What are you playing?

[Dreamysyu]

Well, this was definitely a lot easier this time.

[littleshogun]

As for Maitetsu I can try to adapt at the very least, and I think not all of them were loli seeing that some of them were adult. I understand though that most people out there have a lot trouble to not disturbed, and let's stop the loli discussion in here because otherwise it'll be very bothersome. As for the route structure, at least I can see that the cover did have three heroines that would be prevalent because their route would be main, unlike Suki Suki in which what I saw is two side heroines did bigger prominence compared to three main heroines. Granted that Maitetsu's budget here might be bigger than Suki Suki (Chuable was almost bankrupt at the time of Suki Suki development, remember), but I think Chuable should be able to arrange the budget more neatly (ie I think they could still make Maya's route if they didn't design too much characters and made some unnecessary CGs).

PS - The movie was played very slowly on my laptop, although it's more because my old laptop though rather than the VN itself. Just want to say it here.

Edited January 18, 2019 by littleshogun

[WorldofAI]

I just started Momoiro Closet.

 

I'm still going strong with Pure Song Garden! and Cocoro@Function!

[AdventSign]

Gonna start Yosuga no Sora. Seems romantic.

Edited January 19, 2019 by AdventSign

[Larxe1]

Finished Sekai de Dame Ichiban Koi. I understand why a lot of people compliment this novel. It's wonderfully paced with something always happening making it hard to know when to take a break. The characters are well made, but it's quite obvious Toko is the main heroine. Almost all of the conflicts in the game (on the other routes) deal with her romantic feelings. 

Here are my thoughts on each of the routes.

Skipped Kaya's route

Himeo- Unexpectedly one of the cutest characters in the games. While I may not like the story in her route, her character balanced it out for me.

Asami-Can't help but feel like she was just a side route. There are a lot of repeated dialogues with Toko's route with some changes. Her route could have been done better and probably one of my favorite characters in the game.

Toko- Obviously the main heroine so this has the most effort into it. I liked Toko a lot and it makes you want to support Osamu and his forbidden relationship with her. It's heartwarming and ends the game well.

Also thoughts on the Toko' conflict routes

Spoiler

 

What the hell was lame ass conflict. A random criminal seems somehow cheap. Making someone into a villain seems out of place for this game. Dropped the game from 9.5 to 9/10 in my score just because of that lame asspull.

 

 

[littleshogun]

16 hours ago, Larxe1 said:

Toko- Obviously the main heroine so this has the most effort into it. I liked Toko a lot and it makes you want to support Osamu and his forbidden relationship with her. It's heartwarming and ends the game well.

As for Damekoi, I think it's understandable if you like Toko because she's more or less like Setsuna while Asami here is more or less like Kazusa (At least in my opinion). For other two side heroines, from what I see Himeno would be like Koharu and Mari combined while Kaya here is like Chiaki. I knew that both of Damekoi and WA2 are already different works here, but seeing that both works were came from the same author (Maruto Fumiaki) it's always interesting to see of how Maruto will expand Damekoi heroines characteristic in WA2 later. Also I like to say that I look forward to Damekoi English release (Hopefully at this year), and that once again Damekoi here was came before WA2 so you may find some idea was less refined compared to WA2.

Edited January 22, 2019 by littleshogun

[Stormwolf]

Well, interest went down tenfold now that i know its yet anothet pedo vn. Fuck sake. 

[Larxe1]

Playing Bishoujo Mangekyou -Kami ga Tsukuritamouta Shoujo-tachi- 

Probably one of the greatest reasons I like this series is not only because of the ero and the art, but the plot and the protags. The protagonists are flawed and feel like their own character. They are definitely not one of those perfect or innocent highschool boys in normal eroges.

[Qwertion]

Finished Flowers Fuyu-hen (and previous titles). There's a natsu-hen review above so I'll try to be brief. I only ever started series to try out some yuri game as I never played those. Yet I enjoyed it a lot binging on it. I have some grudges with game design. I hate when you have to do all the endings or start again to get new pointless choices to get the true ending that's basically a continuation of the first ending. Also two of the games make you do all the routes to get Suou's viewpoint chapter which explains the events of the main storyline (Suou's), I didn't like doing side routes and I only ever liked two overall.

