What are you playing?

[Eclipsed]

43 minutes ago, Dergonu said:

Does this mean our race is off?!

(I still have a few weeks before my break starts )

Ohh! Does that mean you forfeit? Did I win by default? Am I the best ever? I think I am

I'm you from the future, remember?

[Dergonu]

14 minutes ago, Eclipsed said:

I'm you from the future, remember?

Answer me this! Will I ever be able to grow a mustache?

 

Well we can find some other game to play if you still want to do a race later

My break starts like ... the 24th or something.

I'll destroy you this time

[Arcadeotic]

I finally decided to continue Miu's route in Dracu-Riot! after what seems to have been over a month

Things are getting pretty intense

Maybe I can actually finish it before the full patch lanfs, which would be most feasible

[Barktooth]

On ‎6‎/‎6‎/‎2016 at 7:12 AM, Arcadeotic said:

Chinami's route doesn't really succeed in the character-deparment imo, but the story and events are one of the best in the game for me.

The orgel was so good

Finished Chinami's route, and.. I feel like it was kind of incomplete.

Spoiler

I did like the backstory about their fathers, but what even happened in the end? They didn't show Chinami and You meeting Taiga and it just went right to the ending, WTF. And I wonder why You didn't think about meeting his father earlier.

I guess we found out that Ren is the shinigami in the urban legend, but poor Asuka still doesn't know crap, and Chinami just thought it was a dream when Ren told her that.

Overall I just didn't care much for the characters and thus the story, so it was just an okay route. Did like the interactions between Taiga and Ren however, that dame uchujin <3

 

[Canicheslayer]

Reading/Playing Xblaze Code: Embryo.

Spoiler

Wow I loved that line

[Chuee]

4 hours ago, Barktooth said:

Finished Chinami's route, and.. I feel like it was kind of incomplete.

  Hide contents

I did like the backstory about their fathers, but what even happened in the end? They didn't show Chinami and You meeting Taiga and it just went right to the ending, WTF. And I wonder why You didn't think about meeting his father earlier.

I guess we found out that Ren is the shinigami in the urban legend, but poor Asuka still doesn't know crap, and Chinami just thought it was a dream when Ren told her that.

Overall I just didn't care much for the characters and thus the story, so it was just an okay route. Did like the interactions between Taiga and Ren however, that dame uchujin <3

 

It was just an implied ending, you get those a lot. 

Also the thing with Asuka is resolved in the fandisk. 

[Barktooth]

5 hours ago, Chuee said:

It was just an implied ending, you get those a lot. 

Also the thing with Asuka is resolved in the fandisk. 

Yeah, not a huge fan of those kinds of endings.

Good to know about the fandisk, too bad the TL project for it is dead. Guess it's Japanese learning time!

[Arcadeotic]

The fandisk is the best thing since sliced bread purely by the amount of Mare and true best grill it has

Edited June 8, 2016 by Arcadeotic

[Daydreamer97]

I'm currently reading Ozmafia!! right now. I'm really digging the art and characters. The story seems interesting, there's a lot of routes and a lot of content. I'm planning on picking up The House in Fata Morgana during the Steam Sale. I might get G-Senjou no Maou too since a lot of people are recommending it to me. For now though,, my focus is on Ozmafia. I've heard a lot of good things about it so I'm pretty excited to play through all the routes.

[Barktooth]

16 minutes ago, Arcadeotic said:

The fandisk is the best thing since sliced bread purely by the amount of Mare and true best grill it has

I'm not a huge fan of slice of life but if it's Mare, count me in  

[Eclipsed]

On 6/7/2016 at 10:33 AM, Dergonu said:

Answer me this! Will I ever be able to grow a mustache?

My break starts like ... the 24th or something.

I'll destroy you this time

@mustache idk, seems them nosehairs have a better growth rate than them mustachio-hairs, unfortunately. 

~~
FINE, I'll hold off on Fata Morgana until your break starts, I've been, uh, a bit more busy party hartying slacking off anyways  

[Kenshin_sama]

 

This could technically be posted in either this or the video games thread, but I'm posting here since I'm mostly playing Blazblue: Calamity Trigger as a VN with the story mode.

