What are you playing?

[LemiusK]

2 minutes ago, Thyndd said:

Oh boy, well then, good luck. Do not rush it, you risk dropping it a second third time, and it would be a shame.

Fixed. 

The second time I dropped, which was the last time, I was nearly at the end of Tsugumi+Sora's Bad End without realizing it. Heh... But yeah, this game can be a chore to get through. But like I said, I think I'm getting used to it by now.

Edited November 13, 2018 by LemiusK

[Dreamysyu]

17 minutes ago, LemiusK said:

"How could I get through this wall of text ASAP without missing anything important?"

They aren't really that  important, honestly. Even if you skip some details, everything will still be explained at the end.

I actually agree with @Thyndd about theorycrafting. Ever17 is a curious case in this sense because, while the final sci-fi mystery is probably almost impossible to get, there are still a lot of other things that you still can get if you pay attention to all the little details. While I'm not really the biggest fan of the story of this VN, I personally never had as much fun trying to connect all the loose ends. In the end, I even reread a certain route twice just to check my theories.

OR you could just forget about it and to be completely blown away by all the revelations in Coco's route. This also works pretty well.

[LemiusK]

1 minute ago, Dreamysyu said:

I actually agree with @Thyndd about theorycrafting. Ever17 is a curious case in this sense because, while the final sci-fi mystery is probably almost impossible to get, there are still a lot of other things that you still can get if you pay attention to all the little details. While I'm not really the biggest fan of the story of this VN, I personally never had as much fun trying to connect all the loose ends. In the end, I even reread a certain route twice just to check my theories.

OR you could just forget about it and to be completely blown away by all the revelations in Coco's route. This also works pretty well.

Well, I don't know about theorycrafting but, I guess I do have one or two vague ideas about what's going on, so I could always see if my ideas match up with the truth later on.

Spoiler

(Also, I accidentally saw the true picture of Kid in VNDB... when I accidentally clicked on the "SHOW ME DEM SPOILERS!" option. Hah........ I have no excuses. Luckily, I didn't see any details other than a brief glance of the picture.)

Anyway, being blown away by a revelation is always fun. I like that more than the figuring out part of a mystery.

But honestly speaking, if you really want me to get motivated into figuring out a mystery, the VN needs to provide incentives - or rather, the player figuring out the truth needs to be relevant to getting a good ending. That way, I would put in that extra effort to get it right. Otherwise, the only satisfaction I would get is stroking my own ego on what a good job I've done. Feels kinda superficial IMO if the VN is not engaging me to figure it out.

I remember that in 428 Shibuya Scramble, there are at times a few choices that would ask you to remember earlier information fed to you. Sometimes, getting the wrong answer hardly matters, but it's those kind of choices that make me feel more satisfied knowing that I've remembered the relevant information.

Compare this to Ever17, when Tsugumi asked me to adjust the valve out of nowhere without properly informing me which way to turn it. Sure, it's Takeshi's fault for being a clueless dolt, but still. There's no motivating factor to get you to remember, so I don't really feel bothered.

[Alcorin]

9 hours ago, adamstan said:

As for the version that I played (I think it was about a year ago), if I remeber correctly, it had h-scenes, but no voice acting, voiced OP song or additional routes. And it still had bugs/scripting issues with incorrect date during routes.

OP song is there now, it jumps out at you outta nowhere, but isn't too bad. The H-scenes allegedly exist in a patch somewhere out there, idk, didn't - and wouldn't - bother, as apparently they aren't very good either way. Still no voice acting or routes other than the ones that have been there since launch. There are afterstories, tho (and judging from what I've read those have been patched in after the initial release). The game is still buggy as hell, too.

 

Yup, reading the review confirms that my standards are at an all-time low XD Then again, a thing doesn't have to be good to be enjoyable, I suppose  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

[LemiusK]

Reached the end of Makina's ending in Grisaia no Meikyuu. That's two endings down (after Michiru's). One distinct difference I noted is that not only is Makina's route a lot more serious, there's surprisingly a lot more focus on the side characters than Makina herself, as opposed to Michiru's route. Also, Michiru's tsundere is in full form in Makina's route, whereas she's more dere-dere in her own route. lol I actually love her more in Makina's route than in her own route... Weird. She's just a lot more spunky in Makina's route, not to mention her playing the straight man to Sachi's boke is adorable and fun to watch. I think it's also because I like Michiru more when she's irritated. She's cute when she's angry. 

