What are you playing?

[bogdankl]

13 hours ago, Suzu Fanatic said:

@bogdankl @Eclipsed

This is for you both, on finishing up F/SN My favorite song in my life atm.
(last episodes spoilers)

  Reveal hidden contents

I like to think of this as the true end to the Fate route - or even a "True end" for the many versions of Archer that Shirou may end up as. (That Rin/Sakura/others couldn't save)

Rin is best girl, and Heavens Feel is best route - but there will always be a special place in my heart for Arturia, no matter what.

 

Either of you have plans to go through Hollow/Ataxia? At the very least, I reccomend watching Carnival Phantasm - it's a great way to finish off the series.

 

OFC I plan to read hollow/ataxia... just not right now, I have a few things to share about this vn it's just that... I think it's kind of selfish, wasteful and arrogant to open a thread just to say what I think of it

 

also I wanna watch the anime so bad 1st because I'm sure the fight scenes are fking awesome and second because I think I saw a gif somewhere with saber on a motorcycle and I don't recall that in the novel

I'm just skeptical because anime tends to be a tad bit tamer than what is portrayed here (specifically I think of the scene with sakura and her oni-chan towards the end of heaven's feel) but there are exceptions, the ending of berserk still haunts me to this day since I was like 12 when I saw that shit

 

also Illya > ... everyone

[Mr Poltroon]

I have now finished Yumina the Ethereal. I rather enjoyed my time with the game, but I couldn't be bothered to bother with its gameplay, so I just cheated my way through. Regardless, here are my impressions, which I write as I listen to one of the game's songs (Spoilers):

Ai's Route

Spoiler

I liked this route especially because of Ai. We got to talk with her slightly more than in other routes, and we see her relying on us plenty of times. That's amazing.

Aside from that, I like what Rishane was trying to achieve, and how he was going about it. I'll develop more on this in the True and Yumina's route, where I consider reusing this same plotpoint to be a flaw.
The planet of Algoda, though, really goes to show that the most advanced always reach that point at the cost of others. Even on Earth, some of the wealthiest countries consist of a wealthy minority and a poor majority.

Power of love saves the day, as usual, but that's fine. That's great, actually.

Ai's personality in the Epilogue is even better than usual. Loved it.

Yumina's Route

Spoiler

I like plenty of moments in this route. Yumina's altruism. Great power. Helping people. Everyone uniting. Etc. Etc.
I won't compare this route to the others as being inconsistent, because it's evident each route alters the setting as they need. But wow, in this route Yumina's power is ridiculously overpowered. Never mind Ai pulling out Artillery abilities out of her arse in her own route, this is true power.

After reading all three routes, my thoughts are cemented. I really, really like Galeorn. Sure, he hates on Ethereals, but he is genuinely afraid of them turning on humans. A ridiculous notion, but if it had any base to stand on, then his actions are entirely justified. The way that he puts humans and the Federation above himself, though, is really fantastic.

The moment where Ai sings as we read her thoughts. It's amazing. Bloody brilliant! Both the song and her inner monologue. She's just as great when she's quiet as when she speaks. Trying to hog a piece of the glory for herself. Trying to be the heroine. Keh.

Then we fight the malevolent universe. Pretty interesting how he even bothers to try to reason with lesser beings. To be honest? I completely agree with him. What the heck can we people do if the universe starts collapsing for whatever reason?
Regardless, they defeat the malevolent universe (OF COURSE), and then Karales comes to save the day (WHO ELSE IF NOT THE GUY WE JUST DEFEATED?). Well, I don't dislike how everyone overcame their differences to defend against a threat, so everything's fine.

The romance with Yumina was great here too, in that it's just as clumsy and awkward as Yumina herself.

True Route

Spoiler

Continuing from the True route, instead of being saved by Karales alone, who else would show up if not some sort of higher being that comes to enforce rules on the universes? What? Okay, sure. I'll buy it, why not. But that's not enough. Noooo. In comes Akeshima Takehito! Who else if not the guy that we were told had died, earlier?
But that's fine, too. I really wanted to see the characters interact with him anyway.

