Jump to content

What are you playing?


Recommended Posts

Posted (edited)

You know, i think you'll change your mind later. Haku gets some serious development, and thats no joke. Also the plot rears its ugly head sooner or later too. Especially during mask of truth. I'd say the first just suffers from being more of a setup for the finale (mask of truth). They're all heavy with sol, but its sol events you grow to appreciate once the plot properly picks up.

Edited by Stormwolf
Posted (edited)

Summer pockets. A temp review, predictions and opinions.  Well im on the last of the regular heroine routes. My thoughts so far is quite mixed. All key vn's are masterpieces alone, but for a weathered veteran of their works, you kinda feel their too stuck in their ways and kinda write the same things over and over, making it quite predictible.

Art 5/10 yeah, the art is nothing to write home about. Umi and tsumugi being among the best. Also a certain woman in a route. AO looks like a mess. 

Sound 5/10 you know key is also known for their beautiful soundtracks that gets stuck with you and hit the mood of the events perfectly. Well, none if that so far. Finished 3 routes and the music has not impressed me in any way. By this point i hope they're saving a slam dunk ost for the no doubt true route at the end.

Plot: 6/10 The plot was all over the place. It had decent set pieces all around, but i dont think they utilized them properly and made a mess of things instead.

Characters and routes- spoiler territory

Spoiler

 

Kyokou - Honestly this woman is a bit of a mystery. His true wife? Just his relative as they say? I feel there is more to her, but fortunately the vn still has mysteries i look forward to uncovering. I know from the cutscenes between routes that this vn is about learning how to deal with loss of his wife and daughter. He has his daughter here, so maybe wife as well? Time will tell, but im betting on some key magic ala clannad.

Umi - What a fun little girl and definitely feels like the most important character here. I always enjoy reading hers and the protags interractions. Sadly i think the game spoilered her too thoughtlessly. Im now at the point where she changed from being loud and funny to more child like. A regression because the protag has wifed too wrongly? or protag getting closer to his true self and seeing reality as it is is something i'll find out as i go. She keeps disappearing in the story though and the protag at some point mistook Shiroha for Umi. A thoughtless thing or something more to it? I guess i'll find out!

Shiroha.. well, she's quite a bit boring isnt she? Dont really have much to say about her. Her route plot wasnt too interesting either. It was rather stupid. They knew the set pieces of her prediction and did their damnest of making sure that it happened. Her grandpa was the highlight of it. A fun character all in all.

AO - A big improvement over Shiroha. She and the protag had a much better dynamic. I always enjoy perverted heroines. Her plot of saving her sister and how she struggled to do so kept me engaged. She falling asleep too was an eyerolling cliche sadly. And they totally ruined the reunion with the incest lesbian shit they pulled. Was tactless. I do wish i got to know how long the protag worked on waking her up though.

Kamome - A really good route i must say. I was engaged in their adventure and it was really sad to see how everything really was once you started learning what was actually going on. Kanome has been the best main heroine so far and her mother's art was a few step above than anyone else. Shame they went the mysterious illness route with it though and it didnt really sit right with me that you never really interreacted with the real her at any point in time. Wish they gave her a proper epilogue. Did they reunite? Was it a dream or wish? I dunno really. Illness seemed very serious and they took it too lightly by not spelling out if she got better or not.

Tsumugi - Ehh.. what did i just read? Tsumugi has good design, but her character was annoying and her "mgyuu" became grating. Suzuha was more entertaining and looked good too. What about the protagonist you may ask? He was an idiot here. Usually he's pretty decent, but here he just mirrored these two girls. Didnt really think much for himself. Suzuha was great, but she was too omnipresent. And it was a shame they acted like 9 year olds in this route. The drama here was interesting though. The lighthouse in the field was interesting, but the writer didnt care about making anything out of it so it just was a thing really, which at the same time made it feel very pointless. Potential was there, but the execution failed.

