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Note: This game was already reviewed on Fuwa by Valmore, I encourage you to check out his review as well Those that follow this blog for a while might have noticed that I like to complain about the lack of identity that many Western-made VNs suffer from. As a medium utilized pretty much exclusively by the fans of original Japanese visual novels, EVNs far too often borrow extensively from those when it goes to setting and story elements, to the point of replicating various tiring anime clichés and kitsch tropes. They also frequently copy elements that really have no interest being in a game created by someone living in the USA or Europe, more often than not having only very superficial knowledge of Japanese culture and reality of life in Japan. A Little Lily Princess, developed by Hanako Games and published on Steam in May 2016 (under the "Hanabira" label, signifying an outside scriptwriter), is a game that I like bringing up as an example of a Western VN that was able to differentiate itself from the crowd and create unique experience exactly because of the ability to not be completely defined its “weeb” roots, creating a setting and a story far detached from typical anime tropes. Paradoxically, the classic English novel A Little Princess, that this game adapted into the VN/dating sim format, is not a title unknown to anime fans, thanks to the highly-rated series from the 1980’s, Little Princess Sara (it even inspired a few less known projects, such as the slightly outlandish Strain: Strategic Armored Infantry). Hanako’s version tries to differentiate itself from those other adaptations mostly by giving a yuri spin to the story – still, as I will try to show in this review, calling it a yuri romance is rather misleading and says little about the true appeal of this game. Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

We are happy to introduce Lisistrata, an unforgiving and unconventional RPG-Visual Novel hybrid that elevates the importance of Tactics, Choices, Character Progression and Resource Management. Immersed in an ancient Greece setting, you will recruit, train and lead a team of Athens’ young girls through battles, challenges, critical choices and beyond. It will be up to you to organize an effective rebellion against every man of Athens. It will be your responsibility to stop a war that has been endured for decades. Once inside the Acropolis everything will be in your hands. Choose different skills, improve buildings, elaborate new tactics, betray, seduce, be a diplomat or a warrior. The game (and its characters) will be shaped entirely by you. Inspired by Aristophanes’ great work Also known as the “Father of Comedy” and “The Prince of Ancient Comedy”, Aristophanes lived between 446 - 386 BC and inspired thousands of people in ancient Greece. We would like to do the same by bringing his legendary work back to life and expanding upon its original linearity while still remaining faithful to the source. “I’ve had enough of these wars!! Enough! We can not keep living like this!” “I'm tired to be neglected by my husband!! His sword will not warm his bed for sure! I've made up my mind: Starting from now we say no more! We shall strike!" “If they won’t listen to us, they will sleep alone from now on. It will be a torture for them!!” And so every woman in Athens left their home and took the Acropolis - the heart of the city, as well as the place where the most important resources are held. They decided to offer no more company or affection whatsoever to those man who have been so busy making war. Finding the means and forcing them to declare peace is your objective… ... but managing the Acropolis and your group at the same time while keeping the morale high, won’t be an easy task. Unlock new abilities, forge your character, make the Acropolis a safer place and assemble your team! Level up and make your build unique During the game you will be able to choose different abilities by gaining experience and leveling up your character. Feel free to choose what you like based on your playstyle, there is no best way to beat the game. 34 Skills gathered in 4 different branches. - Athletics - Intelligence - Charisma - Luck Of course it won’t be possible to unlock them all. Choosing your specialties and making decisions will be incredibly important and it will also increase the game replayability. (the image has been drastically reduced so it lost a big chunk of its original quality, sorry for that) Build the Acropolis Better walls, easier access to water or maybe earning the favor of the Gods? Everything counts! But consider… It will take time, which you won’t be able to spend to acquire new skills. Hmm, decisions, decisions… Every time you level up and/or between chapters the game will give you the following option: What shall we do? What you decide to do it's up to you. A better Acropolis will mean a better defense against incursions, better morale for your heroines and other buffs. There is a lot to build but those kind of improvements are designed to make the general environment a better place for you. On the other side, skills bring more specific bonuses. Of course the angry men and the soldiers will not remain idle for long. They didn’t like Lisistrata’s little plan one bit and they will do everything in their power to sabotage your rebellion. They will strike back quickly and it will be quite challenging to survive. Your Skills under a magnifying glass Everything you do, every path you take, every decision you make will present the player with small challenges to overcome: Skill checks. On a successful skill check the player may acquire various advantages that will help the game progression in general; upon a failed skill check the consequences may vary from minor to catastrophic and they may be suffered immediately or later in the game. Therefore, it’s not advisable to Swim if your character has not yet unlocked that ability, you may regret this... Death in this game is permanent. Turn Based Combat Strategize with party order, party composition, and unlocked skills against a huge variety of enemies. When diplomacy fails, it’s time to put your abilities to good use! Each one of our heroines have their own strengths and weaknesses so be careful and evaluate the situation very carefully before choosing who to bring with you in combat. Managing a good mix of abilities is the key to victory. Also we've added some modern RPG concepts on top of this structure; these include AoEs, DoTs, grapples and combos, creating a tactical battle full of depth. Who will oppose you... Our heroines! More characters to come! Also our game will feature voice acting and handmade frame by frame animations. Like some old anime we decided to refrain from using automatic lip sync and blinking. Here is the result: Thanks for reading so far! We are a young indie studio but this is not our first Visual Novel! We are always looking for new ways to improve so this time we decided to be as much open as possible towards the community. We learned from past experiences that getting some honest feedback is the most important part and this time we will apply this to the letter. - What do you think about our project in general? - Do you like our skill system and the possibility to build your character as you like? - Do you believe the RPG-VN mix could work? - Is there anything you would change or improve? We are eager to work with you guys and keep discussing with you about this project. This is our most ambitious work and we are very passionate about it, we really want to create something that will not be forgotten after a week... at least we hope so! =) We are on Kickstarter! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2044603064/lisistrata For daily updates check out our Twitter! https://twitter.com/NeoclassicGames If you don't use twitter so much, we have just created a Facebook page. (it's literally brand new). https://www.facebook.com/neoclassicgames/ Thanks and have a great day!

