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  1. After receiving a weird mail consisting of nothing more than an unknown address, Michael—who’s normally so indifferent and placid—finds himself mysteriously and almost unconsciously drawn to it. So much so that he decided to ditch afternoon classes in order to follow a lead that probably doesn’t even exist. But what was at first ‘probably not even worth the effort’ degenerated quite rapidly into something much more significant than that. Indeed, now here he stands, in the middle of a room somehow nostalgic yet so creepy no one would ever feel compelled to connect it with their own memories. This dark, eerie room… Full of birthday decorations even though the building has long since been deserted. His birthday party from seven years ago, recreated almost to the perfection. Its sole purpose? Making him remember that night... That night when he lost his entire self, and all of his memories. The night of his parents’ murders. And as though this situation wasn’t already enough, a Voice, mechanical and almost joyful, proclaims from the other side of the line to be the one behind it all. It continues on with nonsensical words, one after the other. Things Michael doesn’t even comprehend. But he does catch the Voice’s parting words. The Voice’s threat. Something about the importance of his friends, and to what length he needs to go in order to save them. This is the story of a young man who’s desperately trying to cut himself out of the world surrounding him, and the choice he’s ultimately forced to make in order to save the few friends he has. Download the demo now on itch.io! - 300,000+ words (25+ hours~ of gameplay) - 25+ CGs - 25+ custom backgrounds, and 20+ more 'generic' ones - 7+ endings - A true route - Original soundtrack Progress: Scenario: 88% Sprites: Main Characters: 6/6, Side Characters: 1/??? Background: ??? CG: 8% Programming: 4% Music: 15% GUI: 90% Writer: HSelf Programmer: HSelf Sprite: Gato Hayakawa Background: Vui Huynh / minikle CGs: Winnetou – AD / Prophosphere Miscellaneous: Velm Music: Emmanuel Turpin Follow us on twitter for more updates! Questions: - Does the story sounds interesting to you? - Do you like the art style? - About choices in visual novels in general. Do you prefer having lots of choices, but more meaningless ones (skipping insignificant events/changing some dialogues)? Or do you prefer having a restricted amount of choices, but more meaningful (which branches the story)? Or maybe a mix of them both, which might give the illusion of a more concrete experience? - Do you have any tips or advice to give regarding the summary/character descriptions? Or do you feel that the premise of the story is well conveyed? While I tend to be more minimalist on those kinds of things, some might prefer a more tangible approach. - Any suggestion/critic/commentary? Anything would be helpful.
    2 points
  2. Okay, I guess I'll go ahead and talk about it now.
    2 points
  3. There aren't masterpieces this month, but if it comes down to the impact Ai Shimai ~Futari no Kajitsu~ is the winner, but only its original version, not the dreadful remake. 1. Jinn ~Eien no Yuushi~ JINN[ジン] ~永遠の勇士~ [940902] Tenshindou 1 2 3 The hero of this game (whom the player must name at the beginning) is much more interested in pretty girls than in ancient prophecies and religious rituals. However, once he finds out that his sweetheart Adiana is a descendant of an ancient god, and that young men of the village participate in a dangerous ritual in order to be chosen as her husband, the hero decides he must act. Little does he know that this would just be the beginning of a long adventure, involving all this stuff he is not interested in... plus lots of pretty girls! The only English review is lacking in some aspects, so need to elaborate. Probably main feature of the game was big map window. Other than that it has big open space areas and at times dark themed H-scenes. It's a decent serious RPG with unique harem-themed setting. 2. Satyr サティア [940902] AyPio 1 The main character (default name Momojirou) is hired for two weeks to help a female gardener named Ayaka to grow flowers for celestial creatures - also female, young, and cute, though with elf-like ears and sometimes even wings. The goal here is to learn enough about different flowers, the ways to make them grow, and the preferences of the girls. First gardening SIM and quite a bad one. Twice a day you can change the pots and some evens including fairies coming out happen. A short game without much to do. H element is also very weak. Windows that tend to float all over the screen make freak out constantly. 