Alka - The route was interesting and pretty tearjerking, There were a lot of beautiful moments in this route when they were acting like Umi's mother and it was truly sad seeing Umi wither away. But i steeled myself. I had read Clannad and i knew it would redeem this current sadness i was feeling with a properly cathartic moment.

pockets- Well, how can you avoid feeling like you've wasted your time after finishing these two? Previous heroine routes are discarded and unresolved and Hairi and SHiroha are unresolved also. Not only that, but Hairi was majorly left out in the cold in this route. We had some beautiful mom and daughter moments, but they didnt even care to even mention Hairi. This is about  A girl's struggle to fix this islands magic fuckery which ruins basically everything it touches.  While i was reading i was very unsure as to where the plot was going and to what end. I knew Umi was going to remove Shiroa's powers of traveling through time, but where would that leave us? No where in particular is the answer. The answer should be obvious, but they made it somewhat ambiguous anyway. Thats wrong. They made it entirely ambiguous. We know Shiroha only died after giving birth to Umi, but the true route didnt get further than Hairi meeting Shiroha.  Shiroa pretended not to know him when they first met and Hairi only had fragments of his memory. A the very end Hairi is leaving the island on the boat, but he sees Shiroah on the pier looking out and throwing the paper plane. He jumps off and swims to shore and asks her to teach him to make fried rice...... The end... So where was that cathartic moment we waited for? You know, the moment we've been waiting for when we can see them all truly happy and safe? It just never happened. Seems to me they intentionally fucked this up just to give us a proper ending in their rerelease, but likely that is just a bandaid to the fuckup. I figure we'd have a clannad solid ending if there were no "holding back" for monetary reasons. Truly disappointing.

Now, the art, music and heroines might not be as good as they could have been, but the vn still has me hooked. 

Edited by Stormwolf
Posted
1 hour ago, Stormwolf said:

You know, i think you'll change your mind later. Haku gets some serious development, and thats no joke. Also the plot rears its ugly head sooner or later too. Especially during mask of truth. I'd say the first just suffers from being more of a setup for the finale (mask of truth). They're all heavy with sol, but its sol events you grow to appreciate once the plot properly picks up.

I appreciate the words, but there won't be a Mask of Truth for me. The slice of life in Mask of Deception actually made me despise most of its characters, so I'm realistic enough that just some slight improvements in its successor won't change anything for me. 

But this being essentially an JRPG, I'm actually thinking about giving the new edition of Tales of Vesperia a try. It's famed to be the best of the series next to Berseria, even though the gameplay itself in Berseria didn't exactly blow me away. But Kami no Rhapsody will probably be the next JRPG/VN hybrid I play anyway, so there's still time to decide.

Posted (edited)

I know what you mean, but its nothing unusual in the world of japanese entertainment. Girls treating protagonist like shit that is. Dunno whats so extremely funny and interesting about it. Many heroines i've grown to loathe for the same reason. Doesnt help if she gets some growth development in the last 5 minutes of the rpute or anime.

Edited by Stormwolf
Posted (edited)

As I mentioned before, I started playing Zero Escape - 999 -. It's been really entertaining so far, I'm liking it! :D

First Impressions

Positives:

  • I liked the characters — it was refreshing to see more "adult" characters and everyone was really different haha
  • the flowchart ("flow") — one more excellent addition to the steam port 👌
  • the protagonist — he is normal, that's all I ask for.

Negatives:

  • the minigames — this is kind of subjective but, personally, I was stuck for way too long on them and got frustrated a lot of times...
  • the differences between the "novel" and "ADV" mode — I like the option of choice, but I'd like to have novel mode's writing with the ADV's design. It's just less polluted. Oh, well...
  • NOT HAVING A LOAD OPTION ON THE MENU — C'mon! That's basic!

ENDING 3

Spoiler

Nooo, I liked Snake!!! T^T I already knew about Clover having an ax (damn you, google images!) but I didn't expect her to be the one doing the killing, damn. Anyways, this basically makes me suspect more of Clover and Akane... Clover is just obvious, but Akane is pretty sus. Seven too, tbh... his amnesia is just weird.

ENDING 5

Spoiler

 

So... Santa has a little sister? And according to his "tale", he killed her? That's why his clothes are black and white? Neat. Is she going to actually appear? Naaah, that would be too random and forced lol unless... 👀
The big [9] door is indeed leading outside the ship but the other... hmmmm, pretty sus if you ask me.

Possible murderers: Clover (so it's consistent with end 3) and Akane, since she was with him just moments ago (maybe, maybe... there's still the matter of the elevators, after all - it's more likely it was Clover).

 

Current theory (after discussing it with my pals)

Spoiler

 

So, Snake is VERY suspicious. I am discussing this vn with my pals and we've come to the conclusion that Snake is the most likely to be the mastermind.

