What are you playing?

[RadicalCarenChan]

I've finished Muv Luv Extra/Unlimited (most of them, I didn't read all of the routes), and have started reading Alternative.

The Engrish spoken in Alternative is...godly.

[littleshogun]

Finished Riho's route, and therefore I'd finished all of Deardrops. Will try to comment more later, but let's just said that I understand now why all review said that Riho's was the best route.

[kyrt]

Currently on a second route for Hatsukoi 1/1. I was planning on going to Chrono Clock next but with the news of it getting uncensored I might just wait til that is available before I start it. 

[Fred the Barber]

Finished all four of the initial Chrono Clock routes, getting started on Miu now.

• The only one of those four routes I didn't much care for was Misaki's, which is unfortunate since I think Misaki herself is probably my favorite character in the game. Her route just didn't do much for me, somehow. Most of the time, when people talk about forced drama, I tend to perceive the same content as just plain old drama and have no problem with it, but Misaki's route really did feel forced to me. It was also pretty clearly unedited way back when I read it, which kinda sucked.
• I played DD after that, and ended up taking a long break from the game because DD wasn't really all that appealing to me, and since I had a lot of other stuff going on at the time. When I came back, however, I quite enjoyed the rest of DD's route, even her ending (which I think raised a few people's hackles).
• After that, I knocked out (up?) Michiru, who provided a pleasant surprise of a route for me—the character dynamic in her route isn't one I recall seeing before in any VN, and I quite liked it. Also, I've come to grips with the fact that little sister characters are a turn-on for me. At last, a VN fetish I'm on board with. Yay?
• Finally, I picked up Makoto (I was saving hottest girl for last), who once again provided an enjoyable route, especially towards the end. It wasn't stellar or deep or anything, but it was a fun ride with a fun heroine.

I gotta say, Chrono Clock really has very different heroine personalities, compared to most VNs. I keep mentally contrasting it with Princess Evangile: they're both clearly moege trading on their heroines' appeal, but where every girl in Princess Evangile felt she'd come straight out of a cookie cutter, every heroine in Chrono Clock has a lot of distinctive flair. Whether it's the tsundere being 95% dere instead of your typical 95% tsun, or the little sister being a demure, ladylike, blind girl with a roaring libido, they just all feel special.

I also think the translation did an excellent job of capturing those characters' uniqueness. In spite of all the flak it's taken, and in spite of me not really enjoying some of the decisions they made (particularly the frequent use of British English, and not just by DD), I think this is a pretty damn good TL, and that's making it even more of a pleasure to read.

I'm looking forward to getting through Miu and Cro and finally putting the game to bed, after having stalled it for a couple months.

[Jun Inoue]

As it came out today, bought and started playing Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception on the PlayStation Vita. All hail Utawarerumono!

[Moelohim]

Finished Umineko 1-4. It's quite nice and the amount of trolling kek. I hope Chiru have more trolling as how I often heard Bern dubbed as Trollkastel XD

 

Expecting murder mystery, got ">implying" debate and chuunifest as a bonus kek

[LemiusK]

Got my hands on S;G 0! Yeeeeeah! It wasn't easy buying this, but damn, now I don't have to worry about being left out once I finish the first Steins;Gate, or rather, before I get the "True End" anyway, since Zero takes place prior to the events of the True End, sort of.

Now if only the PC version of Chaos;Head Noah would finish its translation so I can get more out of the SciADV series. I'm sure that would take 4-5 more years. Sigh. Oh well.

Edited May 27, 2017 by LemiusK

[Zidan209]

Got onto Sachi's route in Grisaia. Idk what were they doing there, but the resemblance to a certain Clannad route is just way too strong.

[Mr Poltroon]

26 minutes ago, Zidan209 said:

Got onto Sachi's route in Grisaia. Idk what were they doing there, but the resemblance to a certain Clannad route is just way too strong.

???

I played both and I'm not seeing it.

[Zidan209]

25 minutes ago, Mr Poltroon said:

???

I played both and I'm not seeing it.

