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http://www.tmz.com/2017/07/20/linkin-park-singer-chester-bennington-dead-commits-suicide/ Such a sad day and huge loss for the music industry. Linkin Park has been my favorite band since HT first came out back in elementary school, so this is truly crushing. You will be missed Chester. Plan on solemnly listening to LP for a while. Really in total shock.

To speak bluntly, I'm not expecting much from Dischan since Doomfest decided to part his ways with Jeremy. It's obvious that Ryan - the new artist, who replaced Doomfest - is trying to mimic Doom's style as much as possible while trying to retain his own, but there's no way he'll be able to fully replace what was lost. Doom's art was one of the things, that made Dischan's works so good aside from Jeremy's writing; not to mention, it really did fit the Dysfunctional System's mood. Without it, it's not the same story any more. Such art style swaps should be avoided at all costs in games of this type. Aside from that, Dischan literally closed all the doors after their fiasco, alienating the remaining part of their fanbase; one that was still willing to support them. Instead going on a hiatus to sort out all the matters, they went as far to announce closure. Dischan is like the ABC of what devs should avoid during production. I'm not really sure who's going to play this, neither to whom is the game addressed. Large part of their previous player base lost all the interest, after they called it quits and their unprofessional approach to PR and business afterwards only reassured them they did the right thing.

At least it's not another Sakura VN from Winged Cloud lol. As for the title, I'll just abridge it to Sakusakura to diffrentiate it from Sakusaku (Koi ga Saku ga Sakura Doki). Back to the topic, as for the campaign I'd already worried when I saw volume listed which mean that there would be a chance that the publisher will separated it to three parts, corresponding to three chapters in the VN. Also there's a chance that the company itself couldn't provide decent tier list, like back at ChuSingura and risking the Kickstarter. I said this because even well known VN like Root Double and Dies Irae was facing hard Kickstarter and barely managed to reach the goal, and this time we had one unknown VN going to be Kickstarted. So yeah, I agree with both of Nier and Decay here in regards of Kickstarter. As for my personal opinion, I'm quite interested with this VN but it's not like that I'm look forward to it very much for now at least (Good luck to Kickstarter though, because they'll need it very much). For now, I'll just wait and see in regard of Sakusakura.

Guess they heard that Sakura titles are selling well in the west, and now they have dollar signs in their eyes because they've even two Sakura's in their name...

It seems like they're going into this empty handed and are hoping to make what they need off the Kickstarter. Which is what that site is for, sure, but I highly doubt that, using a 9-year-old no-name game like Sakura Sakura, they'll be able to generate enough capital to start the business proper, obtain a license, and pay for localization costs, even if they ran the KS campaign perfectly. And to make matters worse, it looks like they're planning on launching the campaign in less than two weeks without a proper website, and probably with no work done on their actual Kickstarter page yet. This has the makings of a total disaster. I hope these guys manage to do well and make an impact, but it's hard to be optimistic considering the circumstances.

Aiyoku No Eustia (https://vndb.org/r24024) A fan transation project by Eustia Translations Partial Patch is out! https://mega.nz/#!no0DyQza!DZShSFgME_-iW6vaEdYy3oek-794a1yiuiW48U05dBQ Covers up to Eris' chapter (Chapter 2). Opening Movie: Description (modified VNDB description): Personal words: Translation Video Sample: Team: Project Lead/Translator/TLC: eplipswich @eplipswich Head Editor: Desertopa Head QC: Angeldeath Reserve/Former Members: Translator (Reserve): TakoRin @TakoRin Editor (Reserve): kumada Translator (Former): goodluckmyway/Be Water @goodluckmyway Editor/QC (Former): Vermillio @Vermillio QC (Former): Esham @Esham Progress: You can check out detailed real-time progress update at the following link: https://1drv.ms/x/s!AhHDq_NSwaAqgSnImaDDLTME-lmi?e=ai9dey ---------------------------------- You can follow me on Twitter: @eplipswich Job Opening(s): None at the moment, but feel free to PM me if you feel you can contribute to the project.