3. Koukan Nikki こうかん日記 [940909] Fairy Dust 1 Koukan Nikki has a gameplay somewhat similar to Dokyusei. You will be able to meet different females in the town. At the end, you will be with the girl that you liked the most. There is a not bad English review on the game. Quite unorthodox dating sim where you can make it with 11 girls and then decide who you want to be with with a single exception - you can only choose main heroine if you ignore other girls. Another important moment is that heroines know each other and share information. Again, woman's perspective is refreshing. But the game has a poor system. Achieving anything has to be done through frustration. 4. Animahjong X あにまーじゃん X [940914] Sogna 1 There is no real story in this game: the nameless protagonist is a young man who roams the city in his car with just one goal in mind: strip mahjong. In the story mode, the hero visits different locations (mahjong parlor, shop, hospital, etc.) and plays mahjong with the pretty girls he finds there; after having won, he proceeds to the next location and next heroines. Strip mahjong is nothing new, but Sogna managed to imbue quite some charm to the genre with introduction of cute characters, animation and voicing. 5. Yuuwaku no Toiki 誘惑の吐息 [940914] May-Be Soft Tetsuya is a 4th grade college student who takes up a part-time job to tutor one of the daughters of a famous novelist in his mansion. But for a salary of 1 million yen per month he also agrees to serve as bodyguard to novelist's wife Ayako whose life is endangered by an unknown person. Mansion is full of weird characters like novelist himself with a double personality, lover of one of the daughters who attempts to rape juvenile members of the family and even some of the daughters who succumb to lust in broad daylight. It's a very mediocre game full of spontaneous H events, but the resolution and epilogue are quite good as all the mysteries get revealed. It's quite a good concept that was utilized in JAST games a lot afterwards. 6. Ikazuchi no Senshi Raidy 雷の戦士ライディ [940920] ZyX 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 I am Raidy, wandering this continent of Else far and wide as an adventurer. I can freely bend the power of thunder to my will, so people have taken to calling me the "Lightning Warrior". Why am I standing here in front of this tower, you ask? The cause lies in the village of Saad that I visited recently. I got there to find it in decay, deserted and transformed almost completely into a ghost town... Apparently it became that way due to the monsters living in this tower. They'd been stealing away all of the young maidens from the village, and none of the men who went to rescue them ever returned... a harsh and terrible tale. Being who I am I couldn't hear that story and stand by idle, so now I find myself here, facing the tower... Game is localized and has no shortage of English reviews. 7. Idol Project アイドル・プロジェクト [940922] KSS Inc. 1 In Idol Project, the player takes a role of a young man named Takashi, who works for a company called Mobius, an agency whose goal is to turn young Japanese girls into famous singers. The game can be qualified as simulation: the main gameplay focus is on finding young talents and helping them to become famous. There is also a strong RPG element in the game. Takashi and his recruited "stars" gain levels according to their success. Takashi also has two other parameters, "Power" and "HP". "Power" is Takashi's stamina, which depletes regularly and can be restored with food, sleep, medicine, etc. "HP" in this game is the amount of work stress the protagonist has. Too much HP will require him to "release the stress" by various means - for example visiting a brothel. Gameplay oriented raising sim integrated into OVA and musical CD franchise... few things are less inspirational than that. Not all of the versions of the game had the proper sound to shine. 8. Angelique アンジェリーク [940923] Koei 1 2 The universe is ruled by a queen, all planets are in their balance... but now, the power of the queen is weakening, and the universe is under the danger of destruction... a new queen is needed... One day, Angelique Limoges, saw something in the sky... someone riding on a horse in the sky. None of her friends saw it... she is the only one who saw it, the chosen one--- the candidate of the Queen. Another candidate was Rosalia-De-Catargena. Both of them come to the Holy Land, where the Queen lives... There are English reviews. 