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I've gotta live up to the name of the blog, ya know? Actually I recently found about about the Hoshi Ori patch that's being worked on right now, and that made me want to revisit Ginharu. I was considering just reading it on my own without updating the blog but that felt wrong. I'll probably end up disappearing for another year after a few entries, but we'll see. In the meantime, I'll probably have fewer screenshots and more summarization because I'm lazy. Also it turns out that I never even published the previous entry in September of 2017, so here it is I guess Now onto the stuff I read recently and not over a year ago

You're flexin' too hard on us here, bro.

Now that's some good taste right there.

Playing Little Busters, aiming for Nishizono's route. But the real drama has been the Battle Rankings! Here's what's happened...... * Rin defeated Sasami, and Riki got Sasami's Perfume. * I challenge Kengo at the first opportunity. Thanks to the Perfume (and a bit of luck), I defeat Kengo in the very first match! * Rin defeats Sasami several more times, giving me even more Sasami related items. As a result, I'm rather overpowered (with sky high Agility in particular). * I would defeat Kengo another TWO times in a row. And Rin. Before the story demotes me to last place.... * At the bottom of the rankings, Kurugaya hands me my first loss. I would defeat her in the rematch. * Komari would basically curbstomp me twice in a row. I BARELY got past her on the 3rd try.... * I steadily climb the ranks. Rin briefly manages to become #1. She gets demoted, but reaches #1 again! * After Kengo is demoted, I defeat him AGAIN! Placing me in the top3.... * Masato knocks Rin out of the top spot .... again. Meanwhile, Kyousuke makes it to 4. While Komari basically falls to the bottom. * I finally knock off Masato and claim the #1 spot! * ........ and the very next thing that happens is ...... Mystery Man!! First time I've ever seen him.... * "Saito" debuts against Komari ....... AND KOMARI WINS SOMEHOW!!!!! * Kengo continues to be a joke, losing to Kurugaya twice.... * "Saito" defeats Komari in the rematch (SHE ALMOST WON AGAIN!). Then he starts zooming up the rankings.... * Kyousuke would take the #1 spot from me, then I'd take it back. Kurugaya attempts to demote me from #3 to #5 at one point, but I got VERY lucky.... * In a VERY clutch matchup, I defeat Kyousuke again, and become #1....... * ........ while Saito becomes #2, knocking off Masato (Masato would have won, except he slipped on his own Soap!). * Me vs Saito then happens!! AND I WIN with a KO on the final round!! Luckily Saito had a rather useless weapon (mousetrap). Who needs "KEY Magic", when RNG can script the Battle Rankings, and create awesome drama that way! I'm sure the KEY Magic comes later.....

+1 for Tropical Liquor in the "worst of 2018" bucket (I didn't play the other Sayori one being mentioned, Monmusu). Even Frontwing's blatant Huniepop clone from back in 2016 had less awful gameplay than Tropical Liquor. And next up would definitely be Magical Marriage Lunatics. Literally everything about it was bad. First off, the art is bad—have you seen those sprite poses? Second off, the story is bad—because there isn't one. Third, the characters are neither likeable nor memorable. Like, I probably spent 10 hours playing this game and it's a major struggle to even dredge up their faces, let alone names. Sorry dude, but I couldn't disagree more. MML is genuinely bad. If you want a game with the same general flavor but which does literally everything right, while MML does literally everything wrong, Ponkotsu Akuma is where it's at.

Monmusu is in my opinion an even worse Sayori VN released in 2018, but ye Tropical Liquor is really bad.

Quite surprising (Or maybe not) that Trip is still working on Touko's route even with break and all, so it's definitely the good news here. Anyway here's the update for this week, or rather the first update for 2019 below: Common: 100.0% Sora: 0.0% Marika: 100.0% Natsuki: 0.0% Misa: 100.0% Rikka: 100.0% Touko: 37.77% Total: 60.4% That's all for the first update in 2019 here.

For me it was I Walk Among Zombies if it comes to releases from last year - man, what a piece of crap. Himawari was also pretty bad, but that wasn't a release from last year.

