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Episicava Vol. 1 (Western VN Review)


Plk_Lesiak

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Chuunige is one of the visual novel genres that are barely present in OELVN scene, at least to any “serious” capacity – among the more popular and high-quality releases there’s very few that would even loosely fit the “fighting VN” formula, or especially effectively replicate the unique feel of this particular current in Japanese fiction. Recently, however, a fledgeling studio under the name of Epic Works decided to remedy this sorry state of affairs by creating a content-rich, Fate-inspired EVN called Episicava. The first volume, of what was apparently planned to become a longer series, was released on Steam in April 2018, in a slightly disastrous state – full of graphical bugs and various technical issues, the game made a rather poor first impression. However, since those problems were mostly fixed with patches in the months after launch, it’s a good moment to look at Episicava and ask the most important question – did it manage, in its improved state, to capture some of the magic of Fate/Stay Night or Dies Irae in a downscaled, low-budget form of an EVN?

Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

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Great review!

I used to read some chuuni shit (chuuniga? it was mostly manga and not games) years ago, but yeah the edgelord asshole of a MC that somehow still is the only man on Earth  that the heroines care about, just for them to go completely submissive and OOC in romantic/ecchi scenes regardless of how head strong they were before, was way too common and became annoying way too fast for me to even bother with this type of story anymore.

Okay, maybe I just had a poor finger to choose reading material, I admit it, but guess this VN will not be the one to make me go back to it. :P 

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1 hour ago, MaggieROBOT said:

Great review!

I used to read some chuuni shit (chuuniga? it was mostly manga and not games) years ago, but yeah the edgelord asshole of a MC that somehow still is the only man on Earth  that the heroines care about, just for them to go completely submissive and OOC in romantic/ecchi scenes regardless of how head strong they were before, was way too common and became annoying way too fast for me to even bother with this type of story anymore.

Okay, maybe I just had a poor finger to choose reading material, I admit it, but guess this VN will not be the one to make me go back to it. :P 

Thanks. ^^

What's funny, the studio behind it directly cite F/SN and similar games as their inspirations, so it really feels like a "let's take all the worst elements from this genre and compile them all in one product" kind of deal. But hey, they also made Analistica Academy, so I'm sure we'll see great things from them yet. :wahaha:

Edited by Plk_Lesiak
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While Episicava claims to be inspired by classic chuunige, I think it would be much more accurate to think of it as a VN adaptation of some particularly trashy and bloody shounen anime.

Well, it does sound like a very generic chuunige from the way you describe it. Even classics like Dies Irae has most of the same problems and overused tropes (and it's one of the reasons why I became kind of bored with it after just finishing one route). The reason why they are considered good VNs, on the other hand, is that they have some other very good points that make the whole overall experience worth it. This VN... probably doesn't have something like that, from what I understand. :yumiko:

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1 hour ago, Dreamysyu said:

Well, it does sound like a very generic chuunige from the way you describe it. Even classics like Dies Irae has most of the same problems and overused tropes (and it's one of the reasons why I became kind of bored with it after just finishing one route). The reason why they are considered good VNs, on the other hand, is that they have some other very good points that make the whole overall experience worth it. This VN... probably doesn't have something like that, from what I understand. :yumiko:

I would say so. :D Well, I thought about that and the truth is I know very little about this kind of third-rate JP chuunige. I know the really good ones are able to mix the cliches into something satisfying and craft an engaging story out of them. The "angry shounen" line was mainly to signify the lack of depth - a VN of this size would usually have some of it even if it's mostly about the corny action sequences, here... It's just a lot of shouting and purely-literary gore. Kind of missing the point I guess...?

Edited by Plk_Lesiak
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