Then we go back to school, reminisce a bit, and gather all our allies, who have now become powerful enough to stand ground against a group of four who are strong enough to bing a malevolent universe to a stop, or to defeat Karales and the EDs. Because that's exactly what the people at school have been doing. Working their posteriors off in order to become powerful enough to defeat the universe.
Okay, I'll buy that too.

So we reminisce a bit with our old allies and go fight the universe. Might as well take the time to meet up with Yumika, who's supposed to have been dead for about 20 years, on the way. Oh, and Karales can come, too. He's a cool guy. In the meanwhile, Takehito will just take a minute to fly through space on his own and kick the biggest EDs we've ever faced until they perish. Remind me again, what was this guy doing raising Ayumu instead of defeating the ED threat on his own?

Then we defeat the mean universe again using the power of the Ether Frame. Remember how we went to gather our allies so we could control the Ether Frame? Well, now that we've switched universes that doesn't matter any more, so it's fine if those guys go home. And so, the Debate club lives happily ever after defeating enemy universes like that's the logical thing to do.
What surprised me the most is that Barais didn't come back from the dead to save them a while later.

I actually enjoyed the route quite a bit, so this is all fine. All for the sake of seeing the various characters interact.

On that note, Yumika's personality is exceptional. You can really see how Yumina is the daughter of Takehito and Yumika. Takehito is actually fairly good himself, and it's nice to see how it rubbed off on Ayumu. And good job on that last minute bombshell, Ai's dad.

A bit of a shame we didn't get to hear more about what kind of experiment Ayumu was, and why he was a failed one.

My main issue with the route is how Rishane was trying to save this universe (we know he came from another universe using the Ark, but we know neither why he was trying to save the Radosseus universe, nor why he had such a thing as the Ark), and everyone booed him down for pretty much killing a few Ethereals on the process.
Well, sorry for not having the hax ability you do or the help of a higher being so as to control the Ether Frame without killing anyone.

Rishane didn't hate people. He might have had delusions of grandeur in the process, but he intended to save the whole universe. He went about it in an incredibly pragmatic way, basically sacrificing a planet, and a bunch of Ethereals, but otherwise kept at it.
I wonder what he meant by "I have infinite time", though. Barais wouldn't last forever. He'd have to invade sooner or later, and the Frame would need to be finished by then, or Rishane would lose all the Ethereals.

Rankings:

Spoiler

• Romance: Kirara > Ai > Yumina

Kirara had the highest amount of it, and it was very crucial to keep Kirara stable. HOWEVER! Let it be known that all routes had great romance. Ai relying on Ayumu even without noticing it was the greatest thing, and Yumina's clumsiness was as great as always.

• Character: Ai > Yumina > Kirara

I just love Ai's character. Especially in her route's epilogue. Yumina is also a great character, especially for me, who loves comic relief. It's great seeing Yumina being Yumina all the time. It's only in light that the other characters are so great the Kirara ranks so low. She's the most serious of the lot, and I generally favour comedy. Even Ayumu the straight man would rank higher than her on that count.

• Route: Kirara > Yumina > Ai

Kirara's route brings us a sympathetic anti-hero-like character, Kirara hersel,; coupled with a sympathetic villain, Karales, who fights for all Ethereals, and a sympathetic antagonist, Galeorn, who fights for all humans (which doesn't include Ethereals). It's really great to see all motivations at work and whatnot. Ai's route may have been the most expository and have brought up some interesting themes, but Yumina's+True Route has it beat due to Takehito, Yumika and all the other nonsense.

Great Moments/Quotes:

Spoiler

Trololololo

You're so lucky she can only read your internal monologue when she's present.

When you put it that way...

Does this mean your father was overprotective to the point where he didn't just refuse or chose your husband, he literally raised him for it?

This is a complicated matter indeed. Progress? Or no progress?

Technology just keeps on improving.

Artist: What do you mean the protagonist doesn't wear glasses?
Producer: I mean exactly that! We need you to remove this ASAP.
Artist: No way. I followed the instructions you gave me. You deal with this.
Producer: Oh, yeah? Watch us!

 

[Asimmacovski]

Started reading Katahane a few days ago, I like it so far.

