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Please consider taking this survey (Link) and let me know what you want to see fixed/improved upon across the various Fuwanovel sites. Your feedback will determine my work priorities this Summer/Fall. (Forum Post)
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Loren the Amazon Princess (VN hybrid game review)
lunaterra commented on Plk_Lesiak's blog entry in EVN Chronicles
Not exactly; the "patch" (it's actually just deleting a file from the game install) just makes certain characters' clothing more revealing and adds largely non-explicit nudity during the final love scene. Most of it is roughly equivalent to the content of the first Dragon Age game (which Loren the Amazon Princess clearly takes after in a lot of ways). You'll get to see Chambara's breasts, but that's it. This was when Steam was a lot less lenient about the types of sexual content it would allow on its platform. -
Visual novels on sale Even if you prefer to have your games on Steam, it's well-worth checking this sale if you like indie VNs. Many itch.io games come with Steam keys (all of Fruitbat Factory's games do, for instance); a game's page will say if it comes with a key. Combined with the fact that, by default, developers get a larger cut of the profits compared to Steam (default 90% vs 70%), you get a DRM-free copy of the game, and some games aren't available on Steam at all, and I'd say that it's better to buy from itch.io when it's an option. (And if you go with the DRM-free copy, itch.io has an app that allows for automatic updates.) /shill I just wish it had a proper wishlist function...
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Winter Wolves is one of the oldest continuously active OELVN studios, which since the mid-2000s became fairly well-known for their straight-up VNs and dating sims, such as Roommates, as well as for fairly unique RPG-VN hybrids. Among the latter, probably the best known is Loren the Amazon Princess. Published in 2012, it kickstarted a whole series of games set in the fantasy world of Aravorn (including even a BL title Heirs and Graces) and gathered mostly positive reactions from the Western VN community. It’s also, to this day, the studio’s best-selling title on Steam, with around 80k owners on the platform. Loren… also features a very rarely seen main premise – the player does not take the role of the titular heroine, but of a slave servant, whose role is to assist the Amazon princess in her quest to find her missing mother (and, of course, eventually save the world from a great and unexpected threat). This, along with the very explicit focus on romance, creates a pretty unique mixture, somewhat detached from both the typical RPG power fantasy and even most common fantasy VN tropes. Does it have any merits apart from being slightly different though? The main cast might be impressing with its scale and variety, but leaves some characters underdeveloped and redundant within the RPG portion of the game One of the first things that Loren… does unusually well is the protagonist gender choice – the game lets you play either as a male or a female character but doesn’t make it merely a cosmetic difference. Both the female (Elenor) and male (Saren) protagonist are actual characters, with their own backstories, personalities and different racial backgrounds (Saren is a human, while Elenor is an elf). This has a significant impact on how they’re perceived by various factions and characters, along with romance options available to them (even if there’s an abundance of bisexual love interests that might be interested in both of them). This, while very limiting in case of customisation (also for story reasons, you can only choose between warrior and thief classes), not only makes the game more immersive, but also rewards multiple playthroughs with unique interactions and story developments. The story itself, while it might rely on typical fantasy clichés quite a lot, is rather epic in scale and delivers impressive amounts of VN content, with fairly simple and quick turn-based RPG battles added on top of that. While at the beginning you’re controlling a party of two, consisting just of Loren and the protagonist, you quickly meet new characters and at the end of the second act can gather 12 companions, 9 of them (!) available as romance options. All those characters have their unique stories, which you both learn throughout the main plot and through talking to them in camp, between missions. With this party, you will go through 4 chapters of the game, with constantly rising stakes and abundance of dialogue to read through, while the RPG elements are kept strongly connected with the plot and mostly devoid of unreasonable grind. Also, after finishing the game once, you unlock the option to skip the combat, so you can focus on exploring other paths and choices within the story. The clunky feel of the UI and the RPG game mechanics is the game’s biggest flaw, but thankfully they’re not broken or grindy enough to disqualify it completely One of the game’s biggest focuses and selling point is romance and while it’s easy to see that the dev team took this aspect very seriously, the