Welcome to the second and last part of my 2018 Curator Connect Clean-up (if you missed the first half, check it out here)! The horror themes were strong in the VNs sent to me this year and while it will be less explicit in this part, they’re not completely gone either, mostly represented by Perseverance – an episodic, postapocalyptic game which strives to prove that story-driven experience featuring zombies is still not passée in 2018 (and, possibly, that the Telltale storytelling formula is not as dead as the studio that created it). Other than that, we’ll get to experience an ominous sci-fi mystery Event-D and two low-budget, simple romance VNs, all of them holding some surprises… Not always positive ones, though. The Wilting Amaranth I have pretty complicated feelings about Reine Works’ visual novels – on one hand, they show genuine effort, have decent visuals and are not cynically exploitative even when implementing sexual content. On the other, they always struggle when it goes writing and characterisation, to the point they always short of being genuinely good and compelling. The Wilting Amaranth showcases these problems especially well – while the set-up protagonist’s personality and her backstory are all simple (a lesbian-in-denial princess, pressured by her parents into an arranged marriage, is accidentally summoned by a witch to her remote tower), they’re interesting enough to carry a simple, romantic plot. Where it pretty much falls apart is the heroines and how their characters are developed: the witch is shy and stuttering to the point she’s barely able to hold a conversation at any point of the plot and her quirks grow tiring very fast. The other possible love interest, a prisoner of the witch who tried to assassinate her for a bounty, is a first-class sociopath who can do all kinds of despicable things if it makes her some money, but switching her attitude in certain scenarios for no clear reason. Even with how short the game is (around 3-4 hours of reading) there’s no real justification for how these characters are developed and sadly, it takes away quite a lot of fun from the experience, with contains not-awful production values and some fairly cool ideas. While reading it is not a complete waste of time, it’s also not something I would ever strongly recommend, even for yuri fans. Final rating: (Cautiously) Recommended Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

So here's another recommendation thread from me (Though it has been a good three months since the last haha). After the last thread I followed the advice and combed through the forums and found a few VNs that way but ultimately ended up reading through my backlog and now I have nothing to read(I even decided to read all the Key games). Recently finished Suki Suki and To Heart 2(for the second time lol). So I was hoping somebody here could provide a few recommendations that I haven't already read. My list is under my profile. Thanks in advance to all that recommends something!

I have a weird history with Dies Irae. Its a VN I've know about for some 5 years now. It was always lauded as "the best VN you will never read", and the aura in which it got talked about reeked with pretension. Much like Suba Hibi, it was one of those untranslated VNs that couldn't be criticized since only those with Japanese literacy could read it. And for whatever odd reason, the minority of Western VN fans who could read untld VNs seemed to all ubiquitously love it. A couple years ago after having studied Japanese for a bit, I finally cracked Suba Hibi (this was when the translation was in this odd purgatory status), and despite all the skepticism I approached it with, it became one of my favorite VNs. Certainly in my top 3. I went into Dies Irae with with the optimism I came out of Suba Hibi with. And indeed, the Prologue of Dies Irae alone impressed me very much. I always heard the VN praised for its writing, and the prose was quite gorgeous. Furthermore, the characters it introduced and the conflict all caught my attention. Then we get to the first scene where Shirou and Ren start brawling it out. Upon first appearance I loved Shirou. He had all the chaotic and interesting elements I wanted in a protagonist. But instead we get stuck with Ren. I'm a couple of chapters in, and admittedly my biggest issue with the VN is Ren and his school friends (especially Kasumi!). Compared to the Villains the protagonists lack any interesting qualities. The fight scenes I have seen so far have all been very engaging, but they contrast night and day with the dullness of the school scenes. Furthermore, its kind of disorienting reading highly stylized prose for the fights, and then the most generic VN dialogues once we get back to Ren and his school life. My last annoyance with the VN is the adolescent tier philosophizing that goes around. I heard the VN praised for the various philosophies the characters encapsulate, but much of it so far doesn't seem impressive. Although I might just be annoyed because Ren's constant internal monologues and dialogues lamenting the loss of his "regular mundane life" is simply just boring, and repetitive. I'd much rather see more Shirou spouting on about his desire for chaos. Would you recommend I continue Dies Irae? I do find certain parts of it very fun and engaging (the villains and the fight scenes), but Ren as a protagonist is dragging down the experience so much for me.

The thing is.... It isn't really Sayori's fault since they were banging on the hope her art would sell copies and so did fk all about the story and characters.... Can honestly say I'm not surprised and feel quite vindicated when I told people to stay away from those 2 VNs. Still though, I hope she gets pulled into better VNs. Her artwork is really up there.

Yes! So glad to see this back. I will savour the next 1 to 6 entries for the year.

That's the same slander Shuffle! suffered. Old habits die hard. MML is just fast food as far as VN go, but what it does it does reasonably well within its boundaries. I dunno about Ponkotsu Akuma, but maybe nukige aren't really your thing, pal, if you go asking deep stories and charismatic characters out of them. Why not expect a cheerful, playful, horny atmosphere? You can always play Subahibi, I guess... By the way, who the fuck is "Mona"??

