What are you playing?

[littleshogun]

As for mine, about to finished Ulyana's route from Everlasting Summer. I'll try to write my impression of Ulyana's route later.

[Eclipsed]

Got my first ending in Steins;Gate 0, Vega & Altair, whatever that means.

Fk man, this prequel-sequel-midquel or whatever you wanna call it is sooo delicious, i actually wanted to re-read the original Steins;Gate before diving into this because it's been like 2 years so I kind of forgot some of the more refined tidbits about the time traveling and world lines but ya aint nobody got time for that

Mellow Okabe was aight, was nice to see him spend an entire game being normal  anti-social and riddled with despair instead of being his trademark overly bombastic Hououin Kyouma self :

At least you were self-aware of how superficial you were >.>
 

Aesthetically the art is very pleasant imo, it's like a softer, more refined, essentially moeified version of the original water paint style. Soundtrack's above average and able to fit the constant somber atmosphere and occasional happy times quite well.

1st from left: Old Mayuri, 2nd: New Mayuri, 3rd: Old Faris, 4th: New Faris . they mixed in the old sprites in some scenes so it was a bit jarring @-@

Amadeus was a fun and interesting concept. At first I was like 'yay I get to talk to this person again!' but if you start really thinking about it it can give you some bittersweet feels. Like it is the original by all means, but at the same time not really? idk, hard to explain . The Vega and Altair ending I got didn't get to really focus on this stuff so I hope another ending does. 

Spoiler

CHRIS IS NOT KURISU!!!!!!

 

New character Maho's an interesting one. She ultimately gots nothing on the great Christina imo, but she can hold her own.

lel

[Zidan209]

On 7/27/2017 at 10:17 PM, Eclipsed said:

Got my first ending in Steins;Gate 0, Vega & Altair, whatever that means.

That Vega & Altair final scene was my favorite part of the whole game

[Vorathiel]

S;G 0 is nice, but every route except for true one is pointless and therefore - tensionless.

Maho best girl in whole series.

[kilicool64]

20 hours ago, BookwormOtaku said:

Playing Dies Irae and have started playing Kei's route...honestly kind of disappointed so far. The intro for a certain new character was really well done and it seemed things were setting up to get real and then...it seems to be following the same track as Kasumi's route, heck I've already run into a design pet peeve of mine with some VNs: where the dialogue for a scene is 99% the same as  before with that 1% being new dialogue but because of that small bit the skip function doesn't work for that scene

Kei's route starts off with a lot of copypasta, but it quickly turns into its own thing some time after Chapter 9 begins. At that point, it gets a lot better than Kasumi's route. You won't be seeing an actually satisfying ending until Omnia Vincit Amor, the epilogue to Marie's route, though.

@Zidan209 Please don't quote huge posts along with their big images, especially if your post is right below them. That just needlessly inflates your post.

[Not_At_All]

Tried Sakura Dungeon yesterday and a bit today. As expected the story and the characters were, to put it very mildly, weak, but the idea itself was fun, so I thought the gameplay and nice, colorful art would be enough for me to have fun, but it was very simple and repetitive, so I just thought I had enough after around 5 hours.

 

Decided to try out Crescendo instead and at the moment I am loving it a lot. I went through Kaho's bad end only as of this post, but it looks really promising. In most romance mainly focused VN there are usually just one heroine that stands out from the crowd for me, two if I am very lucky, but here all the heroines look interesting and pretty different from each other. Some of them look like I may hate them (one at least) but it's much better than boring.

[Not_At_All]

20 hours ago, Not_At_All said:

Decided to try out Crescendo instead and at the moment I am loving it a lot. I went through Kaho's bad end only as of this post, but it looks really promising. In most romance mainly focused VN there are usually just one heroine that stands out from the crowd for me, two if I am very lucky, but here all the heroines look interesting and pretty different from each other. Some of them look like I may hate them (one at least) but it's much better than boring.