If you don't get the hashtag, there's this trend on twitter for things like Games (#GameStruck4), Anime (#AnimeStruck4), Movies (#FilmStruck4), and likely others where people put 4 pictures and optional writeups of what either had the most impact or their favorites for that medium VNs are niche so I figure it's best to ask on a place like this. Anyway here's mine: MajiKoi - One of few things I love almost everything about. Sharin no Kuni - Solving girls' personal issues was super interesting/unique Symphonic Rain - Mindblowing twists and feels Konosora ReTL - First TL project of any medium (also loved the uplifting story) What about you guys?

Both of you are wrong. There's nothing straighter than a dick<

Every single "Trap's are gay" argument that people make despite it being obvious that if the trap has sufficiently feminine features apart from her genitals, you are totally straight.

This is more than just a little bit delayed but I wanted to come back and thank everyone again for their responses - all of which have been really helpful. There are a whole bunch of really good looking recommendations and seeing as I can't see any that I don't want to read, I feel like it'll be literally two years if not more before I exhaust this list, which is perfectly fine, of course - more to read and enjoy :D. As far as GnK goes, I don't mind light hearted only part of the way. I guess I wasn't as clear as possible in the OP but my general idea (and plan) is to read something light-hearted and comforting, after reading something more heavy and potentially sad, and then keep on going like that. As much as I like reading the heavier stuff (and being punched in the feels as a result), I've found it really helps to balance that with something that is [almost] guaranteed to be light and fluffy, so that's where that insistence came from. It's just for this particular set of circumstances though: G Senjou no Maou and Grisaia no Kajitsu are both VNs I want to read as soon as possible. Thank you for the Japanese recommendations though - both honestly look really interesting. Not going to be able to read them any time soon due to the language barrier, but hopefully one day that won't be the case so will keep them in mind. Thank you too for the Magical Marriage Lunatics recommendation as well. It looks really good :D. It's not that I didn't enjoy Noble Works or Hatsukoi 1/1, but rather that I felt that both would've been elevated if they didn't wind up doing what they did, which is (IMO) a pitfall PE didn't wind up, well, falling into. I did enjoy the both of them, though, and if I had to go back in time and read both of them I would. It's just that the missing piece was (IMO) the difference between both of them being "good", and "excellent" (which IMO PE was). Thanks for the recommendation! Going to keep an eye on it. IMO they did really well with the translation of Hatsukoi 1/1, both in terms of quality and speed, so hopefully they don't change their mind or (worse yet) stop doing VN translations... I'll keep them in mind - gives something to look forward to :D. I've read Little Busters, and really loved it, but in a way it's part of the reason why I asked for light-hearted stuff, so I'd know that I wouldn't wind up being in a situation like that. Not because it's bad or anything, but just - honestly several of the routes really hit close to home and had me crying my eyes out, and once I finished it I was in a bit of a funk for a while, so I'm hoping to space out experiences like that so as to not be too overwhelmed or depressed. Little Busters spoilers below - don't read if you haven't read all routes (just to be sure) Awww. I hope you don't honestly think it would've been wasted effort. If it wasn't for the patch, those of us who can't understand Japanese wouldn't be able to read it at all, so it'd definitely really helpful. It's worked on at least one person, too :P. I'd said I was IMHHW but I'm going to read To Heart 2 first though, since I really like Aquaplus and since it'll be long enough to really sink my teeth into. Will save IMHHW for a little bit, so thank you for taking the time to translate it and talk about it :D. I did a bit of googling and it seems like the 18 version is the preferable one so will try for that if possible. Little Busters spoiler

