What are you playing?

[Larxe1]

Tenshi no Inai 12-Gatsu

Decided to come back to reading VN's again and chose this depressing classic. Fits perfectly to the type of VN's I love reading. A storyline that is grounded in reality, with characters written well with their own flaws and problems.

This visual novel puts the characters flaws and problems as the main story. It is a character-driven work and there are possibly no good people here aside from Toko (I didn't do her route but she seems the nicest out of all of the characters.

The start of the plot begins with Toko offering herself to the MC. It was some form of transactional sex with Toko getting permission from the MC to escape her own hell to his place.

The MC is unique, in the sense that many asshole main characters are written to have a heart of gold hidden under all that attitude, but the MC is kind of an asshole 80% of the time. I actually found this refreshing as it is rare to see a genuine asshole as a main character, and seeing him uncharacteristically act nice in some scenes was fun to read. 

I only read Shinobu's route, and Shinobu is Toko's best friend that seems to be overly protective of Toko. The start of her route is on par with the theme of the novel, very depressing and there's a sense of despair on every scene.  Shinobu's traumas are on full display, and the MC isn't some magical main character from romcom's who manage to cure the traumas of his heroines. The MC is as fucked up as she is and their relationship is equally bad. They aren't lovers in their route, neither sex friends or friends either. Their relationship is something unique to the two of them that came about from their own unique circumstances, and their relationship makes them feel safe from the demons that haunt them.

As I read from the other reviews, I agree with their sentiments that usually the endings aren't very satisfying. You don't fully find out what happened with the MC and why he's such as asshole, you don't know what happened in the past for Shinobu to become so broken. She shows clues of what her possible traumas are. They aren't fully explored, heck they aren't even mentioned again later on. Just writing about it frustrates me as I was actually invested to know more but the game is really short.

The game ends on a weirdly hopeful and depressing note. The game ends without really solving any of their problems, but their strange and warped relationship comforts them. The game ends with the feeling of that their problems may never really be solved. It doesn't matter to them, they didn't enter into their relationship with the goal of being exactly happy or having their partner solve their traumas for them. The traumas and problems that they carry aren't solvable, as solving them doesn't really matter. They just want to atone for their sins or run from their traumas. Self-harm and depression and sometimes suicide is a topic that heavily plays into the story which is a rare topic for visual novels to actually dive deeply into. Usually in some other VN's they get better but with Tenshi no Inai, they just learn to live with it.

It is hard to recommend this VN to others as the story is not for everyone but for those who like this kind of stories, it is hella good. 

[fuyopon]

It's been so long since I've updated this thread LOL

I don't remember where I've left off, but this last month I've played Project: Eden's Garden, Lewd Idol Project Vol. 1, LIP! Lewd Idol Project Vol. 1 - Hot Springs and Beach Episodes, LIP! Lewd Idol Project Vol. 2, and finally, Mikoto Nikki!

All of these got reviews for Fuwa - you can check them out here! Well, one of them will release today and the other is still getting edited lel

—————————————————————————————

Ok, current reads!

I'm currently reading Steins;Gate and will probably finish it around the beginning of April I'm reading it for the VN reading club I host!

Other than that, I'm also going to re-read Mix Ore as part of my "Covering CHARON" series! I started with Mikoto Nikki and that is already done, so next on the list is Mix Ore

[Shinyun226]

Just finished White ~Setsunasa no Kakera~ recently.

 

This was NekoNeko Soft's debut game and, although I did enjoy it overall, most of the routes were definitely a bit underwhelming/unpolished. The biggest problem being that the actual routes are way too short (and some of the characters get introduced pretty late in the common route)

That being said, it was a pretty solid effort considering it was their first original/commercial game + 2 of the routes (Hadzuki and Chinami) were actually REALLY good imo.

It's very clear the developers were inspired by early Key games (or rather early games by the Key staff, since One was published by Tactics game), particularly One ~Kagayaku Kisetsu he~ and, although not all routes accomplish this, White is clearly meant to be a Nakige in that vein. 

(+ there's some pretty clear One references sprinkled throughout)

"And, that scene where the [main character] just disappears while blind senpai is holding ice cream"

Spoiler

Clear reference to Misaki's ending in One for those who don't know

Anyways, some brief thoughts on each route.

