Leaderboard

So yeah we finally have it released after almost two year of waiting according to Mangagamer's tweet here (Their next release is Amrilato at June 13th later for the info), and seeing that the writer is also WA2 writer anyone who play that should recognize some resemblance at Damekoi here. Lastly feel free to discuss it here, and I'll add more info (Also poll) later at this post. Edit - As for the VN itself, since I already read some reviews and also already played a bit of WA2, I can say that Maruto here did use this VN as his stepping stone for WA2 later, or rather we can treat this as WA prototype. That aside, I like that this VN is still have a lot of good reception out there, and for now I can say that Damekoi here might be another candidate for the best VN at this year after Hoshiori, although of course we still need to wait until December later. Just in case you still unsure abut this VN, you can read the reviews (A lot of that) that was written by Conjueror (The translator), mod Clephas (At his usual blog), Yuumei (Beware A LOT of spoiler), Joyjason (You know this VN will be good when usually critical Joyjason say that this is his best VN), and Warum (Also have some spoiler). Since the reviews here contain some spoiler to the degrees and some of you may not like the spoiler very much, you can read some Mangagamer's post by the translator (Conjueror obviously) and the editor (Garejei who is also Conjueror's usual partner). Oh and while the reviews here did view Damekoi in very favorable light, it's still up to the reader though on how they'll appreciate it later. For the premise, I wouldn't talk much abut it seeing that all of the reviews did good job to explain it. But in case you did want to avoid the spoiler by not read the review, I'll quote the introduction from Mangagamer site below. For the characters and seiyuu, let me write abut those below. 1. Hinosaka Mitoko The man heroine of Damekoi and she's more or less resemble Setsuna from WA in that she's very cheerful even though she's tsundere toward Osamu (And easily jealous as well), and from the opening her season is spring. Her setting is that she was left by her irresponsible mother and that she was left alone with heavy responsibilities to take care the boardinghouse (Including pay the bills) while at the same time she need to mind her future seeing that she was still in school, so obviously she need Osamu's support even though she denied it (Being tsundere and all). Her seiyuu is Taguchi Hiroko in which she have a lot of roles in VNs such as Kagami Sumika from Muv Luv franchise, Hinata Natsumi from Sharin, Suou Amane from Grsaia franchise, Yarai Miu from Dracu Riot, Masamune Shizuru from Noble Works, Tsukishma Kyou from Hatsukoi 1/1, Murasaki Hazuki from Dal Segno, Miyamura Miyako from ef, Kasugano Sora from Yosuga no Sora, and Kitsuki Riho from Koiresort. 2. Amagi Kaya Osamu's new forward coworker, and since I compared Mitoko to Setsuna then I would say that Kaya here did resemble Chiaki to a degree from the first glance. Also like Mitoko she also have her season at the opening, and in Kaya's case it's summer. Other than supposed coworker, she also like to tease Osamu whenever she got the chance and that she like to wear the sexy clothes much to Osamu's dismay (Although the reader may not mind too much though). Also like Osamu, she'd get fired from her previous job before she met Osamu. Her seiyuu is Sakurai Harumi, in that her roles are Kanemoto Akari from Noble Works, Takamori Haruka from Beat Blade Haruka, Kanami from Rance 03, Tokizaki Maya from Hatsukoi 1/1, Tokido Saya from Little Busters, Yayoi B. Lutwidge from Hapymaher, Lily from Himegari, and Kisaragi Mizuha from Gin'iro Haruka. 3. Sawashima Himeo The scheming and young neighbor character who also happen to be Osamu's rich neighbour, and also tends to show her jealousy towards Osamu because he can get more close to Mitoko (Himeo here is very close friend to Mitoko). Like the other Damekoi heroines, she have the season motif as well and for her it's autumn. As for her character resemblance like Mari she's also the MC's employer, although for her role in story wise Koharu might be even closer. As for her seiyuu she's the one who got two seiyuu for different version (Takahashi Ciaki for PC and Sakakibara Yui for PSV version), although since this is PC version I'll use the PC one. For Chiaki herself, her roles are Hayase Mitsuki from Kimi ga Nozomu Eien (And Muv Luv franchise), Ishtar from I/O, Kusunoki Yua from Chaos Head, Akamine Saiko from 11eyes, Sasaki Yuka from Swan Song, and Kanroji Nanami from School Days. 4. Kounou Asami Mitoko's homeroom teacher who always worry abut her, and also have a special connection with Osamu in that she's his former wife. She's also quite popular in that she's quite well known as being nice to the students, although she argue a lot with Mitoko though. As for her comparison, I would think that Kazusa would be the most obvious comparison here with her have the conflict with Osamu, and Osamu understandably have awkward meeting with her. As for her season, it's winter which is very obvious seeing that it's the only season left. Her seiyuu is Isshiki Hikaru (Real name Tanaka Ryouko) who like Mitoko's seiyuu also have a lot of roles, such as Narukana from Seinarukana, Makabe Midori from Hatsukoi 1/1, Hinaori Kagome from Comyu, Sakaki Yumiko from Grsaia franchise, Kawahara Sakuya from I/O, Neon Schalar Smilja from Gahkthun, Ichinotani Touko from Ayakashibito, and Kurugaya Yuiko from Little Busters. I guess that's all for all of the info that I can gather here, and remember to not expect this as kamige (ie trapped in the hype) even though the reviews favor it very much.