I've finished a couple of the endings for Ragna's story, but the guide I was following on wikia doesn't seem very accurate for the 3rd. I'll try the guide on Gamefaq tomorrow and see if I get it this time. I don't recommend playing this game without a guide as it's really tricky to get the distortion finishes needed to unlock certain endings, and you'll probably hate having to do it on your own.

I do like the kind of storytelling that leaves you confused as heck with a fragmented storyline at the beginning and makes more sense at the end. Could make for a grand experience if it pulls through. I have no hard opinion of it so far since nothing makes sense to me yet, but it's interesting.

Sadly, I am playing the Steam version of this game, and have had a few issues with the video. The subtitles are horribly out of sync with the audio and it looks like I have to play them from the game's directory in order to view it properly. Really sucks that I don't have my PS3 for this game.
 

Edit: Don't like double posting, so I guess I'll just edit for now.

Ugh, this happened to me today.

Considering how this is the most annoying story I've read so far, I'm kinda peeved that I couldn't even 100% it. Not even gonna bother figuring out where that last bit is since the story content might be trivial anyways. As a character, Taokaka probably matters more than I think she does, but there was a lot of pointless and annoying fluff in her story compared to the others and I don't think 1% is gonna make any kind of difference in the grand scheme of things. That and Taokaka drives me nuts with the way she talks.

The others were a different matter entirely. Every seemingly insignificant line that I read felt like it was hinting at something grand. Even the lines that come up when you lose a fight feel like they matter in some way. I'll likely know for sure once I get to the true path. The story is still fragmented, and I'm still kinda lost in a few areas, but it gradually makes more sense.

I also recommend reading the tips as soon as they come up. The sooner you do, the better off you'll be. The last one I read gave more clarification to the setting.

[Turnip Sensei]

Kusarihime was pretty peculiar experience. It's little all over the place, but somehow very fulfilling at the same time. I'll probably have to, and I want to read it again to understand it better and to see the scenes I missed. 

Kusarihime is very much a story where the journey is more important than the destination. It get's pretty strange near the end and quite lot was left pretty uncertain, but at the same time I felt like I read something really cool. It was way more more focused in human emotions and minds than I initially thought. While there is of course supernatural parts to it as well, but it's more about the shadows in people's hears. And Kusarihime has plenty of really impacful scenes concerning those. It's also really atmospheric game and storybook aesthetic makes it even better.

Something I really liked in Kusarihime is how well the story and the writing flows. From the scene to scene, event to next, adding steadily new things to keep it interesting and steadily progressing. Sometimes things go faster, sometimes slower; there's laid-back times and desperate times, but flowing feeling stays the same. Writing helps in this too. It's simple enough and reads fairly easily, but has it own nice feel. And like the story, it flows very naturally between narration, dialogue and sometimes pretty ephemeral descriptions. Kusarihime is just really satisfying visual novel to read. Quite numerous H-scenes were the only things hindering my reading enjoyment, but that's just me finding H-scenes kind of annoying to read in general, since for the most part they are not just throwaway scenes and actually contain content worth reading outside of the deed.

Overall I liked Kusarihime a lot. There are parts that feel little incomplete, yet it has charm that makes me forgive most of it. Kusarihime might be flawed, but it's a pretty damn cool experience.        

[Tyr]

On 2016/6/6 at 11:21 PM, Decay said:

Not really. The Xtend Episode primarily consists of content that was previously in Route D but they moved it to its own thing because it hurt the pacing too much. It's also just a series of scenes you select from a menu.

No, these scenes didn't hurt the pacing at all. They were essential scenes in the pivotal part of the original VN and just because Japanese readers are ADHD-victims who are too stupid to appreciate a character-driven storyline, they were cut in the Xtend version in favor of the not so interesting storyline (which was never the focus in the first place) and were instead labeled as some kind of side-story bonus scenes thus losing all their emotional momentum.

Thanks to that you EOPs can now read the butchered Xtend version which is neither fish nor fowl. But please stop justifying this mess by blaming the original version for having bad pacing. Because that is just not true. I know that since I read the original VN and Route D was one of the best character-driven drama I've ever read in a visual novel; mainly thanks to the scenes which were omitted in the Xtend cut.

