What are you playing?

[r0xm2n]

Nice to see another person reading Grisaia and knowing how great it is.

It is the VN that got me very hooked on the genre in the first place.

....... and ChiruChiru best girl

[Inorin]

Just finished Zanmataisei Demonbane a while ago and I have to say it's a quite an interesting read. A chuunige with mechs is something that you don't see everyday, and for a VN from Nitroplus, it sure has a fair share of humour. Not too many flaws to point out, but

Spoiler

Metatron's identity and Sadalphon's identity were both too easy to figure out. However, I could never have guessed that Kouzou Hadou was actually Daijuuji Kurou; though I really should have known considering that he was able to "predict" the future. 

Fight scenes were okay, humour was decent and pacing was alright. I liked all routes equally, so I can't really choose a favourite. Final rating: 8.2/10.

[adamstan]

BTW, I have to ask one thing.

Some of you guys sometimes speak about "passive reading" of VNs. What's that? Does that mean watching playthrough vids on YT?

[Inorin]

6 minutes ago, adamstan said:

BTW, I have to ask one thing.

Some of you guys sometimes speak about "passive reading" of VNs. What's that? Does that mean watching playthrough vids on YT?

I don't how it is for other people, but for me "passive reading" means that I spend less than an hour of my time (per day) reading a VN. Anything more than that would fall under "active reading".

[Stormwolf]

1 hour ago, adamstan said:

BTW, I have to ask one thing.

Some of you guys sometimes speak about "passive reading" of VNs. What's that? Does that mean watching playthrough vids on YT?

Huh? Even while watching on youtube, you do have to read the text. 

[adamstan]

12 minutes ago, Stormwolf said:

Huh? Even while watching on youtube, you do have to read the text. 

Yep, but you don't have to click or make choices   That's why I was curious if it meant this or something other. "Passively reading" seemed like kind of oxymoron to me - so I thought it was describing the degree of interaction or sth.

Edited June 3, 2019 by adamstan

[Plk_Lesiak]

7 minutes ago, Stormwolf said:

Huh? Even while watching on youtube, you do have to read the text. 

Unless someone reads everything for you. But that can only apply to EVNs or VN without voice acting (that's how I experience most of those trash-tier ecchi EVNs, I just watch playthroughs). Unless you watch let's play where someone reads narration and you know Japanese well enough to understand the dialogues without reading... Well, my point is, there are ways to "read" VNs without fully paying attention to them and I do that a lot while working or doing exercises. 

[Stormwolf]

32 minutes ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

Unless someone reads everything for you. But that can only apply to EVNs or VN without voice acting (that's how I experience most of those trash-tier ecchi EVNs, I just watch playthroughs). Unless you watch let's play where someone reads narration and you know Japanese well enough to understand the dialogues without reading... Well, my point is, there are ways to "read" VNs without fully paying attention to them and I do that a lot while working or doing exercises. 

I've seen those kinds of videos and they're cancer inducing. I cant fathom who likes to listen to some retard reading up loud every damn dialogue. Likely some new modern thing i'll never understand.

[Seraphim]

Finished Deardrops yesterday, and it was a bundle of disappointments that were salvaged somewhat by the true route. Here are my thoughts on the indivual routes:
 

Spoiler

Common route: It was basically just a copy+paste of KiraKira, with the difference of the band staying in one area rather than going on tour. They even crashed the culture festival, just like they did in KiraKira. Nothing interesting happened, and the constant vague references to "the incident in Germany" were a really aggravating way to build suspense. (Even in half of the heroine routes, you're never told what actually happened.)

Yayoi's route: Quite possibly the worst heroine route I've ever read. Literally the only thing going on is Yayoi's guitar breaking, them waiting for it to be repaired, the guitar getting stolen right away, them finding the guitar, and then confessing and having sex in a love hotel. Roll credits. The story about the band was completely dropped, there was no character development, and the route ended as soon as Shoichi and Yayoi got together, after like two hours of total play time.

