What are you playing?

[Eclipsed]

HOLD ON A SEC AM I ALIVE WTF KARA NO SHOUJO 3 IS OUT?!



Insta-read, I'm just diving into it, don't remember all the deets from Cartagra -> KnS 1 & 2, but whoa I can't believe it actually came out, this is like Half Life 3 releasing levels of wtf

[LostPomegranate]

On 1/20/2025 at 12:17 AM, LostPomegranate said:

Another month down, some more VNs down as well...

 

Comyu, UsoNatsu, My Klutzy Cupid, everlasting flowers, Fatal Twelve, Parquet, and Family Project all completed, now I'm onto Ego's Spark before Tenshi Souzou releases this Friday...

 

Out of all those...I'd actually recommend pretty much all of them to someone. Comyu is a great chunige by the same makers as Hello Lady! and feels very similar but with a dragon. UsoNatsu was actually my favorite read of 2024 (ignoring rereads), a well written yuri slice of life drama / coming of age tale. Fatal Twelve was a pretty good mystery / death game with some light yuri. everlasting flowers was another coming of age / drama tale with extremely light yuri undertones (nothing outright). My Klutzy Cupid is your general moege with nothing outstanding about it but also very little that was bad either. Parquet is Yuzusoft's take on an all-ages story with just romantic undertones rather than an outright romance story, which was refreshing, although I wish the afters didn't effectively end on cliffhangers. Family Project is the one I'd only recommend if you like slapstick / silly comedy because otherwise it's a one-note slog through the dramatic which is how it was for me.

 

See you next month with probably another 5-6 completed.

Currently I'm inbetween reads, but about to start Rewrite later today. The decision wheel has decided that I shall read all Key products as soon as they get added to the wheel apparently...

 

But since last update I've read Heart of the Woods, Taranormal, Tenshi Souzou Re-boot, Sex Rockets (Byakko / Farther than the Blue Sky), and Little Busters! I'd recommend all of them. Heart of the Woods is a good yuri mystery-ish EVN, Taranormal is a weird offshoot almost fandisc of that, Tenshi Souzou is more Yuzusoft moege, although I don't think it is as good as most of their other releases it is still good. Sex Rockets was by far my surprise moege of the recent past, managing to tie in a scientific story, some drama, and cute moments without getting too boring or anything - although I will say if you are not interested in space or rockets / aerospace in general you may find it boring. Little Busters was good to very good, but suffered a bit from some uneven routes, but ultimately I think almost everyone should give it a read.

 

See you again in roughly a month with probably another 4-6 read.

[adamstan]

On 2/20/2025 at 4:38 PM, LostPomegranate said:

Sex Rockets (Byakko / Farther than the Blue Sky)

Wait, when did it get that title?

Anyway, it was quite nice game as far as I remember. I read it back in 2019, when the translation got released. I think I was disappointed with H-scenes (as usual ), and the romance felt underdeveloped, but I enjoyed all that rocket plot.

 

On 9/28/2019 at 11:21 AM, adamstan said:

I have an impression, especially after true route, that romance isn't focus of this game. It's a bit tacked onto main rocket story. And then there are h-scenes tacked onto the tacked-on romance - probably that's why they felt jarring to me. There were some nice parts, but overally they had "nukigey" feeling to me. And the way all heroines turned instantly into non-stop-orgasming sex demons was so over the top, that it felt almost like a parody.

 

*****************

Now I'm trying to decide what to read next. I'm kinda in a mood for another ancient moege, like You & I that I read last summer.

And so I stumbled upon similar title - Kimi ni Steady. But I have really hard time choosing between the PC and PS1 versions. The problem is that PS1 version, due to graphic hardware limitations has really bad quality low-res sprites, like this:

But it's hookable with CheatEngine and has really nice animated OP.

The PC version looks much better (and I really dig that character design)...

...but from technical point of view it's a hot mess - it runs only in fullscreen, in Win98 compatibility mode. Can be windowed using app like DxWnd, but it still behaves like it was fullscreen - you have to Alt-Tab out of it to use desktop. The engine itself has even less features than You & I , which already was pretty bare-bones. I couldn't find a way to enter any kind of options or save menu once the game started (and I read through two days on prologue) - there are icons, but they are all greyed out And when the game is wrapped via DxWnd, text hookers don't seem to see it  

So I'm quite stuck. I think I will go with console version and suffer inferior graphics, just because it's less of a bother to run and hook...

****************************************

Okay, I clicked through PC version until options became active, and maybe I should rethink my game choice, since this seems to be genuine dating sim, with map movement, presents, searching for date spots etc - and I often find such systems rather bothersome

Edited February 22 by adamstan

[LostPomegranate]

4 hours ago, adamstan said:

Wait, when did it get that title?