Mugen Yasoukyoku and Bunny Hunter Zero are masterpieces of the month, but bakage would always be inferior for me, so Mugen Yasoukyoku is the winner of the month 1. Alice no Yakata 3 ALICEの館3 [950401] Alice Soft 1 A collection of five mini-games with Alice from the Rance series. The first two games in this series were only available on Japanese computers. It includes a quiz game "TokuSakari quiz Rerorero", fighting Prince Patton, a female teacher in agony hell visual novel with two endings - one good and a darker one. As usual, game contains lots of short H stories and some additional materials. 2. Setsujuu ~Yuganda Kioku~ 雪猫 ～ゆがんだ記憶～ [950405] JAST A guy went on a graduation ski trip with his friend and their girlfriends. Before and during the trip, he met and had fun with a bunch of females. In some places, you can choose which girl he have fun with by going to one place or another. Scenario is a single road with branching close to the end. There are 10 girls overall for capture. Content is quite poor. 3. 5 Jikanme no Venus 5時間目のヴィーナス [950407] Fairy Dust 1 Shimeji attends the Touyama High School. She has a best friend there, is successful in studies, and also has a part-time job as a waitress. Yet she is not happy. One day, her friends find her on the floor, unconscious. They bring her to the young school doctor, who also happens to be the protagonist of this game. The hero is impressed by Shimeji's beauty, but he is also determined to find the cause of her depression. Piece by piece he uncovers the truth about Shimeji's life... Basically a hentai anime episode made into a game. Game is straight-forward and features Shimeji secrets one by one, can't see here any value over the anime. 4. Noushuku Angel 120% 濃縮ANGEL・120% [950414] Cocktail Soft Heroine starts to have erotic dreams in broad daylight and starts to loose the grip with reality. There are no reviews on the game, but there were way too many H scenes at the start to go on. 5. School Girls スクールガールズ [950414] Scoop 1 School Girls tells the story of Shinsuke, a young man looking for a teaching job. His uncle is the principal of a prestigious girls' high school, and he assigns to his nephew the job of a substitute art teacher. The rest of the plot is mostly dedicated to Shinsuke's relationships (sexual and otherwise) with the various female students and co-workers. The game starts with a mystery of which girls wears the strawberry pants, but very soon forgets about it and turns into H events parade. 6. Ushinawareta Rakuen 失われた楽園 [950414] Silky's 1 2 College student Kojima Kousaku is promised a high payment for assistance in scientific expedition on a southern island. However, a storm breaks out and the ship suffers a shipwreck. The crew gets separated and they start to search first for bed and food and then find a strange temple in the jungle. I've prepared a full review of the game. 7. Yuuwaku 誘惑 [950414] T2 Co., Ltd. One day a young woman comes to the detective office and asks to find a picture that was left by her father. Hero rejects the request at first, but decides to look into it eventually. He starts to gather information about client's family with the neighborhood. Game is based on adult manga work and all information gathering happens through the sex. 8. Doki Doki Pretty League Dai 5 Wa - Saraba Pink Angels-tachi DokiDokiぷりてぃリーグ 第5話 さらばピンクエンジェルス達 [950415] Great Nanase is promised by her grandfather to do as she likes if she wins the finals. And then the final match against Green Hornets begins. I was partly confused by the fact that I actually had to lose in the finals to get a good ending. I knew some Pink Angel girl started to play for Green Hornets, but don't think it was Nanase. 9. Dual Soul デュアルソウル [950415] Ail Gush is a treasure hunter. He is searching for the Gomalie ruins at the request of Evonos Church with tree friends. As he was leaving the ruins he got caught in the trap had had multiple spear piercing wounds. He should have died but he awoke at the bed. His appearance changed drastically as he took the form of Edner who fell from the roof at the same time. He is sentenced to live as Edner by the church bishop. Then suspicious events start to happen one by one... It was fully story driven but had poor sales. so next Ail games were of fanservice character and they sold much better. There is a huge sudden shift between first half of the work that's more of a gag comedy with Gush rejoiced about his survival and the second part that's full of drama and emotions. So the scenario felt unprofessional and left a sour aftertaste. 10. Ring Out!! リングアウト!! [950421] ZyX 1 2 3 4 5 Somewhere in Tokyo is an underground club where important political and social figures gather to watch an unusual sport. Two women are put in a caged ring, in revealing clothes, and grope each other while wrestling. Whoever comes first, loses. No holds barred, and the loser has to endure any humiliation the winner asks. Into this ring comes a young girl named Aya, forced into slavery by people to whom she is nothing. There are English reviews. 