What are you playing?

[adamstan]

1 minute ago, Stormwolf said:

And when you had alone time with her she was more like "saya, saya, saya" .. The route was better than saya content wise, but as a heroine Hikari lost spectacularly.

Hmm... my memory may be a bit hazy, but wasn't all that before they finally got together (scene in the railcar in the rain)? From what I remember, after that it was OK - but I have to admit, it happened pretty late in the route.

However, her epilogue atoned for all those sins in a magnificent way

Spoiler

I absolutely love those family/marriage endings

 

[Stormwolf]

Just now, adamstan said:

Hmm... my memory may be a bit hazy, but wasn't all that before they finally got together (scene in the railcar in the rain)? From what I remember, after that it was OK - but I have to admit, it happened pretty late in the route.

However, her epilogue atoned for all those sins in a magnificent way

  Hide contents

I absolutely love those family/marriage endings

 

Nahh, she was like that throughout the route. Like i said half jokingly, it could genre shift to yuri and it wouldn't feel way too off. But to me that's the consequence of the h scenes being replaced by nonsense and we're left with more or less no good boyfriend/girlfriend bonding. 

 And yes, the ending was beautiful.

[Acrylic7]

Currently playing Princess Waltz. Not as bad as I thought first. 

[Stormwolf]

Started Fureraba ~Friend to Lover~. Its been pretty damn amusing so far! Quite a few funny scenes and a few of the heroines seem good!

Translation should have been better though. Can kind of tell the the translator is young with all the excessive cursewords, meme-ish phrases and sentences which are badly written. "I don't recall doing anything today to piss in your cheerios" really? How about "i don't recall pissing in your cheerios today" instead? 

Well, translation aside, the game seems good!

Edited October 5, 2018 by Stormwolf

[lunaterra]

• 5. Bad End, ~2 hours long, about a visual novel that kills players who reach a bad end. It's a bit silly at times, and the translation is clunky, but not the worst way I've spent two hours.
• 6. We Know the Devil, ~1½ hours long, about three teenagers at a Christian summer camp who are sent to a cabin overnight to fight off the devil. The catch? With each choice, you pick two characters to pair together, and one to be left out. There is a true ending, but that's its own flavor of creepy. I'm impressed by how the writing manages to pull off both "down-to-earth" and "surreal," along with the unique aesthetic.

[WorldofAI]

Currently finishing up Corona Blossom Vol. 1.

I'm also working on Cocoro Function. I'm done 3 episodes of LP so far.

I'm hoping to finish Corona Blossom Vol. 1 soon to start on another Pulltop title. I also have a few short titles queued up as well.

Edited October 6, 2018 by WorldofAI
The auto embed messed up my post

[adamstan]

6 minutes ago, WorldofAI said:

Currently finishing up Corona Blossom Vol. 1.

How do you find it so far? I currently cannot decide what to read next, and Corona Blossom sits on my backlog...

[Nandemonai]

I found Corona Blossom to be not worth the time.  It isn't very interesting.

[WorldofAI]

1 hour ago, adamstan said:

How do you find it so far? I currently cannot decide what to read next, and Corona Blossom sits on my backlog...

For me, Corona Blossom is OK, but that's because I've played other "B" titles from Front Wing before starting this one (Pure Girl, Innocent Girl, and Yuki Koi Melt) and more or less can except how Corona Blossom will fare.

Obviously, it is not the title you want to consider if you really like the story to be deep, insightful, adventurous, epic, or close to literature quality. But it's a good easy read VN. I also like some of the character designs and the idea of the main character being fortunate to have all these girls around him.

Vol. 1 goes pretty slow and is mostly about raising an alien so like childcare (Will probably bore many people out). I'm told that Vol. 2 and 3 go into more adventure and action. I haven't touched those titles yet and I don't have a timeslot open for these volumes in the near future.

Spoiler

I feel that Frontwing has recycled some elements from its previous B titles.