He could be lying about his blindness and/or the content of his letter. After all, no one else there appears to know braille.

He died very soon, so that makes him extra suspicious, as ridiculous as that sounds. This is because I don't remember the protagonist finding his bracelet, so he could be very much alive just to watch everything unfold from the sidelines. ALSOOOOO, he has a prosthesis for his left arm, which I'm pretty sure it's the arm which has the bracelet hmmmmmm pretty sus if you ask me!

 

-----

This week, I'm playing ending 6 and 4 (in that order)! I'll finish it the week after! :yes:

Edited by Leonor
typo
Posted
12 hours ago, Leonor said:

As I mentioned before, I started playing Zero Escape - 999 -. It's been really entertaining so far, I'm liking it! :D

First Impressions

Positives:

  • I liked the characters — it was refreshing to see more "adult" characters and everyone was really different haha
  • the flowchart ("flow") — one more excellent addition to the steam port 👌
  • the protagonist — he is normal, that's all I ask for.

Negatives:

  • the minigames — this is kind of subjective but, personally, I was stuck for way too long on them and got frustrated a lot of times...
  • the differences between the "novel" and "ADV" mode — I like the option of choice, but I'd like to have novel mode's writing with the ADV's design. It's just less polluted. Oh, well...
  • NOT HAVING A LOAD OPTION ON THE MENU — C'mon! That's basic!

ENDING 3

  Reveal hidden contents

Nooo, I liked Snake!!! T^T I already knew about Clover having an ax (damn you, google images!) but I didn't expect her to be the one doing the killing, damn. Anyways, this basically makes me suspect more of Clover and Akane... Clover is just obvious, but Akane is pretty sus. Seven too, tbh... his amnesia is just weird.

ENDING 5

  Reveal hidden contents

 

So... Santa has a little sister? And according to his "tale", he killed her? That's why his clothes are black and white? Neat. Is she going to actually appear? Naaah, that would be too random and forced lol unless... 👀
The big [9] door is indeed leading outside the ship but the other... hmmmm, pretty sus if you ask me.

Possible murderers: Clover (so it's consistent with end 3) and Akane, since she was with him just moments ago (maybe, maybe... there's still the matter of the elevators, after all - it's more likely it was Clover).

 

Current theory (after discussing it with my pals)

  Reveal hidden contents

 

So, Snake is VERY suspicious. I am discussing this vn with my pals and we've come to the conclusion that Snake is the most likely to be the mastermind.

He could be lying about his blindness and/or the content of his letter. After all, no one else there appears to know braille.

He died very soon, so that makes him extra suspicious, as ridiculous as that sounds. This is because I don't remember the protagonist finding his bracelet, so he could be very much alive just to watch everything unfold from the sidelines. ALSOOOOO, he has a prosthesis for his left arm, which I'm pretty sure it's the arm which has the bracelet hmmmmmm pretty sus if you ask me!

 

-----

This week, I'm playing ending 6 and 4 (in that order)! I'll finish it the week after! :yes:

enjoy it while it lasts, because the third game is bad

Posted

I'm taking a detour from Raging Loop, tbh I just read all of the foreword stuff and then got randomly sidetracked, but I'll get back to this soon I swear

But right now I'm reading World End Syndrome cuz it finally went on sale Switch digital for 12 bucks$$

The Protagonist is nameable, so I was like fk me, I don't know any decent names, and I'm hella not gonna self insert my own name, so here's what I named him LOL:

BqkuegD.jpg
Takeru from Muvluv and Umisho from Robotics;Notes. Yes, I literally could not think of anything better, and yolo'd, sue me.

So Takeru moves to Mihate Town, a (fictional?) modern day rural seaside Japanese town, to escape some personal baggage. He's like the most indifferent, unemotional protagonist ever because of said baggage. The kind who just lives day by day with no goal, no purpose in mind. It's reflected well during the VN's Free Roam segment during Summer Break which I'll get into later. Mihate town itself has some supernatural lore, The Yomibito Legend, where supposedly every 100 years the dead revive and wreak havoc on the town. Hmm, okay, we're off to a good start. I like my moe slice of lifes to have behind the scene shenanigans to look forward to later. 