quantity pretty much won over the quality. It’s not that the character’s available as love interests are unappealing or completely lack depth, but the huge number of them simply made it impossible for Winter Wolves to give all major enough roles in the story and the right amount of meaningful interactions. This means that apart from the characters that are absolutely crucial to the main plot, like Loren herself and her mother Karen, the Queen of Amazons, the romance feels slightly tacked-on and underdeveloped. On the other hand, the variety of options is thorough enough that pretty much everyone should find something (or a few things) to their liking, with heterosexual, bisexual and homosexual characters of both genders, different races and allegiances to choose from. Also, the writing, while not perfect, is usually good enough to communicate clearly the unique traits of every member of the cast and make the rare, intimate moments between them and the protagonist appealing. Sounds pretty good so far? Sadly, the rest of the game deserves much less praise and that goes especially to the UI and the RPG battle segments. While the minimalistic battle system, with the very basic graphical interface, is something that mostly needs some adjusting on the part of the player (especially if you’re used to more advanced RPGs), there are some hardly justifiable problems with the core mechanics and implementation of gameplay. Horribly unbalanced classes, with mages having overwhelming firepower and thieves barely having a viable role on the battlefield are combined with very limited skill customization, redundant specializations between some characters and a weak sense of progression. Lack of interesting loot, unbalanced items available in stores and weird omissions in obtainable gear (such as lack of cloth belts in the game – mages have no items available to put in that slot whatsoever!) are somewhat hard to understand, especially when devs had multiple occasions to fix these problems, either through patches or with the Castle of N’Mar DLC. The general structure of game’s UI is similarly problematic, with malfunctioning autoplay, unintuitive implementation of some crucial functions (like the mouse wheel having the ability to rewind not just dialogue, but many other actions in the game, often leading to random cancellations of shop transaction or gear changes. If the role of combat in the game was more prominent, this could as well be a disqualifying issue – while it's not completely devoid of fun, it always falls short of that really satisfying status that could carry a less story-focused title. The slightly unusual artstyle might not be to everyone’s liking, but the low resolution of the art assets is the real problem, taking much appeal from the game’s visuals when played on a modern, full-HD screen Something that is also hard not to complain about is the visual quality of the game. It has a pretty distinct, partially non-anime artstyle and while I wouldn’t consider it especially pretty, it seems to appeal to many people and is definitely not bad enough to be counted as an objective flaw. The low resolution of most art assets is however quite painfully apparent on a modern HD screen. The sprites and backgrounds, and especially the UI elements and graphics used during combat simply do not look appropriate for a game released in the current decade. This is not completely unseen in indie titles like this, but might be heavily off-putting for those that expect high aesthetic values from their VNs. I should also mention that CGs, of similar quality as all other art in the game, are very few and far between, mostly showing at the conclusion of the romance routes. There's apparently some 18+ possible to unlock through a patch, but I was at no point tempted to look for it. The music consists of typical ambient tunes and while I didn’t have any issues with its tone of quality, it was also rather prone to bugging out, especially when rolling back dialogue. In the end, for me Loren the Amazon Princess was quite an interesting and satisfying game. It is, however, one that will only appeal to more patient and RPG-tolerant readers. Apart from the intriguing dynamic of the protagonist being a slave, earning his place as the worthy companion for the actual heroine of the story, and the fun romance subplots, it offers a very standard fantasy world and a rather predictable intrigue. It also, at least partially, falls flat as an RPG game, without the depth and polish necessary to become a really enjoyable experience in this aspect. If you think you might enjoy its story and romance elements, I still recommend it though – especially if you’re able to grab it on sale, as it still sits at a fairly high price of $20. Final Score: 3/5 Pros: + Interesting premise (the protagonist is not the main hero) + Huge, varied cast of characters + Impressive number and variety of romance options Cons: - Disappointing quality of art assets - Poorly designed UI - Unbalanced classes and poor customisation in the RPG portion of the game VNDB page Buy Loren the Amazon Princess on Steam
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Why are so many Vampire protagonists self-hating?
