InvictusCobra

Like many have said, stories and characters. While this will sound like an Internet generation cliché, if I pick up a book and start reading, around 10 to 15 pages in I'll lose interest and never pick it up again. With VNs it's a whole other story. If I'm even mildly engaged with a VN, I'll devote all my free time to reading it until I'm done and have a blast doing it. The voices, sprites, music and CGs mix into something that grabs me by the nuts and doesn't let me go. So really it's a bit of a replacement for literature as well. And a part of it is also due to the many "diverse" fantasies enacted by the characters in order to stimulate certain "cravings", won't deny that.

Whilst I know this will not answer your question, I'll have to agree with Clephas. As someone who cleared the game on Very Hard (don't recommend it), the XP chips don't really compensate because I believe they don't add to quest rewards and most of your XP will come from there. The only time grinding is involved is if you want to reach level 99 and it involves a certain mob. Other than that, if you want a hard game go for full offense with Shockwave, Weapon Damage, Critical and/or Taunt Up. If you want defense and a smoother ride, Melee Damage + Deadly Heal made sure I never died more than 4 times the whole time through on Hard. Or you can mix the two, it's a very "liquid" system.

This reminds me of all the threads I used to make on Fuwa back in the day. For me, death has been a subject of many sleepless nights. Now, for me the fear of death is not really related to the end of living, so to speak. Whenever I think about my death and the death of others, it's always with hindsight in mind. I tend to imagine myself nearing the end, but what frightens me is not death itself, its the fear of looking back and leaving things undone, of reminiscing about incomplete experiences, about what could have been. Will I die alone? Will I leave children? Will I be surrounded by family and friends, bonds forged through a lifetime of events or with no one by my side? Will it be painless or agonizing? Will I have left the world a better place or have done nothing? The fear of being forgotten and having mattered to no one gets to me. The aftermath also intrigues me, but its mere curiosity, whether its sheer darkness, some form of spiritual passing or just being in your body trapped without feeling anything, but conscious. Ultimately, I guess it all comes down to what regrets will I have on my deathbed for me, since people always tell me I have more than the average young adult, with bigger weights put on them.

So after reading Sekien no Inganock and currently reading Shikkoku no Sharnoth, and experiencing Sakurai Hikaru's writing style and abundant use of stylistic devices (she sure loves her repetitions), a question came to mind. How can something be defined as being "artsy", "out of the box" or "original" or being just downright pretentious? I tried to ask some friends and some of my university teachers, using the titles above as examples and the answers were mixed, as I expected. Some consider all the repetitions and other elements pseudo-intellectual, pretentious silliness and others merely consider it an interesting element. In the beginning of Inganock, I thought Hikaru was full of herself and that it was a bother having to read the same thing in each chapter, but after a particular set piece, I started enjoying them and that style got me more invested. So without further rambling, artsy or pretentious, where is the line drawn?

My deepest condolences. I've lost my father as well (it will be 7 years since he died on the 15th) and I was just 14 at the time. Prostate cancer withered him for two and a half long years. I was 14, he went to the hospital for a routine check and never came out again and I couldn't even see him during his final 5 days. We were close, but not much. I never really shared personal moments with my family and so I felt...nothing when my sister woke me up to tell me the following day. I had no reaction. The house just felt emptier and when I went to the mourning and the funeral, everyone was crying their eyeballs out but me. I just stood there staring at people. My family thought something was wrong but to me, it was nothing (if anything, it sort of felt liberating because now all his games and gadgets were mine and I could buy all the M rated games I wanted). This continued until I was 18 and had just entered university. As these were the worst times in my life, I sought counsel from him and he was not there. I tried to write some letters on my computer addressed to him and then I just broke down. Turns out I actually missed my father a lot and suddenly I had a gaping hole inside me. It hurt for a few weeks, but then it stopped hurting and I carried on. 3 years later, I still miss him and wonder who he was, what would it be like growing up with him there and having some actual father-son moments and deep conversations (for my whole life, I only ever talked about video games with him). This is getting rather elongated so I'll be brief and I fear a bit cliche. If it hurts, cry and gather strength from your family, face it together. He won't come back and all you can really do is cherish the moments you had, the minutes you spent together and carry those memories with you. Grieving is natural, and the wounds may open even years after. My mother and sister still cry sometimes because he's not here anymore and that's just a natural part of the process. Nobody should judge anybody because of it, because grief is very personal and just a part of life. I wish you and your family all the best and great strength for the coming weeks, months and years. You may falter, but that's just part of it and there is no shame to it. May your father rest in peace.