Kanade's route: The second best route, but that doesn't say much considering how disappointing most of the VN was. It's a tolerable route, but I have four major issues with it.
1. It's utterly ridiculous how the route is initiated. When Riho gets sick during the beach festival, she just randomly decides that Kanade should replace her as vocalist. This doesn't happen in any of the other routes, despite the circumstances being exactly the same. None of the choices made to enter the route should in any way influence Riho, so that turn of events makes no sense whatsoever.
2. Why doesn't Kanade tell anyone that Shoichi was stabbed? Nevermind the fact that he himself was a complete moron for prioritizing a concert over his life, but how Kanade just goes along with it is beyond me. Even if he tells her not to worry about it, it should be pretty damn obvious how serious it is to be stabbed in the stomach and that getting him to a hospital should be a priority.
3. At the end of the route, Johann confesses that the whole incident in Germany was a misunderstanding and that he threw himself down the stairs in order to ruin Shoichi's career. If that's true, why is Johann so pissed at Shoichi? If Johann actually caused it all himself, he has no reason to be, and definitely not to the point of wanting to kill him.
4. Why the hell doesn't Kanade just join Deardrops? The fact that noone ever even considers this option during the entire route is simply mindblowing. They could have avoided basically all of the drama that way, since they wouldn't have to compete against each other for the major label debut, and they wouldn't have to feel like they're drifting apart either. When Kanade and Riho sing together in an alley, they mention that they're perfectly synchronized, so they would obviously work well together. Kanade knows how to play guitar and piano as well, so she could also take on another role than vocals depending on the situation.

Rimu's route: Drama based on misunderstandings is one of the cheapest tricks in the book and one of the premises I dislike the most. Thus, it was really disappointing to see an entire route revolving around that.
Once again, Kanade is acting like an idiot. Rimu went to her for advice about the whole "relationships within the band aren't allowed" business, but for whatever reason, Kanade doesn't tell her that she's taking it too literally and should just discuss it with the band. Not even when Rimu quits the band and joins another one does Kanade speak up, despite knowing the exact reason for why she did so. She just passively watches as Deardrops slowly starts falling apart. If Shoichi hadn't kept pushing for making up with Rimu, the band would have most likely been done for.
Speaking of Shoichi, if he had just explained about his and Kanade's phone wallpaper discussion and turned down Samejima's drinking invitation by saying that he already had plans with Rimu, all the drama afterwards could have been avoided.
To sum it up, people not speaking their mind when they should is the main issue with Rimu's route.
(Sidenote: Shoichi's love confession to Rimu during the Mu Mu concert was one of the cringiest I've ever seen.)

Riho's route: This route singlehandedly managed to improve my opinion of this VN from "borderline awful" to "decent". All in all, it's a solid route and I wasn't really annoyed by anything in the way I was with the other routes. The only thing I can think of is that I don't like how Riho pushed Shoichi to go back to Germany by making the band disband. Shoichi clearly said that he wanted to stay in Japan, but she just went ahead and forced her own values on him, like so many times before. But Shoichi seemed happy with the outcome, so I guess I can't complain about it too much.

 

Edited June 3, 2019 by Seraphim88

[adamstan]

I just started Mashiro Iro Symphony. It's one of the VNs that prompted me to start learning Japanese (along with Konosora), so it's time to finally tackle it

[AaronIsCrunchy]

I'm actually reading something, for once in my life. Little Busters. I stared in the moe void and it moe moe kyun'd back at me.

 

It's really good. We'll see how that goes when I get onto a character route but for the time being I love the comfy friendship vibes and the minigames. 

[Stormwolf]

Wouldnt call little busters a simple moege. Not at all. Quite far from it in fact.

[Ranzo]

So I finished playing Fata Morgana and damn I guess they weren't kidding when they said it was a great vn. I can confidently state that it really lived up to it's hype. 

Here is a song that can go with it

 

[littleshogun]

On 6/4/2019 at 2:11 AM, Seraphim88 said:

Spoiler

Rimu's route: Drama based on misunderstandings is one of the cheapest tricks in the book and one of the premises I dislike the most. Thus, it was really disappointing to see an entire route revolving around that.
Once again, Kanade is acting like an idiot. Rimu went to her for advice about the whole "relationships within the band aren't allowed" business, but for whatever reason, Kanade doesn't tell her that she's taking it too literally and should just discuss it with the band. Not even when Rimu quits the band and joins another one does Kanade speak up, despite knowing the exact reason for why she did so. She just passively watches as Deardrops slowly starts falling apart. If Shoichi hadn't kept pushing for making up with Rimu, the band would have most likely been done for.
Speaking of Shoichi, if he had just explained about his and Kanade's phone wallpaper discussion and turned down Samejima's drinking invitation by saying that he already had plans with Rimu, all the drama afterwards could have been avoided.
To sum it up, people not speaking their mind when they should is the main issue with Rimu's route.
(Sidenote: Shoichi's love confession to Rimu during the Mu Mu concert was one of the cringiest I've ever seen.)