9. Yawara! 2 ヤワラ!2 [940923] Sofix 1 2 3 4 Based on the manga and subsequent anime series Yawara: A Fashionable Judo Girl, this game can be considered a sequel to Yawara!, since its events take place after the conclusion of the previous story line. This time, the player controls Fujiko Itou, one of the original series' heroines, an admirer of Yawara. After having won a major international competition, Yawara feels she cannot bear the fame, longing to return to normal life and leave judo. Shocked by this decision, Fujiko decides to train herself and become a judo master, in order to convince Yawara to come back. There are two nice English reviews that vividly reflect game's nature. 10. Yokohama Elegy 横浜エレジィ [940928] FMC Ai is a girl who worked at shinto shrine. She was raped and killed herself afterwards. Such incidents started to happen more and more frequently. Two years later her sister Shiori starts to act as shrine maiden. Hero is former Japanese national sports player in shooting. He is asked to bodyguard Shiori, but Shiori gets raped and kidnapped on his eyes. He swears to avenge her and punish the offenders. New Ides brand company to specialize on "oppai" so minori competitor here! Dark suspense work with probably the first to feature NTR. Quite a thrilling work up to the middle when you just pull the trigger and - bam - culprit is dead. Easy as that. So not really a good work, but definitely a memorable one. 11. Tokyo Fuuzoku Kikou 東京風俗紀行 [940929] Interheart Hero is a university student who visits different entertainment places of a night customs town. There's no real story, just H events at various places. As usual with Interheart, lots of animation is used. 12. Ai Shimai ~Futari no Kajitsu~ 愛姉妹 ~二人の果実~ [940930] Silky's 1 2 3 4 A sincere older step-sister and a curious younger step-sister are doomed to become love slaves. One day, a house wife named Yukie has a traffic accident. She is ordered to pay a large settlement to the other party, Taketo, the son of the owner/president of Nogawa Industries. Unable to make the settlement payment, Yukie allows Taketo to have her sexually. At the same time, Takato's father, Nogawa, approaches Yukie's step-daughter, Rumi, and blackmails her. His evil scheme even reaches for Tomoko, Yukie's younger step-sister. First of all, remake version graphics look ugly to me in comparison to original, but it's the only voiced version, so video based on it. And this work was loved because of the cuteness and graphics mostly. Really, remake version is terrible and buries the charm of the game completely. But there is not much in the story department and in the end all that matters in the game is insulting pretty girls, so it's just not my type of work. 13. Megami Paradise 女神天国 [940930] NEC Home Electronics 1 2 3 4 5 6 The story is set in a utopia-like world made up of only women, under the benevolent rule of a woman called the Mamamega. The Mamamega possesses a magic item called the Astro Star, which absorbs evil from the world outside the paradise they live in. Eventually, when the Astro Star becomes saturated with evil thoughts and desires, the Mamamega has to perform a ceremony to purify the Astro Star, and then she hands over the position of Mamamega to her successor. As the story begins, the soon-to-be Mamamega chooses Lilith as her first miko (shrine maiden) and tasks Lilith with finding two other mikos, who will serve as guards/attendants to the new Mamamega. But as Lilith goes to try and recruit two others to help her, they cross paths with a group that has other plans for the Astro Star and wants to take over the Paradise they live in... There is quite much information in English on the game, but mostly it's remembered because of anime adaptation. This work has tremendous voice acting and an ability to actually see different dresses on a character if equipped.That was fresh. RPG system was below the average, but characters saved the game. All female, cute, voiced and in fancy dresses - they made the game "moe" at the times this word never even existed. 14. California x Party - Joshidaisei Himitsu Club CALIFORNIA X PARTY 女子大生秘密クラブ [9409] HOP Game is based on a pornographic movie of 1992 called Sorority Sex Kittens 2. It includes full 25 actress cast of the film. Did not find the game or reviews.
    1 point
  4. I'd love to see more art books go in-depth about character costumes. I want head-to-toe shots, plus close-ups of important details, for every costume. Basically, give me the originally character design sheets.