As for Makina... well, there's a bittersweet taste, but given how her route turned out in Kajitsu, it's not surprising. Man, the feels. Wonder how much sadder Amane's route's gonna be... Angelic Howl's still the best route in Kajitsu.  Honestly, with that perfect ending in Kajitsu, I don't know how they're gonna top that.

 

[Zidan209]

Still on Umineko, trying to stomach episode 3's conclusion. I am just speechless at how this VN is changing so often and so suddenly. 

Spoiler

I've been totally out of it, ever since Eva's split personality became the witch, and maintained that until the end, lol. This episode made me question where the story even would go. First I thought that Battler would be playing against Eva from that point onwards. Then i was thinking of Eva going out of control and being an actual villain in the story and Battler joining forces with Beato. 

Did not even come to mind that it's been an act that started all the way back when the predecessor made appearance. In any case, the revelation didn't stump me, as I was instead happy that the game would keep on going between Battler and Beato (I would otherwise be sad that the VN destroyed the character that it's been building for Beato since the start). Now that I was teased so much as the reader, I just can't wait to get into the last part of the question arc, mainly because some choices should finally come up.

Probably hasn't read a VN before that could manage to perfectly create so many different atmospheres inside a single story. From being a legit horror mystery VN in episode 1, through episode 2 which turned the story into a game full of Beato's teasing, into this bamboozling emotional ride full of surprises... Umineko's already gone beyond meeting all my expectations

 

[Ranzo]

Finished Crystalline and by god did they fuck up the world building also the writing was for the most part pretty mediocre. The jokes were by and large both cringe and suck.

They seemed to have regressed since Ace Academy

Artistically though it was a huge leap in quality

The voice acting for the main characters was real good

Not so much for the side and bit characters

Don't fucking put beach volleyball and karaoke in a visual novel about a fantasy world you stupid fucks!

[LemiusK]

1 hour ago, Ranzo said:

Don't fucking put beach volleyball and karaoke in a visual novel about a fantasy world you stupid fucks!

But those are the typical trademarks of an anime setting, no? LOL At least, that would be what I would think of when writing for a VN with anime artstyle. Sigh. Western VNs. What can you do...? 

[alpacaman]

On 16.11.2018 at 6:10 AM, LemiusK said:

But those are the typical trademarks of an anime setting, no? LOL At least, that would be what I would think of when writing for a VN with anime artstyle. Sigh. Western VNs. What can you do...? 

As long as there are no baseball matches, corrupt politicians and/or a childhood friend the protagonist has forgotten about, you're lacking in the anime trope department.

 

I'm only a few hours of reading time away from finishing Umineko and I'm dissapointed they haven't added any new characters to the cast so far. I counted up to somewhere beyond fifty who have a sprite in episode 5 or 6 but stopped when it got too confusing because I didn't know if I should count certain characters several times or not. 

Other than that Umineko is obviously superb. I might even say it's one of the best things ever (*magical screeching sound*).

Edited November 17, 2018 by alpacaman

[Dreamysyu]

16 minutes ago, alpacaman said:

I counted up to somewhere beyond fifty who have a sprite in episode 5 or 6 but stopped when it got too confusing because I didn't know if I should count certain characters several times or not. 

I remember seeing a blog post where somebody counted how many characters there actually are in Umineko, and I think they got something around 60, and they actually skipped some insignificant characters who only appear for a very short period of time, like

Spoiler

Italians an the military in the 7th episode.

They also made

Spoiler

a separate count for how many character there actually are there, if you know what I mean.

 

[LemiusK]

Just a small update:

Almost reached You's bad end in Ever17, I think. Thinking back now, it's almost amusing how I thought that the VN was too lengthy, its pacing cumbersome. But having read the likes of Umineko and G-senjou no Maou, in hindsight, Ever17 almost seems short, considering that there are only two routes as opposed to other VNs (three if you count Sara, which is mixed with You's route; four if you count the unlockable Coco, also mixed with Sara and You's routes).

But it's no surprise I once thought so, since I did take a long time to finish Umineko as well. In fact, I dropped it a couple of times too before being determined to finish it for good a year ago. You get used to these things, I suppose. The more you read, the more you can read, if that makes any sense.

Still haven't warmed up to kinetic novels and novels with few choices though. Maybe someday, maybe.