Izumi

Spoiler

The 'main' heroine, and the protagonists, Kenichi's childhood friend. Despite being the main girl though, she has a pretty underwhelming route. Basically she finds out her little sister Megumi likes Kenichi > so she tries to get them together, but Ken predictably realizes he actually loves Izumi at the end. Megumi's bad end does actually add some interesting extra characterization but... it's all very undeveloped and the conflict is a lot of nothing (also it happens way too fast).

Her route still feels like the longest since the common route is pretty much all here one way or another.

Mikana

Spoiler

Glasses girl who likes manga and tokusatsu. She's an interesting character but her route also lacks a real conflict. Basically Kenichi is playing a prank on Izumi by putting an Ero manga in her locker > Mikana sees him, so he lies and says it's a love letter > so Mikana thinks he likes someone...

Madoka

Spoiler

Violent blonde twintails Tsundere with kansai-ben. Template for a great character, but has a route that really drags on. Like Izumi, you can meet her really early on and thus she gets a lot of scenes from the get go and, as a result, her route feels REALLY long. Her route starts to make things feel closer to an actual nakige, but it's all a bit underwhelming. Definitely one of the more memorable characters, albeit with a rather unmemorable story.

Hadzuki

Spoiler

Ok, now we're getting into actual nakige material. Long story short, Hadzuki feels like she's responsible for the deaths of her older sister and mother. We also learn that Kenichi had a little sister who died (very One-esque), albeit it doesn't get expanded upon much in this route (his little sister is also briefly namedropped in the Megumi badend in Izumi's route, with no explanation).

Chinami

Spoiler

The primary reason to play the game imo. Pretty damn depressing - little girl who's parents abandoned her and is collecting seashells so she can wish for her parents to return. Oh and also her adoptive father is sexually abusing her.... 

In the end, Kenichi and Izumi decide to "adopt" her, so it feels a bit like Ouka's route in Snow in that the heroine of the route isn't a romantic target + it kind of serves as a true end for the main heroine (Izumi). 

Also this is the place where Kenichi's dead little sister actually becomes (kind of) relevant, since apparently Chinami looks like her.

Then there's the bad end where... Kenichi turns into a scum bag and legit r*pes her. Very uncomfortable scene to read through (though it had to be done because... gotta 100% that CG gallery lol).

Much like some of the other routes, every happens very fast though. Chinami is introduced really late in the game so her scene count is pretty low.

The other "fun" thing about this game was getting it to work right. Installing it and getting it to run + using DXWnd's Winmm.dll to play the music without the disc wasn't a big deal but... for whatever reason it loading the character sprites REALLY slow, so there was like a 3 second delay every time an expression changed.

Did a little research and found out this was a common issue with older nScripter games that use CD-DA audio, so I ended up grabbing a newer version of the nscr.exe and learned how to manually modify/create a new Dat file to go with it so... now I know how to do that if I ever play another nScripter game that uses CD-DA audio.

But anyways yeah, good game overall. I'm looking to play more of NekoNeko Soft's library (and by extension Team Nana's games) eventually. Already bought their second title GinIro, which is apparently a pretty legendary Utsuge, so I'll probably get to that some time this year.

[adamstan]

15 hours ago, Shinyun226 said:

I'm looking to play more of NekoNeko Soft's library

If we're at it, I strongly recommend Amber Quartz (it was made by NekoNeko Soft's offspring - Cotton Soft).

[Shinyun226]

5 hours ago, adamstan said:

If we're at it, I strongly recommend Amber Quartz (it was made by NekoNeko Soft's offspring - Cotton Soft).

Cool! I'll have to check out it eventually (endless backlog, so it'll probably be a while though lol).

Browsing through Cotton Soft's other games and at least a few of them look interesting + MANYO music on at least some of them, so I'm interested even if just for that.

[Nemesis]

俺たちに翼はない AfterStory

I feel that a lot of the big events in Takashi and Shuusuke route was covered in the main game's epilogues. But I don't remember how much of it was covered, so hard for me to compare on what's been added.

Takashi- Even if we don't have wings alone, together, we can fly everywhere. In this case, I think wings here represent freedom, hope, and future. Or in other words, the willpower to live and the courage to face tomorrow.