    1 point
  5. I feel ashamed for being able to understand all of it. But then again, this isn't really difficult either.
    1 point
  6. I'm watching pretty much everything. Current best show of the season is Made in Abyss. Best thing of the season is Washio Sumi Movie 3. Worst show of the season is In Another World With A Smartphone. That show is godawful. Think of all the generic isekai tropes thrown into one show, except said show does literally nothing to make them interesting. That's what you get. This is a really strong season overall. I might drop a few shows, but I see myself sticking with most of them. If anybody wants a good comedy this season, I'd highly recommend Mahoujn Guru Guru. It's a brilliant parody of old school RPGs, and it's criminally underwatched. You don't realize how much it pisses me off that the Smartphone show is getting more viewership and has a better MAL rating than it. Man, I care way too much about MAL ratings. As a person who is familiar with the source, I'd say don't hold your breathe. It goes in the expected love triangle route, and it uses it pretty dramatically. But it's a love triangle worth caring about because Lilina and Nejima are a match made in heaven. I should watch that then. Tenshi no 3P is actually better than I thought it'd be.
    1 point
  7. PenX

    Symphonic Rain

    Recently finished the Steam Version of the game. I came across this during the Steam Summer sale. What got me into it was the premise and some of the OST tracks I heard (which are brilliant). Falsita Fawcett's Story Liselsia Cesarini's Story Tortinita Fine Al Fine Grand Finale Thoughts Afterwards Overall SR made me care so much about the characters, even after I was done with the whole thing. I felt a huge void after completing it (probably why I felt motivated to write all this text even if nobody might read it), which I haven't felt in such a long time. Heck, I don't know any other story (books/tv shows/games/movies/etc) that made me felt this invested and emotional. I'm sad that not all of the seven side stories are translated. I read the three that were, and I enjoyed them. (Will the rest ever be translated?) I even tried to google translate the 5 small stories on the official website just to get some more story (like Chris meeting Phorni for the first time). The music is great, even if there's a lack of quantity. However, I love how the lyrics of vocal tracks tell the story of the character singing them. Makes the songs much more enjoyable and memorable. I'm glad I read this visual novel. I don't know if I'll ever be able to read something as emotional and great as this.
    1 point
  8. Well, if I may defend Chrono Clock translation the old people in Japan called green as blue because of cultural reason. But otherwise it was a mistake indeed because the translation was too literal, and I'd already watched two Japanese LPs to knew that the text was indeed said 'aoi' in the original language (Not 'midori'). Either way, I didn't remember too much about the mistranslation in the first place.
    1 point
  9. I also hated Honey and Clover, even though it seems like exactly the sort of thing I would love.
    1 point
  10. ChaosRaven

    What are you playing?

    Yeah, I had a very similar impression that the VN and its battles in particular are suffering a lot from 'style over substance' syndrome. And I think you nailed one problem of them with your statement about the 'rules'. Although the recent Chusingura I played didn't have as flashy battle sequences as Dies, I enjoyed them overall much more since I could follow them much better. I simply knew what was going on and what tactic one character was using to counter the other due to the somewhat clearer sword fighting rules. The fights were more focused, faster and the characters more concentrated and did less trash talking. Dies uses an almost a contrary approach with lots of trash talking and unusual weapons like a guillotine arm where its harder to imagine how the battles are supposed to work. Not sure if I can criticise the VN for that since pretty much what makes it 'chuuni' I guess. Though I can definitely say that I like the former less chuuni and more 'substance over style' classical sword fights more. Still, I don't want to make my usual mistake and judge the VN too soon. I currently stalled it for a while until I get motivated again, but if I pick it up again I'll try to finish 1 - 2 routes first before making a final judgement. Anyway, meanwhile in Chrono Clock... Seems like green is the new blue this year.
    1 point
  11. "it's an RPG and old RPG aren't particularly popular." You aren't wrong, but i love them!