Let's talk a bit about Postmodernism. I don't have the time nor expertise to properly explain the term and its origins, so if you don't know the term, I'll just recommend reading the TVTropes article on it. The gist is that Postmodernism in fiction “question on the nature of narrative and plot and characterization.” This can take different forms, from deconstruction to meta-commentary, self-awareness, fourth-wall breaking, not resolving narratives, putting existing fictional elements into a new context, subverting tropes, mixing media, and many more. This sounds rather intellectual, but there are lots of examples in popular culture with varying degrees of artsy-ness, like remixing in music, more or less every Quentin Tarrantino movie, most superhero movies or comics these days (as they are either heavily self-aware or deconstructing the inherent archetypes), and even two of the most highly rated VNs on vndb are pretty postmodern: The Muv Luv trilogy deconstructs the Mecha genre by looking at how throwing a stereotypical harem protagonist into a post-apocalyptic world with giant robots would impact his psyche (you could argue that Steins;Gate does something quite similar, only using a different setting end set of archetypes), while Umineko takes a pretty basic whodunnit setup and then just keeps pouring on unending layers of meta, deconstructing the very genre it pretends to be at first in the process. For a postmodern element to work for the recipient, they have to understand the context of it to some degree, not necessarily intellectually, but in the form of certain expectations not being met or a reference putting something known into a new context and a feeling that the subversion or reference is happening with a purpose. For example, when the aliens attack for the first time in Muv Luv Alternative, you expect a fight scene, with some sort heroic moment towards the climax. Without spoiling too much, that's not what happens, and the reason why is to show that there are actual stakes that are too high for some random guy who thinks he's the hero. If the recipient can't see any indication of an apparent purpose to a subversion of expectations, it just feels random to them. Anyway, how is your sex life? I really didn't expect a The Room reference to appear in some Japanese art game. Which brings us to The Silver Case, the first game the notorious experimental game developer Suda Goichi (better known as Suda 51) wrote and directed for his own company Grasshopper Manufacture. Originally released in 1999 for the original Playstation, it was only localized and remastered for the West as a PC release as recently as 2016. It's an interactive adventure game consisting of two story threads that sometimes intertwine to some degree. In one (called “Transmitter”) the protagonist becomes part of a special police unit after his original unit becomes exterminated by a serial killer and walks around crime scenes and in the other (“Placebo”) you're a journalist investigating the same cases. As for visuals, you're constantly watching a background on which windows pop up that contain the 3D environments, painted CGs and character portraits, written and spoken text, and sometimes even full motion video. According to Suda 51 this system was implemented due to the newly founded studio not having enough manpower to animate the complete screens in 3D, but it looks pretty stylish and unique. There is gameplay that consists of you moving through grids in the aforementioned environments and occasionally interacting with someone or something and solving a few puzzles, but more on that later. There is an overarching plot about a serial killer, I guess, but the game is really vague about it and there already is a very good Eurogamer.net article on its themes, which makes the game sound way more accessible than it is though. It's a game that takes a postmodern approach to everything, not caring if it makes the experience less enjoyable in the process, be it gameplay, visuals, characterization or storytelling. The Silver Case constantly forces you to figure out of you're supposed to take what's on the screen for its face value or on some kind of meta or thematic layer, willingly breaking the rules of what makes games and stories good by traditional standards, making you connect the dots yourself and even question certain game and storytelling mechanics itself. Going by some of the reviews, not everyone who played it was aware they were supposed to do that*, and it's easy to see why: The game never explicitly tells you to read some deeper meaning into anything, not even implicitly. It just assumes you read it as art, something video games nearly never do. Take the protagonist of the Transmitter sections as an example. He is nameable and completely silent, so he basically is your run-of-the-mill self-insert MC. After the incident exterminating his unit, he just gets taken along by two detectives of a different unit investigating said incident without any explanation and is just assumed to be part of the team from then on. His colleagues treat him like he knows what is going on or don't care about leaving him out of the loop, but either way the player never gets any necessary exposition. The MC is only ever given footwork tasks instead of actual detective work, but still gets the nickname “Big Dick” and of course it turns out he is the Chosen One (spoilers, I guess, not that it matters in this case). Now you could either say that this is