「ほうら、私たちにも翼くらいはあるんだぞう」

「大好きなひとと一緒なら、私どこまでも飛んでいきますか」

Shuusuke route - the dialogue feels off or just lacking in the first few scenes of the games. I'm guessing that was written by the subwriter. Then it goes to back to standard Ou Jackson quality again after the H-scene.

Spoiler

We get some tension between Shuusuke and Asuka, who realized her feelings for Takashi too late.

Hayato route - We get back to our hardboiled protagonist enjoying the city night life and our weird heroine Naru.

Spoiler

Hayato gets involved in some Yakuza incident, and we got some cool action scenes including Karuo.

Spoiler

Youji route - We get to see Youji interacting with everyone else now that the others have become one aspect of his personality and became more well rounded. This is really where Jackson's prose shines with Youji's speech pattern becoming a combination of the other four with one of them being more pronounced depending on who he's talking to. At the same time, we see aspects of other character's personality that they don't usually show. We get to see them with a different mask.

Other than that, there are a couple short stories.

ランス4 －教団の遺産－

With the new patch released, I figured now is the time to continue with Rance and play 4.

The mechanics are pretty shit with it being a Tactics RPG without any of the features that make it tactical such as terrain. Mechanics are still exactly the same as basic RPG, except they annoy you with having to walk your characters every turn. Without the patch, this probably would've been rage inducing to me. With the patch, it's somewhat tolerable with a walkthrough.

Story-wise, it's decent. Well, it's at least better than Rance 2, but not as good as Rance 3.

[chasekilleen]

Replaying Kajiri Kamui Kagura （神咒神威神楽）

Spoiler

[ChaosRaven]

Just want to get two VN's off my list I didn't like too much and therefore dropped.

The first is Kin'iro Loveriche - a story about a boy accidentally ending up in a noble private academy for rich kids. Felt a bit like a poor man's Yuzusoft VN. Not the worst thing to be compared with, but the VN has a few peculiarities which I found rather off-putting. First, the protagonist is lazy, dumb and perverse, which made the whole heroine cast fawning over him rather unbelievable. Carrying tons of porn magazines around, drawing nude girls in lessons instead of studying and 'enlighten' his comrades about new fetishes on a daily base like a pimp. And not to mention the running gag going on about his countless hardcore sex fetishes - you get the picture!

That said, I wouldn't go so far to say that he's a bad guy, and his interactions with Ria in particular were almost mature and well above the rest. Unfortunately, besides Ria the rest of the cast was pretty generic. I played Elle's route, which was trash, with no chemistry whatsoever between the two and little to no plot. I also tried Sylvia's route, but almost died of boredom and Sylvia's absolutely bland personality didn't help either. And I found Reina's 'I'm more lude than you' attitude pretty annoying, so I just skipped it. Maybe Ria's would have been better, but it just wasn't worth having to go through all the other routes, just to 'maybe' get a decent route. Besides Ria, I had an odd liking for Akane, but she didn't seem ready for a relationship yet and especially not with the protagonist.

Though to be fair, it's not the worst moege you can play and I've certainly played worse. However, this VN had a strong 'lude & cute' vibe going on, which I simply found unfitting and tasteless. Just not my cup of tea.

Heroine ranking: Ria > Akane > Don't care

Overall rating 5/10

I also played Amatsutsumi, but didn't like it. First, from the three Purplesoft VN's I've played so far, this was certainly the most boring one by far, with absolutely nothing happening whatsover. But well, a VN can still get decent without much plot if it offers at least good romance. However, the protagonist was apparently taken straight out of a nukige. Pretty much a walking boner who barely thinks about anything else than sex and seems to think that the world is his personal brothel. He therefore bangs all the heroines already in the common route - who needs a romance anyway? Ironically, the VN would have been way better if it would have been at least honest enough to fully commit to a nukige. Instead it tried an inbetween ride with the most misplaced and unfitting H-scenes you can imagine. Kinda "Oh I'm so down and depressed - let's f*ck?!" cringe.

I also found the character designs - with the exception of Mana maybe - rather bland in comparison to previous works, with HapyMaher in particular standing out with an incredible audio-visual design. Though, to be fair, the visual effects of many backgrounds (usually involving water) in this VN are off the charts.

While all PurpleSoft VN's I have read so far had their issues, they at least got the basics of romance right. This VN fails even at that. So yeah, if that's the future of PurpleSoft VN's, it'll be a future without me.