Shino feels a lot like Shizuri from Yuki Koi Melt and a little bit of Hinako from Innocent Girl

Kumiko feels like Kanon from Yuki Koi Melt

R-ne feels like Kagari from Innocent Girl

 

[douggle]

Finished Baldr Force great read, fun combat, still doing Survival to see how far i can get last attempt was level 135 

managed to make it to stage 175 

Edited October 8, 2018 by douggle
add youtube vid

[Stormwolf]

Just finished Fureraba. This vn can seriously give you diabetes. Translation aside, i the only thing i can pinpoint as not so good with this vn was that the heroines lost their flavour when you entered their routes. They went from having hobbies and having personalities to becoming very.. very.. Well, i want to say dull, but that's not it either. I just wish they'd keep their personalities from what you saw in the common route. Well, it certainly was fun as i did all routes.

Now on to Comyu for the second time. 

[AdventSign]

AIR with my significant other. 

Kara no Shoujo with myself.

[adamstan]

2 hours ago, Stormwolf said:

the heroines lost their flavour when you entered their routes.

I had that feeling in Yuzuyu's route, but in others not so much. I especially liked Rina's route.

Or, it's not even that. I wouldn't say that Yuzuyu lost flavour, but the route did. I liked her very much as a character, but route itself was dull, without any tension.

Edited October 8, 2018 by adamstan

[TexasDice]

So, I just spent 5 hours over the last two days doing nothing other than labbing Fureraba. My findings:

- 1. getting flags with the girls through questioning isn't that important, because they can't progress past a certain point unless they hit a day in the calendar to have their phase-switching event on. For almost all of them, it's Saturday or Sunday. That means getting max affinity with a girl on monday makes it pointless for you to talk to her more that week, since the event has to happen before you can get new affinity points in the next phase

- 2. it's not possible to get all four girls to phase 4 and ready to confess. There simply aren't enough Saturdays for all the events to happen before the timer runs out (Each girl has four events and Misaki has an additional one, and she also can't be spoken to during the first two weeks). You can however max out three girls with some days to spare.

- 3. Getting two girls to stage 3 will trigger little scenes of them getting jealous of one another and unlock some additional dialogue during common route scenes. This applies to all girls except Misaki and if you have all three of the others on stage 3, you will see all the scenes (they don't override each other). These scenes are also not day-based like the character events, so they can happen early or late. 

That's it. If someone is wondering why I went and crammed through the common route 8+ times with the skip button for a title I finished around a year ago: ¯\__/¯ 

[Stormwolf]

21 minutes ago, adamstan said:

I had that feeling in Yuzuyu's route, but in others not so much. I especially liked Rina's route.

Or, it's not even that. I wouldn't say that Yuzuyu lost flavour, but the route did. I liked her very much as a character, but route itself was dull, without any tension.

Spoiler territory:

Spoiler

Both Yuzuyu and Rina went trough big personality changes. Yuzuyu was often mad and was pretty headstrong. Well, that all vanished. I expected her to at least have some outbursts trough her route. Rina was funny and cheery in the common route. She was into gaming etc, but all that vanished in her route as well. All we got was a pretty sappy tbh route with petty jealousy over super trivial matters. Himari was himari. Wish they didn't cut out protags mom at the end, but the route was good. Misaki was the best as her character progressed to the better trough her route, and she actually had stuff she liked.

[Eclipsed]

Wow Fata Morgana is insanely good, totally deserved all the shilling

I'll do a proper misc. comments thingy later cuz busies but for now I'm ALMOST done (for realzies this time, I'm at the part where you learn the ultimate truth about the white haired girl but I gtg work so gg me ._.)

[littleshogun]

Finished with Fureraba, and overall I'll just say that it's a straightforward moege. I'll try to comment on this later, but what I can say for now is that Yuzuyu here did have the best development and Misakichi's route did have the best story, or at least it's what I'm currently think here.

[lunaterra]

• 6. Sound of Drop - fall into poison -, ~6 hours. I know that this VN has somewhat of a mixed reception among people, but I enjoyed it for what it was, even if some of the explanations for stuff were a bit silly.
• 7. Us Lovely Corpses, ~30 minutes, about a witch rescuing her friend from the monster who regularly locks her in her attic. To be honest, even though this is a horror game, I didn't find it that scary. It works well as a drama, though, and the limited palette is interesting.

Spoiler

I related a lot to Marisol and her struggles with her mental illness. Some of those roses hurt to listen to, ouch.

• 8. Soundless - A Modern Salem in Remote Area -, 3½ hours, holy shit that was intense. This is a really tough read at points, but in a good way.