bad writing, or see it as a deconstruction of the silent protagonist trope, showcasing how nonsensical it would be for a troupe of badass cops to take someone like this along and turning a character like this into the hero of your story. I'm not advocating for reading deep meaning into every mundane thing or excusing every bad decision as “terrible on purpose”, but in this case I have more evidence. For example in one of the chapters about cyber crime your unit decides that you should infiltrate the crime ring. The rest of the chapter basically consists of you waking up in your apartment every morning, reading a new mail about how it's just going to take a little while longer until you become an official member, and then going to work, where you and your colleagues just sit around and do nothing. When you finally become a member of the internet group, you go to their quarters, where someone tells you you're late to the party and the leaders are already gone, and then there is a citywide power blackout and the chapter ends. I just can't imagine the writers just couldn't think of a better way to include the MC into the plot, so I assume they did this on purpose. Of course there is fourth-wall breaking in a throwaway line. Even though it may seem different going by my screenshots, The Silver Case is not a comedy. At least I think it isn't. The gameplay is basically the same. You often get interrupted while moving around by not really necessary dialogues (although these often imply that the other characters are actually doing something), you never actually see anything in the 3D environments which consist of samey looking rooms, and places you can interact with are even marked by symbols and if there is something of note, you just get a dialogue, a CG or a short FMV sequence. There are a few riddles, but they have nothing to do with the plot and are way to easy (in the remastered version the game there even is a button giving you the solution). Often you just have to look through several identical rooms until you find the place that advances the plot. Again, on its own, the gameplay sections are pretty tedious, especially as the controls are just incredibly counterintuitive. It's repetitive, wastes a lot of time, and does nothing to advance the plot. If you look at the MC's role in the story it becomes clear that this actually serves a narrative function in purposefully disconnecting the MC and thus the player from the actual action which you can also read as meta-commentary on how the gameplay in interactive adventure games often has little to do with their plots. In the Placebo chapters you even only walk between your sleeping couch and your working space, where can either read E-Mails (important ones even get opened automatically, so the game even robs you of the interactivity of clicking them, and the MC answers them without any input from you as well and occasionally writes Memos to himself), answer your phone whenever it happens to ring, or talk to your pet turtle, which you sometimes actually have to do to advance in the story. If you read the Eurogamer article you can probably figure out what function this serves on your own**. I mostly talked about game mechanics in this blog entry but you can dissect the plot, storytelling techniques, characters, pop culture references and the scene direction in the same way (I included two examples in the screenshots). For instance there is the fact that the Big Bad and the McGuffin don't get established until the short cliffhanger epilogue. Or that the short titlecard at the end of each episode shows a full moon and the title of a song by either Joy Division or New Order (maybe somehow playing into the whole “Kill the Past” theme Suda 51 has going on, with the band not only changing their name but also their musical style after their lead singer Ian Curtis' suicide). I could go on, but the whole experience is just to long and confusing to talk about everything. So is it worth reading? Probably, as long as you're not allergic to artsy-ness (at points even pretentiousness) or and okay with a game challenging your intellect as well as your patience. Is it actually good? The answer is the same as the one to the question of why I spent quite some time writing an essay on a game nobody actually played: No f*cking clue. Did I mention that there is a lot of swearing in TSC? *Which isn't to say that everyone not liking The Silver Case “just didn't get it”, just that some of the negative criticism in these reviews was about aspects that were most probably deliberately "bad" without acknowledging the not that hard-to-spot meta aspect. A lot of the criticism is still valid as The Silver Case definitely has its major flaws. **The most interactive scene in the entire game funnily enough is also the most pointless one. At one point during the third case in the Transmitter section, the chief of your police unit and one of its members decide to test if you're qualified for the job by making you take a 100 question pop quiz, including questions about everything from Japanese geography to jazz music (and even implying the cop testing you already cracked the case you're currently working on, but he still sends you do more footwork later on). You pass no matter how well you perform and you don't even get to know your score because "there are no points to be gained in policework", as the chief says. At some points I just can't help but admire how much The Silver Case hates its readers.

