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Aoi Tori is Purple Soft's latest project, a VN based in a girls' school in the mountains, where the protagonist, a priest (I'm assuming Episcopalian/Anglican for various reasons), goes to school as an exception, as he cannot live outside of the school without being taken by demons. Ritsu, the protagonist, possesses the power to take others' negative emotions, thus enhancing their feelings of happiness and joy, and this power works best when he has sex with them. Now, given that he is a young man, you'd think from this description that he was going around finding girls that were in trouble and 'saving' them that way... given eroge culture. However, if anything, it is the reverse... girls that are desperate to escape their personal reality come to him, seeking the happiness he can give, and he has reduced himself to something like an automatic mechanism for giving them what they want. To be blunt, his point of view seems very close to that of a lifelong prostitute, save for the miraculous ability he possesses... moreover, a prostitute who didn't choose the work (his first experiences were all oneshota, apparently). One day, his monotonous days of sex and quiet prayer (it sounds odd, but outside of school, that is pretty much what it was like), a century-old vampire named Mary Harker appears before him, having intruded into his home behind the chapel, and he lets her stay out of kindness. At the same time, a voice (referred to as the 'demon on the phone') tells him over the phone that he has a rather dark fate awaiting him and his power isn't what he thinks it is. This night is closely followed by a number of meetings and reunions... a devout girl with a self-destructive streak a mile wide (Akari), the young teacher who stole his virginity (Risa), and the twin sister he never knew he had (Sayo). In addition, you have Mikako, who is Risa's sister and Ritsu's only friend... and who is a genius as well as a pragmatist. Overall, it is an interesting cast of characters, even for a Purple Soft game. I'm going to be blunt, the part that will put off at least some of you is the sheer amount of sex in the first part of the VN. The game begins with two h-scenes, neither of which involves affection or love, and, while this is a good intro into Ritsu's situation, it also will probably drive the romantics amongst you a bit crazy, judging by my previous experiences. So... if you can't stand a protagonist who doesn't bother refusing sex from women and is used to having sex with girls he doesn't know, you probably won't like this game. That said, there are relatively few similar h-scenes after this, probably in order to keep you from getting too swallowed up by his attitude toward sexual activity. Ritsu is a rather strange young man, even setting aside his destined role as the Prince of Darkness (Mary's term for it). As the demon on the phone puts it, 'You are a madman who can only be satisfied by saving others.' That fits him perfectly, and that part of his personality never really goes away. He is fundamentally a giver, above all other things. Even if he can be convinced by the heroines to be selfish in the now, when things come to a climax, he always falls back on that nature. He is also a natural S and a hedonist (though he is not conscious of this most of the time), and he doesn't have it in him to become paranoid or maintain his anger for long. That said, once he decides on the result he wants, he will literally do anything to achieve it. Mary Harker Mary Harker, in any other game, would be the true heroine. I don't mean to be mean about Akari... she is creepy has hell sometimes, despite her apparent normality (you'll see what I mean if you actually read the first two h-scenes), but if I began this game without a walkthrough or seeing the cover of the game package, I probably would have assumed she was the true heroine. The reason is very simple... she is the catalyst that sparks the game's engine at the beginning, and, given eroge custom, that heroine usually is the true one. Now, her personality... Mary is probably the most cheerful and normal vampire I've seen outside of a 'nerfed' vampire setting (this one isn't, since just a bite is enough to turn someone and she takes injuries from her own prayers and the sun). Nonetheless, she has lived a century, and that has had various effects on her psyche, though the biggest one is a growing awareness that maintaining her humanity and human persona is becoming harder and harder. It is only because of Ritsu that she is able to have some kind of a hope for the future, and she is pretty dependent on him during the story. Despite that, she is also sort-of an oneesan character outside of her own path. She does have a lot of experience under her belt, and her attitude toward him at some times skirts the motherly. Her own path is... a clash of two people destined to live in darkness, her and Ritsu. They are both people who don't understand romantic love at the beginning, so seeing them change is somewhat amusing, but the bigger issue is that their natures press down on them, making a happy romance difficult. Overall, it was a highly emotional experience that I enjoyed thoroughly. I do wish - as I almost always do - that she had a nice long epilogue after story, but I have resigned myself to not receiving what I wish for most of the time, when it comes to that. Akasabi Risa and Akasabi Mikako Akasabi Risa was the protagonist's first sexual partner. Like all the girls who had sex with him in the past, she was seeking escape from reality by having him give her happiness, but she, unlike the others, was actually in love with him from the beginning. Risa is a consummate actress, hiding her true intentions behind her feelings, a technique she apparently developed in the years she was away from Risa. She is also essentially a 'giver' type, willingly giving everything for those she cares about. Mikako is a pretty unusual character. If it weren't for her fondness for Ritsu and her love for Risa, I would be tempted to call her an emotionless sociopath, based on her surface actions. I called her a pragmatist above, but this isn't despite her emotional reactions... it is her natural state of being. Pragmatism is usually a product of socialization and rationality being prioritized over emotion. However, in Mikako's case, she is able to (and does so automatically) completely analyze and render meaningless her emotions before they reach the surface. Her love for Risa is pretty much the only exception, and it is that emotion that renders her as almost human (her fondness for Ritsu exists because she loves Risa and Risa loves him). Now, the demon on the phone takes on a rather more direct role in this story than in Mary's, where he/she is merely speaking to the characters. In fact, the demon's interference is what brings this path's conflict to the surface, and overall, it made this path more interesting than it otherwise would have been. To be blunt, without the demon's 'help', it is highly unlikely that Risa, Mikako, and Ritsu would get together, based on the revelations in this path. There are a number of reasons, but the biggest one lies with the fact that Ritsu quite simply doesn't have strong emotions toward his sexual partners normally (once he actually loves them, it is different)... not even remnant lust. Kurosaki Sayo Kurosaki Sayo is Ritsu's twin, separated from him at birth. She is a cynical, emotionally twisted young girl whose only love is Ritsu (though she does have affection for others based on whether they make Ritsu happy or not) and whose hobby is toying with him and Mary. She appears on the scene shortly after Mary's arrival, guided by the demon on the phone. She is also a part of the demons' plans for him, and that plan is the center of her path. This path is an utsuge-style path... don't expect a happy ending. There is a good reason why Sayo was given to a different orphanage by their mother, and that reason becomes apparent fairly early after Ritsu chooses her. I enjoyed this path and it has some really good cathartic moments... but I honestly thought they were a bit excessively obvious in foreshadowing this one. Afterwards (read this if you don't mind a bit of spoilers) Remember, this is a spoiler. As techniques go, it is interesting, and I felt the need to mention it before Akari's path because of how it leads into it. Umino Akari Akari is... the girl whose outer personality and inner desires are most in conflict. Akari is a devout Christian (Ritsu's assessment), kind-hearted, gentle, and takes pleasure in giving of herself to others. However, she is also strongly driven to seek out danger, corruption, and self-destruction in every way, shape, and form. As one of the milder examples... she is afraid of heights but she willingly participates in the school swim club's high dive competition. A more extreme version is the one you run into at the beginning, in the first scene, where, after watching her friend have sex with Ritsu, she is drawn to him and has sex with him as well. Akari's path is... interesting. Actually, the beginning of the path is slow, because the story refrains from going to the extremes you saw in the common route and the other paths. However, that slow build up is a near-perfect lead into the solid drama leading up to the ending. There is actually very little I can say about this path without spoiling it, but I can say that I liked the ending. I cried numerous times throughout the path, and the ending itself satisfied me completely, a rare event in and of itself. One thing I should note is that there is a distinct Chrono Clock reference in this path, which startled me a bit. It was actually a stronger link than the mention of the kotodama-users early in the common route. For those who are interested, I'll respond in a PM, but I'm unwilling to spoil this. I did laugh though. I'm unsure if this is an affectation or not, but it is interesting. Overall I'm seriously tempted to scream 'kamige!!!' to the sky... but in retrospect, they game does have some distinct flaws. The main one of these is the somewhat haphazard approach to the beginning of Risa's path (it felt kind of like they were shoving things along a little too forcefully in that one). However, even so this is one of the better games that have come out this year, and, in its own way, keeps the Purple Soft fantasy nakige tradition started with Mirai Nostalgia alive and kicking. Where Chrono Clock fizzled and Amatsutsumi committed the sin of using the ladder-style progression system, this game manages to both satisfy and feel like it treats the non-true heroines well.

