Jump to content
  • entries
    767
  • comments
    1836
  • views
    482688

About this blog

This is a blog primarily focusing on but not limited to VNs.  It is primarily designed to express my opinion on otaku media (jrpgs, anime, manga, LNs, VNs, etc), individual VNs, and otaku community issues.   Most of the posts are related to my VN of the Month and Random VN columns, originally started in threads in the forums. 

As of March of 2017, I'm also looking for people to help with VN of the Month.

Entries in this blog

Random VN: Prism Recollection

Prism Recollection is a more recent release by Clochette, with a less fantastical setting than Kamikaze Explorer's or Suzunone Seven's.  Prism Recollection's setting is in a future Japanese town that is being redeveloped by corporations using it to test cutting-edge technologies and techniques for comprehensive economic redevelopment (as opposed to the piecemeal redevelopment that is normal in most cities).   From the fact that most stores require people to use digital money to the AR holograms
Clephas

Clephas

0

VNs of the Month, November and December 2017

November 2017 I delayed this one so I could get fun2novel's input on Yurameku Kokoro ni Michita Sekai de, Kimi no Yume to Yokubou wa Kanau ka (As he put it, this game is boring as hell and spends way too much time implying things without actually doing anything).  While November had some surprisingly great leases (Kizuna Kirameku being primary amongst those), Aoi Tori was the only conceivable winner for the VN of the Month, November 2017. December 2017 You might think me a bit pr
Clephas

Clephas

0

Crazy Charage Settings

Now, I love nothing more than an interesting setting, and I'm tired of normal charage in general... so one of the biggest points that can be used to draw me into a charage is a crazy setting.  Crazy charage settings are settings that have no possibility whatsoever of happening in real life or are so far outside of common sense that they are inconceivable as a real possibility to most people.  This includes fantasy settings and sci-fi settings, but more often it includes a simple concept tak
Clephas

Clephas

0

Random VN: Love Revenge (REVISED)

Now, I know what you are wondering... 'Why did Clephas pick a charage for a random VN this time around?"  The answer is not as straightforward as usual.... This game is about as close to being the 'perfect' charage as I've ever encountered.  That's not to say it is exceptional in every way.  There are better written and better presented charage out there.  However, I've yet to encounter a charage that utilizes every single element included to the greatest degree possible like this one does.
Clephas

Clephas

0

My next Random VN

Hopefully, this poll will work out better than Minikui Mojika did (sadly, my opinion on it has only gotten worse in hindsight), but I thought I'd give you all a chance to pick out which Random VN I will play after my current one. First, the VN I'm currently playing... Honoguraki Toki no Hate yori.  I just started this one, and I probably won't finish it until I've played whatever I choose to from August's releases (there aren't enough releases for a poll this time around, lol).  My interest
Clephas

Clephas

0

Shougun-sama wa Otoshigoro

This is the newest game by Alcot, based three hundred years before Onigokko (yes, it is a prequel, sort of) during the time of the infamous Tokugawa Yoshimune (who is the central character of the jidaigeki Abarenbou Shogun), the first Shogun to take the title based on the 'gosanke' system set up by Ieyasu to prevent the end of the shogunate due to the end of his direct descendants.  The protagonist of the story is a young man who has been dragged into the body of a person of the same name in the
Clephas

Clephas

0

Sora no Baroque

For various reasons, this is one of the rare occasions when I didn't aggressively look forward to a Light game. The first reason is that the setting/story descriptions in the Getchu and homepages were vague and of no real use.  The second was that a crossover was announced between this and Nemurenu (the recent Clock-up title with Kurashiki as the writer) recently.  The artist for this game (at least the character design, anyway) is Ueda Metawo, the artist from Gore Screaming Show, Mind
Clephas

Clephas

0

Clarification: VN commentaries

I've been asked what my standards are for VNs in general and how I apply them to my commentaries on VNs I've played in this blog. I've explained my standards before, as needed, but there is something that came out in that conversation that I think needs to be addressed. First, my favorite genre of VNs is and probably always will be chuunige.  This is because I like violence, I like internal monologues, I like hedge philosophy, and I love all that crap that makes former chuunibyou patients r
Clephas