Heroine ranking: Don't care

Overall rating: 3/10 (I added one bonus point for the visual effects)

Edited March 5, 2023 by ChaosRaven

[SpacemanSpiff]

I've been playing Dies irae which I wanted to finish during this month, but some parts honestly give me a splitting headache to read so I've also started White Album 2 in the meantime to clear my head a bit. Not really fond of the fact that the text isn't completely enclosed though. Plus the full blown conversations going on in the background are kinda distracting. 

 

[teniie3]

I'm playing Little Busters and sometimes Hoshizora no Memoria -Eternal Heart-. Since so many males are aware of Little Buster's engaging tale, I give it a go! In addition, I recently finished Hoshizora no Memoria, therefore I'm currently playing the fan disc.

[Nemesis]

サクラノ刻－櫻の森の下を歩む－

Chapter 1 - Apparently, we always have to start the series with pottery.

Lots of talk about counterfeit and real work of arts, and how the value of art is decided. I think the old me would have commented on how superficial the art world is by focusing on the piece's history and other things unrelated to the actual art piece itself.

But I have a rather different point of view now. Art is a sort of communication between the creator and the audience, so I can now see the value on that. Its value depends on what sort of value it can give to the audience. So knowing the background of the art piece can completely change its interpretation similar to "A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs," and gains new value. Either way, I don't think I have an eye for visual art >.>

Wow at the quality of the first chapter.

Spoiler

So much malapropism already. It even adds new malapropism to SakuUta's Toritani route. A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs all over again. 愛がなければ見えない

 

[adamstan]

Today I started PSP version of Suiheisen Made Nan Mile?

Setting up text hooking for this was royal PITA, but unexpectedly Textractor came to the rescue (I think it's the first time I used it with PPSSPP)

As for the game itself, it looks promising. At the first glance the setting looks like a crossover between Konosora (with a bit of Miazora thrown in) and Koichoco Also, the PSP version seems to have exclusive additional route written by Tanaka Romeo.

Edited March 15, 2023 by adamstan

[fuyopon]

Man... I've been away from this thread for so long...

Little update: I finally bought a Steam Deck! I was torn between that or the Switch, but I own all my games on my Steam account haha

I'm almost finished with Steins;Gate , but I'm waaay too lazy to write on each route asjhbdaswvd
Let's just say Suzuha's ending was the one I found the most interesting.

Spoiler

Maybe I just like to see the protagonists break

I finished Mayuri's ending today and next week I will read Kurisu's route. Phew! Finally one "classic" scratched from the big list!

I'm not forcing myself to read it, and I'm really enjoying it!

[Shinyun226]

Just finished up Kizuato (specifically the original win 95/98 version)

Liked it overall, and thought it was a pretty significant improvement over Shizuku as a whole -

Spoiler

though I have to say a lot of specific pieces of Shizuku were more memorable imo, even if the overall package wasn't as good. ie Kizuato didn't have anything that will stick with me quite as much as some of Shizuku's bad ends (Graduation and the toaster endings in particular) or the Ruriko True End. I mean Chizuru's route for example has some stuff which is pretty iconic, but... nothing REALLY stood out to me in that way.

That aside though, it had a pretty solid and engaging story. Though, I do have to say that a certain very important plot twist was a bit too stupid for my taste. I mean, did the 'oni' really have to turn out to be Predator knock-offs? (literally, they're aliens that go from planet to planet to hunt for sport...)

I'm also a bit torn about whether or not I liked the twist of Kouichi's inner-demon "awakening" being a big red-herring/Yanagawa being the real killer - particularly considering how this "mixup" is the primary conflict of both Chizuru and Kaede's routes, but then in Azusa's route it's just immediately accepted that Kouichi is innocent and just has a mental link with the real killer etc..

 

 

Music was really good - I was a bit worried that the soundtrack would be a disappointment compared to Shizuku due to Orito Shinji leaving Leaf, but ended up really liking the music.

Also, like with with Shizuku, I really like the aesthetic that the original version of the game has, with the digitized photos as backgrounds etc.. Just looking at screenshots of the remakes, they definitely don't quite have the same charm or atmosphere.

Spoiler

Also, as an aside, despite being pretty infamous, the plagiarized omake story was pretty underwhelming lol

 

Anyways really looking forward to continue playing through the Leaf library. Next up will be To Heart which I'm definitely excited to play, even if just because of how historically important it is for the genre. (well technically Saorin to Issho is up next, but that's a fandisc so I'm sure it won't take me long to knock out).