11. Viper-V12 [950421] Sogna 1 2 Yet another entry in the Viper series, Viper V-12 exploits the same format all the previous entries followed: there are three unrelated short stories which mostly consist of animated sex scenes, with some interaction here and there. Here are the stories: Future Investigator Bravan: Bravan is a powerful warrior clad in power armor, who fights for human beings in and has only one weakness: his pretty female comrades. A group of demons called "Donar", led by the mischievous female doppelganger Colonel Gel, decide to use the shape-shifting powers of the commander to lure Bravan to their lair. Angel Dust: Kate and Julia, two cosmic rangers, attack a space pirate ship and board it, hoping to steal treasures and to become rich. But they were not careful enough when they entered the ship without any precautions: the space pirates had other plans for the young girls... Magical Gambler: A young child has a dream which becomes reality: two cute flying creatures appear in front of her and give her a magic rod. However, when the girl uses the rod, she miraculously turns into a young and sexy woman. She decides to use the powers of the rod for her own greed, and becomes Chiyomi - the Queen of Gambling... There is an English review. 12. Mugen Yasoukyoku 夢幻夜想曲 [950422] Apricot (old) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Nocturnal Illusions' genre is a mixture of a dating sim and visual novel. In this game the main character decides to get away from it all during his spring break and stay in the mountains. While staying in the mountains a massive storm causes the main character to faint. A mysterious woman saves him and uses sexual pleasure to keep him warm. It turns out that he is now in a strange old mansion. The woman who saved the main character is the mistress in charge of the place. The main character decides to explore and while there meets many women as the story unfolds... Game is localized and has overwhelming number of English reviews. I've seen it to the end and can't say it's a game for everyone. It has good text and mysterious characters, but don't expect much plot here. It has its unique charm, but can't say I got a good impression out of it. 13. Bunny Hunter Zero ばにぃはんたぁ零 [950428] Studio Jikkenshitsu 1 Hero is a salary man and he investigates disappearance of his father with the employees salary. The lead takes him to the "Neo Bunny" organization which members are dressed like bunnies. Hero gets attacked by a group of bunny girls on the street. As he wraps himself in matador suit, he feels that he now has power to oppose them as he becomes now "Bunny Hunter Zero". The only English review is from someone who does not understand Japanese. Synopsis looks weird... only because that's a weird bakage with little sense to be found. Game features card battles to keep players from getting bored. Another strong side is graphics as the characters were cute and attractive. Card game is also cool, not just another mahjong. The gameplay is quite fun, so game was actually quite popular... not for long, of course. 14. Itsuka Dokoka de. いつかどこかで。 [950428] Cocktail Soft 1 The follower-up to the first Erotic Baka Novel game is similar to it in structure: it is a visual novel with multiple story lines, which take place according to the decisions made by the player during the game. The protagonist is once again a regular Japanese male; this time, the initial "trigger event" is a message on his pager. Three different choices regarding his reaction to the beeper's sound lead to three very different story arcs, each involving its own sub-branches. There are three branches from the start and new branches open up after seeing consequent endings. There are also bad endings as before, but overall there are much less choices than in prequel. Stories are quite interesting involving third world war and other planets among others. 15. Oushuu Yuukai Yuugi Pink Tiger 欧州誘拐遊戯 ＰＩＮＫ☆ＴＩＧＥＲ [950428] Peppermint Kids Pink Tigers is a secret criminal organization composed only of women dealing with kidnappings and robbery mostly. Protagonist gets a request to rescue one kidnapped child. An ero-centered les work. 16. Reijou Monogatari 令嬢物語 　～れいじょうものがたり～ [950428] Interheart 1 2 Three sisters of the Saijō family - Michie, Saki, and Erika - lived together peacefully in a quiet house. Their parents have died but left them a very large fortune, which evoked jealousy in people surrounding them. On Michie's twentieth birthday their greedy and corrupt uncle, who recently lost a vast amount of money due to failed business transactions, sent his goons to extort from the young women the fortune they rightfully possessed. There is an English review. 17. Ribbon リボン [950428] Softhouse Bonbee Bonbon 1 Keisuke Murakawa is a teenager who used to have tender feelings towards his childhood friend Makoto Aizawa. However, they grew apart as each was busy with their own school life. Now, when both begin to attend the same high school, Keisuke is unsure whether she or any of the older attractive schoolmates is the love of his life. First part is nampage with all the girls. Second part is pure love story with the main heroine. Third part is H bonus. Quite an ordinary work, but characters aren't based on archetypes and thus feel realistic. Notably, it's not I-ADV, but just ADV with only conversation choices to matter, but structure still suffers from I-ADV heritage, so a mismatch is felt. Game's got good sound support, but it does not make this work special and second part is not long enough to save it. 18. Rondo ロンド [950428] Frontier Protagonists sees a mysterious girl in his dreams who reminds him one of the girls in the class. This is a story of his relations with several class girls over a few days. Game was interesting enough for me to see it through the end. The coolest part is confrontation between his childhood friend Fujiwara (descendant from Fujiwara clan) and mysterious girl Hojo Miyuki (descendant from Hojo clan). And the protagonist turns out to be descendant of Yoshimoto. On top of historic parallels there is enough mystics involved to keep interest all the time.