You just weren't paying attention. There are plenty of people on this forum who didn't like it. As for the topic of this thread, I don't really think any of this year's releases I played were really bad. Well, Hapymaher and Grisaia no Rakuen (which technically came out last year) were pretty disappointing, but they weren't really bad. On the other hand, I also played Phenomeno... And, to be honest, this time I simply cannot understand why this is so popular.

Now you can download Zeliria Sanctuary on Steam https://store.steampowered.com/app/855630/Zeliria_Sanctuary/

The worst of 2018 ? Maybe Tropical Liquor. The puzzle part sucks, the date part sucks, the VN part sucks, the Girls s...err...are not very interesting (even Sayori's art is disappointing) Not much to save...except one or two H-scenes, maybe https://vndb.org/v20527

Paradise Lost was the first game in Masada's/Light's 'Shinza series (Paradise Lost>Dies Irae>Kajiri Kamui Kagura). For the sake of those who read Dies Irae but still don't understand how this universe/setting works, I'll explain it in a spoiler box at the end of the post. Paradise Lost is based in the ruins of a city once called Sodom, now the Quarantine City, a city full of poisonous miasma that causes death and mutation in its inhabitants, a city sealed from the outside world by an impenetrable barrier, a city where Darwinism is the only law. All the denizens of that city are beasts, monsters who combine human cruelty with the lack of restraint of an animal. In that city, a man, sometimes named Lyle, at others Nacht, and at yet others Death Scythe, walks the streets of the darkest, most toxic area of the city, stained with the blood of those unfortunate enough to encounter him. That's my intro to one of Paradise Lost's two protagonists, Lyle. In a city where everyone is out for themselves, with no pretense of anything else, Lyle is a living legend, a monster who kills simply because he can, because he feels like it. Always at war with his even more violent alternative ego, Nacht, he searches for a past lost so long ago that it was forgotten by time itself. Frozen in place for years, time begins to move forward when he encounters the angel Ririel deep in the depths of the Dead Zone. The other protagonist, Knowe Christ, is a bit more comprehensible from the average human perspective. He is a young man who is on the lowest rung of the Quarantine City's societal ladder. Born with defects that make a life of violence impossible for him, he supports his adopted little sister Sophie by selling drugs and being a 'body chopper', selling his own body parts for enough money to feed them both. He loves Sophie dearly, and she is the only thing keeping him sane in the abyss that is that city. Paradise Lost is, like all Masada games, over the top and pretty much a perfect example of epic chuunige style (as opposed to the standard types, which are less melodramatic and grand in scale). In some ways, this game avoids everything that Masada normally does poorly (namely slice-of-life) entirely. It is pure story from beginning to end. There is no conflict between daily life and the darker struggle, because the struggle is merely an extension of that daily life. Both protagonists are dark by nature, though Knowe can be pretty frustrating for his surprising naivete (understandable, since he is a weakling by the standards of the city). This game has a lot of great fights and slaughter, and the actual story is pretty interesting. Unfortunately, the visuals are dated (though still pretty cool) and the protagonists aren't voiced, both of which are negatives for a chuunige (you would have thought Light would have fixed that when they re-released the game). There is only one truly good person in this entire VN (Ririel), and most of the characters in the game would be considered to be monsters by our moral standards. Both inside and outside of the city the world is a huge dystopia, with merely the vector differing. This game uses a lot of Christian apocrypha (as should be obvious, considering that Ririel is an angel) in the setting, but it is done in a way that should be pretty offensive to most Christians, lol (seriously, I don't think that Masada could have so thoroughly designed a blasphemous work even if he'd done so intentionally). While there are six endings to the game, it should be noted that there are only two possible overall outcomes, with the only differences between them being whether the endings are focused on Knowe's side (and one of his two heroines) or Lyle's side. Basically, the essential difference between the endings is determined by whether the antagonist succeeds or fails in his main goal (ironically, the antagonist succeeding creates the 'good' endings). Overall, this game is a great chuunige... but anyone who doesn't like chuunige won't like it, because there is literally nothing but chuunige content in this game.