[Nemesis]

サクラノ刻－櫻の森の下を歩む－

Chapter 2 - Explores Naoya's life as an adult as he watches others grow up.

I think the main topic here is there are many different roads in life.

Spoiler

Similar to how Sakizaki started art when she got injured and quit track and field.

Once a dream has ended, a new one opens up.

---

Chapter 3 - 「薄っぺらな天才は、才能が透けて見える。天才は、才能を忘れさせる」

Main theme in this chapter and possibly the entire game is talent and what is art. While, it is true that hard work is also required for talent to bloom, the starting conditions and peak for genius and normal people are different. While normal people strive to get recognize, geniuses strive to create something new to express their way of life and the beauty that they can feel.

Onda Housai is a fairly interesting person too with quite a bit of bias. It's interesting to see his perspective from a somewhat talented person comparing himself to geniuses.

Art can move people, because the creator managed to experience sorrow that others can relate to. Sorrow and Happiness are two sides of the same coin.

I think I see Scaji's obsession with Spinoza. To become a good artist, you need to have a certain perspective as being a part of a whole. But at the same time, as the observer, you are separate from the whole hence you can create art and give value to it.

Spoiler

This means being able to put yourself in other's shoes similar to how Misuzu put herself in Nei's shoes and imagined what sort of world she lives in when she created her art.

I think Spinoza gets too lost in his own metaphysics to interpret it the way Sca-ji wants to. 春と修羅 by Miyazawa Kenji is probably a better work to reference for the artist's point of view.

Art is transcending the limits of your inner world by reaching out to other people's inner worlds. It's creating meaning from nature and communicating that to other people.

I had a lot more to say, but I accidentally deleted some of my notes, so I'll just end it here for now until I manage to retake my notes.

 

As an individual game, SakuToki is rather flawed with the main flaw being it wasted a lot of characters' potential. The main one(imo) was wasting Shizuku and Rin (the booklet and drama CD kind of fixes it). But as a sequel to SakuUta, it is a great work of art that expands upon many of its themes and connects it to other Scaji games.

SakuToki covers a lot of topics, so I'll leave a lot of the topics for later if/when I have time to write a more specific review on it.

If Sakuuta is 「幸福の先」の物語, I view this as a 「虚無の先」の物語。 When you are at your lowest and life feels empty, what happens from there?

If you manage to avoid the obvious pitfalls of suicide and escapism through religion(which is covered in Subahibi and Tsui no Sora), you try to fill that empty cup. But fill it with what? それを人は、「美」と呼んだんだ」 We call whatever fills that cup as beauty. From there, we start to create human values, ethics, art, and give meaning to our own life.

「虚無を見出した後で、俺は美を見出した」

Only when we are at our lowest, we are able to open the door of possiblities to advance in different directions. For artists, they can intentionally put themselves in those situations so they can open the door to Charis.

Spoiler

In Naoya's case, he is able to choose between the path of being an art teacher with Misuzu, a normal life with Makoto, or returning back to art with Ai.

This is similar to Nietzsche's concept of Ubermensch, where people transcend the established morals and prejudices of human society to define their own purpose and values in life by facing hardships.In Sca-ji's case though, he doesn't reject the concept of choosing to become content with mediocrity and simple pleasures, but considers that as a possible choice in happiness.

This is why I like Scaji, he possesses both the strengths and weaknesses of humans. While being a genius, he's honest to his desires. He affirms both a life dedicated to honing your own craft and a life filled with pleasure. It's what makes him human and relatable.

Then, he goes to deal with a lot of topics on what is art, talent, and how do you create good art and repeating some of SakuUta's theme on happiness.

Spoiler

I think the conversation between Kenichirou and Reijirou explains it best.

Kenichirou views life as a poem or musical score. In the standard definition of happiness being a "good happening", happiness and misfortunes are just notes which pass by quickly. Each note being finite is what allows us to experience the world and feel its beauty. Art turns that finite beauty to infinite by giving it form. Since life is a musical score, it has a tempo and melody(I think this is where サクラノ響 comes in), and that's where we can find real happiness. Happiness is not something you seek, it's something that's always beside us.

