What are you playing?

[littleshogun]

Playing Shining Star Supernova demo, and it's just look like normal idol anime in which the producer solved (Or at least involved) in heroines problem, albeit bit darker. As for the voice, looks like it's just very few lines recorded which is understandable considering that they use Japanese voice actresses (ie seiyuu) instead English one. For last comment here, I thought that Mr. Producer (Our MC) here would be just like Atsuya from Dal Segno (Faceless), but turn out he had face and quite handsome at that (I gave credit to the developer for drawing the producer's face).

[Zenophilious]

Just finished the first Utawarerumono.  That was certainly more interesting that I expected going in 

First of all, I just want to say that the slice-of-life was sublime.  It never felt like the SoL scenes overstayed their welcome, they were written well enough to hold my interest, and they made me genuinely adore the characters.  Some of the best SoL I've encountered so far, actually.  It was a great way to relax after the plot and action-heavy sections.  Also, any SoL scene featuring Aruruu is instantly a 10/10.  Best girl right there  👌  I also want to commend Leaf for making a good guy protagonist with an actual personality.  Hakuoro felt like a real person instead of a generic nice guy to self-insert into.

I liked the combat quite a bit, even if it was pretty simple.  I really enjoyed pulling off full combos, and watching my A-Team (Touka, Oboro, Karura, Hakuroro, and a certain character that I can't mention because of spoilers) nuke the shit out of every enemy was really satisfying.  I'm sure that a lot of other people also had this problem, but when I first started the game, it ran at an incredibly fast speed, to the point where I could barely even see the combo circles, let alone react to them.  The only way I could fix it was to run Cheat Engine and use speedhacks to force the game to play at a normal speed.  If you encounter the same issue, I'd recommend doing the exact same thing I did.  Oh, yeah, I really didn't like the elemental system that much, tbh.  I'll never stop being irritated that the symbol for the water element is a lightning bolt, and that water is weak against fire.  Why

And finally, the story.  It didn't really impress me at first.  It seemed like a generic fantasy world with generic fantasy tropes, with random kemonomimi shoved in for moe appeal.  Man, was I wrong.  It's still kinda tropey, and it's possible to guess the main twist relatively early on if you've read enough fantasy, but it was still pretty enjoyable.  It's carried by the characters early on before it grows into itself, though, so if you're impatient, you might get pretty bored until about halfway through.

My favorite characters were Eruruu, Aruruu, Touka, and Genjimaru.  Aruruu best girl by landslide, with Touka in a decent second place.

Gonna read Dies now 

[Deniz]

Finished Hatsune route of Cartagra.It was a pleasant read.Good mystery with nice comic relief from Nana and overall interesting characters.Now i'm hyped for true route.

[Ramaladni]

On 7/18/2017 at 7:08 PM, Turnip Sensei said:

Spent the last weekend playing Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception and what fun that was. 

Would you say it was worth the money you spent it? I really like Uta but it's a tad on the expensive side.

[Turnip Sensei]

13 hours ago, Ramaladni said:

Would you say it was worth the money you spent it? I really like Uta but it's a tad on the expensive side.

For me, it was totally worth it. 30 hours of really solid story and amazing characters. And I can imagine it being even better if you are really fond of original Uta. I've only seen the anime, so it's not like I didn't get the nice throwbacks and connections, but the kind of attachment to the cast of the Uta1 that comes from personally experiencing the characters through reading and gameplay wasn't there for me.
That said, if you end up buying Mask of Deception I can almost guarantee you'll be dying to buy the sequel to that too, so maybe waiting and seeing if it goes on sale just before or little after the release of Mask of Truth is not bad idea either.   

[littleshogun]

As for the topic, I finished Supernova demo and it was quite dragged down near the end. The reason was because there's some scenes that the idols were being optimistic before their first debut, sudden Mood Whipslash for all of them, suddenly recover, and even at the stage the idols were trying to keep they inner negative thought away before finally ready to sing. Granted it was fitting with what would be called 'The story of fragile idols' or something like that, but still. In the end, it's all successed and the idols (With the group name Starnova) was about to take their first flight.

As for my impression, quite interesting that this VN was paint some realistic look in regard of idol industry although I won't expect much from that though, because it's just like most of idol anime like Idolmaster or Love Live that we get to see one idol got their own episode. As for the heroines, no much to comment here other than Nemu whose sometimes did had a little too much fun for teasing her teammate and the reader as well. For the music, I couldn't confirm it fully but I suspected that it was taken from Sunrider which sometimes could be quite out of place imo. Other than that, no comment for now although once again I wouldn't expect much though for the full release.

[HotTrax]

Da Capo III - I got in a few hours in but I doubt I'll continue. It is just too bland.
Aokana Extra 1 - It was fun for what it was. I prefer Misaki though, so exited for her's. 
Setsuei - Everyone kinda sucks and it goes a bit off the rail during some parts but in ways I can totally get behind. 

[wolfrayet]

50 minutes ago, HotTrax said:

Da Capo III - I got in a few hours in but I doubt I'll continue. It is just too bland.