[Eclipsed]

OK, i finished fata morgana, the 'ill never finish it' meme that's been going on for years is finallly over 

It's a 9-10/10 VN honestly

A simply fantastic tale about tragedy, betrayal, vengeance, and a touch of romance spanning across centuries and generations

The narrative starts off episodic, with an amnesiac protagonist witnessing the memories and tragedies of the various inhabitants of a cursed mansion over multiple time periods under the  guidance of the enigmatic Maid, in order to eventually witness their own tragedy in an attempt to find out who they really are. Every story has its own characters, each facing their own conflicts and trials before inevitably succumbing to tragedy.

Eventually the protagonist does indeed witness their own tale, and the fun part begins when its revealed that every single major character from every story witnessed, despite being centuries apart, are all deeply intertwined in the glorious web of fate, all stemming from and revolving around a single focal point: an origin tragedy that predates them all and was so brutal it cursed these people and resulted in the creation of the cursed mansion and this endless cycle of despair and torment.

And so naturally it'll be up to the protagonist to save the day and it is a sight to behold. They are not without their share of baggage though, and witnessing their own personal story and the decisions they were able to commit to despite all the hardships they went through... was simply inspiring. One of the best protagonists in my VN career for sure.

Spoilersduh

Spoiler

Yup that's our boy Michel  

The mystery behind the white haired girl is a decent one, I implore all new Fata Morgana readers to pay attention in particular to her interactions with the Maid throughout the episodic portions of the narrative, will make the midgame where you are finally learning about the protagonist more fun. There will be at least three plot twist revelations as to her identity and I got oof'ed in all of them cuz I'm ez.

Soundtrack phenomenal, at first can be hard to appreciate the more mature atmosphere and background vocals if you were more of a cutesy moe happy SoL type but once you do accept it these tracks augment the reading experience immensely. Many bgms eerily have the right amount of length and buildup that they are able to reach their high points just as the narrative does. idk if that made sense but you should see what i mean when you get to the many climaxes and plot revelations of the story and pay attention to the music 

The Mutilated Body is probably hands down my favorite tragedy bgm ;-;;;

It starts picking up at 2:15 and i swear its what made me finally start tearing up at 
EXTREME SPOILERS

Spoiler

Didier killing Michel

Fking sad as hell man. Michel getting killed by his own brother he idolized, and his telling himself he won't cry, only for the CG to show him crying in his final moments. Absolutely beautifully tragic ;-;;.

 

Misc. comment  about the witch spoilersduh:

Spoiler

RIP Morgana, centuries of hatred spawned over a misunderstanding LEL. 

Not her fault though. Jacopo once again utterly fails at his "ill wait until X" day to do something only to end up being too late by one day RIPPP

I'm glad she chose to end the curse but not forgive Mell, Yukimase, and especially not choose to smile for Jacopo. It's a very fitting and natural end to their relationship.

White haired girl being Saint Morgana through me for a loop, i was sure she was just female-reincarnated Michel after Ch 5... but i overall liked the poetic nature of her being the one who ironically fulfilled Morgana's curse on everyone along with her basing her image off of Michel and finally with Michel finally having to own up to his archangel Michael namesake and bring her soul to salvation

Overall enjoyed the romance between Michel and Giselle, i like how they were playing off Door 4 being a ridiculously fairy tale romanticized version of their relationship, yet ultimately their relationship IS a fairy tale: Michel choosing death and allowing/forcing Giselle to live for centuries as the Maid waiting for his return, how romantic.

I'm guessing Morgana's final wish before she vanished was for the two to have a happy life together, wonderful. These two earned it ^^

~~
Ok, i'll have to check out a Requiem of Innocence since it's short and covers a pretty important segment regarding FataMorgana but lolwow i'm so behind 

 

Then it's time for some MuvLuv, jesus i wonder how long it'll take me to get through this one 

[Dreamysyu]

11 hours ago, Eclipsed said:

OK, i finished fata morgana, the 'ill never finish it' meme that's been going on for years is finallly over 

Wait, does this mean we won't have it as an option in the next "What should I play next?" thread???

Oh, wait, there's still Requiem for Innocence.

 

Jokes aside, I really recommend it. It's just as good as the original game, maybe even better in some ways.