So I started reading Umineko yesterday and I'm only up to the part where everyone has arrived on the island, but I'm already enamoured with it. There's just something I really like about it but I'm not even sure what. I'm pretty sure I'm only going to be even more into it the further I get into the story

use Locale Emulator. I know it looks strange but I swear it : it works without the font problem Without LE With LE

I hope you'll like it! Between all VNs I've read so far this one is still my favorite.

I mostly came here to say I thought the title said, "soup chefs." ... Welcome!

Although I'm only halfway through chapter 2, I can tell you that it keeps on getting better and better.

Hey guys, sorry for letting the thread die a little. D: I'll get back to being active again.

Yeah, I think I'll go ahead and let you test that one out for me, lol. I definitely don't regret following up on your recommendation for the Shield Hero series, but it still boggles my mind how there are still so many isekais like this. As for my seasonal anticipations, I'll mostly be keeping my eyes on Arifureta, Dr. Stone, and A Certain Scientific Accelerator. Hoping to god the Accelerator series gets more of the Railgun treatment rather than the Index one. A high quality adaption ought to be more manageable since it'll be following a manga, but I've never known JC Staff for their consistency, lol. I'm not too sure about this director, either... The Dr. Stone manga has been pretty well hyped even before the anime was announced, so I'm looking forward to its anime. It has an awfully interesting premise as well. As for Arifureta, this seems promising. The director for this series has worked on hentai before, so there isn't a single doubt in my mind that he was perform his job with the utmost efficiency. His work on Machine-Doll wasn't bad, even though the anime itself was dull (the anime's poor performance was likely derived from a lackluster source).

Grisaia trilogy has the best BGM in my opinion.

Welcome!

Super late response, but I'm not quite dead. Just taking a little break for some real life things. With that said, I am looking at getting this project rebooted and updated consistently as it was before my hiatus.

Partial patch is now out! Link below and also in the first post: https://mega.nz/#!no0DyQza!DZShSFgME_-iW6vaEdYy3oek-794a1yiuiW48U05dBQ This partial patch covers up to the end of Eris' chapter (Chapter 2). Just extract the files from the zip and overwrite the game files. Some points to take note: - If you are playing Aiyoku no Eustia from a save file from the old Yandere English patch and apply this new patch, you will notice that upon loading the save file, the first line of the save file will appear gibberish. Don't worry! Just Quick Jump to a previous line. The previous line will appear gibberish, but subsequent lines will appear as normal. - If you are playing Aiyoku no Eustia for the first time, you don't need to worry about the above point. Sorry for the long wait, but I wanted to make sure the partial patch is in good condition before I release it. So here you are. Hope you enjoy! It definitely isn't canceled! I was just waiting for the QCer to finish his QC before I set up the patch (it took him a while because of life getting in the way). So yeah Thanks for your comments btw!