I actually just finished Da Capo (the first), and after looking at the myriad sequels, alternative versions, rereleases, side stories, etc. I was thinking about diving in and playing through a bunch of them. I kind of enjoyed DC's mixture of vanilla blandness punctuated by insane supernatural contrivances, and it seems that isn't unique to the first game. Anyone have opinions on the Da Capo series as a whole and whether they're worth playing in sequence?

Edited July 25, 2017 by wolfrayet

[Mr Poltroon]

13 minutes ago, wolfrayet said:

I actually just finished Da Capo (the first), and after looking at the myriad sequels, alternative versions, rereleases, side stories, etc. I was thinking about diving in and playing through a bunch of them. I kind of enjoyed DC's mixture of vanilla blandness punctuated by insane supernatural contrivances, and it seems that isn't unique to the first game. Anyone have opinions on the Da Capo series as a whole and whether they're worth playing in sequence?

I can only talk about the numbered titles, Da Capo II and Da Capo III.

The former seems to be, by all accounts, the best they have done with the entire series. There's still plenty of vanilla blandness and still plenty of insanity. The main difference is that it is not quite as bland because they managed to create a cast of characters that all play off each other pretty nicely.

The same cannot be said for Da Capo III. While the cast is still numerous, they aren't together quite as much and they get relatively few moments to shine altogether. It also moves away from the... semi-normal setting the previous two games had, so while the setting is somewhat interesting... not too much is done to make good use of it. I haven't finished it, though, so I don't know how many insane twists and turns it may or may not hold.

[Not_At_All]

People talking about Utawarerumono makes me a little sad. Is there a chance that parts 2 and 3 will someday come to PC? Loved the first one and would love to play some more RPG/VN hybrids that are any good. 

 

On topic: I played Edelweiss this weekend and wasn't too impressed. Horrible translation might have something to do with it, but I didn't find anything interesting about it outside the fact that it had a teacher's route.

Eiden Fantasia had much better translation and I liked Sakura's route, but Rin's route was just retarded.

[Zenophilious]

3 hours ago, Not_At_All said:

People talking about Utawarerumono makes me a little sad. Is there a chance that parts 2 and 3 will someday come to PC? Loved the first one and would love to play some more RPG/VN hybrids that are any good.

Doubt it.  There aren't even any PC ports for the original JP releases, so the odds of that happening are pretty low.  Not impossible, obviously, but I wouldn't bet on it.  Just do what I did, which was give up entirely and buy a PS4 Pro 

[Toranth]

13 hours ago, HotTrax said:

Setsuei - Everyone kinda sucks and it goes a bit off the rail during some parts but in ways I can totally get behind. 

Yay, Setsuei!  One of my favorite VNs.  I hope you're playing the prettier original version, rather than the generic meoblob remake.  Actually, I'm just happy someone is playing it - I really hope you play it through the end, as I think it's entirely worth it.

[DharmaFreedom]

  So for the last couple of weekends i'm been reading Dal Segno, well trying to get through it at least. I'm on Himari's route and I guess the best part about the route is the flirtatious banter between the Atsuya and her. It feels very 'real', its the kind of silly happy conversations you have with your own partners in real life, the teasing and trying to one up each other playfully. 

  The story though..., there is simply no hook in it for me, nothing to motivate me to put more time into it. There's not much happening and when that happens, it starts feeling a bit empty. I'll read it for 15 minutes then do something else instead. Since I have the game, I feel compelled to finish it before moving on to the next Vn, so I'll have to power through it when I have the time .

  Anyway, maybe the story with bloom towards the end or something. I think i'm about 3/4's of the way through Himari's route, so I'm hoping it'll get better or its just her route and the others routes are actually much better! 

[BookwormOtaku]

Playing Dies Irae and have started playing Kei's route...honestly kind of disappointed so far. The intro for a certain new character was really well done and it seemed things were setting up to get real and then...it seems to be following the same track as Kasumi's route, heck I've already run into a design pet peeve of mine with some VNs: where the dialogue for a scene is 99% the same as  before with that 1% being new dialogue but because of that small bit the skip function doesn't work for that scene

Also playing Princess Evangile and working on beating Chiho's route...and I couldn't help but laugh at how the route contradicts itself writing-wise in its plot set up:

Spoiler

So Masaya's main worry is his father's somehow going to get into the school and cause trouble, which is why he's leaving the school so everyone will be safe...but in a later scene it shows how hard getting as much as a message into the school is. Not to mention the game has already made it clear the school has a number of so far pretty efficient security staff which I'm sure can handle a bum with a knife.

On a side note, hey Chiho's father's VA is the same VA for Felzen from the KF series.

[BookwormOtaku]

Okay, pretty much finished Chiho's route in PE and...I can see why this one got so much flack. I don't consider it a bad route, but it has some serious structure problems, from the plot punting of a certain major event to the Sports Festival to the fact that we still had two more chapters to read after the route's climax; the conflict for that just not being as interesting or exciting as before. Now moving on to Ritsuko's route, the route everyone seemed to like, and I really hope I'm not disappointed.

 

On a side note, does anyone else wish Chapter 24's conflict with a certain character had ended like this?

