Kaguya Posted January 21, 2015 Posted January 21, 2015 As everyone knows, I play a lot of VNs. Clephas has his threads to talk about untranslated works, and they're pretty neat. It's nice to get reviews on releases or just random VNs he plays. I'm probably the person here with the most knowledge of translated VNs, so I thought "why not give this corner thingy a try". So, here I am. Whenever I read, re-read or feel like writing about a random VN, I'll post those here. Hopefully the thread will be of some use to get everyone to play some more VNs~ I'll basically introduce some VNs and give my thoughts on them. The introduction part may be a bit boring for the people who know the VN already... But what I'm aiming at here is having people who don't know those VNs play them. If you already know the VN I'm talking about, you're not my target audience. If you can still have fun with the post, that's great, though <3 It'd be kind of weird to post the thread without any mini-review, though... Well, recently enough, I've been replaying Daibanchou. Daibanchou is a game mostly reliant on it's strategy RPG gameplay. Simply put, the story isn't good enough to keep you playing it by itself. A mostly generic story and underdeveloped characters make the story not enough to keep you going solely because of it. I would say that differently from some VNs where gameplay is something that complements the story, gameplay is the main focus of the game here. That and H-scenes. There are a lot of them. Now, Daibanchou is an alicesoft game. That's self-explanatory for many people, but alicesoft has their own, eh, style when it comes to telling a story... And that style is generally convenient wacky bullshit with ok comedy that eventually leads to serious story segments (that will generally revert to the usual wacky bullshit shortly afterwards). Still, their wacky bullshit is fun. It's not exhaustive to read, and the fights you'll be conducting should be enough incentive on their own to make you pass through those fun moments. In daibanchou's case, you have a badass protagonist with his badass crew fighting their way to conquer Japan and destroy the system to make something new. Meanwhile, our protagonist is recovering special, superpowerful buttons that came from who-knows-where that just turn out to be in the hands of large faction leaders to make his kuu-kinda-tsundere super fast wolf fiance go back to her human form. Getting those buttons will force you to fight your way through tanks, vampires, ninjas and pirates (or religious freaks, depending on which route you pick) and be a badass all through it. Also, don't mind the fact you do have a fiance. You're free to have sex with anyone. She doesn't seem to care about it. The other girls don't either. You have amnesiac katana-wielding submissive proper japanese girl with super regeneration, try-hard megane class rep who can capture enemies easier, loli doll magical-girl who hits from far away and gives tea to everyone, blonde ojou-sama political-ish leader who inspects countries and has lots of guts and ninja-girl whose route I never bothered to finish (what, reality is tough. I can't know about everyone ) I have this feeling there's another heroine. All of them have separate routes. And there are sex scenes with plenty of characters who aren't those too, just in case you're wondering. I also feel like I should warn everyone that mandatory rape will happen in this game (though not by the protagonist, differently from Rance). You're free to follow through all routes whenever you want, except for one of them. Your decision on which place to conquer in the second chapter will permanently seal one heroine route of two. The routes are easy to follow through once the girl appears in your harem (just have sex with her when you get the chance to. It's not hard) but getting the girl to appear in your harem can be troublesome. Oh, by the way, everyone got their superpowers when a hole to hell (or something like it, anyway) opened up in the middle of Japan a few years before everything started. Except only students got superpowers. Because reasons. What I told you so far is the basic plot of the game. There's a lot more hidden behind it. The hidden parts of the story are interesting... But all in all, you'll be playing to get the not-so-post-apocalyptic battle royale experience where your small group of badasses fights against small armies and other groups of badasses. All of them with superpowers or some other similar gimmick. The characters are fun, and even if you dislike them, you just don't have to trigger their events. You can even just fire a character you don't like if you don't want them to be in your army. The game gives you a lot of freedom in that aspect. The soundtrack is pretty neat, and I personally like the style (though I know it's not for everybody). All in all, if you like this type of thing, maybe you'll want to try out the game. I rated it a 9 because I enjoyed it a lot, though it's probably more of a 7 or 6. Darklord Rooke, Gibberish, Zalor and 5 others 8 Quote