So, I finished Crescendo already. I loved pretty much all characters and the fact the routes were varied in atmosphere: From very light pure romance route to a very dark one and some in between. Usually it's either all routes happy go lucky, or every one of them really gloomy. Few things that annoyed me though: 

Yuka's rapists not even being mentioned again and Miyu in general.

The worst thing though was it was way too short. There wasn't enough time to get attached to any of the girls before the climax of their respective stories and then it ended without much of an epilogue. I felt like a lot of potential was wasted because the game really grabbed me from day 1, but it doesn't feel that satisfying after I've finished it.

[Nandemonai]

I actually liked Yuka's bad ending almost more than her real ending.  It's much crueller to the characters, so I still prefer the good one.  But it's the best-written bad ending I think I've ever seen.

[wolfrayet]

Crescendo has an incredible sense of style, I can't think of any other work off the top of my head that evokes spontaneous feelings of nostalgia so effortlessly.

Art kinda sucked though.

Edited July 30, 2017 by wolfrayet

[Renkinjutsushi]

Right now:

- Princess Evangile W happiness

- D.S dal segno

[Canicheslayer]

37 minutes ago, Renkinjutsushi said:

Right now:

- Princess Evangile W happiness

- D.S dal segno

Exactly the same. But after ten hours of Princess Evangile W Happiness (I finished my second speed reading of the common route), It's difficult to go back to Dal Segno (three routes, no surprises).

Edit : reading Mitsuki's route...

Spoiler

Oh my...tsundere/coodere (I'm not sure) Mitsuki in cute mode...I LOVE IT !!!

Edit 2 : wolfrayet => The music helped a lot (Scott Joplin ) but, yes, i really loved the nostalgia feeling in this VN

Edited July 31, 2017 by Canicheslayer
3.0

[Renkinjutsushi]

24 minutes ago, Canicheslayer said:

Exactly the same. But after ten hours of Princess Evangile W Happiness (I finished my second speed reading of the common route), It's difficult to go back to Dal Segno (three routes, no surprises).

Edit : reading Mitsuki's route...

  Reveal hidden contents

Oh my...tsundere/coodere (I'm not sure) Mitsuki in cute mode...I LOVE IT !!!

Edit 2 : wolfrayet => The music helped a lot (Scott Joplin ) but, yes, i really loved the nostalgia feeling in this VN

Oh boy... ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[Canicheslayer]

And too bad there's no route for Sister Mishima #blasphemy

Spoiler

...no, I'm just kidding #LoveMischievousGirls

 

[Not_At_All]

3 hours ago, wolfrayet said:

Art kinda sucked though.

I actually liked the art, except for the fact it was hidden behind a NVL wall.

[Renkinjutsushi]

2 hours ago, Canicheslayer said:

And too bad there's no route for Sister Mishima #blasphemy

  Reveal hidden contents

...no, I'm just kidding #LoveMischievousGirls

 

Man, you are right... D:

[Eclipsed]

Got Twin Automata ending for S;G 0. This worldline / ending was fairly bland, you spend the first half of it dealing with the mystery of Kagari and then just completely abandon it lategame in favor of Maho x Moeka friendships with a touch of Amadeus and Salieri romance

They did manage to make Moeka a fairly likeable character though so that's a plus (she was by far worst character in original Steins;gate)

Sergeant Clean was hilarious too

[krill]

Im currently i think half way through Root double and thinking ill read the Fault series next.

[HotTrax]

10 hours ago, Not_At_All said:

I actually liked the art, except for the fact it was hidden behind a NVL wall.

I will join you, I liked the art too. 

____________

Tsumi to Batsu no Shoujo

 

I really liked this one. A lot of the insanity was entertaining to witness. Lots of "what the fuck" moments and even some laughing at how absurd it was. 

Bonus Points: Mai Kadowaki voicing MC and being crazy. 

Edited July 31, 2017 by HotTrax

[Eclipsed]

Finished S;G 0

Overall, pretty solid read. 8/10. Good mid-quel stuff for original Steins;gate fans like myself to enjoy.

