to have a change of pace every now and then. My favorite part of it was how the game simultaneously made certain characters both repulsive and sympathetic. That's not a common or an easy thing to do, and it leaves you in a really strange mental place, which is a feeling I'm kind of savoring.

That said, I'm looking forward to playing something more straightforward. I've been wrapping up things I wanted to do, lately, so I'm either going to read WEE Episode 3 or, more likely, finish up Fruit of Grisaia. Both have been hanging over my head for a while, especially the latter. Plus, that'll give me an excuse to read the common route again...

[littleshogun]

For now I'm gonna finishing Slavya route at Everlasting Summer and write some comment on that.

[Canicheslayer]

Finished Nekopara vol.3. As usual, the art is gorgeous and the H-scenes are hot (except one because I don't have an urination fetish). Having said that, this episode was so boring (weak story, stereotyped characters...nothing new under the sun). I read ALL the four episodes... I think I'm a closet pervert masochist 

Reading Private Nurse (Edit : finished Ayano's route). Nothing awesome or original but it is fairly pleasant. The protagonist is  stupid (a bit hetare, maybe) and immature but Ayano and Maria are cute girls (Edit : the nurse seems cool too) Oh ! I almost forget : I like the art (Edit :  except Ayano's H-scenes).

Edit : Finished the neutral ending. It's short and slightly bitter. Not bad.

Edit : Finished Mio's "Route"...It was a bad joke

Spoiler

 

Edited June 14, 2017 by Canicheslayer
2.3

[Deniz]

I started to Rance VI.Grinding is kinda pain in the ass but Tamanegi's hilarious lessons make it worth.

[Canicheslayer]

Tada ! Finished Private Nurse. To sum up, it was a pleasant reading (bittersweet and nostagic atmosphere, beautiful ending, nice girls, interesting themes) but this could have been better

The protagonist is a moron (classic...I know), the writing is a bit messy (one rushed route/ending, too many monotonous passages) and lazy (some h-scenes are repeated) and the art is a dizzying rollercoaster : the regular h-scenes are average (or even bad) but somes CGs are truly memorable (ex : see my avatar).

[ChaosRaven]

So I actually finished a VN that I dropped before. I somehow got bored with Da Capo 3 and therefore picked up almost out of pure desperation - surprise, surprise - Chusingura again. 

I wasn't too fond of the first chapter because it had some glaring flaws and therefore had a hard time to get used to it. But since the VN got a lot of praise I decided to give the VN a second chance. Fortunately, the second chapter improved on almost all fronts and I therefore continued and read all chapters. I'll now review each of the five chapters and give it an individual rating.

1. Chapter

This was the introductionary chapter and centered around Kuranosuke and the Ako retainers. Okay, admittedly I bashed its first chapter pretty hard before. While some of it was IMO well deserved, the flaws might have overshadowed the strengths a bit too much. Mainly because the first chapter was still pretty rough around the edges with comedy and drama parts rather poorly balanced, the unfitting oversexualisation of many character designs and - my main gripe -  the Franken-romance with Kuranosuke's Yoda form. Though the story events itself were still interesting and Shimizu Ichigaku was a pretty cool character that stood out from the rest of the cast. And I have to admit that Kuranosuke and Fuwa grew on me in the later chapters. 6/10

2. Chapter

This chapter was centered around Yasubee and the Edo retainers. It was a massive improvement over the first chapter and also benefitted from the fact that I liked the Edo retainers Yasubee, Shinroku, Magodayuu and Koheita a lot more than the actual Ako retainers. But the real strength was the protagonist. He really grew in comparison to the first chapter and was very proactive, trying to investigate and solve the situation his way. I was also very impressed that he didn't just dump Kuranosuke for Yasubee. The situation just turned out completely different and he had pretty much no choice. And Yasubee getting together with him was a slow process. The chapter also managed to balance out comedy, story and drama very well. Especially the events around

Spoiler

Koheita

hit me very hard - I was close to tears. This time the writer was also very good to mix the whole moe theme with Japanese history very well. The ronin also have to go through real life struggles like poverty, hunger and betrayal. At times the whole atmosphere completely draws you in. Yasubee also grew very well as a character since she had to revise her somewhat stubborn black and white view of the world. Some negative points were that there were not enough revelations and the ending got a bit too slow and repetitive since it was very similar to the first chapter. Still, certainly one of the best written chapters. 8.5/10