Spoiler

r1HpeUl.jpg

Hi cutie. Don't kill me plx

 

 

He lodges in a relative's supposedly vacant mansion, but unbeknownst to him he runs into an unexpected roommate: a distant cousin by the name of Maimi. She's not too happy about having some random unknown boy roommate show up, but she quickly lays down some house rules to compromise (Takeru is in charge of cooking, cleaning, basically all the house chores, gg ez).CUhorLv.jpg

Uncle's...Wife's...lover's....mistress? Uhhhh- I lost track of the family tree at Uncle already, sorrz.

Takeru eventually gets roped into joining his school's Mystery Club, which, by VN modern day protagonist standards, means it's a club that exists solely for Takeru to be able to mingle with all of the heroines. Unfortunately though, the writers of this VN made the fatal, fatal mistake of having the worst side-bro character ever by the name of Kensuke exist: a flamboyant failure playboy type whose only purpose is to get collectively shat on by the heroines repeatedly and relentlessly. It gets old FAST.

xPL04j9.jpg

Seriously less than 5 minutes of and this guy already won my award for worst sidebro character EVER. Doesn't help that he actually gets a SIGNIFICANT amount of screentime.


The VN has a calendar-date day by day system, with the first two months June and July being considered the prologue which naturally establish the town's setting, characters, high school mystery club, and sparsely hints at some supernatural shenanigans, all in bread and butter slice of life format. Near the climax of this relatively lengthy prologue, a random student goes missing, and during one of the Mystery Club's outdoor trips they stumble upon said lost student's belongings. Uh oh. Unfortunately you won't get to learn much else regarding this case, because the prologue will automatically lock you into the VN's default bad ending as your reward for completing it.

Upon resuming the VN you can pick an unlocked dialogue choice to avoid the prologue bad end and move onto the month long summer break free roam slice of life segment taking place in August, and this is where you really get to see Takeru's aimless no lifing as he just goes through the motions, living day by day, wandering around doing whatever he pleases (which mostly amounts to nothing). It's quite overwhelming at first, because as a completionist I kept wanting to reload saves to see what different scenes would occur if I picked a different location to go to, and a lot of the times you're left wondering "WHERE THE HELL SHOULD I GO? DOES IT MATTER???" It's exacerbated in that every day you can visit one place in the morning, one place in the afternoon, and one place at night. With 7 locations to choose from, with up to 3 times a day per location, and 30 days, it gets exhausting very quickly trying to see every possible scene (and there's many deadend scenes, where you visit a location just to get a one liner description and nothing else). fbGs5t8.jpg

7 locations... 3 times a day (morning afternoon night), so basically every day has 21 potential scenes, times 30 days = 630 times I'm gonna have to reload my save to see all potential scenes, WTF GAME! It also doesn't help that this VN doesn't have a quicksave/load function, in fact you can only save AFTER or BEFORE scenes, not during. A really nasty technical limitation by today's standards. 

 

What's fascinating though is that, I think THAT'S THE POINT of this month long Free Roam segment, especially the first time you go through it blind. The VN seems to be aiming for a "if you could relive a moment of your life, how would you go about it differently?" theme of sorts. Takeru's summer vacation my first playthrough was just spent lounging and wandering around and making small talk with whoever I happened to bump into. Uneventful and wasteful. Takeru himself will admit he basically has no life, and heroines will nag at him to start being more open and active. But if you're ultimately unable to develop any connections with any of the heroines and stay a loner, you'll waltz right back into the arms of the prologue's bad end. So from a narrative standpoint I thought this was rather neat. But from a gameplay completionist standpoint though, fk this game. It's so tempting to just pull up a walkthrough and avoid the unnecessary scene grinding.0Xs78Ii.jpg
GIRL DONT'CHU BE TELLIN' ME WHAT I OUGHTTA DO!

Spoiler

 



xSklrXU.jpg
BETCH YOU DON'T KNOW ME

tml9UdH.jpg

wOWzeRs WheRE'D THe TiME GO?!


f0GivgM.jpg

GG EZ

 


Thankfully, upon getting the bad end a second time around, my initial month long of meandering gave me a good idea of where most of the heroines generally spend their month... Maimi the fiery redhead distant cousin seems to be at school for tennis, Yukino the bluehaired eager young adult journalist is investigating the supernatural Yomibito Legend so she's a wildcard, Miu the stoic softspoken greenhead is mostly working at her brother's cafe in the afternoon, Hanako/Rei is the ditzy pink haired only-the-audience-can-see-through-her-idol-disguise who's shooting a film in the forest, and Saya is I guess the starter route yellow haired ojou because you can literally just say yes to become her servant so she'll assign you your shifts where to go:

Spoiler

bV3qEZm.jpg

GB2JUC3.jpg

rUi39hC.jpg


We'll see if this develops into something interesting.