It's cool how you get an indication on correct and incorrect choices, but the fact that you barely get enough good choices to fill the flower (indicating the access to the main ending) makes scum saving only viable strategy. Playing haru I regretted not reloading, cause it did took me an hour to skip through all the content with the new choices and haru's bad end is an afterthought. It's entertaining enough to guess the correct choices I suppose, but there was literally a choice if you prefer baths or showers. And I fail to see how showers make an inferior choice... Unlike the majority of people, I loved the deduction riddles parts. Most solutions have solid logic behind them. Some make you remember something and do the one+one (2 in haru make you google obscure trivia though), some require a choice of the least ridiculous option. Feels satisfying going in blind and solving one on the first try. I like how protagonists occasionally quote some classy movies every now and then and philosophize about literature as a foreword for new chapters. Favorite character is Yaegaki.

[alpacaman]

Reading 428 Shibuya Scramble (just reached 16:00) and so far this is the best VN I've read so far regarding the implementation of a choice system. Seeing choices by one protagonist impact the fate of another is really fascinating, even though the plot itself doesn't actually branch beyond wrong choices leading to bad ends. On a few occasions the degree to which everything is intertwined feels a bit forced and just seems to be there to include a few more choices and bad ends, but even the bad ends are worth watching as they often give you a nice scene that either is pretty funny (the cockroach end!) or gives some nice character development.

Beforehand I was a bit sceptical about the use of real photographs instead of drawn sprites and backgrounds as it reminded me of Plumbers Don't Wear Ties (which, btw, would qualify as a VN if it just had textboxes), but 428's art direction is just really well done making this is one of the few visual novels that have actual visual storytelling beyond reaction shots and simple visual effects.

Other than that, so far it's a good thriller (?). It gets bonus points for its Twin Peaks references although I hope my theory involving them turns out wrong that (spoilers for Twin Peaks and 428 ahead)

Spoiler

Leland Palmer is the Mastermind as that would be kind of lazy imo. Giving your big bad the same name as the murderer in Twin Peaks and having his henchmen hang out in the Black Lodge seems to be way too on the nose.

I suspect him because of this reason and the fact that he was introduced very early on and since then had only one or two short scenes to remind you of his existence while every other side character contributes to the plot in some way and 428 doesn't seem like the kind of story where someone is just there without reason. Additionally it's writing 101 to introduce the villain in the first act, so my whole reasoning is mostly based on meta-arguments. Which is exactly why I would be dissapointed if it turned out to be true.

 

[Stormwolf]

Reading Chaos child and its pretty damn awesome tbh. If i could point out something i'd like to be different then its more likable protagonist and general female characters. Protagonist is too far on the loser scale and most of the girls act way too dominantly. Not once have i seen anyone shut up such a girl when she acts naggy or completely bitchy, truly annoying. Other than those things its just epic.

Edited January 25, 2019 by Stormwolf

[ChaosRaven]

Still reading Chaos;Child, but currently it's starting to frustrate me more and more to be honest. Mostly because the perpetrator is just so ridiculous powerful in comparison, that the conflict got so completely one sided that it's getting rather boring in consequence. It's like watching a Dota2 match from Evil Geniuses against an amateur team.

While conflicts against overwhelming powerful sides aren't unusual, the good side usually has at least the advantage of being anonymous - like the rebels in Star Wars making hidden strikes against the mighty Empire. Stein's Gate was such a conflict where they had to fight a powerful organization from the shadows.

And in most murder mystery VN's like Kara no Shojo, the perpetrator is even the haunted one who has to try to outsmart the police. But while the situation in Chaos;Child has similarities to KnS, the main characters are more like a bunch of lab rats trapped in a cage which are completely dependent on the arbitrariness of its owner. Personally, I prefer somewhat more balanced conflicts where both sides are trying to outsmart each other.

Spoiler

It has gotten painfully obvious that the protagonist and his (remaining) friends are only still alive because the killer wants them to be and he could kill them pretty much whenever he wants. I can't really blame the protagonist for that though - a killer with the ability to mind control everyone and let his friends do all the dirty work is just absolutely diabolic. Unfortunately, that doesn't change the fact that the main cast is pretty much completely useless, because they are just sent from one trauma to the next.