    1 point
  12. Vokoca

    What are you playing?

    Finished Kasumi's route in Dies Irae. I should probably first say that this is not the first VN by Masada I've read. I've read Senshinkan before, and that left me with pretty mixed feelings on the author. I consider myself a fan of chuuni, and the darker (even edgier) the story is the more I'm likely to enjoy it. As such, I was pretty excited when I read Senshinkan at first - Masada's works put on the airs of extremely edgy chuuni... but unfortunately, that is all they seem to do, as on the core they're nothing more but extremely cliched shounen. I was baffled by the stark contrast between the grimdark text and the "Friendship power!" kind of story in Senshinkan, but I just chalked it up to the main theme, given the main character's disposition towards virtues. I did like the story (there was some impressive layering going on), the (villain) characters, but I did have my doubts with the actual chuuni, getting bored to death with never-ending re-matches. As such, I was more scared of Dies Irae than excited, really. I did want to read it, but I was worried that it might be exactly what I disliked about Senshinkan - but in the end, curiosity won over, and the hyper-edgy Nazi aesthetic made me pick up the game. And, to put it shortly... I was right to be worried. The prologue didn't sell me on the VN, in fact, it almost made me drop it. It was full of Masada's flashiness for the sake of flashiness, with action scenes serving no other purpose but to show you how damn cool everything is... only I didn't buy it. When I read chuuni, I want infodumps. I want battles that get their rules laid down and thoroughly explained, and have crazy things happening according to these rules. While Masada does this sometimes (Senshinkan had some scenes like that, albeit not many), the prologue exemplified everything I dislike about his writing of fight scenes. It's like he is trying to convince you how amazing everything is with words alone, without actually giving you any reason to be impressed in the first place. It all comes across as pretty... flat. Luckily enough, the VN turned around immediately as the actual story started. Crazy pseudo-philosophy dialogues, edgy protagonist with clearly defined character that promised an interesting and entertaining point of view, some nice twists, it was great! And then... then the shounen tournament arc happened. The main character that was supposed to be unique, as the VN and the villains would want you to believe, quickly devolved into an insufferably cliched shounen protagonist. I won't go into any details to avoid spoilers, but the amount of shounen cliches in this route was driving me against the wall. What was even worse was Masada's attempt at being clever and self-aware - but making fun of things like friendship power and relying on it only seconds later doesn't make it any better, it makes it downright obnoxious. The actual chuuni was probably by far the biggest disappointment. The only fight scene that was actually exciting was the very first encounter, after that it just got boring. Masada just sticks to describing cool things for the most part, so there's not much to enjoy about the scenes other than mindlessly going with it - it's not like any of it really matters, because the main character just wins by some bullshit every single time in a true shounen fashion, and to make things even worse almost none of the wins even feel deserved. I get that this is the first route, but watching the main character fall for the same shit over and over and in the end be unable to do anything cool at all in a story about crazy battles isn't fun whatsoever - at least there are better characters than him that make the battle scenes at least somewhat exciting. Anyway, it's not like I hated the whole thing. I enjoyed the characters (maybe except Ren... and Kasumi, to some extent, even though I wanted to like her), I liked the story that got hinted at (as I mentioned above, the first half of the common route actually got me really hyped, hopefully there is more of that kind of stuff here), and I liked the route ending. At the very least the last battle was pretty cool, and so was the way it turned out. I can only hope that the VN gets better from now on, but so far, I'm not impressed. There are people who say this? The Umineko "fanbase" really is the worst. Never before have I seen a story where so many people would ignore almost half of it just to make themselves feel smart via pathetic theory-crafting that just picks the convenient parts and dismisses the rest. It's even sadder that this is happening to Umineko of all things, considering its subject matter. I'm glad you were able to get something out of these two episodes; after all, Umineko is trying to get across a message, and the last two episodes are crucial for that. Any "fans" looking on it strictly as a mystery story are not only doing the story huge disservice, but probably can't read at all in the first place.