Clephas

0

VN of the Month January 2018

Well, this ended up being a contest between two charage... Shogun-sama wa Otoshigoro and Yorite Konoha  wa Kurenai ni.  While I did not play Futamawari, so some will object to me naming a VN of the Month now, I will again repeat that I don't have any interest in that kind of lolicon story. To be honest, it really isn't that much of a contest... Shogun-sama's flaws pretty much ensure it falls behind Yorite Konoha wa Kurenai ni as VN of the Month January 2018.  The flaws are relatively m
Clephas

Clephas

0

Chuuni Hime no Teikoku

Now, this is one of those games where the Getchu description and the one on the site don't represent the reality.  First, this game is a straight-out comedy.  The protagonist is a 'classic baka', a character who is easily distracted, daydreams about convenient scenarios with cute females, and generally makes trouble without meaning to.  Because of his perspective, the game is pretty high pace (and not really in a good way). The heroines include: Chuuni Hime- A real princess from a
Clephas

Clephas

0

Hataraku Otona no Ren'ai Jijou 2

First, I should mention that my original review of the first Hataraku Otona didn’t really do it justice. Oh, I mentioned what I liked about it, but I was busy as hell that month, so it was what amounts to a short commentary. As such, I’m going to go into more detail this time around. Hataraku Otona 2 is the second game in the series (if you exclude the spin-off Hataraku Otaku no Ren’ai Jijou). The characters from the original game return as side characters, several years older, and it isn’t
Clephas

Clephas

0

Lost Echoes

Lost Echoes is the first VN by the new company Petitlinge and is written by one of the writers of Hatsugamai (https://vndb.org/v18790)  .  In this VN the protagonist, Yuuki Riku, is asked by the low-ranking kami, Ryuusen Umi (her name as a kami has been forgotten by both her and the descendants of her worshipers), to go to the past to save the soul of his childhood friend by preventing her previous life (Tachibana Ginchiyo, a rare female warrior leader in the Sengoku era who was the daughter of
Clephas

Clephas

0

Unjou no Fairy Tale [EDITED]

Unjou no Fairy Tale is the second game by Cosmic Cute in the series/setting that began with Sora no Tsukurikata.  It is based around eighteen to twenty years after the original game in the city of Kaguya, a lawless city with many different races floating in the sky far above.  It is ruled by the invincible Mayor (with thirty-seven terms under her belt) Azumaza, frequently troubled the antics of the great (and in the eyes of ground dwellers, insane) alchemist Nemo, and plagued with more criminal
Clephas

Clephas

0

RPG commentary: Growlanser 3

Before I go back to my work, which is going to take the rest of the day to finish, I thought I'd leave yall with a commentary on one of my favorite jrpgs, Growlanser 3. Growlanser 3, released in the US as part of a collection with Growlanser 2, was the final localization done by Working Designs, the company that pioneered independent localization of jrpgs in the US (up until then, most had been localized by Japanese companies or the console first-party company).  It is the prequel to 1 and
Clephas

Clephas

0

Random VN: Yurikago yori Tenshi Made [Edited]

Yurikago is one of my favorite VNs.  That isn't because it so 'awesome' or a kamige.  Story-wise, it is actually a bit below the average for Akatsuki Works.  No, the reason I like this game so much is the characters and their interactions. Kiritooshi Hiro, the protagonist (his surname means 'to cut all the way through' lol) is a young high school student who lives every day trapped in a web of his own apathy.  Tormented by his 'Knight Frame' (a magitech-type device that replaces his entire
Clephas

Clephas

0

AI Love: Koisuru Otome wa Kikai-jikake

I didn't go into this VN expecting much.  Judging by the cover (considering I am a bibliophile, you would think I would know better, lol) and the Getchu page, I thought it was going to be a half-nukige along the same lines as the Ren'ai Jijou series (since Otaku was written by the same guy).  However, I was surprised at what I got... the first addition to my 'Chicken Soup for the Soul' list since Natsuiro Recipe in mid-2015. As a reference point, I almost never add VNs to the Chicken Soup f
Clephas