Next, there's Cartagra. So much ecchi. I basically skipped most of them out of disinterest. I find h-scenes kinda boring, since the "in-and-out" procedure is almost the same. There's very little variety there, especially in terms of the noises characters make. One good thing though is that most h-scenes don't add anything important to the story and is very skippable. The only exception I could think of was one of Amane's sex scenes in Grisaia no Meikyuu, where she narrated the process. That one stood out more because it's obviously much more different than your average h-scene.

But anyway, think I'm reaching the normal end of Cartagra too. Things are coming to a close, and soon, Kara no Shoujo will finally begin. Can't wait.

Footnote: Favorite girl in Cartagra was Hatsune. Her ending was... warm. Kazuna's also cute though, with her bouncy attitude. Will have to see how her ending fares.

Edited November 17, 2018 by LemiusK

[HataVNI]

Currently playing Inochi no Spare from Akabeisoft3. A game about designer babies which purpose it is to live as a remedy for their siblings to counter a serious illness called "Oumonbyou"
The setting reminds me a LOT of the movie "Blueprint" which I read around middleschool so it felt really intriguing to me

Blueprint: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0321473/
Inochi no Spare https://vndb.org/v19513

[LemiusK]

Just finished Amane's After Story in Grisaia no Meikyuu... Needless to say, hers is the most emotional so far, compared to Michiru and Makina. Angelic Howl triumphs again. But man, each of the After Story so far has a different flavor of their own that befit the respective heroine. Michiru's was humorous, Makina's was bittersweet, and Amane's was emotional and melancholic.

I haven't read the "Main Route" of GnM yet, so I don't know much about what's going on with Kazuki (and thank god for that, that I managed to avoid any spoilers so far), but man, Amane's story sure dropped a lot of hints. And with Amane's relationship with Kazuki, her route almost seems more fitting as the True End of the story, or at least tied into the True End canonically. It's almost a shame that her route will most probably be separated from the True End as its own standalone story, existing in its own parallel universe where Yuuji picked Amane. I definitely hope that if Kazuki does show up in the future, there will be more development between Amane and Kazuki (though obviously, this seems inevitable and such development will 100% have some form of appearance). Just kinda wish that Angelic Howl was the True Route, that's all, since it has the most involvement with Yuuji's family.

Anyway, I have mixed feelings about that final shot of Amane's After Story. On one hand, it does prove what I'm suspicious about correct (not that it's that difficult to guess to begin with), but on the other... eh, kinda wish they left it ambiguous 'till the Main Route begins. Beh.  Oh well. Still have two more heroine routes to go before I will start the Main Route.

[LemiusK]

Man, You's explanation of the fourth-dimension in Ever17 triumphs Sora's in that it was so much easier to understand. Should've began with her route first. I still yawned a little, but it's far easier to comprehend.

Edit: Reached You's bad end. Not as horrifying as Tsugumi+Sora's bad end, but still... melancholic. The feels.

...and that's when I realized that I still have ONE more bad end to go! GAH!  The feels is too much. lol I just wanna get to the good ends already... And also, I'm lukewarm about Sara as a character. Peh.

Edited November 18, 2018 by LemiusK

[Dreamysyu]

51 minutes ago, LemiusK said:

..and that's when I realized that I still have ONE more bad end to go! GAH!  The feels is too much. lol I just wanna get to the good ends already... And also, I'm lukewarm about Sara as a character. Peh.

I'd suggest going for some good end, honestly. Sara's bad end appears almost at the very end of her route, and it's pretty short and unimportant.

[littleshogun]

Finished with Sanoba's Tsumugi's route (I'll comment about her route in my thread later), and as for the next route I'll go with Touko. As for Tsumugi, let's just say that she was quite motherly despite being dressed like a boy because of the contract.

As for Inochi no Spare and Blueprint comparison, that's quite an interesting one although there's still some difference between those two though. I'll see what I can write about Inochi no Spare later if I got my chance on that later, but apparently it's very depressing utsuge from what I understand.

[adamstan]

5 hours ago, littleshogun said:

Finished with Sanoba's Tsumugi's route

I started with her, then went with Meguru and Touko, Nene and Wakana still left. Tsumugi's route was good, but then each next route I read was even better - I was really surprised first by great Meguru's route, and then even greater Touko's.