[Decay]

1 hour ago, Tyrosyn said:

No, these scenes didn't hurt the pacing at all. They were essential scenes in the pivotal part of the original VN and just because Japanese readers are ADHD-victims who are too stupid to appreciate a character-driven storyline, they were cut in the Xtend version in favor of the not so interesting storyline (which was never the focus in the first place) and were instead labeled as some kind of side-story bonus scenes thus losing all their emotional momentum.

Thanks to that you EOPs can now read the butchered Xtend version which is neither fish nor fowl. But please stop justifying this mess by blaming the original version for having bad pacing. Because that is just not true. I know that since I read the original VN and Route D was one of the best character-driven drama I've ever read in a visual novel; mainly thanks to the scenes which were omitted in the Xtend cut.

Nah, I'm going to continue to insist that they ruined the pacing since that part of the game was already a complete disaster even without them. I just did not like the super flashback heavy storytelling. Even more of that would have been unbearable.

edit: I'm the kind of guy who prefers character driven stories to plot driven stories, but... not like this.

[Funyarinpa]

Said "fuck Gangamamer" and went and downloaded the original translation of Higurashi. I love the VN's first two chapters - truly amazing- but when MG went and released only TWO FUCKING CHAPTERS OUT OF EIGHT in a year, I ended up being fed up. I'll not be at home at all in July save for one week occupied by my family and Zero Escape 3, so I am not planning on waiting for somebody to prepare a PS3 voice&asset patch for Tatarigoroshi (Higurashi CH3). 

But hot damn the old release is atrocious. Even when prepatched, it's 4:3, PS2 resolution, and there's no voice acting. Sad, but preferable to waiting for seemingly three more years for the rest of the story. 

 

 

[kilicool64]

14 hours ago, Decay said:

Nah, I'm going to continue to insist that they ruined the pacing since that part of the game was already a complete disaster even without them. I just did not like the super flashback heavy storytelling. Even more of that would have been unbearable.

edit: I'm the kind of guy who prefers character driven stories to plot driven stories, but... not like this.

Gonna take a middle ground here and disagree with both of you. Root D was my favorite part of Root Double precisely because it spent so much time exploring its huge web of character backstories and showing how they all tie together. While this did result in very slow pacing, I didn't mind this much at all because the vast majority of the flashback content dealt with things that I was interested in learning about in the first place. I guess some of Jun's flashbacks were a bit weak compared to the rest since most of her backstory is just a less interesting version of Kazami's, but even they had an important in-universe reason for occurring. And aside from them, all the characters' flashbacks not only greatly expanded on characterization, but were also critical components of the main plot.

At the same time though, I also heavily disagree with the notion that the Xtend edition ruined the VN by cutting a lot of important flashbacks. That's flat-out incorrect. None of the flashbacks have been cut at all. They were all moved to the newly created post-game scenario called the Xtend episode where they're presented under a perfectly fine new context along with some new scenes. I heard how these scenes were originally presented, and that sounds like it would have been really tiresome even for me. While it's true that these scenes do a good job at further expanding the characters and setting, unlike most of the scenes that stayed in Root D, they're not very relevant to the main plot. Presenting these side stories as supplementary material that you get to read after you're already done with Root D sounds like a much better solution than delaying its conclusion by 4-5 hours.

[Vorathiel]

Yesterday I had no internet day (some minor breakdown).
So I started Grisaia, I had ~3h of Makina route to finish.
I started. And I regretted. Main writter of Grisaia, while writting in nice prose, is worst VN writter I have ever read. Yet again he's doing bullshit like this:
SLIGHT SPOILERS about Makina route.

Spoiler

Infiltrarion of building. Yuji is trying to sneak in, he's dressed up like a delivery man, he's coming in... and the sudden cut later, he's almost at his aim, almost pointing gun at his target! They omitted large chunk of the possible tense and thrill scene, when he's trying to stay in cover, and move through the building till some high floor. But it was cut! Or so I thought. But no! Right after he's at his target, he suddenly starts TALKING TO READERS about what was he doing after wenting into the builiding up to this point. In retrospection! Instead of doing tense, nice 5 minutes scene of building infiltration, whe had tenseless, because we know how it ended, and completly bland 'yuuji talkig how he did it' scene. "Show, not tell" FFS!
And it's very very common ir Amane and Makina route, and probably common In Grisaia 2 and 3, written by this fraud hack.