[havoc]

just finished brighter than the dawning blue, had a lot of fun reading it.
And enjoyed it a lot more than koiken otome, probably has to do with the difference between their energy levels.

Currently back to playing seinakura, but i find the gameplay getting tedious.
Is there anyway to cheat my way through the gameplay?

[Chuee]

20 hours ago, ChaosRaven said:

Minori released four titles since Supipara and MangaGamer apparently has no interest in either of them. So why should they suddenly have interest in the fifth one without even knowing its reception. Minori made the announcement without informing MangaGamer before, and they surely had enough time to do that. The whole thing smells fishy. I'd say Minori made the announcement intentional without informing MangaGamer because they knew it'll be hard to refuse them now.

Natsuzora no Perseus won the Getchu graphics and ero award in 2012. It should be a mouth watering title considering MG's customer base, but they still show no interest - I wonder?! I'd say MG's lack of interest comes from the whole censoring theater with Minori. Those two companies have a history.

The reason none of the other minori games are getting licensed is probably because it'd be difficult to edit out all the porn in them to make a steam version. That and since they're already doing supipara there's no real reason for them to rush and try to get as many of minori's titles as they can right now. 

Also I don't know where you're getting that he somehow made the announcement without telling mangagamer anything at all. They knew about it, as they'd discussed it with minori before, but they may or may not have known he'd be announcing it there. 

[ChaosRaven]

2 hours ago, Chuee said:

The reason none of the other minori games are getting licensed is probably because it'd be difficult to edit out all the porn in them to make a steam version. That and since they're already doing supipara there's no real reason for them to rush and try to get as many of minori's titles as they can right now. 

MangaGamer licensed other titles with adult content so I don't know why they should hesitate in the case of Minori titles. The second reason with Supipara is actually more likely. I remember them saying that they didn't ask Innocent Grey for Flowers yet because they wanted to release KnS2 first and so they lost the title to Jast. So it's indeed possible that Supipara was blocking it.

2 hours ago, Chuee said:

Also I don't know where you're getting that he somehow made the announcement without telling mangagamer anything at all. They knew about it, as they'd discussed it with minori before, but they may or may not have known he'd be announcing it there. 

Do you have a source for the info that MG already knew about that? Since this statement didn't sound at all like it and from the comments I've seen they were definitely surprised about the announcement.

Quote

During the panel, nbkz expressed his desire to make Trinoline an international release, and his plans to ask those of us at MangaGamer to handle the localization while the game is still in development, with goals to make the time gap between Japanese and English releases as small as possible.

And just 'talking' about titles doesn't count since they also talked about their other titles and MG apparently wasn't interested in them for whatever reasons. I'd really like to know what makes Trinoline so different from their other titles that MG should suddenly be interested in it. And the only reason I could think of would be that it is an all ages title like Supipara.

But I'm not sure if MG really relies on Steam so much anymore. The VN boom on Steam is more or less over and a release there is hardly a guarantee for good sales anymore, especially if it's a full price title. And according to MG, many Steam users created accounts on their site anyway.

[SCG_1037]

Just finished reading Tomoyo After ~It's a Wonderful Life~ , and here is a mini-review.

Story-8.5/10- really enjoyed it , it almost made me cried ( yes almost , Key was close but i still did not cry )

Art-5/10-it was ok 

Ost-5/10- yeah i did not hate the ost of this vn but i did not love it either , because of that i was a little disappointed  since i really liked some of the ost of clannad

So in my opinion , this vn is a 6.1/10 

Thank you for reading this.

Ps: Have no idea what i should read next   , i would like to start reading Grisaia no Meikyuu , but i will wait until the 18+ version is out.

Thank you for reading this.

[Lucius]

5 minutes ago, SCG_1037 said:

Just finished reading Tomoyo After ~It's a Wonderful Life~ , and here is a mini-review.

Story-8.5/10- really enjoyed it , it almost made me cried ( yes almost , Key was close but i still did not cry )

Art-5/10-it was ok 

Ost-5/10- yeah i did not hate the ost of this vn but i did not love it either , because of that i was a little disappointed  since i really liked some of the ost of clannad

So in my opinion , this vn is a 6.1/10 

Thank you for reading this.