[alpacaman]

I recently dropped Grisaia no Kajitsu after the first route (Makina) because I found it really disappointing. It's not terrible by any means and I can see why many people love it. Some of the comedy is great (I love Tuna-Fish Man), the characters are all interesting and a few of the backstories are really intense (I watched the anime after dropping the VN to at least know what the deal was Sachi and Amane, so I write about the routes I didn't read assuming the VN didn't drastically change after ~30 hours and the anime kept the basic storylines of the routes intact). The good ingredients never came together for me though, mainly because the ratio of SoL, foreshadowing and something actually happening was way to heavy on the former two. I didn't really dislike any of the scenes but every time one of them started with one of Yuuji's inner monologues (which was about 90% of the time) I thought "welp, nothing's gonna happen in this scene". I would probably have been fine with all the SoL if the VN wasn't constantly reminding me that all characters had some tragic/traumatic backstory that would later come as some big reveal. At some point I just wanted the VN to tell me what each heroine's deal was, not which order they are having their bath times in.

Additionally, using a character backstory as the main hook just isn't good storytelling imo because it's clear what kind of revelation is going to happen. If you already know there is going to be a sad backstory the only way to increase impact when the revelation happens is by adding shock value which is exactly what Grisaia no Kajitsu does. As I wrote above the backstories themselves are generally quite good, but most of the time they don't really add that much to their respective character arcs which (except for Sachi's and Michiru's route) consist of some random drama happening and Yuuji saving the day with his super soldier powers. It doesn't help that the heroines don't overcome their issues themselves but are more or less forced by Yuuji to learn their lessons. 

On that note I never really bought Yuuji falling in love with any of the girls since the difference in general capabilities is just too big and I also can't imagine him having a healthy romantic relationship with any one of them. Maybe the VN finds a way to pull this off well in the routes where I just watched the anime version, but judging on the Makina route where I found her and Yuuji's relationship just weird and unrealistic despite finding the premise kind of intriguing, I don't think I would change my mind.

I'm probably being way too harsh but for me personally Grisaia no Kajitsu just hit all the notes I hate in stories. If you don't have these issues, you're probably going to love it.

Regarding my issues with the overall pacing, I hoped the anime would do it better, but everywhere the VN is too slow, the anime rushes through things way too fast. After the first episode you already more or less knew what everyone's character twist was going to be and they had to cut so much out that it's hard to connect with any of the characters. If they had about 20-24 episodes to tell all the arcs it could have turned out well, but doing everything in just 13 episodes was a terrible choice.

Next up is Umineko which hopefully will be more to my taste.

[littleshogun]

Well Kajitsu itself was quite divisive work. Also in regard of Yuuji, the main route was apparently addressed his lack of capability to be loving, but too bad that it wouldn't be happen in Kajitsu VN. Also as for the trivia here, Kajitsu here is supposed to be Frontwing's Swan Song before the sales of Kajitsu saved Frontwing, so they decided to go all out with the charage type writing and make i possible that the player could move on fom Grisaia in case Kajitsu was failed. Also I like to note that the anime here did tweak Kajitsu into the main route that was supposed to be the continuation for both of Meikyuu and Rakuen, so I assume that they may retcon some of Yuuji's personality in the anime. In the end it's still up to you though whether you want to continue with Kajitsu or not, but if you decided to just drop that then so be it and have fun with Umineko.

[Thyndd]

3 hours ago, alpacaman said:

I recently dropped Grisaia no Kajitsu after the first route (Makina) because I found it really disappointing.

Welp, that's a shame. I quite enjoyed Grisaia even though I'm not the biggest fan of harem settings. Let me address quickly some of the points you brought up, just for the sake of looking at the other side of the coin. 

There's not much to say about the common route if you didn't find the comedy and SoL amusing. It's definitely very long and there's no helping it that it drags out if it's just not your cup of tea. 

As for the issue that the main point of the routes is the backstory... Well, kind of. It's actually supposed to be treating the emotional scars their past left them with, but I can definitely see where you are coming from, especially if you only read Makina's route, which is more like "action->backstory->more action unrelated to the backstory". Yes, the backstory feels kinda pointless. However, I'd say that for the rest of the routes the backstory is a lot more relevant as it carries onto the present situation. The romance is also a lot more believable. I mean, you didn't really expect the loli route to have the most compelling romance, did you? 