When I refused to call it anything else and managed to get a few discord servers to admit it's a great alias. Honestly surprised it hadn't happened yet. Especially since 

Spoiler

they use sex to fix the problems with rocket development pretty frequently. Can't figure out why your carbon fiber method keeps failing? Well you'll figure it out during a round of crazy sex and equate the method of applying fluid to the matrix to your jizz in your girlfriend.

One of the few moege I've read where a lot of the H-scenes have true plot significance. I don't think it was much worse in your complaints than most moege are though to be honest, but I also got surprisingly emotional during its true route and didn't mind the romance - especially in the true route - playing second fiddle to the rockets.

 

Also it does sound like a nightmare to run that PC version, so I'd go with the console version too, if only to not have to resize everything often when running it.

Edited February 23 by LostPomegranate

[adamstan]

18 hours ago, LostPomegranate said:

One of the few moege I've read where a lot of the H-scenes have true plot significance.

Yeah, that was funny - but the scenes were so over the top

[adamstan]

On 2/23/2025 at 5:10 AM, LostPomegranate said:

Also it does sound like a nightmare to run that PC version, so I'd go with the console version too, if only to not have to resize everything often when running it.

When there's will, there's a way (yeah, I know I'm sick )

I managed to run bloody thing using WinXP virtual machine running in VirtualBox, and then hooking text with Cheat Engine

The only downside is that the japanese font in WinXP is kinda ugly But it works  

[alexfang452]

On 1/26/2025 at 7:45 PM, alexfang452 said:

Since this post, I have finished "Go! Go! Nippon!". Additionally, I am still reading Slay the Princess and trying to focus on Livestream 2. In the end, I would say that "Go! Go! Nippon!" is a decent VN. It was fun going through the different areas of Japan. One of my issues with it is that the romance could have been better. It is hard to believe that Makoto or Akira would fall for this guy in a week. Maybe being a VN protagonist with no eyes makes you more charming. 

Meanwhile, I am making good progress in Slay the Princess as I only have 35 achievements left to find. As for Livestream 2, I am having a hard time getting back to it since I am playing too many games at once. 

Since this comment, I have FINALLY earned all of the achievements in Slay the Princess. As for Livestream 2, I am still failing to make any progress on it. Even though I think Slay the Princess is a really good VN, it is not one that I would say is a must read. It is not for people that are not a fan of going through a game many times in hopes of seeing something different. The game provides you with many options, but I can understand why this will not be excited for some. Personally, I was not bothered by it because of the voice actors and the visuals. Also, this VN did not scare me that much despite its visuals getting horrific at times. What kept me invested is the many paths this game has. I wanted to see all of the different forms that the princess could take. 

The next VN that I will start is Adventure of a Lifetime. Since I read through it already, this will be a reread. When I started reading VNs, this was my favorite for a couple of months before I read VNs like Saku Saku: Love Blooms with the Cherry Blossoms and World End Syndrome. 

[adamstan]

2 hours ago, alexfang452 said:

The next VN that I will start is Adventure of a Lifetime.

I liked it. I also really enjoyed its "sequel" - Ano Hi no Tabibito, Fureau Mirai, but it's still untranslated. Perhaps "Adventure of a Lifetime" didn't sell well enough on Steam? (Even though I remember the translation being not bad for a PULLTOP )

[littleshogun]

Been playing Ixseal for some times now that it's available in English, and I may will put more thorough comment on it together with Liberator like I promised earlier later, although it probably consist of the improvement compared to the respective previous games (Revenger for Liberator and Haruka for Ixseal).

[littleshogun]

Trying Harukuru 17+ version, and it's quite clear on where Sekai cut the sex scenes. Story-wise there's no much difference between 18+ version and 17+ version besides the number of the sex scenes at the beginning (Obviously the latter has zero sex scenes), although I still hope Sekai will finally release Harukuru 18+ version after seven years of waiting.

Edited March 20 by littleshogun

[LostPomegranate]

On 2/20/2025 at 7:38 AM, LostPomegranate said:

Currently I'm inbetween reads, but about to start Rewrite later today. The decision wheel has decided that I shall read all Key products as soon as they get added to the wheel apparently...

 

But since last update I've read Heart of the Woods, Taranormal, Tenshi Souzou Re-boot, Sex Rockets (Byakko / Farther than the Blue Sky), and Little Busters! I'd recommend all of them. Heart of the Woods is a good yuri mystery-ish EVN, Taranormal is a weird offshoot almost fandisc of that, Tenshi Souzou is more Yuzusoft moege, although I don't think it is as good as most of their other releases it is still good. Sex Rockets was by far my surprise moege of the recent past, managing to tie in a scientific story, some drama, and cute moments without getting too boring or anything - although I will say if you are not interested in space or rockets / aerospace in general you may find it boring. Little Busters was good to very good, but suffered a bit from some uneven routes, but ultimately I think almost everyone should give it a read.