So I finished this bullshit route and was angered. But since It was only around 15:00 and I have whole day ahead of me (with a break for football match in tv, cause EURO) I imidiatelly loaded save I had on the beginning of Michiru route.

And this happened:

This CG, whis whole scene was so good, so GREAT voice acting I listened to their entirety, I've shivers through this. It was great. Trully great. Finally, for the first time, after boring and unfunny common, stupid and boooring Amane, ultrastupid, but not boring Sachi and stupid, cancerous and boring Makina I've got something great from Grisaia.
Usually CGs' in this VN are very, very mediocre (little to no detail, faces that hardly resembles characters known from their sprites. Escecially noses and upper lips. [I mean, who the hell is this girl  (slightly NSFW) http://g.e-hentai.org/s/24daf09019/340382-212?nl=22886-407169 ? And this girl? Is this Yumiko (slightly spoilerish from Michiru route) http://g.e-hentai.org/s/3f7c61b01d/340382-247?nl=11884-407169 ]), but this one was great.

It hooked me up really quickly, so I read, I read and read, and finished around 1:30.
What I really quickly noticed was...different director (?), or a t least direction. There was much more sprite movement though screen (lower, higher, smaller, bigger, wobbling, falling, all that stuff, not noticeable at all in Makina route), much better directed dialogues (and it was funny I even laughed simple 'hahah' out loud twice!), whith much better directions. People was really cutting in in others statements and it really felt like a peaople talking instead of kindergarden play (one eprson speaks tw sentences, silence, other person start talking his two sentences, etc), which is more than common in VNs.
And it was much, much better written route than anything from Grisaia main writter. This guy responsible for Michiru know how to write a scene, know where to put focus on, what emphasize, what not, where to change perspective, etc.

I have only problems with fanservice scene at the ocean, and of course, ending
 

Spoiler

what a bullshit. Pseudo-science-magic are the worst type of story catalizers. It really ruined the story for me. I could swallow this if there would be some understatements, some backdoor to my theory that it was all in her head, schizophrenia, or something. But no. They deliberatelly made last 20 minutes just Michiru body with two different minds inside. Complete and utter bullshit. But I guess that's what happen if you must have a good end, where everobydy is living happily ever after. They couldn't surpress the other girl in Michiru, they must have fleshed her out. And what if, she wanted to live? What if she told her mother about it all? What if mother of this deceased girl believed? There is so much ethic problems, so much logic problems, there would be constnat sciene examination of Michiru condition, there would be a world scale rpecedence, with gravely repercussions to the world as a whole. But no, fuck logic, we need happy ending. Sigh.

So that ending just took away around 0.8 from my final grade for this route. But oh well, at least I have fun reading it.

[Funyarinpa]

Grisaia never really got to me beyond a particular arc in Amane's route, but I find it interesting how I heard that for most people Michiru being written by someone else ruined it.

[Dergonu]

I think it's for the better that you stop reading grisaia there. 

Based on your opinions about the game, you will HATE the sequels

[XReaper]

8 hours ago, Vorathiel said:

So I finished this bullshit route and was angered. But since It was only around 15:00 and I have whole day ahead of me (with a break for football match in tv, cause EURO) I imidiatelly loaded save I had on the beginning of Michiru route.

And this happened:

This CG, whis whole scene was so good, so GREAT voice acting I listened to their entirety, I've shivers through this. It was great. Trully great. Finally, for the first time, after boring and unfunny common, stupid and boooring Amane, ultrastupid, but not boring Sachi and stupid, cancerous and boring Makina I've got something great from Grisaia.
Usually CGs' in this VN are very, very mediocre (little to no detail, faces that hardly resembles characters known from their sprites. Escecially noses and upper lips. [I mean, who the hell is this girl  (slightly NSFW) http://g.e-hentai.org/s/24daf09019/340382-212?nl=22886-407169 ? And this girl? Is this Yumiko (slightly spoilerish from Michiru route) http://g.e-hentai.org/s/3f7c61b01d/340382-247?nl=11884-407169 ]), but this one was great.