If you don't totally despise the idea, if I were you I'd probably read one more route, just one, so that you don't drop the VN after getting through the common route but also don't waste too much time on it if it's definitely not for you. And the one I'd suggest is probably Amane's. Sachi is my favorite but whatever, it's a big hit or miss so why risk it. 

Also, the anime is terrible, period. Not worth even discussing. 

3 hours ago, alpacaman said:

Next up is Umineko which hopefully will be more to my taste

Oh yes! , so I'll have a umineko partner to share crazy theories with  Almost done with episode 3 over here. I'll write my impressions and (great, mind you ) deductions as soon as I finish it. 

[alpacaman]

37 minutes ago, Thyndd said:

There's not much to say about the common route if you didn't find the comedy and SoL amusing. It's definitely very long and there's no helping it that it drags out if it's just not your cup of tea. 

It's not that I didn't like the comedy and SoL in general (I mean the TV programs are great and the writers are really good at doing physical humor), it's more about how it's going nowhere but still constantly reminds you that something darker is going on. And every time the story hints at something, the next scene is going to be about something completely different. Instead of Yuuji's inner monologue the writers could have put in "and now for something completely different".

 

55 minutes ago, Thyndd said:

As for the issue that the main point of the routes is the backstory... Well, kind of. It's actually supposed to be treating the emotional scars their past left them with, but I can definitely see where you are coming from, especially if you only read Makina's route, which is more like "action->backstory->more action unrelated to the backstory". Yes, the backstory feels kinda pointless. However, I'd say that for the rest of the routes the backstory is a lot more relevant as it carries onto the present situation. The romance is also a lot more believable. I mean, you didn't really expect the loli route to have the most compelling romance, did you? 

I can just go by the route plots as presented by the anime, but my problem wasn't with the backstories feeling pointless but more with the fact that they were presented as some mystery although they were just character exposition. About the romance: I expected the loli route romance to not be very believable, but I can't imagine super soldier Yuuji having a healthy romantic relationship with any of these mentally broken girls. Maybe I really should read another route and see if I'm wrong. But at the moment I'm still tired of SoL.

 

1 hour ago, Thyndd said:

Oh yes! , so I'll have a umineko partner to share crazy theories with  Almost done with episode 3 over here. I'll write my impressions and (great, mind you ) deductions as soon as I finish it. 

I think the little girl is evil. Just look at her original sprite, it's terrifying! (I just started chapter 1)

[Dreamysyu]

@alpacaman

To be honest, Makina route is the only one that should probably be read in the all-ages version. The romance between her and Yuuji is the least believable one in the whole VN, and it honestly only works if you just stop caring about this point.

1 hour ago, alpacaman said:

can't imagine super soldier Yuuji having a healthy romantic relationship with any of these mentally broken girls.

Yuuji is quite broken himself, you know. You can probably get the full extent of how broken he is only after you read his full backstory in the second VN, but, in the end, it's him who is the most broken person in that school. I'm not even sure if you can call any of his relationships with the girls "romantic" considering how far he goes sometimes. I think, that's exactly why these relationships do work, and I kind of feel like you came to these conclusion exactly because you watched the anime first, but, well, I won't argue with you.

Well, if you didn't like the common and Makina route, I honestly don't see much point for you to continue reading. And making yourself to read something that you don't like is the best way to burn out (I'm looking at you, Himawari). Sachi, Michiru and Yumiko routes all have some major problems in my opinion, though all of them have fans, so, I'm not sure if you should read them. And Amane route is written by the same author as Makina, so it might be better to avoid it too. I guess, you can try Sachi at some point to see if you like it more, and drop the game after that.

Also, avoid Rakuen. I can almost guarantee from the thing you write in your post that you won't like it (and, imo, it's the worst part in Grisaia anyway).

1 hour ago, alpacaman said:

I think the little girl is evil. Just look at her original sprite, it's terrifying! (I just started chapter 1)

Well, if you connect how the original sprites look to their personalities, then pretty much all of them look... as if they took part in a genocide or something. And the sprites Mangagamer used didn't really click with me either, so whenever I decide to replay it, I'll probably just go with the Umineko Project version (if they finish porting Chiru at that point).

Also, I still wonder if Ange supposed to look fat in the original...