3. Chapter

This chapter was centered around Chikara and the Edo characters again. Well, to be precise it was split between Shinpachi from the Uesugi faction and Chikara. This was a rather so so chapter. Pretty much pure filler with barely any relevance to the main story. The protagonist was kind of struggling which was okay at the start and I liked the parts with Shinpachi. But it got pretty annoying later on when he started playing drama queen. The whole romance with Chikara was also far too forced and barely believable, especially considering that the protagonist had 10 times more chemistry with Shinpachi than Chikara. And the ending also felt almost like copy & paste from the previous chapters. The chapter would have been vastly better if it would have focused more on the Uesugi family. I would have really liked to see some interaction with Irobe, the head of the family. 7/10

4. Chapter

This chapter was finally centered around the best character in the VN, Shimizu Ichigaku. She didn't get too much screen time in chapter 2 and 3, but this one was all about her. And while some might criticize this chapter as a bit too much of a history lesson, I found it intellectually absolutely brilliant. The writer did not only show here that he has some very impressive background knowledge about this era of Japanese history, he was also brilliant to interpret it in different ways. The protagonist was forced to question his own beliefs and look at the whole situation from the opposite side. Towards the end there were also some more revelations about the main story. Although the chapter was mostly brilliant it also had some negatives. It felt a bit rushed towards the end and the drama around the siblings felt a bit too constructed to prove a point. Chapter 2 was better in that regard. Overall the chapter was just as good as the second one. Chapter 2 was a bit better on the drama and romance side, but chapter 4 was better on an intellectual level. 8.5/10

5. Chapter

This was the last chapter and centered around Emoshichi. Honestly, coming from a brilliant chapter like the fourth and then having to read 'this' felt almost like a slap in the face. I knew that a chapter centered around an annoying airhead loli character like Emoshichi would be hard, but I also didn't expect it to be utter crap. I mean, although I found Emoshichi quite annoying and would vastly prefered Sayo for a loli route, I didn't hate her. But if the story arc pretty much contradicts itself from start to finish and the writer starts to literally defile and shit on his own story, lore and characters it's hard to say anything good about it.

I mean everyone knows that Emoshichi is about as talented in sword fighting as a giant space hamster. And she's also practically still a kid. So why try to make her Japanese next top samurai?! Why send her and Suguha away if their family needs them to get food and money since their father is ill? And while Asaemon was a rather quirky character (it was certainly no coincidence that she was voiced by the same voice actress like Natsume from Kara no Shoujo), she didn't harmonate with Emoshichi at all. They should have taken Emoshichi as she is and give her a more passive role instead of trying to turn her into Bruce Lee. Mini-rant:

Spoiler

And that 'let's kill the puppy training' was just bogus. And why pick Fuwa, the strongest figher, for a contest to prove she can't compete? If you really want to prove that someone is too weak you let him loose against one of your weakest members. And then Suguha's 'great' strategy to beat Fuwa: Let's provoke a berserker type fighter who run purely on emotions and gets exponentially stronger the more pissed she is. Their best chance would have been to hope that Fuwa is so overconfident looking at Emoshichi that she falls asleep during the fight. And the highlight was then Emoshichi almost beating Fuwa. What an absurd nonesense just to please a tiny audience with an airhead loli fetish.

And what hurts even more, is that the final revelation was pretty much squished into a small epilogue after this whole mess. It was almost like the writer had completely forgotten to write the ending and then tried to fix it one day before release. It still took some time to read it, but not because there was a lot of story. Instead it was maybe 20 - 30 minutes of relevant text wrapped into three hours of cling and clang sounds full of pointless fighting. It could have been really good if they would have dedicated the whole chapter to it. But nooooo we just need a kusoge chapter full of crap, centered around the most pathetic character in the whole VN. *sigh* 4/10

Anyway, as a whole this VN was one of the better ones I've read in a while. While it was still rough around the edges, it had some extremely well written parts and charaters. The writer is certainly talented. Most characters were drawn which is a rarity and it had some of the best fighting scenes I've seen so far (Shinpachi end fight was amazing). Back ground art could have been better, but I think they used photographic ones and for that they were good. They must have used a pretty good conversion technique. Though I have to say that the VN is mostly about the individual chapter stories. The overarching plot wasn't that good and barely touched in most chapters anyway. And for that I think a long common route followed by individual routes and actually satisfying endings would have worked much better. And Kuranosuke should have been one character with a multifaceted personality and not a split personality between clown and serious. She managed to be both one the best and worst written characters at the same time which was often totally confusing.

Revised overall rating: (6 + 8.5 + 7 + 8.5 + 4) / 5 = 7

Revised character rating: Ichigaku >> Jasubee > Shinroku > Shinpachi > Magodayu > Fuwa > Kuranosuke > Chikara > ...

[onorub]

Starting the sixth chapter in Gahktun of the Golden Lightning. I may be sounding harsh, but reading it feels like the Demonbane writer read Shikkoku no Sharnoth and decided to write a story in the same style.