There aren't masterpieces this month. Still I got quite strong impression from Cybernoid Alpha - I nominate it VN of March 1995. 1. 31 Iwayuru Hitotsu no Chou Lovely na Bouken Katsugeki ３１ いわゆるひとつの超らぶりぃな冒険活劇 [950302] Altacia 1 The heroine of this curiously named title is Choko, the princess of the fictional country Baskin, which is mostly a medieval world with some modern-day anachronisms. She lives in the capital city Robins with her Mom and Dad, namely queen and king. Her curious nature eventually leads her to some interesting acquaintances, including magic users and adventurers, who help her to uncover a threat to her family and country. The princess has to travel through a dangerous forest with her best buddy Meron, in order to protect Baskin from danger. Meaningless short adventure without anything to stand out here. There are some gags on the way, but they hardly make it worthwhile. Altacia is just much better at doing detective series. 2. If 3 イフ ３ [950303] Active 1 Like its predecessors in the series, IF 3 contains three scenarios, which are unrelated to each other story-wise and can be played directly from the main menu: The first episode, sub-titled Will for Suicide, is indeed about that: a person who tries to commit suicide. The scenario can be played in two different ways, from the point of view of either a male or female protagonist. reasons and circumstances of the suicide can also be chosen by the player. The scenario involves supernatural forces that change the fate of the heroes; however, the specific narrative is defined by the player. This episode is called Like a Magic Woman; the heroine is a beautiful young woman, contemplating about her future career and desire for money; at that moment, she is hit by a truck. Miraculously, she survives the accident, and is granted the magic ability of shape-shifting. The final episode is entitled Eday & Magy (sic), which are the misspelled names "Eddie" and "Maggie". The setting is a fictional city in the USA called "Autumn City"; it is being governed by the powerful Chief Anderson, enjoying an era of stability and peace. But a criminal organization targets Eddie, a young half-Japanese police officer, and he receives the assignment to bring the villains to justice. Finally the last game of the series. Multiple stories genre little by little ceases to exist. 3. Escalation'95 Onee-sama tte Yonde Ii Desu ka? エスカレーション'95 お姉さまって呼んでいいですか? [950304] Melody 1 Escalation '95 doesn't have a particularly elaborate story: the protagonist is a female student named Naomi, who attends the Catholic St. Azarea high school. At the beginning of the year, new students enter the school, and Naomi's task is to show them around and help them - which she does in a very particular fashion... A specialized lesbian love work with some disturbing content. 4. Cybernoid Alpha サイバノイドアルファ [950310] D.O. The great war brought the humanity to the brink of extinction turning the burnt towns in lawless zones. Baum Filled is a mercenary who arrives to such town and takes up a request to rescue woman client's sister. I love cyberpunk and this game has some great pictures, but it's quite short and ero-centered to be taken seriously. 5. Wonpara Wars II ＷＯＮＰＡＲＡウォーズII [950310] Mink 1 2 The protagonist of the first game, Leopard Chateau-Lyon, finds himself wandering in a forest, having no memory of his own past, except his name. He is captured by two female warriors and is brought to their queen. It appears that there are only women in this country; when the hero says he is a man, the queen rejoices, telling him about an ancient legend that prophesied the advent of a creature named man, who will save their country from the ruthless queen of the neighboring land. The hero has to prove himself worthy of his heroic status and to defeat the enemy forces that threaten the country. There is an English review. 6. Nana Eiyuu Monogatari 七英雄物語 [950310] Himeya Soft Fifty-year war between the two great powers is over, and peace comes to the world. However, the scars of the war are deep and result in operation of multiple bandit and robber bands. One day a whole village gets destroyed by bandits. A small village desperately needs to hire protectors, but there is no money to pay heroes. Are there volunteers to risk their life just for rice? As you can see, plot fully follows the classic seven samurai story of Akira Kurosawa. The first third of the game there is even just one samurai. Of course, it does not really stop there since it's a long RPG. First there are multiple attacks, then finally main robber moves in vicinity of of village, and our heroes finally have an opportunity to track him down and defeat. But RPG part is decent, so game is quite enjoyable. 7. Doki Doki Pretty League Dai 4 Wa - Nanase no Himitsu no Maki DokiDokiぷりてぃリーグ 第4話 七瀬の秘密の巻 [950315] Great The episode reveals the story of Nanase birth and introduces her sister as well as presents the match against Yellow Jackets. Nanase is the best pitcher in the history and from this episode she becomes the center of attention. Her secret upbringing is revealed and for the setting for final confrontation is prepared. 8. Harenchi Gakuen ハレンチ学園 [950315] Dynamic Production A student transfers in a formerly girls school only to find strange rules governing there. An ero-centered work with cute drawing, but very nauseating mechanics of first choosing the icon of action and then point-and-clicking everything in hope to trigger some advancement. 9. Kinki Taboo 禁忌 TABOO [950317] Succubus Teacher trains three high school student girls into SM sex slaves. This is the actual originator of bondage museum genre. It was mostly notable for voice support and time required to install, but the content was rather generic without providing much uniqueness. 10. Manami no Doko made Iku no? 2 - Return of the Kuro Pack まなみのどこまでイクの？２ リターンオブＴＨＥ黒パック [950317] Wendy Magazine In spring 1995 a new conspiracy started to unfold. Manami sets on a course to reveal it while searching for cute girls in the meantime. The prequel has a good English review and by that alone it's possible to guess the scale of madness in this work. I did not get far in this bakage since it stopped making sense very soon. 11. S.A. 3 S.A. 3 [950323] Exst A collection of two short erotic stories. Scenario 1 is about 16-year old girlfriend Yuka-chan visit. Main character decides that it's high time for intimate relations between them, so he needs to balance part-time jobs and dates with Yuka-chan this summer to afford a romantic trip and finally get close with the girl. Scenario 2 is about main character having erotic dreams about three girls - his classmate, cash register girl and a passer-by student. Delusions become more and more violent ending up with the use of tentacles. In the end protagonists surprisingly finds himself in jail. Just like in prequels things turn to H very fast, but Yuka is cute as ever. 12. Teen TEEN [950324] Custom 1 The story is about teenagers, high school students. It's divided in two scenarios. In scenario 1 "Depression Of Ai" the main figure is Ayumi, a les girl. She wants to get a cute pet girl, but it's difficult because most girls refrain from becoming a les. One day she gets a love letter from a junior girl Ai. Ayumi shouts with joy for that, though she doesn't know what kind of girl Ai is. Ayumi imagines that Ai will be cute and naïve. How will the following story goes? It puts on comic touch. In scenario 2 "Last Party" three figures enter the story. Megumi is a girl who has many H friends. Takusi is one of them. One day Megumi invites Takusi to the last party and he agrees. He asks her about the party but she doesn't let him know what kind of party it'll be. He imagines one of group H with all her friends. At last the party day comes. His guess proves to be false. Megumi introduces just one junior girl, Kana, to him. What purpose does Megumi has? Why is the party the last? A specialized H-centered yuri work. At the very least there aren't boring parts included. 13. Tenkousei 転校生 [950324] Space Project Heroine is a new transfer student. Player needs to lead her through the daily routine situations with an aim of losing virginity. A kusoge in its purest form. You need to constantly click to choose between two stupidest routine activities. There are multiple windows and those tend to hide behind each other and to load for quite a long time. Game's also ridiculously long for this kind of torture gameplay. 14. Seek ~Chikashitsu no Mesu Dorei Tachi~ ＳＥＥＫ　～地下室の牝奴隷達～ [950331] PIL While attending the funeral of a father his hasn't seen in 10 years, our guy found out about his father's job of SM painter, but actually a SM trainer and Will of one billion yen, now half to his assistant and half to an orphanage. If he can become a SM trainer in one month, assistant will be judge, then he can get the whole one billion yen. Well, how well he can train three girls will have different outcomes. A famous erotic raising SIM with lots of disturbing content. Not to my liking at all though. 15. Touch My Heart タッチ マイ ハート [9503] D.O. While on the way home from work a mysterious woman begs hero to let her in the car and help her escape from the pursuers. It's up to hero what happens next. A very obscure work. All I know is that there are a lot of bad endings and no walkthrough to try and get to the good one.