Update 30/11/2017 Hi guys! I totally forgot to make the update post last week, so it will be two update in one post x) First I thought that I would like to refine a little the GUI of the game, so I did! I added some color and I think that this is a little more linked to the theme of the gam now. So here's several screenshots of the new GUI and old GUI, I hope that you will like it! New main menu: Old main menu: New In Game GUI : Old In Game GUI : New Save/Load Menu : Old Save/Load Menu : New Preferences Menu : Old Preferences Menu : Next, I programmed a lot. And some sprites, background lines and sound have been done, but it’s been essentially programming ^^ Story : 100% Sprites : 47% Backgrounds : 33% CG : 0% GUI : 95% Sounds and Music : 45% Programming : 45% Proofreading: 98% And that’s it for this update Thank you for your support!

My strategy involved going in with a semi-burst setup, which involved having Zidane and Vivi attacking all the time unless they needed to use phoenix downs, and I would heal with an aoe cura spell and Freya's aoe regen. Freya has MP restore too, which I tried to take full advantage of. When the party had regen and decent mana, I'd go ahead and start attacking with her. What threw me off the most was the zombie effect. I'm accustomed to debuffs like that wearing off on death, but apparently zombie stayed there, and I didn't realize until my 2nd try that it blocked revive. So I basically had to make a point to check for zombie every time the boss used his big attack that causes status ailments. I would've gone with Eiko for her aoe revive, but I wanted to finish the game with Dagger.