Ps: Have no idea what i should read next   , i would like to start reading Grisaia no Meikyuu , but i will wait until the 18+ version is out.

Thank you for reading this.

I hesitated playing Tomoyo After because it looks like they made Tomoyo more moe compared to her tough-as-nails version in the original Clannad. lol I don't know if mah best gurl's personality has been altered till the point I might not enjoy the story at all... 

[Kurisu-Chan]

she's indeed best gurl.  

[SCG_1037]

5 minutes ago, Lucius said:

I hesitated playing Tomoyo After because it looks like they made Tomoyo more moe compared to her tough-as-nails version in the original Clannad. lol I don't know if mah best gurl's personality has been altered till the point I might not enjoy the story at all... 

Her appearance may have changed , but she still is the same tomoyo that she was in clannad ( in other words , she is still best gurl  ) .

[Eclipsed]

Now that the Fate/Stay trend is done with, it's time to tackle another one of my oldie backlogs: Ever 17

I always saw it mentioned while I was roaming for Zero Escape discussion and thankfully managed not to spoil anything

I'm gonna go into this with a super elitist prick mindset, let's see if I get mindblown anyway   

[WinterfuryZX]

4 hours ago, SCG_1037 said:

Her appearance may have changed , but she still is the same tomoyo that she was in clannad ( in other words , she is still best gurl  ) .

her appearance, and her voice, too.

[Cidra]

Woot! Eclipsed  I hope you enjoy Ever17. It was one of the older ones I played but the story was pretty good. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. And Zero escape is always a good choice. I still need to play the first two but I loved Zero Escape: Virtues last reward and Zero Time Delima.

I am currently playing Umineko Episode 4. I can't wait for the answer arc. I have so many questions. Lol

[akaritan]

5 hours ago, Eclipsed said:

Now that the Fate/Stay trend is done with, it's time to tackle another one of my oldie backlogs: Ever 17

I always saw it mentioned while I was roaming for Zero Escape discussion and thankfully managed not to spoil anything

I'm gonna go into this with a super elitist prick mindset, let's see if I get mindblown anyway   

I'm actually starting the last route of ever17 right now. It's been quite good for the most part, but certainly not a 10/10 VN. Quite tedious at times, but I think that as long as you don't send your expectations through the roof you'll like it enough. I hear that Coco route is leagues better than the others though, so my opinion is likely to change by the time I'm done.

[Canicheslayer]

Phew...Finished D.C.: Da Capo. It's strange that the bonus routes are probably the best moments of the game  You may say I exaggerate because Moe's route was more than correct...and Kotori's (she's so cute ) was incomplete (I know...i should read Kotori Love Ex P) but still a thousand time better than Nemu's or Sakura's 

Anyway, this VN left me a bit unsatisfied (Bad writing, very boring passages, plot holes/unexplained ellipsis, Mako's under-exploited potential). 6 or 6,5/10

Don't know if I can follow up with the second DC...I'm afraid 

Edit : I succumbed to the temptation of Anzu DC2 

Edited August 5, 2016 by Canicheslayer

[Flutterz]

1 hour ago, Canicheslayer said:

Phew...Finished D.C.: Da Capo. It's strange that the bonus routes are probably the best moments of the game  You may say I exaggerate because Moe's route was more than correct...and Kotori's (she's so cute ) was incomplete (I know...i should read Kotori Love Ex P) but still a thousand time better than Nemu's or Sakura's 

Anyway, this VN left me a unsatisfied (Bad writing, very boring passages, plot holes/unexplained ellipsis, Mako's under-exploited potential). 6 or 6,5/10

Don't know if I can follow up with the second DC...I'm afraid 

Like I said in another post, DCII is just a way better VN in general. Most of the routes are actually good (a few of them are basically copies of DC routes but with some improvements), you don't have the stupidly obfuscated route system where you have to literally check every location to find the girl you're looking for, instead it actually tells you where they are, etc. Plus it has Anzu:

(not a spoiler)

 

[ChaosRaven]

1 hour ago, Canicheslayer said:

Don't know if I can follow up with the second DC...I'm afraid 

That's why I always say people should just skip DC1 and go straight to DC2, but people don't wanna hear... 