Oh my lord, Eclipsed is alive! Good post, because you reminded me that I am completely out of touch with the Ace Attorney series. I didn't watch the anime, I didn't play the fan-tl'd Investigations 2 and I completely forgot they made Spirit of Justice.

Finished AA: Dual Destinies. I eventually got used to the 3D sprites so they don't look too weird to me anymore The game's A LOT more handholdy now, I didn't need to use a walkthrough at all- they literally give you a "Notes" tab that tells you where you need to go and what evidence you need to present to peeps during investigations so that saves some hassle. Trials are much easier too, the lead character will usually have a giveaway inner monologue on what to do. They took away the free-examining of the various backgrounds of locations and now you can only ever examine specific areas, usually the crime scene. Makes the world feel a bit more bland. You can also jump from one location to any other location (a -> d) instead of having to move linearly (a -> b -> c -> d) Blackquill's a decent prosecutor. Liked his presence and story. Detective Fulbright is a major flop though. Insanely massive downgrade from the likes of Gumdrops and Skye Trucy just legit downgraded to background character, goddamn i felt sorry for her, she's only there to provide one-two liners if you even bother to visit Wright Anything Agency during your investigations Maya's still gone, wtf. At least Nick does take a moment to acknowledge her existence at least once this time around, last game there was absolutely no mention whatsoever. There's another Fey girl that makes a cameo as compensation though, and holy sheet she's so adorbs kyaaa ~~ Ep. 5 Turnabout for Tomorrow misc. comments/spoilers about Trials in general: Whoa, I'm on the last current game in the main series, time for AA: Spirit of Justice! I hear Maya's finally gonna backkkskdwjkl;fa1@#

Huh, I'm not a fan of gameplay VNs, but the setting looks pretty interesting, so I might actually check it out. Good luck with your project! One third of the population, if my memory serves me well. It's a big proportion, but not a majority.

Shiei no Sona-Nyl (and the rest of Steampunk-series as well) Sakurai Hikaru is pretty much the only writer I don't mind calling my favorite and the reason I bothered to properly study japanese. Her unique style resonates with me, from the slightly poetic expressions, theatrical mannerisms, to how the characters and stories are presented. Sakurai's stories are full of emotion, wonderful ideas and something profoundly beautiful, at least for me. Plus, if you go deep enough, the Steampunk-series is one the most fascinating and expansive alt-history/Steampunk/cosmic-horror settings out there. SeaBed is just the kind of curious and unusual story that entices me, refuses to leave my thoughts. Definitely not for everyone, but so much for me! Looking back, there's a big bunch of really good VNs I've read. Yet, at the same time I mostly remember just liking them back then, while the actual feelings have long gone. But there are some exceptions, like Kindred Spirits on the Roof. Just thinking about it makes me smile and feel warm and fuzzy! And that if anything is important. I don't have any good picks for fourth right now...