Clephas

0

Neko-nin exHeart 2

This VN is the second game in Whirlpool's short, low-price mimikko fetish game series... and I have to say my impression of it hasn't changed from the first one.  This is a direct continuation of events from the end of the first game, and basically it increases the number of mimikko-ninja in Haruki's harem... and nothing else. Oh, it is moderately funny, the h-scenes titillate my mimikko fetish, and you get hints of a deeper setting once again... but its short length means that the game nev
Clephas

Clephas

0

Random VN: Tojita Sekai no Tori Colony

This VN is an odd duck on my long list of recommended VNs.  While its existence as a time loop story is a trope, the way the game's story handles it is pretty interesting.  I went ahead and revealed this as a loop story because you find it out so early on that hiding it as a spoiler is meaningless.  The game's story begins with the protagonist meeting (and helping out) Nodoka, one of the four heroines, and her confessing her love to him on the next day when she transfers into the class.  Wh
Clephas

Clephas

0

April Release: Tenpure!! (EDITED)

First, I'll say that this game is pretty much based on the concept of using the concept of templates and archetypes in the story.  The protagonist bumps into a girl with toast in her mouth, gets woken up by an osananajimi, catches a maid falling from the sky, is frequently scolded by a fake-prude iinchou, and he even has an ojousama fall in love with him at first sight. Now, the attempt to turn all the classic template happenings of a moege/charage into a joke sort of falls flat in this gam
Clephas

Clephas

0

VN of the Month Updates

For March's VN of the Month fun2novel has finished etatoto and will be sending me his review at some point in the near future.  Dergonu is currently playing Akumade, Kore wa ~ no Monogatari, though the current date he will be finishing it is unknown.  When I have their reviews for these two VNs, I will announce the VN of the Month for March. For April's releases I've currently completed three VNs from this month.  Koneko, Maou to Yuusha, and Tenpure.  Only Maou to Yuusha, of the
Clephas

Clephas

0

April Release: 9 -Nine- Sorairo Sorauta Soranooto

This is the second game in the 9 -nine- series, a half-chuunige series that began last year.  For my comments on the first game, look below.   I'm going to be blunt... all my complaints about the previous game in the series still apply here.  While a little more information is revealed in the second game than the first, and two of the characters (Haruka and Sora) come to life a great deal more than in the first game, it has to be said that the sense that I should have waited for all t
Clephas

Clephas

0

April Release: Nyan to Suteki na Natsuiro Days

Yay!  Two catgirl harems in one month!!!  lol Anyway, this is the newest game by Moonstone's crappy subsidiary, Moonstone Honey.  It is a straight-out catgirl harem moege from beginning to end... which isn't necessarily a bad thing.  The game is set on an island that has been completely built up with leisure facilities of various types (amusement park, pool, beach, a mall, etc), and the protagonist is a young man in his early twenties who is given a chance to take charge of resurrecting the
Clephas

Clephas

0

Yakusoku no Natsu, Mahoroba no Yume

I'll say this first off... this game actually needed locked paths or a true ending.  Like most Windmill games, the character interactions are pretty heavily reliant on easygoing manzai humor and running character personality and behavior jokes (in fact, most VN humor is based on that).   This game has a cast of four writers (one amateur, one h-scene specialist, and two established names), including Imashina Rio (Gin'iro Haruka and Hoshi Ori Yume Mirai) and Kagami Yuu (ef, Eden*, and Mirai Nostal
Clephas

Clephas

0

November 2018 Releases

While I won't be playing everything anymore, I thought I'd list here the non-nukige up for release and my impressions based on the Getchu and official pages. Definitely will play Fuukan no Grasesta: https://vndb.org/v23199 This is the latest Eushully game... and it also shares a writer with the last few entries, which were a somewhat mediocre set of games.  As such, my hopes aren't high... but I can't resist playing it.  I mean, the protagonist is a sociopathic mercenary in a city
Clephas

Clephas

0

Third Book Post: LE Modesitt, Jr

I'm doing a spotlight on this author for a number of reasons... one is that I'm currently going back through his works on my new Kindle (lol), but another is that I have never really understood until recently just how profound an effect his works have had on my thinking until I had the opportunity go back and marathon some of his series. Modesitt has been writing since 1982 (the year I was born, incidentally) and has a massive number of works to look at (seventy novels across a number of se
Clephas

Clephas

0
×
×
  • Create New...