[Canicheslayer]

I know...but two years ago, on a whim, I bought DC1 (and DC2...and Kotori Love Ex P). Today, it's time to pay for my mistakes make profitable my "investment"  No seriously, I want to have all the elements to enjoy DC3 

Flutterz => Anzu looks funny and mischievous. How lovely  

Edit : Oh my ! I played/read more than one hour of DC2. I'm optimist because eveything seems better (except the character design of one or two girls) 

 

Edited August 5, 2016 by Canicheslayer

[Fred the Barber]

7 hours ago, ChaosRaven said:

That's why I always say people should just skip DC1 and go straight to DC2, but people don't wanna hear... 

Yeah, I've heard enough negative stuff about DC1 and enough positive stuff about DC2 that this is my plan, whenever I can get around to playing this series.

[Mr Poltroon]

I'm currently playing Canvas 2. This is looking better than I thought. It feels like you're in control and, whilst the protagonist might be a terrible teacher, that's not really the focus. It seems like it has got plenty of potential, and when the new teacher was introduced, they handled that better than I expected.
I'm probably headed straight for a bad end, with choices like these, but that's fine. I'll just walkthrough my way through later.

Finally, Canvas 2 fits my definition of a bad translation, but at least it's not littered with typos!
The "emoticons" in the text are so funny and I like the way they handled sound effects. [Open Door] [Close Door] [Bell] [Alarm]

 

Also making steady progress in CLANNAD, having made it all the way to quite a bit into the After Story. I'm sure disaster will strike soon, so here's hoping I get through that quickly and painlessly.

 

22 minutes ago, Fred the Barber said:

Yeah, I've heard enough negative stuff about DC1 and enough positive stuff about DC2 that this is my plan, whenever I can get around to playing this series.

But I enjoyed Da Capo I! Except me enjoying it doesn't really mean it's any good...
I agree with the general opinion. Da Capo II is better in every aspect except the protagonist. I loved the protagonist from Da Capo I. He was a true lazybones and I'll always admire him for that.

If you're going for Da Capo II straight away, you'll miss the in-joke that is Suginami, but he's great even if you don't quite get "the joke". Additionally, heed the advice and just ignore Koko's route. It's not worth it in any fashion. And this is coming from me.

 

[Kurisu-Chan]

17 hours ago, SCG_1037 said:

Her appearance may have changed , but she still is the same tomoyo that she was in clannad ( in other words , she is still best gurl  ) .

YAY Best gurl! 

[littleshogun]

Tomoyo voice in Clannad and her after story was different because the seiyuu was different (Houko Kuwashima for Clannad and Isshiki Hikaru for her after story).

Back to topic, I played Just Desert and Supipara. I'll comment Supipara later, but for Just Desert let me said that as Indonesian people this VN was very good and the story will blow up your mind ie very amazing. That's all for now.

PS - To tell the truth, even as Indonesian Just Desert wasn't quite good to me. The story was very typical, the voice for the girls to be honest was very bland, and the gameplay was like grinding (Although I quite like it though). I'll explain Just Desert gameply in detail later. Oh, and we had 5 girls here to be the girlfriend here.

[Phantom]

Hoshizora no Memoria Wish upon a Shooting Star at the current moment. Not sure what next but I got a list of visual novels to play! Comyu Kuroi Ryuu to Yasashii Oukoku sounds promising...

[Fred the Barber]

7 hours ago, Phantom said:

Hoshizora no Memoria Wish upon a Shooting Star at the current moment. Not sure what next but I got a list of visual novels to play! Comyu Kuroi Ryuu to Yasashii Oukoku sounds promising...

Comyu gets a big thumbs up from me, and is generally pretty popular around here.

Think I'm going to go play Supipara in a bit, after I finish watching season one of Fate/Zero.

[Lucius]

Umineko, episode 5. The part where Dlanor starts spamming the DeathDeathDeath Engrish.

Funny how the VN could make me root for Beautrice TWICE and turn Natsuhi into one of the most annoying characters in the story. Like, seriously, she's even worse than Furude Erika, the antagonist herself.

Ugh, can't wait till someone shut Erika up, particularly that giggle.