A bit disappointed that it didn't cover the future as much, at most it got like 30 minutes of coverage... I was expecting this VN to be ENTIRELY about the cast and the future >.> though, getting to see the little tie-ins in S;G 0's true end that led to Op Skuld was a pretty nice treat.

Time traveling and its repercussions aren't the focus this time, so the overall thrill and hype that the original S;G had hopping between world lines is lost. Instead, we're much more invested in the characters -

Spoiler

Okabe being at his all time low, stripped entirely of his Kyouma persona, Maho and Kurisu's poetic rivalry, Daru's fam fam, Lukako finally gaining the courage to ask what's going on despite being 4ever-leftout-sidekick, Moeka finally learning to value herself, etc. etc. there were some great scenes and development scattered throughout.

 

Another disappointment however is that it's pretty damn hard to keep track of what's going on; the original S;G had a simple and reasonable "D-mail = worldline shift" but S;G 0 had no concrete explanation of why the worldlines would shift; sure you know it all revolved around a certain (spoiler)

Spoiler

Whoever unlocked Kurisu's time travel memories via Amadeus or her laptop at the time, be it Stratfor, DURPA, or w.e other org

But that still doesn't explain why answering Amadeus's call or not would cause a shift, especially since it shouldn't influence who would obtain said key items.

Also compounded by the fact that there are multiple baddies, who each take the spotlight in whatever route they are prominently featured in, along with certain characters being used as red herrings and it's like oh come on!@# I get you're trying to build up some HOLY SHT revelations but stuff like 

Spoiler

The real Yuki being sent on a foreign exchange student program while Kagari is surgically modified to look exactly like Yuki and then pose as her to spy on the the group is some major BS and for a good while I was just a 'huh? Kagari = Yuki???' idiot

Kagari in general just made the plot needlessly complicated, some routes she's completely brainwashed by Stratfor/Dr. Leskinen so she's batshit insane complete antagonist Yuki-poser, other she's innocent amnesiac ally, and another she's amnesiac ally infused with Kurisu's memories>!@!@$! YO WTFSDFKSAFJKSS

All based on whether you answer Amadeus Kurisus's phonecall midroute? how da FK does that change all that

I can get if we're using the D-mail system that you could tip off Kagari to escape from Stratfor so she never gets brainswashed, but again, HOW DOES KURISUS AMEDAUES PHONE CALL DO ANY SHIFTINGGGGGGG

edit: ok i did some googles and supposedly it's cuz w.e Amadeus Kurisus says or doesn't say off of that phone call is actually really pivotal in who gets her time machine secrets first, no matter what either Stratfor / Dr. Leskinen or DURPA / Reyes or some other org will eventually get it and they are the ones to trigger the shifts when they do, i just wish we could actually see those events rather than Okabe getting Reading Steiner'd and having no memory of what took place

 

~~
But yeah, overall it should be a pretty fun read for people who enjoyed S;G. DO IT!

[Vokoca]

Seeing how Dies Irae wasn't quenching my thirst for the #edge, I've decided to pick up Hanachirasu. I was about to just check out the prologue, but that has proven to be a huge mistake... you see, those few scenes before the opening we're all way more exciting and interesting than the entirety of Kasumi's route in Dies.Now this is a super unfair comparison, as I'm essentially putting two opposite approaches to action scenes against each other, but... damn, it only took a  single scene to remind me why I like Narahara so much. The fights feel though out, with actual choreography and logic supporting the flashy coolness, and it's just so damn entertaining to me. I imagine this is extremely subjective, and I bet there are people who hate Narahara's style with a passion - but as soon as he started going into tangents to explain fencing theory, I was sold ten times over.

I'll definitely get back to Dies to check out the story, but as far as action goes Hanachirasu will be my go-to for now.

Edited August 1, 2017 by Vokoca

[littleshogun]

Finished Everlasting Summer and I'll write my impression on that later. After that, I'll try to continue with Chrono Clock VN that was stalled for a while.

PS - By the way, this is my first post in VN Talk section after apocalypse just in case somebody care lol.