    1 point
  13. Another bakage from Alice Soft. I've no idea how to write reviews of such games. Guess a structured review won't go since there's nothing to discuss - there's no serious story or theme or interesting characters or anything worthwhile. All it has is bakage action, ero CG and lowest quality "variety" humor of stupid illogical events, not even sensible one. So I guess I'll just stuff it with images with some comments. There are four chapters. In first chapter Sati (red-haired wild one) gets a desire to achieve the famous resting pillow from a galaxy museum. She does not even care if it does not have such qualities. Because it has PINK BUNNIES on it! In second chapter they see some cooking show on a TV and... on a whim go to participate in galaxy cooking competition! First they kick all the opponents asses. Then they compete with the remaining ones. They set on a fish-man dish. But they lack the main ingredient and you know how to catch man-fish? You don't? Then see for yourself. But opponent is cheating! They're serving the dish on a naked girl's body! I would not show that CG since it's not entirely safe for work one, but just imagine that Sati is serving three small tarte pies that barely cover her shame parts. In third chapter Sait and Shiori read at some super V-DOS net a thread about a dream stone and - what the heck - go to the other side of galaxy to get it. In fourth chapter they are surrounded by space pirates ships and captured, but after intensive H-scene their robot friend Lambda throws them some activator and they transform in nearly invincible warriors. Only pirate boss could rival them, then they just did some merged transformation or something - go go transformers! THE END. I guess the selling point of the game is lots of doors that they encounter in 1, 2 and 4 chapter and behind most of those doors are "humor" events, like this bloomers cult or this interrogation officer. Or maybe someone finds this scene funny when yakuza space pirate infiltrates Funny Bee ship, but turns out to be a man of very gentle mind. I was kind of worried by "yaoi" tag this game has and game indeed has yaoi encounter in one of the rooms. But I should give the game its due, the only right answer in the scene is "KIMOUCHI WARUI!!!" and kicking their... uhm... spines... yeah, spines sounds good. So first of all I'm going to evaluate this came compared to Prostudent G. This game is so much better that I'm putting it 4.5/10 compared to 4/10 of Prostudent G. To tell the truth, this game is not bad if you don't mind bakage and can find some pleasure it this kind of event humor. It's fast-paced, with several types of mini-games, interactivity and great visuals. So compared to Prostudent G this game has the very same engine that only ports pc-98 version to Windows without enhancements. Finally in Funny Bee you don't get to rape the poor defeated side and it took only five years for Alice Soft to come to the idea that such outcome of battle is also possible! Secondly, protagonists here are much more likable. In Prostudent G we had a hooligan pervert with all the thoughts, all the speeches and all the jokes about lower body parts. In Funny Bee there are such stupid moments as well (like when you solve the safe puzzle on the belly of a giant racoon... the next move of Sati is doing him a fellatio just because it's safe and healthy - WTF?!) , but at least "humor" is events-based. The most significant difference is much faster pace and much cuter and funnier CG. And at least in Funny Bee there weren't mind-blowing events (warriors mode transformation looked quite organic for this setting) like summoning of giant mech or rebirths in various people that were in Prostudent G. As much as I would like to throw AmbivalenZ into the comparison, I can't stand rape after defeat there.
    1 point
  14. @skrewball717 Bakuman was excellent. I loved it to bits. I found the heroes shouting ganbarimasu was a little too frequent but apart from that the pacing, characters and story were great. I loved the way it ended with tension on each episode like a sport anime and had that quality that made it hard to not keep watching. I loved the fact that I got 75 episodes of something so enjoyable to watch too in this world of short series. And I really loved Saori Hayami as the heroine even though she was not really a lead character compared to the others - she's one of my all time favourite VAs and her climactic scene was awesome.The ending was beautiful too. Definitely one I'll rewatch with my wife; I'm sure she'll love it too. 9/10
    1 point
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