I'll comment more once I finish them all, but I retract my earlier comment about Sanoba being "bland".

Edited November 19, 2018 by adamstan

[LemiusK]

Currently reading Sachi's After Story in Grisaia no Meikyuu, and I must say... I still can't get over the cliched part of her backstory, specifically

Spoiler

the long lost childhood friend

cliche. Compared to the others, Sachi's the only one who's a cliched archetype. Even Chiru-Chiru has a subversive take on your ordinary tsundere, and her backstory obviously more nuanced as well. That's not to say such a flaw makes me uninterested in her character; instead, it's her After Story (and the cliched backstory that comes with it) that I'm more indifferent towards.

Speaking of Michiru, her After Story's undeniably the weakest so far. Two out of four After Stories so far have some form of marriage storyline involved, and one of the two that doesn't (Makina) is mixed with some serious storyline regarding her mother. Michiru, on the other hand, only makes a fool of herself throughout half of the After Story, which just feels like such a squandered opportunity for some actual character development, mellowing her out. Sigh. Needless to say, I didn't enjoy Michiru's After Story as much as I wanted to (it's the first After Story I chose).

On the other hand, one of the side stories involved Michiru's classmate that she had known who 

Spoiler

committed suicide.

That side story was just a carefree conversation, but it ended with such a painful ending that it felt jarring. Specifically, the final line that was said was, "We'll be best friends forever, right?" Dammit...  I would have been more interested to know more about Michiru's past relationship with that girl than read the sheer goofiness in her After Story.

Edit: On second thought, I guess that "cliche" doesn't really play a pivotal role in her backstory nor her After Story, so I guess it's okay. Still, it does bug me a little that it makes her meeting with Yuuji a tad coincidental. Amane's meeting can be explained by JB or Chizuru perhaps arranging for Yuuji to enroll in the same school as her or something along that line, but a second chance meeting like Sachi does bug me a little. Just a little. 

Edited November 19, 2018 by LemiusK
Retracted my complaint about Sachi's cliche

[Stormwolf]

6 hours ago, adamstan said:

I started with her, then went with Meguru and Touko, Nene and Wakana still left. Tsumugi's route was good, but then each next route I read was even better - I was really surprised first by great Meguru's route, and then even greater Touko's.

I'll comment more once I finish them all, but I retract my earlier comment about Sanoba being "bland".

It is somewhat bland overall, but the heroines are good.

[adamstan]

Yes, common route is nothing special, some funny bits aside, but heroine's routes fortunately make up for it, at least for me.

Edited November 19, 2018 by adamstan

[alpacaman]

On 17.11.2018 at 12:30 PM, alpacaman said:

I'm only a few hours of reading time away from finishing Umineko and I'm dissapointed they haven't added any new characters to the cast so far. I counted up to somewhere beyond fifty who have a sprite in episode 5 or 6 but stopped when it got too confusing because I didn't know if I should count certain characters several times or not. 

Other than that Umineko is obviously superb. I might even say it's one of the best things ever (*magical screeching sound*).

Finally finished it. Episode 8 actually was my least favourite one because 

Spoiler

the final battle dragged on for too long and I didn't really enjoy the fight scenes in Umineko that much anyway (except for Krauss vs. Goat-Kun which was just amazing). It still wrapped everything up very well and gave us Erika wearing a pirate hat. Also now I want to read Hari Pota aka Harry the Potato. The Harry Potter books would probably be way more depressing if they had the same concept of magic as Umineko. Or rather it would just be Umineko with a different cast in that it would be about a boy imagining magic to cope with the loss of his parents and being abused by his step parents.

It will probably take some time before all my thoughts on Umineko have settled enough for me to write something coherent on the actual plot and themes of the story so i'll just continue rambling about other random stuff:

I would love to see Erika as Super High School Level Detective in a Danganronpa game. Each one of those has one student in an antagonistic role and she would be absolutely perfect for it.

Is "Ange" a real name or nickname in any European language or is it just the way you would shorten Angelica/Angelika/Angelique in Japanese? On a similar note I think Krauss' name should probably be translated as Klaus since Krauss is a surname. And I can recommend visiting Bernkastel(-Kues) to anyone who wants to go on vacation in Germany. It's a beautiful old town in a winegrowing area close to the border to Luxembourg (which is also worth a visit if you can stomach paying 10€ and above for an iced coffee in the centre of its capital).