Clephas commented on Clephas's blog entry in Clephas' VN home
The protagonist hates being a vampire for all of the common route (though he enjoys some of the perks, like getting to indulge in his sexual fantasies) and he resents having to drink blood through a lot of the heroine routes. -
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Frontwing announced that they are making a new VN named Loca Love
bakauchuujin replied to bakauchuujin's topic in Visual Novel Talk
Seems like all of the girls are in love with the same person based on the character profile on their page. So I guess either the three loves are seperate routes or that it has a harem ending. Based on the character information my best guess is that this is just a normal dating sim where you play as the male and can choose one of the three girls. -
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Why are so many Vampire protagonists self-hating?
sanahtlig commented on Clephas's blog entry in Clephas' VN home
It depends on the lore of each specific setting. In some lore, a vampire is essentially doomed to be a serial killer--their prey is destined to die or be bound to them either as servant vampires or as mindless ghouls. If you're the type of vampire that cannot blend into human society at all (e.g., due to physical deformities), and there is no vampire society to speak of, then the isolation problem becomes acute. In some lore, the infection might be progressive, eventually causing one to lose one's self entirely. These are all valid reasons to regard the condition as a curse to be cured at all costs. -
Deciding TexasDice's fate: LoliTrain edition
Dergonu replied to Dergonu's topic in The Coliseum of Chatter
Heh, alright, I'll set one up over the weekend. Ah, I'm looking forward to this -
Hmm... I'll stick my money with GOG.COM, not gonna spend anything on Steam anytime soon.
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Time is cruel sometimes, nothing last forever in this earth. Change will always take place for better or worse... Well I'm a kind of guy who discovered Visual Novels by playing OELVNS, Long Live The Queen being my first one and totally transitioned into those original, true Japanese VNs as I learned how awesome the medium was! And I ended up here in Fuwanovel in my pursuit of searching the best VNs in existence! No want knows what the future may bring, however as long as there are Visual Novels, Fuwanovel will always be a relevant site for both newbies and veterans alike. I'm glad to be here since it has a much friendlier atmosphere than the ones in Beast's Lair wherein disputes could quickly got blown out of proportion At the very least I feel at peace or at home whenever I roam around on Fuwanovel...
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I always just thought of Aaeru's avatar as Fuwa's mascot lol. But I really like your sketches.
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Well, I kind of agree, but not quite. On one hand, I agree that the Steam version still provides complete experience. It works well on its own, and if you don't play the other version, you will probably be perfectly okay with it. On the other hand, exactly, if you simply compare these two version to each other, you will notice that a lot of things that were changed in the all ages versions were changed for the worse. I mean, the fact that some sexual humor is cut is not that important. There's still quite a lot of relatively suggestive content (even though it's obviously toned down compared to the other version), and they also left some scenes leading to sex, even though the sex itself was not shown. At the same time, some of the cut or changed scenes also happened to be pretty plot-relevant. The all-ages versions omits a certain amount of details which may seem not very important on their own, but together they still add to the plot and the character development. Some of the changed scenes aren't even of sexual nature, there are some other violent and controversial scenes changed as well. So, in the end, the 18+ version simply handles a lot of little details better. I personally believe that it actually makes it a slightly better game, and I don't really see any real reason why anybody who has an opportunity to read any of these versions should play the other version instead of it, unless they are very anti-porn and even skipping through the h-scenes would make the experience a lot worse to them. At the same time, I agree that it doesn't matter that much which version you play, as it's still the same game and it still works.
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Who did you wrong in a previous life jesus fucking christ
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As I explained, I believe the problem has gone away. It had been a year or two since this last happened. And as I said above, this likely only happened because I cut off its power all of a sudden. My computer should be around 7 years old. Perhaps less. I actually am not sure. But it's between 5-7 years old. I do not know what 'specs' or any of that other stuff entails or how to identify them.
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@Mr Poltroon More than probably an hardware issue. Don't believe it will get solve that easily. Computer hardware problems do not go away with time. It will only get worse, sadly ... Post back if your problem isn't solved .... Btw how old is your computer? Specs? Are you using a discrete GPU or on board graphics?