 

As for Deardrops here, I would say that Rimu's here is my least favorite route and the heroine and the reason is exactly what you say. Although in my case rather than Kanade I would put the blame on Rimu though, simply because she didn't have a common sense. Perhaps now that I looking back at both of Rimu and Yayoi routes here I can say that both of the routes were the redundant routes, although Yayoi's here is still better compared to Rimu's though (At least she (Obviously Yayoi) didn't indirectly causing the band to slowly falling apart when she realized her love to Shouichi). As for why Overdrive apply both of Yayoi and Rimu's routes, maybe at first they only write both of Kanade's and Riho's routes but in the middle of the production they changed their mind to add two additional routes so they can exactly have four heroines route, although in the end it's just my speculation though.

Edited June 6, 2019 by littleshogun

[adamstan]

I finished prologue in MashiroIro (meaning, I got to the opening). There's one thing that got me by surprise - there are few moments, when characters say something, but it's treated like "background noise", and those lines aren't put into textbox, which contains narration instead. Indeed, from what I've heard those weren't important lines, but nevertheless they caught me off guard I think it's the first time I see such a thing (apart from voice-only "Heart to Heart" radio show that you can listen to on Saturday nights in ToHeart).

I suppose the creators wanted to convey that protag-kun wasn't listening

Whatever, my first impressions are positive - it sounds and looks great - I really like the music, backgrounds are beautiful, and sprites have rich variety of poses.

Edited June 6, 2019 by adamstan

[Thyndd]

I just picked up Fureraba and oh god, I'm enjoying this way more than I ever would've expected. I'm not the biggest fan of moege... Just because the lack of conflict usually puts me off. I mean, it's a fundamental part of storytelling to give your characters some goal, something at stake and some obstacles, that's what makes a story interesting, right? Well I still don't think I'm mistaken there, but who tf cares about plot when literally every single scene has you laughing your ass off or dying from a cuteness overdose, or both at the same time. I'm just a man dude... I can't help it. 

So yeah, I have still a bit left of Misaki's route, but if every route maintains this level of comedy and fluffiness... It's gonna be a blast. 

And once more, the lesson I once learnt the hard way about never writing off anything because of its genre pays off greatly. 

[adamstan]

The lack of "conflict" made Yuzuyu's route a little bland to me, but I loved all others - especially Misaki and Rina.

Rina's route had just the right amount of drama/conflict to spice things up a bit, and Misaki's - well, it was just great I think my final verdict was that Misaki was best girl, while Rina had best route.

Edited June 6, 2019 by adamstan

[Seraphim]

6 hours ago, littleshogun said:

Although in my case rather than Kanade I would put the blame on Rimu though, simply because she didn't have a common sense.

I honestly think Kanade's more at fault here, despite Rimu being the core of the problem. All of the other characters know that Rimu's a complete airhead, so Kanade shouldn't just let her carry on with her idiotic ways without saying anything. Basically, Rimu doesn't even realize what she's doing is stupid/wrong, while Kanade knows full well but decides to not do anything about it.
 

Spoiler

It's kinda funny how the "no relationships in the band" rule is one of the major concerns in Rimu's route, while Yayoi, the one who came up with the rule, breaks it without a second thought in her own route. It really shows that they're making a mountain out of a molehill in Rimu's route.

 

Edited June 6, 2019 by Seraphim88

[littleshogun]

I didn't remember much of Kanade back at Rimu's route though, mostly because my impression to Rimu was already soured my impression. In any case, rather than both of them (Kanade and Rimu) I would say that it's the writer's fault to write in a less than ideal manner to put it lightly for Rimu's route.

[Mago Ivo]

9 hours ago, Ranzo said:

So I finished playing Fata Morgana and damn I guess they weren't kidding when they said it was a great vn. I can confidently state that it really lived up to it's hype. 

Here is a song that can go with it

 

I just want to thank you for the amazingly beautiful song.

I finished Fata Morgana almost a year ago and I loved it (ofcourse).

[OdaNova]

I'm just finishing up the True route for Zero Escape: The Nonary Games (999).

 

I agree with one of the characters though, if you throw all the scientific terms at me I'll just go cross-eyed...

I get that the theme of the story encourages the multi-playthrough, but I was getting a bit tired of going through the game again and again. Now I'm on the final true route though and it's getting spicy again so I think it's been worth it so far. Really looking forward to seeing the conclusion, but it'll have to be tomorrow as I'm bushed.

