What are you playing?

[Dreamysyu]

Well, I guess I just randomly decided that it's finally the time to stop my VN hiatus and started reading Konosora.

Overall, I wasn't in the mood to read something plot-heavy, so the natural thing to do was to try reading some well-received charage that I haven't read since I'm usually not really the fan of the genre. And since I already own the Steam version of the game from some bundle I purchased long time ago, I finally decided to give it a try.

Played it for about 15 minutes so far. Well, it's definitely early to say anything right now, but, I guess, I'll need to get used to some annoying VN cliches which I kind of forgot since I've been mostly playing more niche things recently. I guess, the probability that I actually finish it is on the low side (I guess, I'd give it about 20%) but we'll see how it goes.

[Seraphim]

Are you reading in Japanese or English? (I'm not sure if the picture you posted is one you took yourself or if you just grabbed one from the internetz)
If you're reading the English version, make absolutely sure to apply the retranslation patch ASAP if you haven't already.

Edited October 2, 2019 by Seraphim88

[adamstan]

17 minutes ago, Seraphim88 said:

Are you reading in Japanese or English? (I'm not sure if the picture you posted is one you took yourself or if you just grabbed one from the internetz)
If you're reading the English version, make absolutely sure to apply the retranslation patch ASAP if you haven't already.

While we're at it - has anybody tried Steam version of Akari's route? How's the translation in it? Were RNG Gods merciful, or not?

(I have PS3 original, which I'm going to read one day, but I'm curious)

Edited October 2, 2019 by adamstan

[Seraphim]

I haven't read it myself, but from what I hear, MoeNovel's localizations are pretty acceptable nowadays (if you disregard the fact that they're censored, but that shouldn't be an issue with Akari's route since it was all ages all along). Nothing even comes close to the trainwreck that was IMHHW.

Edited October 2, 2019 by Seraphim88

[adamstan]

12 minutes ago, Seraphim88 said:

Nothing even comes close to the trainwreck that was IMHHW.

They say that CrossChannel was. Apparently that game is impossible to translate, since from what I've heard, FanTLs (two of them) weren't good either

But yeah, as for their own (I mean Pulltop's) games, both A Sky Full of Stars and Adventure of Lifetime were indeed acceptable translation-wise.

Edited October 2, 2019 by adamstan

[Seraphim]

Yeah, I've heard that Cross Channel is notoriously hard to translate in a way that does it justice, so I think that localization was pretty much doomed from the getgo.

[Dreamysyu]

2 hours ago, Seraphim88 said:

Are you reading in Japanese or English? (I'm not sure if the picture you posted is one you took yourself or if you just grabbed one from the internetz)
If you're reading the English version, make absolutely sure to apply the retranslation patch ASAP if you haven't already.

Yeah, I'm playing the retranslated version (and I took this picture myself). Thanks anyway.

[Seraphim]

Sooo... Ciconia When They Cry - Phase 1 is out now. Is there any word on how long it is? The 33,99€ price point kinda caught me off guard, since it's five-or-so times higher than the Higurashi chapters.

[Stormwolf]

Seems like it possibly has no voice and obviously have the bad art of the other games before their "remasters" Will wait until a more serious version is released.

[ChaosRaven]

Ugh, Ryuukishi07 really did it again and drew the art himself for Ciconia. 

I had really hoped that the world could convince him to stick to writing. 

[Mr Poltroon]

Say what you will. I really find his art charming these days. It used to be slightly less cute, methinks.

[Saosin]

I've bought Ciconia since I am die hard fan of Umineko and somewhat Higurashi... but lets be real here we will have 3 more episodes if they all will be in that price... then something is srsly wrong here. Game is great so far as much as I can tell for few hours of gameplay they already throw 24 characters on me. There will be a lot of action something tells me...

What else, ah yes I am surprised when I saw my country representative 

Edited October 6, 2019 by Saosin

[adamstan]

I finished Aokana recently, and absolutely loved every bit of it. 9/10 (more in Aokana thread)

Now I think I have to take a break from VNs for a few days, and catch up with some other things.

And then I'll probably tackle something untranslated again. Konosora Cruise Sign maybe?

Edited October 7, 2019 by adamstan

[Dreamysyu]

On 10/2/2019 at 12:58 AM, Dreamysyu said:

Well, I guess I just randomly decided that it's finally the time to stop my VN hiatus and started reading Konosora.

Oh, and does anyone have advice what route I should start with?

[Seraphim]

There’s not really any recommended order in terms of spoilers, but you need to clear Asa’s route to access Yoru’s and Kotori’s route to access Amane’s. Kotori’s and Amane’s routes are by far the best ones imo, so I’d personally save those for last. When I reread it at some point, I’ll probably go Ageha -> Asa -> Yoru -> Kotori -> Amane.

[adamstan]

Yesterday I started Konosora Cruise Sign for a moment just to check if my saved text hooking configuration still works after updating the emulator (it does!), and I was again reminded how beautiful the music in this VN is. Even the main theme alone, that can be heard in a menu, brings back memories and emotions...

11 hours ago, Seraphim88 said:

When I reread it at some point, I’ll probably go Ageha -> Asa -> Yoru -> Kotori -> Amane.

I also think that Kotori's route is the best, but I prefer to start with it

Edited October 8, 2019 by adamstan

[Dreamysyu]

6 hours ago, Seraphim88 said:

There’s not really any recommended order in terms of spoilers, but you need to clear Asa’s route to access Yoru’s and Kotori’s route to access Amane’s. Kotori’s and Amane’s routes are by far the best ones imo, so I’d personally save those for last. When I reread it at some point, I’ll probably go Ageha -> Asa -> Yoru -> Kotori -> Amane.