I want to talk about Time Hollow a adventure and visual novel by Konami for Nintendo DS. Here it's link where you can read about it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Hollow#/media/File:Timeholloweurope.jpg I have just start playing the game after buy Nintendo DS with flashcard and transfer Time Hollow to flashcard from SD card reader and I really enjoy the game a lot. it's very fun game to play and I have already come to chapter 2. I'm not going to spoiler very much since I don't know how many have played Time Hollow. I'm recommend give Time Hollow a try, it's game worth playing.

Some veterans of reading untranslated VNs refer to the period between 2004 and 2010 as 'The Golden Age of Visual Novels'. However, you shouldn't really take that statement at face value, as the meaning is a bit more complex than you'd think. There are some significant differences between VNs today and VNs during that period that both made it the peak of the medium's sales in Japan and produced the greatest ratio of quality VNs to crap VNs. One of the primary differences was that, other than moege, there were no strict genre boundaries and genre conventions had yet to slide into place in the minds of fans and writers both. Companies were mostly experimenters during that time, sometimes basing their projects on previous works (Tsukihime and the Key games got a lot of knock-offs during this time, of varying levels of quality) and sometimes forging out on their own. Since there were few genre boundaries, companies were more likely to give the creative staff free reign as to what kind of story they could write, and - ironically - this actually helped define the various genres in the years to come, as people explored the boundaries of how they could stretch a concept or theme in a story. Some of these attempts were abortive (ie- thematic moege where all the heroines are of the same type, such as tsundere or yandere, generally didn't catch on) but others were immensely successful (ie- the definition of the chuunige genre and its gradual escape from gakuen battle mania). However, the point is that the writers, directors, and producers of the time were allowed to fiddle with the formula a lot more than they are now. Most major companies nowadays have a 'signature style', that was formed during that period, even if their greatest successes weren't during that period. This period also killed the 'pure moege' as a genre, ending the majority genre of the previous half-decade (moege having dominated during that period due to the Da Capo series and Key's games). The rise of the charage, a demi-moege genre that was much wider in scope and more adaptable, occurred during this period, mostly unrecognized until after the fact. At the same time, nakige, which had previously been enslaved to the moege genre through Key and others like them, came to define itself as a new, standalone genre that wasn't necessarily dependent on moe stylization. Even Key itself moved beyond pure moe, though it didn't entirely abandon some elements of it (as the existence of Kud testifies). However, this age was already ending in 2009, as clearly-delineated genre norms began to form, and charage became the driver for the industry, taking us back, in spirit, to the age before that. By 2011, the ratio of truly creative works to derivative works was overwhelmingly in favor of the latter, in comparison to the previous decade. That isn't to say that the years since haven't produced some great works. That is patently untrue in my experience... but the fact remains that fewer and fewer writers are able or willing to look outside the 'genre boxes' for answers as to what to write. I sometimes refer to our current age as the Age of Stagnation, where there is an overwhelming industry pressure to stick to genre norms and those that break the mold are so exceptional they stand out more than they should. It is possible to create a charage kamige... but it is much easier to make a kamige out of a game that breaks genre boundaries, lol.