OK time for serious list Irotoridori no Hikari - A story about a blonde girl and death Kin'iro Loveriche - A story about blonde girls and death Nora to Oujo to Noraneko Heart - A story about blonde girl who is already dead Amatsutsumi - A story about a girl and death but this time the girl is not blonde but has short hair

Haro- SOoooo we had little talk with Hymen and decided that I wouldo do an amazing ASDK ME ANYTGINGU thread so ---------> H(ere <--------- it is!! So ask this cute pedololi anything you want. Answers might be real or not, only Shinku God knows~~~ Obligatoru: Also me irl:

Some of my favorite girls

Rewrite was my first ever vn and I think I re-read every single route 8 times in total (don't judge me). I'm guessing I clocked about 700 hours in total on that game, way more than any other vn I've played. Another VN that I haven't re-read but understand completely that it is a fucking masterpiece is Dies Irae, like c'mon everything in that VN is top notch from cgs to character development to fight scenes. Another favorite of my mine is Majikoi, as you can probably tell from the pfp XD However Most might not agree with my last one, World End Economica (WEE) is an amazing trilogy that I feel is severely underrated. The economic jargon is explained through meaningful and interesting examples, the character development of the main cast might feel subtle to some but is honestly really well done, and the conflict and emotional attachment between members of the cast feel incredibly realistic. Most of all,

There are alot..... - Toradora! --> Best romance and drama Anime - Koe no Katachi --> Seriously, it's the best Anime movie I watched. There is also a really good AMV: - Little Busters! Refain - Nagi no Asukara - Angel Beats! - Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso - Assassination Classroom Season 2... Koro-sensei - Code Geass --> Man... That ending >.< - Shakugan no Shana III - White Album 2 --> So much Drama.... And I hate this cliffhanger at the end of the Anime. Please, someone have to localize the VN and bring it to the west.

Oh, wow, not sure how I missed this VN. I guess, I may try it after I finally read fault. Looks pretty interesting. By the way, I played the first Fault for a few minutes, and I got the feeling that it's way more similar in the way it's written to a light novel rather than a VN. Well, I guess it makes sense, considering that it's a kinetic novel and doesn't even have a protagonist.

I think I'll echo the opinions about Saya no Uta. It's so light-years away from the typical VN romcom's that it's almost hard to believe that it's really a Japanese VN. It's dark, but not in the typical 'sex-fetishistic' way many nukiges provide. It's dark in a very mature way - it gives you the insight that being the monster can be very much in the eye of the beholder. The PC Games magazine even wrote a nice article about it here.

I haven't played Fault yet (it's sitting there in my enormous Steam backlog) and heard some mixed opinions about it when it goes to writing, but one thing is pretty clear to me - art direction in Alice in Dissonance's games is amazing and just looking at screens from them make me feel good.