Posted (edited)

@Eclipsed

Reading your post, and having heard the title before I started to wonder - "why didn't I tried this one before? It looks interesting". But then I searched it on vndb and I knew - no PC version, consoles only, and the ones that aren't emulated yet to boot - PSV, PS4 and Switch :(Why, oh why no PSP release at least?

Edited by adamstan
Posted
14 hours ago, adamstan said:

@Eclipsed

Reading your post, and having heard the title before I started to wonder - "why didn't I tried this one before? It looks interesting". But then I searched it on vndb and I knew - no PC version, consoles only, and the ones that aren't emulated yet to boot - PSV, PS4 and Switch :(Why, oh why no PSP release at least?

uh, there are two Switch emulators that work...

Posted
On 12/5/2020 at 12:35 AM, Silvz said:

uh, there are two Switch emulators that work...

Really? That's great news. It looks like I was a bit out of touch. Perhaps I assumed it was still too recent platform, or too closed. AFAIK there's still no PS4 or PSV emu, so I thought it was similar situation with Switch, without actually checking. 

But... Is there a way to buy games and transfer them to emu without owning an actual Switch?

 

Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, adamstan said:

But... Is there a way to buy games and transfer them to emu without owning an actual Switch?

Switch uses a unique type of cartridge, so the only way I know of is if you actually own a Switch, jailbreak it and use SX Dumper to transfer the contents of the cartridge onto an SD card, and then in turn transfer them from that to your PC. If you're not intending to buy a Switch, you might as well just buy the games to support the developers and then download them from somewhere to run them on your PC (assuming they actually run well, which I can't confirm since I haven't delved into emulation for the last 15 years or so).

Edited by Seraphim
Posted (edited)
7 hours ago, Seraphim said:

. If you're not intending to buy a Switch, you might as well just buy the games to support the developers and then download them from somewhere to run them on your PC (assuming they actually run well, which I can't confirm since I haven't delved into emulation for the last 15 years or so).

Yeah, that's exactly what I've been doing with PSP and PS3 VNs. But if I'm not mistaken, apart from cartridges the Switch also has digital releases and so I was wondering if it's possible to buy them from within emulator.

*****************************************EDIT*************************

I looked around a bit, and it seems that while emulators work and can run some games, they're useless without having an actual console (and it has to be certain serial number range/version that can be hacked), since even though it's possible to download game ROMs, they still won't work without obtaining an license key - and to activate game, you have to install it on the console and link it to your Nintendo account. Then - if your Switch is of the hackable kind - you can transfer data to the PC and run the game inside emulator. But well, if the game is translated, then if I had an actual Switch I wouldn't need an emu, since at that point the only thing it would be useful for would be text hooking in case of JP games :P

Okay, scratch that, there are some workarounds ;) But it seems that my CPU is too shitty to run even a VN inside an switch emulator (or the game isn't fully compatible with it yet) :P So it seems that in order to play WES I'll still have to get a Switch... Makes it a bit expensive :P

Edited by adamstan
Posted

Reading Kara no Shoujo 2 and a little making lovers on the side.

Making lovers:

Karen: Wow that was surprisingly good tbh. I loved the beginning when protag did the push and pull instead of just desperately chasing (This is a turnoff to most girls) when she started being selfish and acting noncaring, and she bit the hook! That shit works in many cases and something many men fail to do and lose a lot of respect from the girl. Their relationship was not sunshine and rainbows, but that wasn't needed, it felt genuine for a VN. If i could criticize anything it would be that i often didn't know if they had a fight or were bantering as protags text could be very... flavourless so you didn't know exactly what emotions went through his words. Also that they introduced some characters and pretty much forgot about them in the routes. Why even introduce them in the first place?