[Seraphim]

Finished reading Crescendo today and I think it's one of my best VN experiences so far. It was well written for the most part and I really liked the music and art style, despite not usually being a fan of shoujo design (perhaps there's a better word for it).
I only have two issues with it:

Spoiler

1. The protagonist's backstory changes depending on the route, making his personality seem kinda hollow and contradictory. In several routes, he's depicted as this righteous guy who stands up for what he believes in, and then in another route, he rapes his sister out of the blue. He's pretty sullen and serious most of the time, but despite that he's randomly laughing his ass off to not very funny jokes on several occassions in one of the routes. There are other examples as well, but the point is that his personality jumps all over the place. I would've preferred a backstory set in stone and then seeing his personality developing from that point throughout the individual routes.
2. Miyu's route. This is the only route that disappointed me. It's by far the worst route in the game, which is kinda weird considering you have to go through all the other ones to reach it.
A girl who's not been seen or mentioned a single time (as far as I can remember) just randomly appears all of a sudden through an extra choice at the beginning of the game.
I've seen the "OMG, SHE WAS DEAD ALL ALONG" (well, not dead per se, but more or less) twist too many times already to find it interesting, and it felt really obvious that the story was going that way, since Miyu kept refusing to meet up with Kaho and Ryou kept getting weird looks from people around town when he was hanging out with Miyu. One thing that doesn't make any sense whatsoever is how the owner of the antique shop could see Miyu although she wasn't physically there. It was never explained, so it must have just been a terrible and completely illogical plot device.

Now I'm moving on to Family Project, from the same developer. I've heard people speak well of it before and the VNDb score is similar to Crescendo's, so I'm hoping I'll enjoy this as much as that.

[adamstan]

5 hours ago, Seraphim88 said:

Finished reading Crescendo today and I think it's one of my best VN experiences so far. It was well written for the most part and I really liked the music and art style, despite not usually being a fan of shoujo design (perhaps there's a better word for it).
I only have two issues with it:

  Reveal hidden contents

1. The protagonist's backstory changes depending on the route, making his personality seem kinda hollow and contradictory. In several routes, he's depicted as this righteous guy who stands up for what he believes in, and then in another route, he rapes his sister out of the blue. He's pretty sullen and serious most of the time, but despite that he's randomly laughing his ass off to not very funny jokes on several occassions in one of the routes. There are other examples as well, but the point is that his personality jumps all over the place. I would've preferred a backstory set in stone and then seeing his personality developing from that point throughout the individual routes.
2. Miyu's route. This is the only route that disappointed me. It's by far the worst route in the game, which is kinda weird considering you have to go through all the other ones to reach it.
A girl who's not been seen or mentioned a single time (as far as I can remember) just randomly appears all of a sudden through an extra choice at the beginning of the game.
I've seen the "OMG, SHE WAS DEAD ALL ALONG" (well, not dead per se, but more or less) twist too many times already to find it interesting, and it felt really obvious that the story was going that way, since Miyu kept refusing to meet up with Kaho and Ryou kept getting weird looks from people around town when he was hanging out with Miyu. One thing that doesn't make any sense whatsoever is how the owner of the antique shop could see Miyu although she wasn't physically there. It was never explained, so it must have just been a terrible and completely illogical plot device.

 

I wouldn't say that the backstory changes - just we see different parts of it depending on the route. Or... wait... yep, backstory somewhat changes because there are choices during flashbacks, but I think his personality still mostly remains.

Spoiler

But yeah, having to "choose" rape during flashback to get Ayame's route is weird as fuck.

As for Miu's route - it got me, because I haven't read that many VNs using this trope yet when I was reading Crescendo.

Good luck with Family Project

I liked both VNs very much, although Family Project gets hard to read in some places due to editing issues. (the text almost literally falls apart in some lines...)

Edited June 7, 2019 by adamstan

[Ranzo]

Started up Cinderella Phenomenon and man is this protag a real snarky asshole! I love her already

 

[Seraphim]

7 hours ago, adamstan said:

I wouldn't say that the backstory changes

Spoiler

I might have worded this kinda badly. It would probably be more appropriate to say that his backstory is unclear due to the player never being told which events actually happened to him and which didn't, since the story goes in different directions depending on the choices. He supposedly only raped his sister during her route, since he mentions being a virgin in another one, but there was still an awkward distance and lack of intimacy between them during the other routes, so he most likely forced himself on her but just didn't go through with the rest of the act.

 

8 hours ago, adamstan said:

Family Project gets hard to read in some places due to editing issues. (the text almost literally falls apart in some lines...)

Yeah, I read a suggestion from someone about making an edit patch, but I doubt it'll ever happen so I'll just make do with this.
My first impression of the VN is great, at least. I tend to enjoy the premise of a group of misfits banding together, and it's pretty interesting how they manage to keep everything (so far) so lighthearted despite the characters dealing with some pretty heavy issues.