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Oh yeah, I remember reading about Koko some years ago. It was really interesting, though not without controversy. As far as I know, most linguists agree that her use of sign language was very rudimentary, and didn't exhibit the core characteristics that make up a human language, such as proper syntactic rules. In the end, only her caretakers know whether it was mostly staged or that Gorrilla did have human language capabilties. Anyway, there's no denying that she was a very smart Gorrilla, so it's a shame she died Dicks out for Harambe
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Grisaia no Kajitsu denpasoft vs Steam
Mr Poltroon replied to desertkona's topic in Visual Novel Talk
Feel free to choose whichever version you would prefer. Either version will provide a complete story. It is only if you compare them side by side that you may start complaining about them, but the purpose of an all-ages version is not to compare side by side. It is to provide a different (less explicit) version of the experience, and that it does. If you have no real reason to reject the 18+ version, go for that one. If you do indeed have a reason, the all-ages version is perfectly fine and enjoyable. -
Why are so many Vampire protagonists self-hating?
Plk_Lesiak commented on Clephas's blog entry in Clephas' VN home
Just a quick question - is it like throughout the whole thing, or just briefly after the protag is turned? This may affect my desition whether to buy it after they finish fixing the translation. ;] -
...But Koko Yagami is alive.
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Clearly not Clockup.
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Nothing dark our fucked up with the h content as far as i can remember.
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OTOH I remember @Decay saying in one of the threads, that those changes for all-ages version aren't as big as some posters make them to be, and that those laments about ruining the game are vastly exaggerated. I went with this version, as from reading various reviews and forum posts I was afraid, that some of the +18 content may be too dark/f*d up for me (I prefer my H to be on the vanilla side). That "patch" is basically complete pirated +18 version (as two releases are completely incompatible/different, with all-ages version being port from PSP using different engine AFAIK) - that's why it was shot down.
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The steam version has far more cut out than just porn. Yuuji's monologue is ruined and all sexual humour and innuendo are butchered. While I wont say it was ruined to the extent of IMHHW, its still pretty terrible on steam. Id say even if you dont want h-content, get the denpasoft version and then cntrl skip the h-scenes.
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Steam/All ages censors more then just the H scenes (like some sexual jokes). Though ironically, the Steam version still has nudity with barely covered nipples in some scenes. Kajitsu does have an official uncensor patch. But the other 2 games don't. I recommend just getting the Denpa version. For H scenes you don't like, there's always the CTRL key. Common route is awesome for it's ludicrous comedy (which stands in contrast to how serious the character routes get). The common route IS ........ pretty long though....
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I'd say, unless you are extremely anti-porn and h-scenes literally make the game unplayable for you, go for the denpa version. Even excluding the h-scenes, the Steam version has a lot of mature content cut out or toned down, and apparently Japanese have very strange conditions for what content they conciser mature. Some story-related scenes are majorly changed, and I personally prefer the way how these scenes were handled in the original version more.
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The issue returned, I updated the drivers, made that post, and then... the problem still wasn't fixed. But allow me to elaborate a bit: When I turn on my computer, everything works fine for 5-10 minutes, but suddenly the monitor goes black and every other device too. It's as is the PC went to sleep (without the desktop turning off), except it doesn't wake up. There is nothing I can do at that point except turning it off and trying again. In previous observations, I had concluded that updating my drivers would fix the issue. However, it seems to me silly that something that was working before suddenly stops doing so. For this reason, I imagine updating the drivers doesn't fix the issue per se, but typically does something else or changes some setting which ultimately fixes the issue. That didn't work this time, however. I'm still not 100% certain it didn't (because I updated the drivers in a slightly different way than I usually do), but for all intents and purposes, it did not. I have, however, formed a new theory. Speculation: The cause of the issue is for the desktop to be suddenly unplugged from the electricity. Which I did. By accident. Immediately before the issues started. To fix it, I simply need to turn the power off and let it rest for a bunch of time. Maybe to remove all traces of energy from its components. After sleeping a night, it now seems to be working fine again. All in all, I hope that if this does happen again, it does so at night and allows me to simply sleep the problems away.