 

See you again in roughly a month with probably another 4-6 read.

Currently I am reading OmOneko https://vndb.org/v38602 which so far is a pretty slow story that has a different take on cat-girls.  Sentient but still largely treated as pets with what - so far at least - seems like a lower intelligence, like around a 5-8 year old human's, than how they're normally presented. Jury is still out right now on this. As it sits the MC seems to have some real self-hate and shame surrounding having Nekos. It's also rather dense with expository narration that approaches being verbose at times which is slowing the story down quite a bit.

After that I'm planning on reading ImaImo https://vndb.org/v7766 and then KoiChoco when it officially launches next week.

 

Since my last update I have read Rewrite, a few nukige, Amatsutsumi, Aoi Tori, and Kunado Chronicles. Rewrite was good but inconsistent, nukige are nukige, and the three Purple Software games were all good at slightly different levels and all had their issues and their strong points in different spots.

 

See you again in April!

Edited March 19 by LostPomegranate

[alexfang452]

On 2/28/2025 at 2:18 PM, alexfang452 said:

Since this comment, I have FINALLY earned all of the achievements in Slay the Princess. As for Livestream 2, I am still failing to make any progress on it. Even though I think Slay the Princess is a really good VN, it is not one that I would say is a must read. It is not for people that are not a fan of going through a game many times in hopes of seeing something different. The game provides you with many options, but I can understand why this will not be excited for some. Personally, I was not bothered by it because of the voice actors and the visuals. Also, this VN did not scare me that much despite its visuals getting horrific at times. What kept me invested is the many paths this game has. I wanted to see all of the different forms that the princess could take. 

The next VN that I will start is Adventure of a Lifetime. Since I read through it already, this will be a reread. When I started reading VNs, this was my favorite for a couple of months before I read VNs like Saku Saku: Love Blooms with the Cherry Blossoms and World End Syndrome. 

Since this post, I have finished my reread of Adventure of a Lifetime. As for Livestream 2, I am slowly making progress through it. My college classes keep making me busy with assignments. Fortunately, I did start another VN titled Sakura: The Jirai-kei Magical Girl. So far, it is decent. My biggest problem with it is that I only like 1 of the 3 main characters. The protagonist is fine as he will probably end up being another blank slate male protagonist. As for Sakura, she might have a good design, but I do not like her personality. She is a lazy shut-in who eats a lot and does not know what showers are. Did the writers think that the reader would be fine with a character like this because it is a girl with a nice design?

I'll post a review of Adventure of a Lifetime here in the future. For now, I will say that it is just as good as I remembered it. Even though many of my thoughts on this VN did not change, I still enjoyed going through it again. 

Edited March 28 by alexfang452
Added more sentences

[littleshogun]

Once again I still playing both Ixseal and Liberator, although I also tried Tayutama and Irotoridori no Hikari.

Edited April 11 by littleshogun

[adamstan]

I think I won't finish Kimi ni Steady While I love character design of some heroines, I liked the one route I finished, and I'd like to see some of the other heroines' routes - the dating sim gameplay is sooo tedious. What's worse, there's no clear walkthrough, conditions to trigger routes can be tricky, and the only guide that's available online for this game seems to have mistakes (or the game is partially random)... So I'm on the verge of dropping it.

[adamstan]

Damn, is this forum completely dead already?

Anyway, as predicted, I couldn't be bothered to continue Kimi ni Steady

Instead, yesterday I started Frontwing's Time Leap. Today I entered first route. So far I'm liking it - it plays many of my favorite tropes, like childhood memories with a bit of supernatural mystery.

It's also quite good looking despite using cell-shaded 3d models instead of sprites. The positive side of that is the dialogues feel much more lively.

I'm playing PS3 version - it works flawlessly with current version of RPCS3, and can be hooked using Agent after some tinkering

[LostPomegranate]

On 3/19/2025 at 3:22 PM, LostPomegranate said:

Currently I am reading OmOneko https://vndb.org/v38602 which so far is a pretty slow story that has a different take on cat-girls.  Sentient but still largely treated as pets with what - so far at least - seems like a lower intelligence, like around a 5-8 year old human's, than how they're normally presented. Jury is still out right now on this. As it sits the MC seems to have some real self-hate and shame surrounding having Nekos. It's also rather dense with expository narration that approaches being verbose at times which is slowing the story down quite a bit.

After that I'm planning on reading ImaImo https://vndb.org/v7766 and then KoiChoco when it officially launches next week.