Hello! So I recently finished playing "Tales of Berseria" (JRPG game by Bandai Namco) and I thought I would round up my thoughts about the game here (the review should be mostly spoiler free, otherwise notify me and I'll change it). The story tells the tale of young Velvet Crowe and her adventurous crew (surmounting to 6 by the end of the game) who set out to put an end to a trauma of Velvet's past by all manner of means, ranging from fishing and cooking to straight up fighting. Well mostly the latter. You see while you might be fooled by an early cutesy introduction the meat of the game is truly in its dark undertones which, for a game with a age rating of 16, is a fair amount of the content. I found also that the content was fairly philosophical at times (perhaps not in the amount of some VNs though). In the game you namely find yourself fighting between different values, ideas and perspectives, something the game manages in my opinion to do with fluidity and better than most games and VNs. This philosophy comes from the intimite and delicate relation the game places between cutscenes, extra dialogue (dialogue you can choose to straight up never open) and world building in which you get to take a part of not a straight up philosophy lesson but instead a smaller amount of nit picks of philosophy. In this regard I found the game interesting above the brute force gameplay and story (we will get to that later) and found myself able to enjoy not skipping every single dialogue line, something I admittedly find myself doing all too often in games. The story is very good and interesting throughout the whole game, if somewhat trope-ish (what can one expect from a JRPG game?) and while the story never managed to grab me to the point of tears it certainly has its moments for both the ones liking darker and (somewhat) lighter storylines. Is this good? Well, perhaps. I personally did not really enjoy the sudden shift the game took towards the end to become so light namely and I sort of wished the story had stuck purely to the largely dark undertones it held in the beginning, since this shift sort of opened up the door for it being trope-ish for the (in my opinion good) ending. Did this largely influence my enjoyment? Certainly not, but just something to note for those not able to stand JRPGs love for tropes. In terms of voice acting I can not speak for the English side but with Japanese voices the dialogue is very nicely voiced. The fighting (which is 50%> of the game in my opinion) is focused on different, so called, artes (attacks basically) which have different effects, elements, level upgrading (..., I was literally still getting new tutorial messages for fights 1 hour before the, ~40-ish hour, game ended). If you are like me however you will notice the little blue bar (so called "souls") next to people's faces and that is, truth be told, the MVP meter, 80% of your time will be spent waiting for this to go up to three bars and then pressing R to do some, so called, break soul ability, which is basically code name for stun lock, invincibility frames and damage central (if you want some NG+ level fighting, I am not your guy, I am the R spammer). If you do not have this bar filled you will be in the living hell mode, where you can get stun locked into the next century and can get absolutely destroyed by different AI unless you run around in circles (blocking does exist but did not work very well in my experience compared to dashing away) and wait for your blue bar (basically working as a stamina bar) to refill by attacking with basic artes and running. Is the fighting enjoyable? Yes. Is it repetitive? Yes, especially if you need to farm for levels where your life basically becomes turning down the volume to next to nought to not have to use hearing aid in the near future due to the EXTREMELY loud battle sounds (one reason I cannot really speak for the music) and getting perhaps slightly bored of seeing the same cat on a wand for the 30th time. Personally I would have perhaps liked some other battle system (with an lessened focus on stuns and the "souls" (stamina bar) and an increased focus on leveling) but I can also see the enjoyment it brings when you absolutely destroy your enemies with OP and nice animated powers. Beware however, the AOE stun of doom is real in this game so if you screw up your blue bar of destiny you are a bit in the toilet when an enemy does an AOE of half the battleground and you can neither run away, get up your souls (since it takes forever to do so) or attack (due to the extreme damage some bosses do). In terms of bosses the game too offers a wide arrange, though arguably they are later on narrowed down in terms of difficulty to their AOE attack size and ability to stun lock you and your AI friends (which are actually pretty good in my experience of not needlessly dying), since in my experience that is where the real trouble late game comes up and minor changes in attack patterns become minor. The characters are also really enjoyable and funny, making me chuckle more than once and not making one character that one guy which is boring compared to the others. The relations between the different antagonists and characters later on get really interesting too, tying in nicely with good story overall. In terms of graphics the game is generally really good, if perhaps somewhat randomly pixely at some points (I laughed when an antagonist got an 144p background randomly smashed up behind himself while he kept the same quality as the rest of the game). Out doors the quality stays pretty good too and most of the views of the game are pretty nice if looked from afar, if somewhat dulled out if you get close up. Ending thoughts Though focusing (perhaps too much) on the the battle system, Tales of Berseria is something to truly enjoy for its story and characters, which is something that brought me back to game and made the experience all the more worth it.

Close Enough .... I guess ?

it is annoying especially with my pal umw earlier. i dont want to get to into but unlimitedmoeworks has been dealing with a lot and we've dealt with a lot from him, not in a necessarily bad kind of way but we're trying to help him overcome his social anxiety and to have discussions just go off the rails for the sake of it is annoying. this is just one example and i know people reading this who think im being malicious towards because of past clashing but it took a lot for umw to come clean to everyone. i know you guys see it as being harmless and it is but really derailing a convo for the sake of... whatever is off putting to other users who want to have a discussion.