Spoiler

Really? What about Kotomi? A forgotten childhood friend, that reunite by coincidence. The story behind her is the same. Gets neglected by parents because of work, gets into an argument, on her birthday, the boy did not show up, she gets angry at her parents and they die too (although not the same way, that is the only different thing about it xD )

 

Edited May 27, 2017 by Zidan209

[Mr Poltroon]

7 minutes ago, Zidan209 said:

  Hide contents

Really? What about Kotomi? A forgotten childhood friend, that reunite by coincidence. The story behind her is the same. Gets neglected by parents because of work, gets into an argument, on her birthday, the boy did not show up, she gets angry at her parents and they die too (although not the same way, that is the only different thing about it xD )

 

Wow, she was my favourite route and I still didn't see it.

But now that you mention it... They're such different lasses, though.

[Zidan209]

2 minutes ago, Mr Poltroon said:

Wow, she was my favourite route and I still didn't see it.

But now that you mention it... They're such different lasses, though.

Spoiler

You mean that your favorite was Sachi or Kotomi? None of them really seem like the best gurls in both of the VNs 

 

[Mr Poltroon]

Just now, Zidan209 said:

  Hide contents

You mean that your favorite was Sachi or Kotomi? None of them really seem like the best gurls in both of the VNs 

 

They're both best girls in their respective VNs

[Zidan209]

11 minutes ago, Mr Poltroon said:

They're both best girls in their respective VNs

Don't know about Grisaia, but as for Clannad, Kyou is on my waifu list, there are not many characters that can compare to her 

[LemiusK]

Michiru is best gurl for me in Grisaia. 

[LemiusK]

Just reached the Faris ending for Steins;Gate. Truth be told, when I saw people commenting that Suzuha's ending was the best ending out of the character endings (Faris End, Suzuha End, etc.), I found myself agreeing when I landed on the Faris' ending.

I knew immediately that I made a mistake as I realized that not sending that D-mail because I want to save everybody was actually an act of cowardice. It felt like a weird ending when I read through it, much more so than Suzuha's ending (at least the consequences Okabe faced in that ending made sense). The weirdness left me wondering just what the heck Faris sent that would have changed the worldline that drastically. And the whole "Faris becomes Okabe's girlfriend" shtick was off-putting, turning the VN into a generic dating sim of sorts, where you choose the girl you like and end up romancing her. Finally, I never felt attracted to Faris. Suzuha was a more appealing character because of her headstrong personality and her tomboyishness, so I wouldn't have minded romance elements in her ending instead. But Faris, no, I just don't feel that way about her. She's kinda cute, I guess, but way too weird (and otaku) to be girlfriend material.

That being said, when she removed her cat-ears, let her hair fall to the side and showed the real face of Rumiho for the first time, that was the first time I felt remotely attracted by her looks. She looked much more lovely that way, filled with innocence. And when I finally reached the final part of the ending, when Okabe decided to suck it up and accept his fate, that was when I really got to like this alternate timeline. That final part made the ending almost better than Suzuha's ending, because it's even more ambiguous whether if Okabe would truly be happy with Faris in that worldline. With Suzuha, according to the word of god (or at least, as stated in the wiki, as reliable as that can be), Okabe lived a happy life with her. With Faris, however, there are a lot of tragedies already confirmed for Okabe, not the least of which was the loss of friendship with his lab members, including his closest family member, Mayuri. So for Okabe to rise up above that terrible fate and deal with it, there was just something more admirable about that worldline than the other would-be outcomes. I mean, killing her dad to save Mayuri just didn't feel as selfless as this. If I'm thrust into the same fate as Okabe, losing all my friends and connection to the world, I would've had a mental breakdown rather than honor the relationship Faris had with me.

So, in conclusion, it's a mixed bag really. 80% of the ending was bad, but it was a significant build-up to that 20% of admiration at the end to really sink in just how much Okabe has lost in this new timeline. Oh well. Onto the next ending!

Edited May 31, 2017 by LemiusK

[WinterfuryZX]

I finally finished Tokyo Babel, I can say for sure that traditional chuunis are not for me, after all... Dams it was a real chore with all that mindless 1vs1 brawling.

[RadicalCarenChan]

I've finished Muv Luv Alternative and The House in Fata Morgana. Muv Luv didn't disappoint me and I enjoyed The House in Fata Morgana much more than I thought I would.

I'm not sure what to read next. I guess I have a few VNs I've downloaded in the past but never read. Let's see....uhh...it's Nekopara.