Well, I'm not even sure if I'm going to play all routes, so I'd rather start with the best one. I guess, I'll start with Kotori then. Thank you!

[Seraphim]

7 hours ago, adamstan said:

I was again reminded how beautiful the music in this VN is.

I rarely listen to music from games, movies, etc outside of the source material, but IMHHW is one of few exceptions to that. That and the soundtrack in Fata Morgana are my personal favorites when it comes to music in VNs!
I really want to read Cruise Sign as well, but I'd have to read the MoeNovel version if I want to do it right now and that's kinda putting me off, although their localization are supposedly better nowadays.

7 hours ago, adamstan said:

I also think that Kotori's route is the best, but I prefer to start with it

I usually tend to save the best for last.
Then again, I might actually skip Ageha's, Asa's and Yoru's routes entirely and just reread Amane's and Kotori's. I don't think the other three are nearly as good; especially Ageha's, which contained some stuff that felt really stupid. Like

Spoiler

how they build up to the reveal of this seemingly major secret she's been keeping, and then it just turns out that she snuck into a construction site as a kid and for some reason decided that was something she absolutely couldn't tell anyone about. Definitely one of the most anticlimactic reveals I've ever seen!

I like Ageha as a character, but her route was a pretty big disappointment for me.
Both Asa's and Yoru's felt kinda bland, but I'm not really into lolis and I guess that might have affected my opinion a bit.
 

5 hours ago, Dreamysyu said:

Well, I'm not even sure if I'm going to play all routes, so I'd rather start with the best one. I guess, I'll start with Kotori then. Thank you!

Ah, yeah, definitely start with Kotori then! Both her and Amane's route are great!

[adamstan]

So, as planned, I started reading Cruise Sign. Ah, the music and Kotori

I'm encountering fair number of unknown words (by this I mean more than in other untranslated VNs I played before), and probably there'll be a lot more once glider fun starts - but that's where text hooking comes to help  Having already read translated version of IMHHW probably helps a little too.

BTW, according to the walkthrough at Seiya-Saiga, Akari's route isn't part of the main game, but is accessible from the menu as a part of Flight Diary. So, technically Steam version of Flight Diary with Akari DLC should be equal to console version, unless they used some additional censorship.

I plan to grab it sometime later (maybe on winter Steam sale?) and compare them.

Edited October 10, 2019 by adamstan

[littleshogun]

I guess it's good if they want to keep console version available in their own way, although seeing that even Pulltop was requested by Valve to do additional censorship safe to say that we may encounter some toned down coversation in the Steam version. By the way even with VNDB changed MoeNovel as a part of WillPlus instead of Pulltop, I'll still call treat them as part of Pulltop anyway (And keep calling them Pulltop) seeing that most of MoeNovel's localized VNs is from Pulltop, and more importantly we didn't see both of Damekoi and Starless being censored (Both of these are from the companies that was under WillPluss as well (Hermit and Empress respectively)).

As for Ciconia, looking from Steam playtime at most it was at 20 hours. There's also a review stated that the price was too expensive for the length of the VN, and his playtime was at around 11 hours. So perhaps the average playtime for Ciconia first phase here should be at ~15 hours, and apparently the price was because Ryukishi managed to get new graphic along with hireing a lot of employees (At least his drawing was improved even more compared to Umineko and especially Higurashi (Apparently both of Takano and Okonogi are at Ciconia)).

[Seraphim]

On 10/10/2019 at 7:44 AM, littleshogun said:

apparently the price was because Ryukishi managed to get new graphic along with hireing a lot of employees

A lot of people probably won't know or care about that; they just see the price tag, think it's too high and then wait for a major price drop or pass on the game entirely. Steam users tend to be really whiny about VN prices, even if we're talking tens of hours of entertainment in many cases.

[Stormwolf]

22 hours ago, Seraphim88 said:

A lot of people probably won't know or care about that; they just see the price tag, think it's too high and then wait for a major price drop or pass on the game entirely. Steam users tend to be really whiny about VN prices, even if we're talking tens of hours of entertainment in many cases.

Product has to match the value. It does not. Arist needs to find something else to do, his drawing is terrible and anything to the contrary is a pretty damn biased opinion. Look at that shit. Honestly, take a good damn look and really think about what you're looking at. Not only does the art look terrible, the game has no voices either. And dont tell me after the astounding success of the two previous series that they could not afford to hire staff for voice acting.10 Euro area sounds about right for this title.

Edited October 12, 2019 by Stormwolf

[ztrepzilius]

From feline shrine maidens to ninja, I tried NinNinDays. Like the previous title, the CGs, UI, and Live2d seem good. Short, simple story with only Sumire as the main heroine but the translation could need some editing.

Edited October 11, 2019 by ztrepzilius

[littleshogun]

Tried Ouka Sabaki, and it's quite good (I look forward to the full release here). As for my VN that I played now, currently play Kemomusu and graphic wise it's pleasant looking.

[adamstan]

I'm still going through console version of Konosora. My reading speed turns out to be rather slow - translated version took me ~50hrs to complete, while here, after 20hrs, I'm still in the middle of common route (after first test flight and beach episode ).

While I still love Kotori, I seem to notice Amane more this time. Or rather - I partially forgot how great she was, while I remembered Kotori more, so now I'm kind of rediscovering her.

BTW - I understand that it's all-ages^* release, but bath towels make no sense while in the water If you need to cover up titties in bath scenes, I'd prefer the good old steam

*or actually it isn't, it's CERO D = +17

Edited October 17, 2019 by adamstan