I do not understand how you people can spend so much time reading these sad excuses for choose your adventure censored pornography instead of actually improving yourselves through relevant classics, and going out to form meaningful relationships with people who are real and not just the figment of some failure of a human being, who has the audacity to call himself a "writer".

Well, depending on what you mean by "dark", things may vary. From what I'd consider dark, you could check out any of these three: Kikokugai , Hanachirasu and Saya no Uta (each of these probably take around 8-10 hours of reading). Something that's dark in a more wider sense (dark due to being sad, tragic and not containing that many positive moments) you have The House in Fata Morgana, which is basically a set of greek tragedies one after the other and its also a longer VN (around 35 hours of reading). It doesn't feature gore in visual terms for the most part, but in some of the stories it can have some pretty gruesome scenes.

Well, in terms of release order you have Tsukihime, the Tsukihime PLUS fandisc, Kagetsu Tooya (haven't read that one, but I think it's an ensemble of different scenarios, with some being side stories and others forming somewhat of a sequel to Tsukihime), Melty Blood (a fighting game with a story mode in VN format) although the newer iterations have relinquished the VN format for a simple "arcade mode" more typical to fighting games, then F/SN, then Fate/Hollow Ataraxia (haven't read that one yet, but I'm told it's a sort of mix between alternate universe and sequel to Fate/Stay Night). Then comes Mahoustukai no Yoru, the origin tale of Aoko Aozaki (Shiki's "Sensei" from Tsukihime; haven't read it and it is not fully translated as far as I know). Other than that, you have the two Fate/Extra games (they're spinoffs that can be classified as a "Persona clone with Fate clothing"), but the second one isn't translated and they're PSP games. Then there's Fate/Zero, Kara no Kyoukai, Fate/Apocrypha and all those non Visual Novel series (besides Zero, I've only seen Carnival Phantasm so I can't really comment on those). For more detailed info, there's always the VNDB page

Because it technically is, when compared to most Type-Moon works. Keep in mind that it was the group's first official release (don't quote me on that, as I'm not actually sure) and they did want to make an extra route and round out the game with 6 routes (a Yumizuka Satsuki route, to be precise), however they had to scrap it due to them needing to have Tsukihime finished by the next Comiket. Given that it was their debut, I assume they did not have that many resources at their disposal and as such, the game is much shorter than F/SN. It features only a few unique CGs per route, has 10 music tracks total and no voices. Try not to look at it as a product like F/SN, but as a product made by an "indie amateur" team

I recently read Tsukihime and I'd say most routes span around 10 days (give or take 1 or 2). As for the duration of each one, of the existing 5, I'd say the average would be 6-7 hours of reading ( though my friends tell me I tend to read a bit faster than them). Nevertheless, they are not very long and if you spend most of the day reading them, I'd say you could wrap up the VN in about 2 days (with university assignments to make and classes to attend, it took me about 5 days).

So I just finished this and the fact most plot points were left unresolved is making me boil. Did the plot's resolution just go way over my head like most symbolism and intertextuality do or is this ending a bad conclusion? I will most likely read the web novels in the near future in the hopes of finding some closure, but at the moment I am not hopeful. As such, I would like to know about others' inputs on the ending of this work and whether I'm just a dumb person as regards these matters. Have a good day!

Given that I've recently completed New Vegas and Fallout 1, and am still playing 2, I felt like buying Fallout 3 GOTY, but alas the price felt a bit steep. Then this sale comes along and it's 66% off... serendipitous.

Holy shit, I'm actually in the picture. Yay! Anyway, happy Thanksgiving to all you yanks across the pond.

Confession: Just found out that my college crush (liked her for two years) has a boyfriend. Whilst I feel like shit, I kinda expected it and would be suprised if she didn't have one. At least I asked and was able to end something that was doomed to fail even before it began... Still shit though.

I'm torn between Pillars of Eternity and The Witcher 3.