Just to chip in my thoughts on a couple of those points, since some I strongly agree with, and some I disagree with, and I think I have a somewhat balanced view having been on both the fan and pro side of VN loc... Strongly agree with this one. You will see companies pick up things simply because of staff enthusiasm at times, but it's the exception that proves the rule. Generally speaking, fan translation is probably the best shot for localizations for much older, "classic" titles. Official TLs are actually in worse shape here than fan TLs. It's far more common for fan TLs to have someone in a "translation checker"-type capacity than it is for official TLs, since fan TLs have the luxury of time and (oddly enough) resources. There's barely enough money in professional VN loc to pay a (not very good) rate for TL, edit, and QC; unless you're looking at a truly exceptional scenario (Muv Luv and Clannad come to mind as probably having had more resources available than most official loc projects), there's no money at all to pay for extra hands beyond that. These are generally very light-handed, and ultimately more like guidelines than rules. Except in really superficial, stylistic ways, all the releases even from a single given company will vary wildly in their approach to various localization decisions, due to the influence of the many freelance translators and editors employed by each company. Same. Though I'll caution by adding that, at least in my case, I only feel that way as long as the TL in question is delivered with care and quality, just like I'd want from an official TL. If it's a poorly edited google translate job, then it's worse than nothing, since it puts the nail in the coffin for any chance of a quality translation, and I wouldn't want that for any game I cared about. But that can obviously happen with either a fan TL or an official TL, as the recent Tenkiame release for example shows... Neither fan nor official TL has either a monopoly on or a guarantee of quality.

2018 was the year I really started reading VNs on a regular basis, and it also happened to be a year where I had a lot of time to kill, so I finished about 18 of them (including several long titles), and started a few without finishing them. So my list obviously contains well known ones since so far I mostly read those. 1. Umineko. I don't even know where to begin with this one. Both parts are only sitting at a 9.5 on my vndb list because each one suffers from some minor flaws, but as a whole it's closer to a 10.5. Also gave us Goat-kun and Erika wearing a pirate hat. 2. Steins;Gate. Great in every aspect. It's a shame they had to cut 4°C for the anime adaptation. 3. Muv Luv Alternative. Has the highest quantity of "holy sh*t"-moments ever. And Meiya. 4. Clannad. I love Clannad despite thinking it isn't that good. Has several mediocre routes and heavy pacing issues, but it still got me on a personal level in a way I didn't expect, mostly because I just love 90% of the characters. 5. The House In Fata Morgana. Soo much pain and suffering. As for honourable mentions, I'd pick VA-11 HALL-A and fault Milestone 2 (side: above).

The only 5 Visual Novels in 2018 I read Dies Irae - Honestly I found it kinda overrated. It had some cool/interesting characters and setting and powers. But I hated the long winded-ness of the 'prose'. These villains dont need to speak dramatic metaphorical essays for me to understand the point. Also the romance (outside Kei's route) sucked, Ren was a meh protag, and it kinda suffered from the too many characters not getting enough development. Honestly Shirou might have been my favorite character just because he didn't give a crap about the plot and just did what he wanted and looked badass doing it. Tsujidou-san no Jun'ai Road - I've seen mixed reception of this VN but I personally consider it a solid spiritual sequel to MajiKoi. Pretty funny comedy and I liked the fun delinquet girl setting. Routes were a bit inconsistent. Ai was clearly the 'canon' heroineand her relationship and personality was overall the best but Hiroshi became a little too forceful of what he wanted his GF to be without any balance on his side for my liking. Maki was alright but a little too forceful and kinda forcing Hiroshi to do what she wanted while also guilt tripping you for not picking Ai. Renna in theory was the best since it was the most about accepting the actual delinquet side but I liked her the least of the main 3 personality-wise. Also Ayumi is best girl she needs a route Root Double - Pretty good. A nice spiritual sequel to the Infinity series (I don't like I/O very much). Had cool plot twists and interesting developed characters like any Infinity series VN. It was missing something t make it really stand out as a favorite (E17 and R11 are in my top favs) maybe it was none of the characters stuck out too much or the plot twists im comparing too much to Infinity seires but I overall still like it Fureraba - I actually expected to think this Vn was meh but it was pretty decent. Very moege but it got to teh point very quickly, the main protag was actually kinda funny in how dumb he acted. Every heroine turned out fairly likable (though I thought Himari was a little meh/disappointing/boring which is odd since I usually like childhood friends winning). I think it got a little too formulaic where the progression of routes was almost exactly the same in each but the interaction was likable enough that I didnt mind much Dracu-Riot - This had all the makings of a great VN for me. Great comedy (sometimes), interesting setting and plot, some fairly likable characters (Elina is bae), and decent enough character development and pacing. Some things I REALLY didnt like bring it down. Mostly some of the humor later on (The MC got bashed on by the girls WAY too much when he didnt deserve and I hated the doctor character from the beginning) to the point where it killed some actually pretty good romantic development for me, especially in Miu's route who I thought was a decent character up to that point. If it weren't for that (and maybe some little things like the 'secret' route being kinda dumb but thankfully short) I would have given this at least a 8. Sadly I only gave it a 6 and am scared to try out other Yuzusoft VNs now since this was apparently the most liked one before Sanoba came out.

"There's No Way Otaku Pandering Can't Be This Bland!"