[fuyopon]

On 3/18/2023 at 12:33 PM, Fujoneko said:

Man... I've been away from this thread for so long...

Little update: I finally bought a Steam Deck! I was torn between that or the Switch, but I own all my games on my Steam account haha

I'm almost finished with Steins;Gate , but I'm waaay too lazy to write on each route asjhbdaswvd
Let's just say Suzuha's ending was the one I found the most interesting.

  Reveal hidden contents

Maybe I just like to see the protagonists break

I finished Mayuri's ending today and next week I will read Kurisu's route. Phew! Finally one "classic" scratched from the big list!

I'm not forcing myself to read it, and I'm really enjoying it!

Finished it!! I had a great post for this all ready to send, but my PC crashed

Anyways, I really enjoyed the wild ride it was, I'll give it a solid 8/10. Why not a 9/10? I just couldn't connect too much with Kurisu - this is my main issue with most "main heroines"; they grow on me after I finish the VN and give it time to rest, though.

Spoiler

To be fair, I loved everyone but to the point of falling in love like Okabe did (which weirded me the fuck out, ngl)? Not really...? They are cute together but when he realises he loves her, it was too sudden for me lol

Anyway! I don't know what to play next, honestly. I have installed Chaos;Head Noah since I want to read it soon this year, but I think I'm going to take a short break from the sciadv series for now. I'm considering maybe Totono, Umineko, Sweet Pool or some short ones.

[Nemesis]

Just reading through random VN's this week while I bask in the afterglow of SakuToki. Tried Sekimeiya and continued Rance through Rance 4.1.

The Sekimeiya: Spun Glass

I'm mainly using this VN as a way to judge whether it's even worth looking into the EVN scene or should I completely forget its existence.

So far, writing is pretty meh. This seems like the sort of writing you'd see with RPG talking to NPC's. Their choice of names and settings are extremely weird and just feels not very well thought out. The character writing on the other hand is fucking awful.

I think this game highlights exactly what is wrong with EVN writing, it's fairly typical game writing with lack of focus on fleshing out the world or characters. It focused too much on the game-aspect of solving a riddle, and the characters act like they are playing a game. There is a complete lack of human element to it.

Spoiler

For the mystery, no, it doesn't take a genius to solve it. You just need to pay attention to information it is intentionally leaving out like the date, having limited information for current time, and why Shiroha was wearing different clothes, existence of Miya, Akaro not knowing Katei. Which leads you to conclude that they are not just time traveling, but traveling between different world lines, possibly 3 different world lines. Now the puzzle just becomes a stupid linear algebra question of fill in the blanks of how everything works which is still fairly difficult simply due to the number of different variables. Now here is where the developer went wrong, is it fun just solving a bigger and bigger matrix? Not really, it's just a mind-numbing manual task where you just keep iterating over it until you find the solution.

This is a perfect place to quote Naoya:

「魂が喜ばない作品など、芸術ではない．．．

それはー楽しげな家具と同じだ

楽しげな家具、そういった作品もいいだろう

楽しげな家具は、生活の役に立つが、あんたの作品は家具ほども役に立たない」

I'll give it props for the effort the creators put into it, but that's it. I'm not interested in playing a mind-numbing boring puzzle game. There's lots of better use for my time. Playing mafia is a much funner experience with similar level of difficulty, except with genuine people's reactions.

This game has pretty much convinced me to not touch another EVN for the next 5 years if this is the best they can offer.

---

ランス４．１ ～お薬工場を救え！～

It's a short simple game after Rance 4. It doesn't have the grindiness of the previous game, and has a rather short fun story.

This short minigame is a lot more fun compared to me wasting my time with Sekimeiya.

[ChaosRaven]

On 3/30/2023 at 4:02 AM, Nemesis said:

I'm mainly using this VN as a way to judge whether it's even worth looking into the EVN scene or should I completely forget its existence.

So far, writing is pretty meh. This seems like the sort of writing you'd see with RPG talking to NPC's. Their choice of names and settings are extremely weird and just feels not very well thought out. The character writing on the other hand is fucking awful.

I think this game highlights exactly what is wrong with EVN writing, it's fairly typical game writing with lack of focus on fleshing out the world or characters. It focused too much on the game-aspect of solving a riddle, and the characters act like they are playing a game. There is a complete lack of human element to it.