I played it a while back, and although it's nothing spectacular, I would say it's worth one's time. Overall decent. While we're on the topic of discussing DS VNs, have you played any other VNs for the handhelds? Besides the Ace Attorney or Zero Escape series.

Whenever I get that hollow feeling after finishing a good story, I binge watch a bunch of feel good movies. If it was a particularly sad ending, I watch movies about grief and loss (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Death At A Funeral, The Bucket List etc) It makes me feel a lot better.

This is the first of hopefully many little eroge reviews I decided to write, mostly for older and more obscure games since these are the games I find most interesting and like to talk about. You can use these reviews to find something for you to read (I will try to avoid spoiler as much as possible) but since I know that most people probably aren't interested in actually playing these games and might only be interested in reading about them, I will also add a spoiler section at the end of each review where I talk about the themes and endings of the games in depth and tell you about my personal feelings and impressions that can't be talked about without giving away the meat of the story. Hajimari no Kisetsu ~Izakaya Fuyu Monogatari~ (do not look at the tags or the screenshots on its entry because they are all spoilers) is the second visual novel by R.A.N.Software, a little eroge company which was active in 1997 till 2000 and you probably never have heard of. It's written by someone who never has written any other eroge again (at least not under this pseudonym) and drawn by people who either vanished like the writer or continued to work on eroge but never used the same art style again. All in all, Hajimari no Kisetsu seems like a pretty unique game, so why don't we take the time to look at this strange little eroge in detail? Story: Our nameable protagonist is in his last year of his university life. His girlfriend Kaori already graduated and works now as an office lady for a very big company. Because of her work he doesn't see her as often anymore and when she finds the time to meet with him for a few hours, they don't know what to talk about since their lives are so different now. The protagonist remembers the happy memories he had with her, especially when they went skiing a year ago and to rekindle their love he wants to go with her to the same ski resort again. Protagonist meets Kaori for the first time in a flashback Themes: Eroge are escapism. We all know it. What annoys me, especially with eroge in the last few years, is how safe-spacey they became. If you play a feel-good game, you know you will get feel-good scenes ... and nothing else. Erogamer became fragile and eroge companies know that. Drama in most charage is cheap, light and will be resolved in just a few scenes. We don't want to upset the player, he might even think that being in a relationship is not just fun and happy times! Or worse, he might get the impression that his waifu has other things on her mind than him, maybe even has her own life! And if a writer tries to break out of this limitation, it often seems like trolling and the readers are rightfully angry at the game; having a bittersweet resolution at the end of a route that consisted only of sugar and rainbows is neither appropriate nor meaningful; it's just mean-spirited. But this is also true for different genres; NTR heroines are most of the time unredeemable sluts and you have to wonder why the protagonist married her in the first place. It seems logical that an NTR game consists of only NTR scenes, but without the right buildup and good characterization, it can never be more than simple fetish fuel. And I really have to wonder why Nakige and Utsuge are oftentimes so painfully obvious labeled as such; how can you be emotionally invested when you already know how it ends? Well, the answer to this is probably that people want to get their emotional thrills in a safe environment. Being invested in a relationship with problems is only nice, if you know that the relationship can be saved at the end. If you are invested in this situation and the situation ends badly for the characters involved, you will feel bad yourself and that is not the feeling you wanted to have when you decided to read this story. This leads to a dilemma; do you want to be safe but never really that emotional attached or do you want to experience something surprising and truly thrilling but with the risk that you might get extremely disappointed and depressed by the outcome? The innkeeper knows that the only solution to problems is drowning them in alcohol. Hajimari no Kisetsu is certainly not a safe space. Right from the beginning, you notice that something is wrong. Kaori isn't satisfied with the restaurant you choose for your meeting with her, even though it's the same restaurant where you meet her for the first time. She isn't too thrilled about the idea of drinking beer and would instead rather take a glass of wine. And she also doesn't show much interest in your ordinary life and prefers to talk about her new designer handbag. Where did she even get this thing from? Looks expensive... mhm... Chances are you have experienced this kind of human interaction in your own real life, too. This steady process of people changing and slowly drifting apart. It's irritating, but you can't do anything against it. When the protagonist tries to invoke nostalgia in her, hoping that she shows signs that the old Kaori is still somewhere in her, she reacts coldly. A career woman like her has no interest in the past. Someone here seems a little out of place... Hajimari's greatest achievement is that the game portraits its characters so humanly. Kaori is not a bad woman for having different goals in life than the protagonist. It's also not necessary a bad thing that she changed over time. It's a human thing to do. Maybe it's even the protagonist who stays a child and simply can't keep up with her? ... but also, is it so wrong to not change and being happy with who you are? This winter, our protagonist will