Posted

I finished Hanako -> Saya -> Maimi routes in World End Syndrome. Apparently you need to do these three before you can do Yukino's and Miu's, and so far the supernatural lore regarding the Yomibito-undead-reviving-every-100-years thing hardly has any presence, so I'm guessing the final two routes will start touching base with that.

 

Hanako Yamada / Rei Nikaido

fIyqmOp.jpg

Heh, and I'm Takeru Umisho, from Muv-Notes Luv-Robotics ; Alternate DaSH

This girl is great. She's the (true personality) socially awkward clumsy girl (fake alias) Hanako Yamada by day and the rising idol sensation (true name) Rei Nikaido by night. She comes to Mihate Town to film for her latest movie after being inspired by the Town's legends, and joins the Mystery Club under her incognito name out of desire to experience being a normal high school girl.

Spoiler

Aight, y'all know me, she's a pink haired idol, instant best girl. She's such a tease:

3Wy7Kw3.jpg
YES!

8oRSajj.jpg
UHHHH, PARDON??!!! (BTW, more VN's need to have characters where you ALWAYS see them with certain hairstyle or with glasses on, and then you get to finally see them with their hair different / glasses off, like Rei above. It's such a nice little characterization gimmick.)

 

What I liked about her route was that, as cliche as it might've been, the writers were able to relate Hanako's personal drama to Takeru's in that both characters reached a point in their lives where they hit rock bottom and were living day by day with no future aspirations. Takeru's was due to survivor's guilt when his sister died in a car crash, whereas Hanako grew up with a single abusive father after her mother ran away.

MhAyU1N.jpg
 

Hanako was able to find her light at the end of the tunnel when she was scouted to become an idol (which was no happenstance), and by extension she was able to become the light at the end of the tunnel for Takeru. It's a pretty wholesome romance for these two:
tYUNChu.jpg

D'AWWWW FKING ROMANTIC AS FK!!!!

 

But again, Rei's such a tease:

Spoiler

gavD720.jpg

 

jbbAzKX.jpg

 

csg0ucw.jpg

 

BPg3ahC.jpg

 

jlALJep.jpg

 

cIlqY30.jpg

WOOOOOOOOOOW WAY TO GASLIGHT TAKERU, HANAKO!!!



Btw whatever you do, when you're on her route, DON'T EVER STAND HER UP, even if it's just to get some petty revenge because of her 10 minute text reply stall shenanigans seen above. Her breakup text actually hurts a lot LOL:

Spoiler


9bL0Be3.jpg

VUMBdRz.jpg
WAIT NIKAREI!!! I CAN EXPLAIN!!! I JUST WANTED TO SEE WHAT YOU WOULD DO IF I STOOD YOU UP!!!!! IT WAS NOTHING PERSONAL PLEASE!

 

 

 

Saya Kamishiro

Honor student. Athletic. Rich. Talented. Gorgeous. The girl's got it all.
9XW2DG7.jpg
That's a funny way of saying "Hey I like you, can we walk home together?"

Spoiler

Btw,

hiXRsDM.jpg

She's only 15. WHATTA BABY!!! For the record, the rest of the cast are 17. I'm surprised Takeru was so surprised to find that out.

Saya's baggage comes from the fact that she's not actually a blood heir to the legendary Kamishiro family (the most powerful & influential family in Mihate Town), so to compensate she always pushes herself to do her best, Naruto work hard style instead of being born a genius Uchiha Sasuke style.
LVNedpe.jpg

It's kay girl, you may not be the legendary Kamishiro blood A type (she's a B type), but the view from here is definitely A grade material. Wait, I shouldn't say that, she's 15--
 

2ldEKSY.jpg

OH HAWT DAMNNN!!


Their romance was standard, it didn't make me go d'awww as much as Hanako's did. But Saya could have her text moments too:

Spoiler

SJ03tyi.jpg

😞

:1wxmv1Q.jpg

ATTA GIRL!

 

Maimi Kusunose
3Z5osaX.jpg
LMAO! One of the rare times my boi Kensuke actually gets some good shots in. (Ironic, because she's actually his one true crush despite all of his fanboying for the idol Nikarei). Maimi is the hotheaded tomboy down to earth speaks her mind type.

Spoiler

zyJJWIf.jpg

You're um, nice to look at? 

Maimi's a pretty normal girl at the end of the day, no real personal familial baggage like Hanako or Saya. Most of her route you just tag alongside her as she helps a sick child prepare for her surgery, or witness people asking her out and failing miserably.