 

So next up is... I still don't really know. Probably Symphonic Rain.

[LemiusK]

It's almost cynically amusing that some h-titles have better designs than highly acclaimed ones, like an indicator that displays when a voice has stopped playing (so you don't accidentally skip it). Even something softer like School Days, for example, is only among my favorites more so because of its gameplay design than its story content.

Then again, I guess that, being h-titles, they have a lot more extra budget to afford such things.

[Inorin]

1 hour ago, alpacaman said:

Finally finished it. Episode 8 actually was my least favourite one because 

  Hide contents

the final battle dragged on for too long and I didn't really enjoy the fight scenes in Umineko that much anyway (except for Krauss vs. Goat-Kun which was just amazing). It still wrapped everything up very well and gave us Erika wearing a pirate hat. Also now I want to read Hari Pota aka Harry the Potato. The Harry Potter books would probably be way more depressing if they had the same concept of magic as Umineko. Or rather it would just be Umineko with a different cast in that it would be about a boy imagining magic to cope with the loss of his parents and being abused by his step parents.

It will probably take some time before all my thoughts on Umineko have settled enough for me to write something coherent on the actual plot and themes of the story so i'll just continue rambling about other random stuff:

So what are your thoughts? Do you have any theories as to who Beatrice is?

1 hour ago, alpacaman said:

I would love to see Erika as Super High School Level Detective in a Danganronpa game. Each one of those has one student in an antagonistic role and she would be absolutely perfect for it.

She would definitely be a much more competent detective than Shuichi LOL 

Edited November 19, 2018 by wei123

[alpacaman]

12 minutes ago, wei123 said:

So what are your thoughts? Do you have any theories as to who Beatrice is?

I thought this is answered rather unambiguously in episode 7:

Spoiler

There are three Beatrices (excluding the two "piece"-Beatrices from ep 6): Kinzo's affair from WWII is the first one, then there is their daughter, who also had a child with Kinzo. This child, Yasu, developed the split personalities of Shannon, Kanon and "Witch" Beatrice.

I thought that there weren't that many open questions left, except for the very obvious one of what actually happened. But the whole point of the last episodes was that the actual events aren't important so I'm fine with not knowing. I didn't really get why Battler returning to Rokkenjima in 1986, and not any other year, lead to everone dying, but maybe I just missed the answer or forgot some details from earlier episodes that would have allowed me to interpret the given hints correctly.

 

[LemiusK]

Phew. Finally reached the epilogue of Cartagra. This feels like Muv-Luv Alternative again, where I write about my feelings after the penultimate chapter of the story, rather than after the final chapter. lol Sigh. Guess I'll keep it short and write another update when I finally finished this.

Anyway, I can see why people recommended me this in my 428 thread. There's a little bit of resemblance between Kano and Shugo in terms of their working relationship with their boss, though I'd still say Kano's arc was far more satisfying because there was a lot of clever subversions added to his character arc (and his boss was one of the key elements in subverting the cliche, not to mention living up to the heroic figure Kano had admired him to be in the first place), whereas

Spoiler

Arishima just turned out to be a greedy money-grubber who tries to cover up his crimes. Hardly an epic antagonist. More like a cowardly criminal.

But can't say I'm not satisfied with the ending (especially when I haven't actually reached the exact ending). It's been a lengthy journey so far, and it's kinda exhausting, but in a good way. Like when you've had a good cry kind of exhausting. I could only imagine how much more mentally-exhausting Kara no Shoujo would turn out to be.

Kinda a shame with what happened to 

Spoiler

Toji.

Makes me like the Normal Route a little more because of her fate in there. My guess is that this will be a running trend in Kara no Shoujo, where the "True Route" would be much more depressing than a "Fake Happy End" or one of the heroines' endings. Ah well. Such is the fate of dark and depressing VNs.

Though if I actually think about it, the only dark VNs I could really think of that's as depressing is this and Saya no Uta. Even with Fate/Stay Night, you get a happy end for Saber in the newly revised Fate route. Even something like G-senjou no Maou had a cheerful end. Most VNs I know of just don't contain this amount of grimness, for better or worse. Most Japanese people seem to prefer happy and cute stuff. And children. They really like children. 

Anyway, I don't want to talk too much about Cartagra yet 'till I actually finished it. 'Till next time~ 

Edited November 19, 2018 by LemiusK