find the answers to these questions. He will find out what he wants to do with his life and, even more importantly, what kind of human being he wants to be. Characters: I like the protagonist of this story. He speaks in Kansai-ben which makes the game a little bit harder to read, but really helps to bring the point across that he has more in common with a country bumpkin than a well-spoken member of the high society even though he is by no means stupid. He is not very strong or confident, but also not useless or weak-minded. He is just a normal guy, who wants to do the right thing, but is seldom in the position to actually act on it. In fact, even though he always wants to do something, he rarely is able to actual do anything. Not because the game does not give the player the choice to do, but because it's simply impossible for him. This is not a story, where the protagonist solves every problem the heroine has. This is a story, where the protagonist gives the heroine the strength by being on her side, so she can overcome the problems herself. And to be honest, there are really far too few eroge like this. One of my favorite endings is actually a bad end you can get rather quickly by simply saying "I don't want that, I go home." The protagonist proves his worth by standing up to himself, and even though the bad ending credits roll, the usual bad end BGM is replaced by a more hopeful tune, emphasizing that the protagonist grew up a little and might have a better future in front of him now. Because somehow, this is more important than bedding your waifu. A side-character has to rescue the protagonist who wanted to rescue a woman... Gameplay: Speaking of endings, there are 24 "bad ends" and 4 "good ends". They are all interesting and one of the reasons (the other being spoilers) you shouldn't use a guide (there doesn't exist one anyway) to go straight to one of the good ends. Sadly, there are many choices that are badly designed because there is no indication that some of them are a hard route fork (like "going to the first floor" or "second floor"). But there are also some quite interesting choices which help forming the story in a meaningful way. For example, there is a choice during your already achieved happy end where you can choose between uncovering the secrets of your heroine's past or decide not to do it. You will get your happy end either way, but your choice does make difference in how you approach your eventual relationship with her. When you get a bad end, there is some hint for you telling you what you should have done differently, but it's really not important since in most cases it comes simply down to changing the decision of your last choice. I found everything the game has to offer easily on my own except for one good end which is a little bit non-obvious but makes sense in hindsight. I even had to use the Waybackmachine and read some random Japanese comment on a random Japanese website to get the necessary hint to unlock it. I will not spoil it here, so you can feel the same despair I felt. Choose wisely how to approach her, if at all. Emotional women are dangerous. Hajimari no Kisetsu is not a long game and every route can easily be finished in one reading session. The game tells short, romantic stories. They are a little bit cliché'd, but very nice and well-intentioned. There are scenes that make you feel good and some that make you feel depressed, but there is always a nice balance between the two extremes. And it's well earned. Even if you forget some of the details of the story a few months after you read it, you probably wont forget some of the scenes. At least for me that was the case. I did not regret spending my time with this game. Sound and Art: Let's talk about some technical aspects. This game was released in 1998 and sadly it shows. The biggest misstep is to not have any voices. Especially the kind of seiyuu work of the late 90s would have been perfect for this kind of game. There are many dramatic scenes which would be even better with some passionate dubbing. The soundtrack is very nice. Every character has its own theme, themes have several variations and the melodies are pleasant to listen to. You can choose between CD-Audio and MIDI, but the MIDI version, depending on your MIDI configuration of course, is not much worse. Seems to me the CD-Tracks are simple MIDI recordings. That could have been better. The game has no backlog and no "already read" skip function which is really a problem when you try to find all the different endings. You might think that you are on a known path because you skipped over slight text variations when in fact it's the beginning of a new route. The game has an old school omake room, where you can check CGs, endings and music by talking with the characters. Hentai scenes are short, tastefully written and quite romantic. Aside from the nice story, the art is the best feature of this eroge. Your mileage may vary, but to me it captures perfectly the whimsical, romantic and melancholic mood of the winter days. Sadly the artists never worked on another game, or at least not with this art style. Speaking of the staff, the writer also was never read again. What a shame. This makes this game even more unique though. Heh. Conclusion: Don't get the impression that this game is a masterpiece. It's not. It's just a nice little gem. It's not mind-blowing, but certainly thought-provoking. Not flashy, but pleasant ... except when it isn't. If you are alone on a cold, rainy evening and want to read something appropriate you can immerse yourself in for a short time, this is a good recommendation. This will not be the best thing you've ever read, but it will become a bittersweet memory you'll remember fondly. ... Now onto the spoiler discussion. Read this only if you've played the game or you don't care and just want to know what it's about: Thanks for reading. If you have questions, suggestions or something else on your mind, feel free to comment. The next time, I will talk about the sickest eroge I have ever read and explain why it's not as sick as you expected but far more sick than you thought.