[kyrt]

I am currently reading Hatsukoi 1/1 (finished the Tsukishima route currently on the runa route), Everlasting Summer (only a few minutes to sample so I could try and get a description for the vn reading club), Chrono Clock (enjoying but only in the common route at the moment).

I have a ton of crap I've started a bit of and never gotten back around to hopefully I'll be able to get to those after these.

[douggle]

So I recently finished Nekopara Volume 3, Maple is freaking adorable, so is Cinnamon... and man the hscenes this time around were on point (usually I m rather neutral when it comes to hscenes in general) , I've also started Hatsukoi 1/1 which I am still in the common route, but it looks to be pretty promising so far. Also finally loaded up Chrono Clock. Still really early into that one too. 

[littleshogun]

Since apparently the vote for VN Reading Club was ended in tie, I decided to play both of Chrono Clock (Or maybe I should said continuing it) and Everlasting Summer later.

[roastedmushroom]

Piece of Wonder. The disc version. I think it was rushed out 'cos the developers likely ran out of money. They tried to go for an epic story but due to inexperience and time constraints, had to cut out the backstory for some of the villains. I mean, you even get some random character who runs towards Shoko and is then forgotten(guess they didn't get time to cut him out). The slice of life was okay, nothing very great and the battles were decent: they went from too easy to too hard(not enough time for proper balancing). It was about 6 to 7, I think. At least they bothered to try and wrap up most of the story with the Extra story. Some games are just shipped out incomplete and never ever finished. 

This marks my 2nd visual novel after about 7 years hiatus. The 1st was Cartagra: it wasn't too bad and I liked quite a few of the characters. The twist at the end... hmm, took me by surprise.

 

I thought Arishima-san was delaying things 'cos of his superiors but... never did I guess the actual reason.

 Though according to some post on some site, it had more sex scenes than a lot of nukige, which kinda put me off. I'll have to replay it to understand the True Ending. 

Edited May 30, 2017 by roastedmushroom
Add some details

[LemiusK]

I just reached Luka's ending in Steins;Gate.

I think, with each ending reached, I'm beginning to respect these conclusions more than the original True End. They are all very well-written resolutions that felt satisfying rather than without a proper pay-off.

 

And this makes me want to talk more about Faris' ending. I realized that the last time I talked about it, it sounded like I really disliked Faris' ending except the final part, but I feel that is both inaccurate and unfair to that ending. Now that I've taken a few days to really soak in that ending, I feel like I could accept it better now. Okabe cutting off all his friendships to be Faris' husbando was hard to swallow at first, but I feel that's just part of Steins;Gate's charm in showing how life isn't something you could wrap up neatly with a perfect ending, and that there are consequences to bear. If as a reader, having Mayuri and Daru not remember Okabe was too shocking to accept at first, then it must've been doubly difficult for Okabe in the story. And yet, Okabe chose to take responsibility at the end and ensure Faris lives a happy life with him in this new worldline. It was a very satisfying conclusion in that respect.

As for Luka's ending, it has the similar vibe of Okabe taking responsibility for his actions (albeit only after Kurisu's encouragement this time). At first, I thought it was just going to heavily focus on Mayuri for the entire ending, but I like how it ended up and handled Luka's grieve for her friend. This time, she's the one who takes the same stance that I admired Okabe for, to accept her actions of sending that D-mail to become a girl, and to bear the burden and grief and keep living on anyway in a new life with Okabe. As I said, these endings are all very well-written, and I wouldn't have minded if any of these endings were the last episode of the anime (though maybe not Suzuha's ending, as that might have been too open-ended for some audiences). They give Suzuha, Faris, and Luka a very satisfying closure that we could accept, and they have such a realistic perspective on what happiness is, and how to rise above painful grief and other sadness and to keep on living.

It's little wonder why a lot of people encourage others to read the VN even if they have seen the anime, because there's a lot of life lessons and values you can take from these endings you'll not see outside of the anime.

Edited May 31, 2017 by LemiusK

[Nandemonai]

@LemiusK You might want to spoiler your first post.  Those are some pretty big Steins;Gate spoilers.

[LemiusK]

The anime's censor of Psycho-Nae was stupid, not to mention having Braun killing Moeka.

This is probably the only major flaw I could find, albeit one that really affects the quality of the anime.

Edited May 31, 2017 by LemiusK