Currently, it looks like they'll need some ridiculous Deus EX Machina to get the perpetrator. I simply can't imagine them getting him through regular means. The VN is still good I think, but I don't think it will end up among my favorites. I absolutely hate it if a VN gives me constantly the feeling to be completely helpless and just on the receiving end the whole time. And that's coming from someone who recently played and liked Fata Morgana.

[ciel_yuri]

I just finished Chaos;Head and have a copy of Chaos;Child for PSVita on the way. I'm pretty hyped to start it.  Chaos;Head ended up entertaining me a lot more than I thought it would. I (regrettably) watched the anime back when it aired, so that thing spoiled some of the surprises. It's gonna be awesome going into Chaos;Child blind.

(I've really enjoyed the entries in Science Adventure series I've read. I hope someday there's a way to read Occultic;Nine and Robotic;Notes in English)

[Seraphim]

I'm currently reading/watching Shiny Days. Not going into any details about what a trainwreck it is in terms of technical performance (basically, it's even worse than School Days HQ, which I referred to as Broken Mess: The Game back when I was going through it), but more importantly, the writing is just plain terrible at times.
I just finished the "Paris for Two" route. It was a pretty cute love story for the first three chapters, but then they somehow managed to mess it up completely in the final chapter.

Summary of the final chapter:

Spoiler

- Boy and Girl starts dating
- Boy sees Girl hanging out with Grownup Man and gets jealous
- Grownup Man is actually Girl's estranged father, but Boy doesn't know this
- Boy overhears Girl and Grownup Man talk about love, going back to their former relationship and whatnot
- Boy misunderstands, not knowing Grownup Man is Girl's father, and confronts Girl about it to find out what's going on
- Girl says Boy is misunderstanding, but despite knowing the issue, Girl chooses to not clarify that Grownup Man is actually Girl's father
- Boy gets mad and decides it's a good idea to rape Girl and show it to Grownup Man in order to claim Girl as Boy's property or whatever
- Girl runs off to Paris to get away from Boy
- Boy goes after Girl to Paris
- Boy and Girl meet at the airport
- Boy apologizes
- Girl immidiately forgives Boy, because Girl had not told Boy that Grownup Man was Girl's father, and that apparently made it okay for Boy to rape Girl
- Happily ever after

What the hell happened?

Anyway, due to OCD tendencies, I'll probably force myself to 100% Shiny Days, as I have with all other VN's I've read, but my expectations are pretty low by now.

Edited January 27, 2019 by Seraphim88

[Stormwolf]

Typical shitty way of creating drama in Japanese media. Characters just don't explain completely normal stuff and happily go along keeping it a secret even though it causes problems. You basically see it everywhere. Not to that dramatic extent though of course

Edited January 26, 2019 by Stormwolf

[alpacaman]

On 24.1.2019 at 8:55 PM, alpacaman said:

Reading 428 Shibuya Scramble (just reached 16:00) and so far this is the best VN I've read so far regarding the implementation of a choice system. Seeing choices by one protagonist impact the fate of another is really fascinating, even though the plot itself doesn't actually branch beyond wrong choices leading to bad ends. On a few occasions the degree to which everything is intertwined feels a bit forced and just seems to be there to include a few more choices and bad ends, but even the bad ends are worth watching as they often give you a nice scene that either is pretty funny (the cockroach end!) or gives some nice character development.

Beforehand I was a bit sceptical about the use of real photographs instead of drawn sprites and backgrounds as it reminded me of Plumbers Don't Wear Ties (which, btw, would qualify as a VN if it just had textboxes), but 428's art direction is just really well done making this is one of the few visual novels that have actual visual storytelling beyond reaction shots and simple visual effects.

Other than that, so far it's a good thriller (?). It gets bonus points for its Twin Peaks references although I hope my theory involving them turns out wrong that (spoilers for Twin Peaks and 428 ahead)

  Reveal hidden contents

Leland Palmer is the Mastermind as that would be kind of lazy imo. Giving your big bad the same name as the murderer in Twin Peaks and having his henchmen hang out in the Black Lodge seems to be way too on the nose.

I suspect him because of this reason and the fact that he was introduced very early on and since then had only one or two short scenes to remind you of his existence while every other side character contributes to the plot in some way and 428 doesn't seem like the kind of story where someone is just there without reason. Additionally it's writing 101 to introduce the villain in the first act, so my whole reasoning is mostly based on meta-arguments. Which is exactly why I would be dissapointed if it turned out to be true.