Zalor Posted January 21, 2015 Posted January 21, 2015 I thought once you go untranslated you never come back to the translated scene. ;P This should be able to involve a larger part of the community. I hope you enjoy the stuff you reread~ Quote
Tay Posted January 21, 2015 Posted January 21, 2015 Sounds so awesome. Can't wait. And your description of AS games made me laugh. Well said. I'm not often in the mood for their work, but now and again their brand of comedy can be endearing. Quote
Lambda Posted January 21, 2015 Posted January 21, 2015 Looking forward to more of your reviews! It'll make me be able to tell if that shiny game I'm eyeing is mediocre or actually good, so... The story sounds insane in a good way, I think, maybe... ...Is the gameplay fun? Because it is gameplay-focused, right? Quote
fun2novel Posted January 21, 2015 Posted January 21, 2015 Great idea Kaguay, can't wait for more. Quote
Kaguya Posted January 21, 2015 Author Posted January 21, 2015 Looking forward to more of your reviews! It'll make me be able to tell if that shiny game I'm eyeing is mediocre or actually good, so... The story sounds insane in a good way, I think, maybe... ...Is the gameplay fun? Because it is gameplay-focused, right? Somewhat. Someone could disagree with me on the focus of Daibanchou and I'd be ok with it. The story is focused in such a weird way. Yes, the gameplay is pretty fun. I actually had a conversation with Clephas about this and he didn't like it too much, though. Quote
fun2novel Posted January 21, 2015 Posted January 21, 2015 The gameplay looks hard to understand. Quote
Kosakyun Posted January 21, 2015 Posted January 21, 2015 Nice review. I think it accurately describes what Alicesoft games are in spirit. Well, at least those that I've read. I haven't finished everything due to it requiring a lot of playthroughs to complete things. Getting the events are sometimes a pain in the ass too. But as you've said, the characters are really fun, which compensates for the bad points of the game. Also, h-scenes. It's great. The review is. Also... Sae best girl. Quote
Darklord Rooke Posted January 21, 2015 Posted January 21, 2015 Somewhat. Someone could disagree with me on the focus of Daibanchou and I'd be ok with it. The story is focused in such a weird way. You won't find any disagreement from me. Turn-based strategy games are relatively rare, so it's really heartening to find these sorts of games in places you'd never expect. And the gameplay in their games are SOLID. So much so that Sengoku Rance is the only Japanese game named in the top 30 of RPGCodex's top strategy games of all time [1] (RPGCodex being a forum which values tight gameplay above anything else.) [1] - http://www.tacticularcancer.com/content.php?id=70 Quote
FinalChaos Posted February 2, 2015 Posted February 2, 2015 Finally something for us people who only live in the translated side of things. Quote
Kaguya Posted March 16, 2015 Author Posted March 16, 2015 Will be writing up on Majikoi this week. I already played through the game before, but I might as well do it again. Quote
Darklord Rooke Posted March 16, 2015 Posted March 16, 2015 Will be interested to hear your thoughts. I haven't played it yet, and I haven't decided whether I will either. Quote
Kaguya Posted March 16, 2015 Author Posted March 16, 2015 Will be interested to hear your thoughts. I haven't played it yet, and I haven't decided whether I will either. Eclipsed and Darklord Rooke 2 Quote
Darklord Rooke Posted March 16, 2015 Posted March 16, 2015 Thanks! This was pretty useful! It explains why it’s insanely popular, and also explains why I probably won’t like it (not really a fan of action-shounen anymore, or teenage angst, or ridiculously over-powered characters etc etc.) The impressions I've been getting were indicating it probably wasn't my type of game Quote
Nosebleed Posted March 16, 2015 Posted March 16, 2015 Well i'm glad to know all my suspicions on Majikoi weren't unfounded. From what you said i get the idea it's like the Naruto of VNs It sounds cliche as hell, but i'm not really one to hate on this type of genre if i like the characters. I read enough teenage angst manga to be used to this. I guess i'll check it out by myself. Quote
Kaguya Posted March 16, 2015 Author Posted March 16, 2015 Well i'm glad to know all my suspicions on Majikoi weren't unfounded. From what you said i get the idea it's like the Naruto of VNs It sounds cliche as hell, but i'm not really one to hate on this type of genre if i like the characters. I read enough teenage angst manga to be used to this. I guess i'll check it out by myself. I had fun while reading it, even if the critic may seem severe. Just don't go expecting a masterpiece. The action tends to be genuinely good when Mary Sue-san isn't involved (it gets ridiculous to Koro-sensei levels when she is), and the comedy was also good-ish. The game would just be better if it were drama-less. Quote
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