[littleshogun]

6 minutes ago, onorub said:

Starting the sixth chapter in Gahktun of the Golden Lightning. I may be sounding harsh, but reading it feels like the Demonbane writer read Shikkoku no Sharnoth and decided to write a story in the same style.

Or maybe it should be like 'Sakurai Hikaru was inspired by Demonbane and did her best to copied the style'. By the way, Sakurai Hikaru was the writer for both of Gahktun and Sharnoth.

[ChaosRaven]

So, I finally finished Sara's route in Da Capo 3. It was not as ridiculous as Charles' one but still suffered from extreme blandness resulting from an overglorified golf contest. And I better don't mention what I think about Sara's so called 'family' and the protagonist's utterly spineless reaction to them. I also think that Sara showed more character and personality in the common route than in her own route which might be due to different writers.

So, after two rather disappointing routes, I honestly don't feel any motivation anymore to continue with this VN. The overall heroine routes seem more like tagged on side stories anyway and having the true story centered around Aoi isn't particularly encouraging. I still feel burnt from Chusingura's Emoshichi chapter, and the pure thought of having to deal with an over-cutified annoying airhead loli again gives me already feelings of horror and despair.

I'm not really in the mood to write a long review, so I just write some key points down:

- In general, I don't think Da Capo 3 justifies as a nakige anymore - it's a pure moege. This wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, however...

- The VN characters seem shockingly less developed that the ones from its predecessors (or at least from DC2), with the soulless protagonist being a top offender

- The large text size gives you the impression that this is a very story rich title, but most of it seems filler text like radio transmissions or little side stories since both routes I've read so far felt rather short and tagged on with almost no effort put into them

- The VN felt unusually inconsistent even considering that it had six different writers with the prologue, common route and heroine routes feeling somewhat unrelated to each other

- The Harry Potter theme of the story had lots of potential, but the execution was extremely weak, often even lacking the absolute basics of common sense. Less would have been more here.

And as much as it hurts to say, I enjoyed this entry of the Da Capo series by far the least. Even if DC1 certainly wasn't that good, I at least enjoyed the Kotori and the hidden fox girl routes more. Maybe because my standards are higher nowadays - it doesn't really matter.

Overall, I'd rate it a 6/10 which already includes a nostalgia bonus, but because of the broken saving system that forced me to skip to the actual position after each reload, I subtract half a grade. Final rating: 5.5/10

Heroine rankings: Sara > Charles > Ricca > Himeno > Aoi

[Mr Poltroon]

1 hour ago, ChaosRaven said:

So, I finally finished Sara's route in Da Capo 3. It was not as ridiculous as Charles' one but still suffered from extreme blandness resulting from an overglorified golf contest. And I better don't mention what I think about Sara's so called 'family' and the protagonist's utterly spineless reaction to them. I also think that Sara showed more character and personality in the common route than in her own route which might be due to different writers.

So, after two rather disappointing routes, I honestly don't feel any motivation anymore to continue with this VN. The overall heroine routes seem more like tagged on side stories anyway and having the true story centered around Aoi isn't particularly encouraging. I still feel burnt from Chusingura's Emoshichi chapter, and the pure thought of having to deal with an over-cutified annoying airhead loli again gives me already feelings of horror and despair.

I'm not really in the mood to write a long review, so I just write some key points down:

- In general, I don't think Da Capo 3 justifies as a nakige anymore - it's a pure moege. This wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, however...

- The VN characters seem shockingly less developed that the ones from its predecessors (or at least from DC2), with the soulless protagonist being a top offender

- The large text size gives you the impression that this is a very story rich title, but most of it seems filler text like radio transmissions or little side stories since both routes I've read so far felt rather short and tagged on with almost no effort put into them

- The VN felt unusually inconsistent even considering that it had six different writers with the prologue, common route and heroine routes feeling somewhat unrelated to each other

- The Harry Potter theme of the story had lots of potential, but the execution was extremely weak, often even lacking the absolute basics of common sense. Less would have been more here.

And as much as it hurts to say, I enjoyed this entry of the Da Capo series by far the least. Even if DC1 certainly wasn't that good, I at least enjoyed the Kotori and the hidden fox girl routes more. Maybe because my standards are higher nowadays - it doesn't really matter.

Overall, I'd rate it a 6/10 which already includes a nostalgia bonus, but because of the broken saving system that forced me to skip to the actual position after each reload, I subtract half a grade. Final rating: 5.5/10

Heroine rankings: Sara > Charles > Ricca > Himeno > Aoi

Notably, I have read Aoi's is, in fact, a bonus route, which is why it's locked. I have not, however, gotten to confirm if this is true.