 

So I finished 428 yesterday and everything I wrote about it previously still holds true. Seems I really swallowed that red herring. In general, if there is one thing 428 is really great at it's setting up and paying off plot devices, especially when it comes to the showdown on Shibuya Scramble. It definitely deserves all the praise coming its way as it's probably one of the best constructed VNs out there. I didn't fall in love with it like I did with my absolute favourite VNs but I still fully recommend it to anyone who likes visual novels since I can't find a single reason not to like it.

[Dreamysyu]

Finished Aselia and decided to start Seinarukana. And...

Please, game, don't become another Muv Luv Extra.

[Stormwolf]

Finished chaos child a few days ago

Spoiler

 

Damn, that must be one of the saddest and loneliest endings i've ever seen. Serika remembered him, yet chose to accept his sacrifice. Honestly, i thought that was pretty shameless after what she did. She should fight for the blame, and rightfully so regardless what Takuru wanted. Honestly she should be dead. I don't think that redemption shit suited the vn i've read up to that point.

The girls didn't even give enough of a shit to give takeru one final goodbye except Uki. Good girl. Yuuto also by wanting to become a lawyer to help his dear brother. Good stuff.

This whole vn was basically turdpile upon turdpile showed atop of Takeru's head. I thought by being so relatively dark with its common route and side routes, a bit like symphonic rain, it deserved a somewhat more happy ending. Takeshi did let the real perpetrator go, so he could just as well have faked a "real" killers escape or pin Wataru as the real murderer and his death as self defense without taking in innocent Takuru. 

 

 

[Plk_Lesiak]

I just started playing Serment - Contract with a Devil, which was dropped on Steam by Sekai pretty much out of nowhere. It's this kind of cutesy dungeon crawler with some wholesome yuri romance and looks pretty nice so far. The writing seems decent enough and while character designs are a bit hit and miss, the art in general... Well, I'll let the Main Menu background speak for itself:

Should be quite fun. :>

Edited February 1, 2019 by Plk_Lesiak

[ChaosRaven]

Finished Chaos;Child as well - or to be precise, its common route. Unfortunately, I wasn't particularly impressed by it.  (Warning: Rant incoming!!!)

If I would sum up the experience of Chaos;Child in just a few words, I'd say it had a quite good start, a somewhat mediocre middle part and a horrible ending.

Long story: roughly the first third of the story was actually quite decent. The murder cases were interesting, the protagonist much more bearable than in Chaos;Head and the heroines likable. I also liked the fact that the VN had a more 'traditional' cast of moe heroines with routes. Many story VN's forfeit the romance parts for the sake of the plot. That's not really a bad thing, however moeges are popular for a reason. And my vision of a 'perfect VN' has well written heroine routes with romance and moe embedded in a good story. However, this combination is so rare that I could only name two VN's that succeeded at it - Fate/Stay Night and G-Senjou no Maou. Maybe even Sharin no Kuni as well, but that's more or less it. The majority of other good story VN's either don't have romance at all or it's so minor that it's of almost no relevance. For that reason, I had high hopes for this VN after the promising start.

Towards the second third of the VN - the middle part - the VN started to show certain 'signs' that made me worried. To give some background about that, I want to bring up the Higurashi anime, which  marked a bit of a turning point in the anime scene. It had a very unique mixture of cute moe girls and gore. While there were violent animes before, they usually had a very different, darker style - for example Hellsing or Claymore comes to mind. Higurashi made that unusual combi working with a very solid plot and it left a lasting impression due to its gory scenes being particular shocking because of they involved cute moe girls. Over the years, this inspired various other animes to use a similar formula. Good follow-up's were Puella Magi Madoka Magica, less because of its mostly minor gore and more because of its dark themes. Unfortunately, there were also more than enough shows that tried to fake depth by adding gore and just delivering a rubbish plot. Typical indicators of those 'works' were sudden personality swaps that didn't make sense, ridiculous over-exaggerated hysteria and whining orgies from the protagonist that could last for minutes to 'emphasize' the grittiness and maturity of the plot. Furthermore, artificial stretching of the story to delay the revelation of its non-existence as far as possible to the end. And finally, an absolutely disappointing ending when it gets clear that the show had no substance at all.
And Chaos;Child started to show similar signs. Very few revelations and too much slice of life, and so the story got slower and slower to the point of stagnation. A certain key issue involving Yui was probably the turning point. The story got frustrating because there was almost no progress and the villain seemed untouchable. To be fair, at that point the VN still had the potential to be very good.