Edited August 23, 2017 by littleshogun

[Canicheslayer]

Finished two "Another Stories" and all the epilogues in Princess Evangile W Happiness. I'm currently reading Ruriko's (at the beginning of the chapter 3)...she's very cute but her story is uninteresting, for the moment. So far, Mitsuki's route (soooo cute ) is the best moment of the VN. However Chiho's and Ritsuko's epilogues were fairly good. The first is sweeter and clearly bearable. The second is simply the best girl . Sadly Tamie's route was a bit disappointing (maybe my expectations were too high).

Edit : Finished Ruriko's "Another Story". Finally, It was slightly heartwarming (and even she's not not my type, I must admit that she's lovely and endearing). Except Chiho (outside her epilogue in PE W Happiness) and Rise, PE's casting is really something Next is Marika.

Spoiler

A trubute to Galaxy Express 999 ?

Similarly, I finished (100% this time) Collar X Malice.
 

Spoiler

 

+ The story is addictive and is worth the (long) trip.

+ Globally, the casting is excellent (the trio Shiraishi-Mukai-Sakuragawa is compelling).

+ Beautiful Character Design.

+ Some bad endings are interesting.

- Okazaki's route and, above all, the last chapter of the True Route are bad.

- Yanagi Aiji is a bit dull and Sasazuka Takeru is a perfect jerk

- The romance and the horror parts are awfully timid (seriously I can't believe almost all the casting is 20+ years).

- The translation/localization is not perfect.

 

7,5/10

Edited August 23, 2017 by Canicheslayer
3.1

[onorub]

While the forums were down, i finished Sekien no Inganock (atmosphere alone made it my favorite LiarSoft novel so far), then on my SteamPunk mood finished Code:Realize (simple anime-ish story, but the lack of filler or fanservice was refreshing as hell) and now on an Otome mood, i'm close to finishing Amnesia Memories (it kinda feels like the writer is capable of doing a lot out of nearly nothing, because i think the plot is meh but pretty addicting at the same time).

Edit: Finished Amnesia Memories and the final route felt like trying to get Illya's affection up in Heaven's Feel, where slight mistakes screw you over.

Edited August 23, 2017 by onorub

[Zhyareth]

Trying to figure if what i want is little busters again or rewrite.

[Not_At_All]

Played 999 when the forum was down and currently in progress with Virtue's Last Reward. Have to say I expected much more from it. The setting being something between Ever17 and Danganronpa sounded amazing to me, but it just doesn't sit that well with me. The things I didn't like (spoilers from 999 and some from VLR):

1. Puzzles interrupting the story constantly. They are entertaining on their own for the most part, but it feels like a drag just to have to do them every hour or so.

2. The story overall. Most if not all sci-fi stories hang on pseudo-science, but here the telepathy felt incredibly far fetched, not to mention the time paradox that Akane created, by saving herself.

3. Lack of good endings in 999. I love when I can "get with" every girl in a visual novel. It may sound stupid, but that's one of the things I enjoy about VNs in general and I felt like there could've been a Clover's end instead of one of the bad endings (Lotus would've been awesome too, but I feel like it's pushing it). Ever17 did that well even if it had the true ending, so it's not like it can't be done.

4. Virtue's Last Reward 3D art. It just looks weird to me, though I am beggining to get used to it.

5. The story jumping around. I don't like having to get a lock from one route to finish another.

6. Endings in VTD just ending once one person escapes, it doesn't feel like an end at all.

7. Sigma getting stopped from escaping after betraying Quark. Everyone else successfully escaped when they got to 9 points (so far I've seen K, Dio, Tenmyouji and Clover) without being stopped, but the guy who I assume to be pretty much the most athletic dude get stopped instantly.

8. My choices changing things they couldn't logically change. Like if I betray Tenmyouji, he allies, but if I ally, he betrays. It might be explained somewhere down the line, so that's not so bad, but it grinds my gears right now.

Wow, I didn't even thing I had that many things before I got to writing. I intend to finish VLR and play the last game because there are a few characters I really like, but I hope it gets better from here on in.