When Takeru gets nosy and inquires why she rejects her suitors, she just nonchalantly drops the bomb:

jvWUMip.jpg

...What.


One big revelation that could've been executed better is that Maimi is actually the true identity behind the famous Monday through Wednesday nightly radio talk show host, Hikaru Tsukioka, that Takeru can tune into. That was a nice reveal that caught me off guard, unlike the ever obvious Hanako = Rei. Then her route's seemingly random events actually make sense: the kid undergoing surgery was a big fan of Hikaru so that's why Maimi became emotionally invested, and Saya's brother Mibu who up until this route seemed like an okay guy turned out to be a sleezy playboy who took a liking to Hikaru and abused his status to make moves on her.

And once again, the romance with a heroine is what is able to get Takeru out of his stagnant misery:

Njtkye8.jpg 



Unfortunately, even though Takeru was able to avoid having an uneventful summer leading to his prologue-demise by mingling with some heroines, it turns out:

Spoiler

E9O9flF.jpg

Calling it now, Takeru is the Yomibito. Looks like we'll learn more in the final two routes: Yukino, who is actively researching the Yomibito legend, and Miu, who is the obvious red herring:
 

dnvaPoH.jpg


0P1ZySP.jpg

 

Posted

Finished World End Syndrome. The final few routes for Yukino and Miu were pretty fun, because they finally touch upon the murder mystery and Yomibito lore aspects of the VN that the prologue hooks you in with whereas everything else in between was just standard slice of life & world building & heroine personal baggage solving. So overall it's like 90% SoL and 10% murder mystery / supernatural lore lol.


DbG6C3t.jpg

uIobyNw.jpg
Btw, anyone wanna play Among Us? LOL

 

mzD9x5f.jpg
 

It's a shame, because while reading their routes I constantly found myself going, damn, this VN would've been even more awesome if the entire thing revolved around the mystery aspect. But ultimately all the slice of life did serve its purpose and softened me well for going into:
sgMB9od.jpg
Yup, there's a truth route to look forward to by the end of it, yeee. It's nothing too mind boggling; a bit of a shame considering you have a title like WORLD END SYNDROME so you might be expecting the true route to have reality bending consequences (it doesn't), but nevertheless it was still a pleasant truth route. 

Hint: it deals with:

Spoiler

Takeru's personal baggage. In which, fk me, I really love that they were able to pull this type of punch:

Spoiler

lXF6w8t.jpg
OH SHIT, MAH BOI TAKERU UMISHO AIN'T REALLY TAKERU UMISHO ??? SAY IT ISN'T SO!!!

 

Takeru's real name turns out to be:

Spoiler

P6tnW28.jpg

Sora? Wtf you Kingdom Hearts wannabe, GIVE ME BACK MY TAKERU UMISHO!

Otonashi...? Wait, isn't Yukino........ an Otonashi as well? 

Spoiler

a4h7Nr9.jpg

SHE WAS HIS SISTER THAT DIED IN THE CAR CRASH? SHE'S THE YOMIBITO????? HOLYYYYY

 

iOSqiGM.jpg


Yukino disappearing from the CG and title screen afterwards was a nice touch. Made me shed a tear~

E4ygyMb.jpg

There is a sequel planned, World End Phenomenon, in god knows how many more years but I'll definitely keep an eye out for that.

 

 

 





Alright, detour over. Back to Raging Loop

Posted (edited)

Since I finally managed to make World End Syndrome run in the emulator, I'm definitely adding it to my backlog. It's a pity that I cannot buy digital release without owning an actual Switch*, since it's massively discounted in Nintendo e-shop, but well, will have to cough up for the cartridge it seems. Anyway, @Eclipsed, thanks for pointing my attention towards this VN :)

* When browsing without an account, clicking purchase button takes you to the login/registration page. I created an account, but when browsing logged-in, the purchase option is completely unavailable - the button just disappears. So that would mean that buying is possible only when browsing from actual console I guess?

Edited by adamstan
Posted (edited)
4 minutes ago, Stormwolf said:

Itll probably hit pc at some point

That would be nice. Since it's non-eroge console VN, it seems to be perfect for Steam release.