Unfortunately, after that the last third or so of the VN started and threw that at me:

Spoiler

Once upon a time, there lived a girl named Serika who had a friend named Takeru. But what nobody could know was that...

Spoiler

Serika was just Takeru's imaginary friend. But wait, how could that be? She was interacting with others! But what nobody could know was that...

Spoiler

Takeru real-booted Serika alive with psi-powers. But wait, how could that be? Why did Takeru have such powers? But what nobody could know was that...

Spoiler

Takeru was victim of an earthquake in his childhood where he saw a strange experimental light that granted all kids nearby their favorite super power. Naturally this effect is highly scientific and Einstein and Newton approved and called "Shonensis Chuuibyou" in expert circles. But what nobody could know was that...

Spoiler

Serika also had some strange split personality which was so different from her normal nice self that even her voice was different. But both Serika's reeeeally liked Takeru and wanted to do something for him. They thought about giving him a present like a video player, or a computer, or a yearly subscription for a brothel, but nothing seemed to fit. Then Serika 2 had great idea, because what nobody could know was that...

Spoiler

Takeru really like criminal cases and so Serika 2 had a fantastic idea to give him his personal case to solve by murdering lots of innocent people and butchering his whole family. Both Serika's agreed (High-Five) that Takeru would be absolutely delighted and eternally thankful to them. But after they thought a bit about it, they decided that they would need a bit help with that. And so they did what every teenage girl with a career aspiration as serial killer would do, they asked...

Spoiler

Dad! Naturally, many dads might have been mean to Serika and just denied her that completely understandable wish, however what nobody could know was that dad was actually...

Spoiler

Dr. Evil! A sadistic bastard who did human experiments just for fun. And so dad just responded after a bit of thinking "Why not?! Sounds like fun! I wanted to slaughter them during my experiments anyway. Adding a few more innocents makes it all the more entertaining." (High-Five)
And so they started. But what nobody could know was that...

Spoiler

Takeru simply wasn't able to solve the case, just fumbling in the dark and playing the drama queen the whole time. And so the Serika's being the nice girls they are, had just pity with him and presented him all the mysteries and secrets on a silver plate, so he didn't have to figure them out by himself with his limited intellect. But what nobody could know was that...

Spoiler

Takeru now considered himself responsible for the whole mess since Serika was a creation of him, leading to an unbelievable touching end. But what nobody could know was that the 'touching' was actually because of...

Spoiler

Facepalming - lots of it!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh! My! God! What was that?!? 

I think that was the biggest bogus plot I've seen in the last ten years. I'm still not sure how much of this stuff is actually supposed to be true because it was so buried in nonesense and ridiculum. Trying to go 'chuuni' with their silly swords towards the end certainly also wasn't the brightest idea. Heroines were also more or less dropped and not developed any further. Everything felt rather rushed, after the VN was incredible slow before that. I thought about playing the heroine routes and the true route, but after reading some comments and synopsis about them, it seems that I didn't even read the biggest bullshit yet. If it wouldn't be so ridiculous over-dramatized you could at least take it as goofy comedy. But the VN seems to honestly expect to take this nonesense serious. And what's the point with the sex-delusion system? It might have made sense for the protagonist in Chaos;Head who was a lot more broken - but here?! Overall, there's a rather good thread on Reddit that points out a lot of problems of the VN and I agree with most of them. No idea how it could get such a high rating on VNDB. This is light years away from both Stein's Gate and also Root Double with which it has strong similarities.

Heroine ranking: Hinae > Mio > Nono = Serika ? Hana (It's hard to judge Hana since you don't get to know her very good in the common route)

Final rating: 5.5/10 (Start: 8 Middle: 7 End: 2)

I'm honestly kind of sad that the VN turned out that way - there was so much potential. I would have probably given already a high rating if they just made a somewhat 'normal' ending with more romance orientated routes and didn't try to go hyper extra special. I wonder if this was the fault of Umehara Eiji, the writer who wrote all the bad chapters at the end. He's the only one of the five writers with no previous experience - and it showed.