Spoiler

 

Come to think it, if you consider the events of Part 7: Steel Ball Run, Masaya randomly having a stand might actually make a little sense

 

[littleshogun]

As for mine, about to finished Ulyana's route from Everlasting Summer. I'll try to write my impression of Ulyana's route later.

[Eclipsed]

Got my first ending in Steins;Gate 0, Vega & Altair, whatever that means.

Fk man, this prequel-sequel-midquel or whatever you wanna call it is sooo delicious, i actually wanted to re-read the original Steins;Gate before diving into this because it's been like 2 years so I kind of forgot some of the more refined tidbits about the time traveling and world lines but ya aint nobody got time for that

Mellow Okabe was aight, was nice to see him spend an entire game being normal  anti-social and riddled with despair instead of being his trademark overly bombastic Hououin Kyouma self :

At least you were self-aware of how superficial you were >.>
 

Aesthetically the art is very pleasant imo, it's like a softer, more refined, essentially moeified version of the original water paint style. Soundtrack's above average and able to fit the constant somber atmosphere and occasional happy times quite well.

1st from left: Old Mayuri, 2nd: New Mayuri, 3rd: Old Faris, 4th: New Faris . they mixed in the old sprites in some scenes so it was a bit jarring @-@

Amadeus was a fun and interesting concept. At first I was like 'yay I get to talk to this person again!' but if you start really thinking about it it can give you some bittersweet feels. Like it is the original by all means, but at the same time not really? idk, hard to explain . The Vega and Altair ending I got didn't get to really focus on this stuff so I hope another ending does. 

Spoiler

CHRIS IS NOT KURISU!!!!!!

 

New character Maho's an interesting one. She ultimately gots nothing on the great Christina imo, but she can hold her own.

lel

[Zidan209]

On 7/27/2017 at 10:17 PM, Eclipsed said:

Got my first ending in Steins;Gate 0, Vega & Altair, whatever that means.

That Vega & Altair final scene was my favorite part of the whole game

[Vorathiel]

S;G 0 is nice, but every route except for true one is pointless and therefore - tensionless.

Maho best girl in whole series.

[kilicool64]

20 hours ago, BookwormOtaku said:

Playing Dies Irae and have started playing Kei's route...honestly kind of disappointed so far. The intro for a certain new character was really well done and it seemed things were setting up to get real and then...it seems to be following the same track as Kasumi's route, heck I've already run into a design pet peeve of mine with some VNs: where the dialogue for a scene is 99% the same as  before with that 1% being new dialogue but because of that small bit the skip function doesn't work for that scene

Kei's route starts off with a lot of copypasta, but it quickly turns into its own thing some time after Chapter 9 begins. At that point, it gets a lot better than Kasumi's route. You won't be seeing an actually satisfying ending until Omnia Vincit Amor, the epilogue to Marie's route, though.

@Zidan209 Please don't quote huge posts along with their big images, especially if your post is right below them. That just needlessly inflates your post.

[Not_At_All]

Tried Sakura Dungeon yesterday and a bit today. As expected the story and the characters were, to put it very mildly, weak, but the idea itself was fun, so I thought the gameplay and nice, colorful art would be enough for me to have fun, but it was very simple and repetitive, so I just thought I had enough after around 5 hours.

 

Decided to try out Crescendo instead and at the moment I am loving it a lot. I went through Kaho's bad end only as of this post, but it looks really promising. In most romance mainly focused VN there are usually just one heroine that stands out from the crowd for me, two if I am very lucky, but here all the heroines look interesting and pretty different from each other. Some of them look like I may hate them (one at least) but it's much better than boring.

[Zenophilious]

Well, I was gonna start Dies, buuuut W Happiness just got released, so I'm reading that first.  Started on Rise After, and I'll definitely be saving Tamie's route for last as motivation.

[Not_At_All]

20 hours ago, Not_At_All said:

Decided to try out Crescendo instead and at the moment I am loving it a lot. I went through Kaho's bad end only as of this post, but it looks really promising. In most romance mainly focused VN there are usually just one heroine that stands out from the crowd for me, two if I am very lucky, but here all the heroines look interesting and pretty different from each other. Some of them look like I may hate them (one at least) but it's much better than boring.

So, I finished Crescendo already. I loved pretty much all characters and the fact the routes were varied in atmosphere: From very light pure romance route to a very dark one and some in between. Usually it's either all routes happy go lucky, or every one of them really gloomy. Few things that annoyed me though: 

Yuka's rapists not even being mentioned again and Miyu in general.

The worst thing though was it was way too short. There wasn't enough time to get attached to any of the girls before the climax of their respective stories and then it ended without much of an epilogue. I felt like a lot of potential was wasted because the game really grabbed me from day 1, but it doesn't feel that satisfying after I've finished it.

[Nandemonai]

I actually liked Yuka's bad ending almost more than her real ending.  It's much crueller to the characters, so I still prefer the good one.  But it's the best-written bad ending I think I've ever seen.

[wolfrayet]

Crescendo has an incredible sense of style, I can't think of any other work off the top of my head that evokes spontaneous feelings of nostalgia so effortlessly.

Art kinda sucked though.

Edited July 30, 2017 by wolfrayet