 

Since my last update I have read Rewrite, a few nukige, Amatsutsumi, Aoi Tori, and Kunado Chronicles. Rewrite was good but inconsistent, nukige are nukige, and the three Purple Software games were all good at slightly different levels and all had their issues and their strong points in different spots.

 

See you again in April!

Looks like I lied. I skipped April...

 

Currently I'm reading Mahoyo https://vndb.org/v777 which so far is fine...Nasu being Nasu basically, so it's verbose or dragged out in some places, but it's still entertaining.

 

Next week NekoPara After, Pillagers of Raillore, Clover Reset, Happiness (2): Sakura Celebration, and Perennial Dusk: Kinsenka all release within two days and I plan to read all of them, so deciding a bit on the order of that, probably NekoPara > Happiness > Kinsenka > Clover Reset > Raillore for both spoiler risk and then who is on Steam for the minor help of fueling their algorithm early.

 

But since that post above I have finished Omoneko and read (I'm going to omit very short titles unless they were good): Futatabu Fuyu ga Kuru Toki (https://vndb.org/v51099), ImaImo (https://vndb.org/v7766), Karehana (https://vndb.org/v19658), LOOPERS (https://vndb.org/v29445), Saya no Uta (https://vndb.org/v97), Onee-chan no Yuuwaku (https://vndb.org/v22483), reread Love, Elections & Chocolate (https://vndb.org/v4028), Mojika (https://vndb.org/v21667), Tayutama (https://vndb.org/v828), reread Nukitashi (https://vndb.org/v22899), Nukitashi 2 (https://vndb.org/v23741), Hentai Prison (https://vndb.org/v31055), Kouguchi Rinko (https://vndb.org/v25713), reread Kinkoi (https://vndb.org/v21852), reread Kinkoi FD (https://vndb.org/v24717), SugarKiss! (https://vndb.org/v26603), and Mrs. Hinako (https://vndb.org/v30294).

 

Incoming wall of text with super mini-thoughts on all of the above.

 

Woo...soo...from that big list starting at the top, Futatabu Fuyu ga Kuru Toki was a quick read (under an hour) but still managed to be decently emotional, but I wish there was more of it. ImaImo was incredibly good for an AA moege, managing to tackle some more serious issues than most of the 18+ ones do and is now tied for my highest rated Sprite game (fandiscs not included). Karehana was was fine nakige, but its comedy didn't land for me so it felt very one note. Loopers I was not a big fan of, since it largely felt like a commercial for Geocaching rather than a VN until near the end. Saya's Song I liked, but ultimately I feel is overrated (I gave it a 7.3/10) a bit, but is still well worth a read for most people. Onee-chan no Yuuwaku is probably my favorite nukige ever right now, both because it hit on some things I really like, and because it was just incredibly sweet. Love, Elections & Chocolate's official release is far better than the fan translation that came out before it, and on a reread I enjoyed it more than my initial read through, it's a solid game, but I'm unsure I'd call it a moege since it handles some serious stuff at times. Mojika is a trip, it's more of a game about the presentation than the story itself, story is pretty dark, but it's the presentation that will carry this, I'd recommend checking it out on some level, maybe watching a short clip of it, and if the presentation vibes with you then dive in. Tayutama was good (if you only read one route) and decent (if you read everything), it largely just retreads a lot of the same events between routes with poor read detection so you either have to manually skip and possibly miss some line changes, or you have to speed read through it, other than that it also has some surprisingly serious or dark moments in a "moege". Nukitashi's be nukitashi-ing. They're good, but all over the place. If you like perverted humor with a surprisingly serious story, then go for them, they're rated well for a good reason. Hentai Prison is my favorite Qruppo game, and features a lot of references to other media (mostly movies), and was funny at times and managed some serious stories pretty well. Kouguchi Rinko is a comedy-nukige from Laplacian, it had me laughing extremely hard, but that may not hold true for everyone. Kinkoi is still arguably my favorite moege (the only two I'd rate above it from tone work's I'm not sure I'd call moege), and its fandisc, while a step below it, is still very entertaining. SugarKiss! was very cute, sweet, and a grounded adult romance, but largely centers around smoking, so if you're against that, skip it, but otherwise pick it up when it goes on sale, cause it's recently done that at 95% off. Lastly, Mrs. Hinako is a netori (so you play as the person doing the stealing) game that actually tells something of a story, and it lives up to its English title with Mrs. Hinako being in a terrible relationship (husband cheats on her, never works, gambles their money away, doesn't raise their daughter at all), with the MC coming to "save her". Although I prefer its Japanese title for it which doesn't try to "sell" netori as being a positive thing, which lets you make up your own mind about whether it was good or not. Either way it was an entertaining story with some decent H as well.

 

*deep breath* Okay, see you in June...maybe