Edited by adamstan
Posted

Wait a minute, I just finished World End Syndrome, which delved into Yomibito lore pretty thoroughly, and now I gotta deal with it AGAIN for Raging Loop? Is Yomibito a common folklore thing(I didn't even know about them before reading WES), or did I just supermassive coinkydinky read two VNs back to back that decided to involve them lol 

1N8Lojr.jpg

Pffft, I'm Takeru Umisho, a certified Yomibito expert, and I can definitely say that Haruaki Fusaishi ain't no Yomibito.

Anyways, protagonist 24 yo. Haruaki Fusaishi gets into a recent breakup, takes a one way motorcycle trip to the middle of nowhere to clear his mind, gets into an accident, and eventually finds himself in a remote, desolate village called Yasumizu where the villagers are extremely cold to "outsiders". There is one friendly face though: Chiemi Serizawa, a 21 year old college student who returned here for vacation. She finds the lost Haruaki and vouches for him.

UUOefNk.jpg
BN5zxyh.png

 

Raging Loop already lives up to its name, as the game takes the time to explicitly tell you, "Hey, you'll run into a lot of necessary bad ends to progress the story, glhf"

vlJoppE.jpg

Without further ado, time to go die~

Posted (edited)
4 hours ago, Eclipsed said:

Wait a minute, I just finished World End Syndrome, which delved into Yomibito lore pretty thoroughly, and now I gotta deal with it AGAIN for Raging Loop? Is Yomibito a common folklore thing(I didn't even know about them before reading WES), or did I just supermassive coinkydinky read two VNs back to back that decided to involve them lol 

Whoa, that's really amazing coincidence 😮 But it happens sometimes.

I feel like Raging Loop is not for me, at least for now. I'm not a fan of that art style (character design) and werewolves - I'm also not into horror in general. Some elements added for spicing things up are fine, but the whole horror VN is too much for me at the moment.

Edited by adamstan
Posted

Yeah, Raging Loops is an Among Us / Mafia style VN. Protagonist ends up in desolate village, with it's own mafia ruleset yadda yadda. Would've been nice to read this before Among Us peaked in popularity, cuz now it actually feels too mainstream to be reading this LOL

Wolves are the imposters, 2 off them, 1 kill per night, 1 vote/hanging during the day on the human side to attempt to weed out the wolves, extra side rules that result in supernatural death if disobeyed (ie. trying to run away, or do more than 1 kill etc). I'm not doing this VN any justice with my super generic bland description- it does, to its credit, get pretty tense and keeps you on your toes until the bitter end on who to believe and whatnot.
mTlj86V.jpg

For the record, I was 1/2 correct by the end of it.



~~
The first loop Haruaki is NOT a participant due to his outsider status, so you get to watch the villagers screw themselves over like morons. 

lD13HgA.jpg

I really wished I'd hadn't played Among Us to death when it peaked in popularity.

~~
I'm on my second loop now, will be interesting what kind of plot twists the writers conjured up to keep things spicy (because obviously after the first loop, you know who the wolves are etc etc)

Posted (edited)

I remember playing "Mafia" with friends during high-school times. I wouldn't call it even board game - it needs almost no resources. I don't know how it's played elsewhere*, but we just used a deck of cards to assign roles to players. Ace was Detective, king of spades and king of clubs were Mafia, and other cards were civilians - and that was the only thing needed to play. I particularly remember one summer vacation of 2001 - we used to go to riverside almost everyday and play (damn... it sounds almost like a VN premise :P )

 

*I just read up the wikipedia description and see that we played quite simple version ;)

 

More on the topic of this thread - recently I finished Yuuka's route in Sakura Strasse. It was quite good.

And yesterday I entered Karin's route (third out of four).

37741.jpg

Surprisingly, it might turn out to be the most interesting route. Also, it made more clear for me what bothered me about protagonist. Although he claims otherwise, especially when confronted with overly childish Karin, he's also very childish.

And the route started with a twist that surprised me a bit, especially in such lighthearted game.

Spoiler

Karin started slowly realizing, that she's in love with Harumi, but he didn't want to accept/acknowledge it no matter what, always treating her like a child. So, as a last resort, she got love potion from Claudia, and made Harumi drink it. Unfortunately, Claudia's idea was mostly that love==sex, so what she actually made was more of a "lust/horniness potion", and after drinking it Harumi attempted to rape Karin... that escalated quickly 😮

 

Edited by adamstan

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...