This episode we went without a guest since Kickstarter can be a touchy subject. We talked about the concept of kickstarters, how Kickstarters are executed and how Kickstarted should be executed. You can listen to/download episode 6 here: http://thebroadcast.club/2017/07/20/episode-6-the-rise-of-kickstarter/ You can support us by following us on Twitter! https://twitter.com/VNBroadcastClub

I'm not gonna lie signing a tier list (whether one I made or someone else made) would be pretty hilarious weird and amazing at the same time.

Heh, why do I feel like BFR0 would really want to ask NowItsAngeTime for an autograph ...

Nice website http://solpress.co/ Jokes aside, I hope they will succeed. Still better than OELVN kusoge, and when they got funded - every time something dying in me.

don't lose hope yet!! updates are frequent and the progress is going well.

I've got quite a few, but of the top of my head some of my favorites are: Black Wolves Saga -Weiβ und Schwarz Kyoukai no Shirayuki Collar x Malice Prince of Stride Bad Apple Wars

Shira Oka? Sengoku Rance...? I recommend Purino Party, it's the same style of game but probably not as enjoyable.

Hi everyone ! The journey is over, and at last, I can announce The Last Birdling’s release date. Here it is:September 1st, 2017! The Last Birdling’s Steam page can now be accessed: http://store.steampowered.com/app/629430/The_Last_Birdling/ Recently, I have started to follow upcoming games that I want to keep on my radar. If you are willing to do the same for The Last Birdling, I would be so grateful. The “follow” and “add to your wishlist” buttons are available on the Steam page. I will be active on the community board, so I hope to hang out with you there.As the release date approaches, I plan to post a new article every week. These articles will be available on the Steam page as well as my Facebook, Tumblr and all the other usual suspects. My social media links can be found here:http://invertmouse.comI am thankful to those who messaged in to say they fell in love with Bimonia and Tayo after the demo. After hundreds of development hours, those two have grown lives of their own. Once the game is released, I hope their story can be shared with as many people as possible.Thank you!