Yes, I also expected a lot more from it. The idea behind the plot might be good, but the writing was just bad. The writer was probably very experienced, because it felt like he was struggling with absolute basics. It would have been better if he'd started out with a short and simple VN before trying something like this.

Anyway, if you want to try a decent EVN, I'd recommend Heart of the Woods (provided you're fine with yuri).

[Shinyun226]

Just finished Flowers -Winter-

So it took me about 2 years since I had some pretty big gaps between games, but finally completed the series.

Excellent overall but... gotta complain about some elements of the final game...

 

 

Spoiler

So all this build-up, making it seems like there's something really sinister going on and... it turns out that Mayuri is just grandma-sitting? Really? That's it??

Like I understand why the details regarding Mother Elder not being all there might be kept a secret but... there's a billion cover stories that they could have come up with etc... Not to mention Mayuri didn't have to act so weird about it. It just seems like everyone stirred up a whole lot of drama about basically nothing.

 

It's a shame, because everything leading up to the reveal was pretty engaging. ie: The whole implication that's present in the first play-through that Rikka might be a traitor (before the player knows those letters being read and the chapter openings are actually about Shion and Sayuri) was particularly interesting, even if it all was a red-herring.

That aside, there were a few other overly stupid elements in the game (some of the other puzzles were nonsense, especially the whole chain of clues leading to the secret room) but... I still really liked it nonetheless. Winter had a LOT of great character moments, very happy that Erika got a lot of screen time, really like Shion and Sayuri's story and the ending was pretty satisfying all things considered. Also it had Hokama Senpai. 10/10 right there, even if her screentime was severly lacking.

 

Definitely a little sad that this is the last game, as I'm gonna miss the characters quite a bit. There are a few drama CDs that have come out though (with another one set to release this June) so I've got at least a little bit more Flowers material left to enjoy at least. Also definitely gonna have to buy all the soundtrack CDs - Between these games and AikaiIto, I've discovered I really like MANYO music.

Anyways, overall can't recommend the series enough. Definitely a must-play for any HimeDanshi/HimeJoshi out there looking for a good Yurige.

 

As an aside... Playing Flowers has also gotten me interested in trying out other Innocent Grey stuff. I know to expect something quite a bit different (obviously their other games aren't Yuri... among things) but, since there's an HD remaster of Cartagra coming out end of this month, thinking I might go ahead and pick that up.

Either way, that's probably something I won't play for a while. It's been a good 5-6 months since I've played a KID game (finished My Merry May back in November I believe), so probably gonna cycle back to my queue of KID games and start Ever17 next.

[adamstan]

Wow, over 2 months since last post in this thread Is this forum still alive?

Anyway, yesterday I finished PSP version of Suiheisen made Nan Mile?

It took me 3 months and around 110 hours - the routes' extensions added in this edition almost double their length 

What can I say - it was quite enjoyable charage - and it seems that Konosora took some inspiration from it It had some pacing issues, but I really liked all heroines, and enjoyed their routes nevertheless.

All in all - 7.5, decent title

Now I'll probably go with Ano Ko wa Ore kara Hanarenai - one of numerous GIGA's moeges

[aurora]

I'm playing Atri:my dear moments(though today is 2023/6/22)

[adamstan]

8 minutes ago, aurora said:

I'm playing Atri:my dear moments(though today is 2023/6/22)

Have fun! I was about to say that it was one of the better VNs I've read last year, but it was 3 years ago - time surely flies Nevertheless, it's great little VN

 

[Mago Ivo]

I finished Higurashi and I really liked it. I can understand why people love it so much.

Now my random number generator says that I have to start reading Grisaia no Kajitsu and Never7 -the end of infinity-

I'm particularly excited about Never7, because I quite liked Ever17 -the out of infinity-

Edited June 27, 2023 by Mago Ivo

[CruelN1N1]

Trying out Otome Domain (kinda ironic since i used to dislike traps)

Been playing and stopping DohnaDohna

Oyakonrankan but not sure, playing it ML/TL by hear myself so kinda annoying to read

[Bremus]

i started Narcissu few days ago. i picked it only as break from studying. i have to say it's quite good story but little depressed. i'm waiting for steam summer sale because i want to buy umineko no naku koro ni (i finished higurashi 2 months ago) and i hope it will be at the same level as previous ryukishi07's product