Edited February 1, 2019 by ChaosRaven

[littleshogun]

I would say that I did find the Reddit comment on Chaos Child was quite interesting, so let me comment on that a bit.

Spoiler

After I read the spoiler, what I can say is that they didn't need 300 Committee. Yes you didn't read it wrong if you've been following SciFi ADV here that Chaos Child didn't need Bigger Bad here, because you can still have Serika asking help from Sakuma without the latter as the member of Committee because the story in Chaos Child was more personal. I also agree with the sentiment at that thread, because I start to sense that Chiyomaru just using Committee as his tool for creating the drama rather than actual villain, and if he kept writing the spin off like this then the only way to knew the ending would be when SciFi ADV was abut to be cancelled and that Chiyomaru realized that he piled up too much Committee plot so much that he rushed to write the game to end all of the plot line. Granted that it seems unlikely seeing that they keep re-releasing Steins Gate, but it's only a matter of time until he's overwhelmed by the setting that he set up himself.

Sorry for the rambling above.

As for Chaos Child if you wonder why it did get high rating in VNDB, then you may as well try to answer why some people like Himawari there. As for who is at fault, well it's probably Chiyomaru decision to add Sequel Hook to the VN itself (I would say that if we ignore the sequel hook, then Chaos Child is a complete VN here) so you better not wonder about that. 

Edited February 2, 2019 by littleshogun

[ChaosRaven]

4 hours ago, littleshogun said:

As for Chaos Child if you wonder why it did get high rating in VNDB, then you may as well try to answer why some people like Himawari there.

Nah, Himawari is sitting far below with a 7.8 which isn't particular high for a story VN. No comparison to the 8.5 'kamige without flaws' rating of Chaos;Child.

Edited February 2, 2019 by ChaosRaven

[Stormwolf]

You can skip the heroine routes. They bring nothing but some background info you dont really need and read the somewhat short true ending. 

Afaik there is a sequel im form of a light novel.

[littleshogun]

7 hours ago, ChaosRaven said:

No comparison to the 8.5 'kamige without flaws' rating of Chaos;Child.

I would say that that kind of thinking is wrong, because kamige is very subjective matter and thus none VN that could be categorized as kamige without flaw. I admit that you raise a point that the plot was controversial, but I think it appeal a lot of people out there. So I would suggest that you can read some VNDB posts there to know why it's got high rating and appeal a lot of people, and of course if you still did find that it's not acceptable it's okay (You can say that the execution is very flawed).

Edited February 2, 2019 by littleshogun

[Seraphim]

I've finally completed Shiny Days. Or rather, I've managed to complete what I can, but I'm still missing a lot of content that is pretty much impossible to get due to the maze-like routing system that requires you to pick specific combinations of a ton of choices to reach certain route points. Even after doing everything in the official guide from the publisher, I was still only at 70% completion, with 7 endings and several route points missing.
Since then, I've replayed certain parts over and over again, picking different choice combinations in hopes of making progress eventually, but I've only managed to unlock one additional ending and one route point after all that effort. I'm just clutching at straws by now, so I've decided to abandon this project before I go insane.

All in all, this was the worst VN I've ever read and I can't possibly recommend it to anyone. Not only for the terrible routing system, but also storywise and from a technical standpoint. To put it bluntly, it's a steaming pile of sh*t, and the only reason I kept going was because I have a bad habit of being unable to leave stuff unfinished.

Sidenote: Since Shiny Days is supposed to be a more lighthearted visual novel than School Days, I figured maybe Makoto (the protagonist) would be a decent human being here, but it turns out he's still the same scumbag he's always been. He raped 5-or-so different girls over the course of the story, cheated on pretty much everyone, and had no problem lying to their faces in order to cover up his detestable behavior.
The only way the story of Shiny Days could be somewhat enjoyable is if someone ran up to Makoto and punched him in the face every time he does something inappropriate.

I think I need to read something that's actually good now in order to avoid being scarred for life by this horrendous experience.

EDIT: If anyone's interested, this is what the route map looked like after doing everything in the official guide:

Edited February 2, 2019 by Seraphim88