Aaaah, the memories! I played this in the PS1 and it was my first main series entry FF ever (first was Tactics) so I'm a bit biased, but yeah this game is really good!!! I think this boss here was a bit "asspulled" into the story but then I discovered that's pretty much FF tradition. I got him in my first try using a bunch of elixirs and a trance state Steiner (funny thing is that I used exactly the opposite team: Eiko, Amarant and Steiner)! But it was such a poor and luck based strategy that when I tried this boss again years later in an emulator, I failed so hard...

What a wonderful boss fight. Actually took me a few tries to figure out a strategy for him, lol. Overall, I was impressed with FFIX. I'm still not a big huge fan of the ATB system in general, but the gameplay in this particular title was acceptable, imo. Unfortunately for me, the Steam port was a little buggy and I ended up crashing all the time even with the mods removed, which is partially why I temporarily stalled this game and re-played FFIII for a short while (I was in a Final Fantasy mood, lol). The story was excellent though. It didn't take off early on, which I consider a good thing, and was able to pull off a good setup for a grand ending. There were some good plot twists towards the end that I was very much surprised with too, which made it that much more engaging. The ending was awfully sweet too, though not as great as I would've wanted it to be. Definitely one of the most enjoyable RPGs I've played. I'd likely put it up in my top 10 at least.

I both agree and disagree. I'm happy they are going for a third season, but history is certainly against them. If they make just the same +1, people will hate it as an unneeded continuation that takes value out of the original. If they change things too much so that it's smth new and different, people will dislike the change of style.

I read a bit of it - the writing is extremely forced and pathetic. Don't know if you care about that sort of thing, though. Fan of Yosuga no Sora here.

Well that wordplay was half the reason I told you to read the summary. There is a harem and sex though it all occurs after the first part. And a quick warning that there's a lot of futa in it, I don't particularly like futa so just giving you some mental prep if you need it.

Ah... I can't really recall this game clearly, but I recall that I found it trite, even for a charage. This one came out shortly before I started VN of the Month, so I don't actually have a post on it to remind me of what it is like, but if you want a good reference for how I felt about it... the fact that I didn't bother to post a commentary on vndb says it all, lol. Edit: Just to clarify... if you just want an imouto fetish story, there are numerous better ones out there. If you want a charage, the same.

If this was me, right after this happy pic the wheelchair would roll down the stairs and then be run over by another wheelchair with a guy just like this on it. I swear, this happens EVERY TIME in EVERY GAME I try to suicide attack a dying boss!

whoever voiced her.

Just to clarify: Mangagamer's version is NOT crap. What happened is: the game was previously fan translated while it was being released in Japanese. Due to that, many translation issues went through and were there until recently, when MG, together with the original translators, revised the whole script. The new version is the best translation now and is an effort that took some years. Ryukishi's drawings are a big issue, as he - the creator of the series - likes (?) to make his own sprites, which in Higurashi and Umineko, mainly, were a huge turn down to many. Because of that, Mangagamer released for Higurashi a complete redrawn of all the sprites while the original game per se was intact. There was, however, the PS3 version, which was only released in Japan and will never come to the west because the company behind it is dead. Because of that, Mangagamer had to go with their own means, and while they redid Higurashi's sprites, they instead used the ones from the Pachinko version of Umineko. In essence, there is no huge difference, they only decided to use something already done (probably cheaper) Fans created patches that bring the art and voices from this version to the new translation of MG, and while Higurashi only has a 1:1 transition, there is a project, the one you see it is stalled, that wants to recreate the entire PS3 version in English and Russian. Everything exactly as made to the console, except now with the most quality achievable. That is demanding, as besides doing the transition of the art, they are going through the whole script and doing a "retranslation" of everything. Besides, there are some passwords things they do that the patch is available only for those who have both the original English release and an original japanese copy, so if you plan on only buying the steam version, you'll probably have issues with that. But! There's always a but! There is another group who is doing the same as the Higurashi version, porting the PS3 version to the new translation from MG. This was done before by the same group who is doing the full transition, although it was lacking in some ways (compared to what they have now). You can say that this alternative patch is not as good as the full transition, but I'm currently on my second playthrough of Umineko and I can garantee that it is far well done and works fully with the new translation. And honestly, although ultra beautiful, the full PS3 experience is not worth the wait as Umineko is definitly focused on its storytelling, not on the looks. All being said, what you should do is to buy the steam version and use the patch for PS3 voices and art. Ps: Higurashi WAS bad translated as MG was in its first years, but they are currently rereleasing all the episodes plus some japanese exclusive ones with their new art AND translation. Patch: https://github.com/07th-mod/umineko-question/releases

Fully clothed... right? Right!?

Dat Turtle

Maybe it's not a typical thing to post here, but my tablet gave me this notification today: Not sure what it meant, but I guess it's OK...?