It hooked me up really quickly, so I read, I read and read, and finished around 1:30.
What I really quickly noticed was...different director (?), or a t least direction. There was much more sprite movement though screen (lower, higher, smaller, bigger, wobbling, falling, all that stuff, not noticeable at all in Makina route), much better directed dialogues (and it was funny I even laughed simple 'hahah' out loud twice!), whith much better directions. People was really cutting in in others statements and it really felt like a peaople talking instead of kindergarden play (one eprson speaks tw sentences, silence, other person start talking his two sentences, etc), which is more than common in VNs.
And it was much, much better written route than anything from Grisaia main writter. This guy responsible for Michiru know how to write a scene, know where to put focus on, what emphasize, what not, where to change perspective, etc.

I have only problems with fanservice scene at the ocean, and of course, ending
 

  Reveal hidden contents

what a bullshit. Pseudo-science-magic are the worst type of story catalizers. It really ruined the story for me. I could swallow this if there would be some understatements, some backdoor to my theory that it was all in her head, schizophrenia, or something. But no. They deliberatelly made last 20 minutes just Michiru body with two different minds inside. Complete and utter bullshit. But I guess that's what happen if you must have a good end, where everobydy is living happily ever after. They couldn't surpress the other girl in Michiru, they must have fleshed her out. And what if, she wanted to live? What if she told her mother about it all? What if mother of this deceased girl believed? There is so much ethic problems, so much logic problems, there would be constnat sciene examination of Michiru condition, there would be a world scale rpecedence, with gravely repercussions to the world as a whole. But no, fuck logic, we need happy ending. Sigh.

So that ending just took away around 0.8 from my final grade for this route. But oh well, at least I have fun reading it.

same. michirus route set itself more than pleasantly apart from the others.

[Chronopolis]

Finishing Otoz . It's a fantasy story with battles and armies though like with all of TS's works, you can expect to have a cast of freely interacting characters. Wasn't that interested for the first couple chapters but after I saw where it was going things gradually got more interesting.

It's hardly a typical fantasy story, once you get into it's exciting and interesting all the same.

Kurenai no Tsuki was mediocre in the character drama and the depiction of the routes, though the atmosphere and setting/mystery which were decent.

Was planning on playing Sakura no Mori † Dreamers, but I'm way more exicted to try out リズベルルの魔 (Lisbelluru no Ma).

[Vorathiel]

12 hours ago, Dergonu said:

I think it's for the better that you stop reading grisaia there. 

Based on your opinions about the game, you will HATE the sequels

I love the idea of hating them. :v Never enough of bad/cancerous/atrocious things. ^^

[Unagi-san]

Playing Majikoi, it's pretty entertaining, I like the way it depicts friendship. 

 I chose Momoyo's route in my first playthrough and pretty like it. I heard that her route is not the best though. I wish Ageha had route too...

Then I tried Momoyo's afterstory and was pretty disappointed. Despite H-scenes were not that bad)

Well, it's all about Momoyo's personality. She's strong, not easy to get, obsessed with girls and teasing Yamato. She never gives up and lets someone do the things she doesn't approve. She can be cute in romantic moments though. That's how it was in her route and I liked it. However, afterstory messed it all up. 

I will speak about events in her afterstory, so please read the following text only if you already comleted it.

Spoiler

It starts good, Yamato and Momo date, kiss on the ferris wheel, I blush and get ready for the nice Momo-style romance. However, they continue kissing for almost 30 minutes in different places, and Momo looks like another person. She becomes weak if she with Yamato, and I would believe in it if it have taken more time, but it was just few days since they have started going out, and it was just  1.5 month since she has rejected him. She changed so quick and unrealistic so I don't believe it is the same stong character I liked. On top of that, she doesn't dominate in bed. Well, scene with her on top was Momo-like, and scene when she refused to lick Yamato's dick was also Momo-like, but some time later she gives him blowjob in neko suit and acting like truly another person. She couldn't change her personality so fast, even for Yamato. If she could, she would break her habit to fight but she couldn't, so I can assume she is very stubborn and hard to change her mind. 

I wanted from afterstory to show me the way they develop their relationships, but instead I got the Momo driven crazy by Yamato's dick that hard so she stop being Momo at all.

I don't mind if you like new Momo, so don't be angry at me in this case. It's just how I see it.

I want to know if someone shares my opinion about that.

[Vorathiel]

Yeah, afterstories are mostly shit (one except is Myiako).