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The Other 4chan VN
Chronopolis and 3 others reacted to Zalor for a blog entry
Lesser known than its more popular sister, The Dandelion Girl is another VN that at least started its development by anonymous users on 4chan. And like Katawa Shoujo it's quite good, although very different. And in fact, I think it contrasts quite nicely with Katawa Shoujo. Katawa Shoujo very intentionally strove to conform to the standard visual novel formula. Hence why it takes place in Japan, in a high school, has branching routes with various heroines, and even included H-scenes. I think the goal of Katawa Shoujo was to make a solid entry in the visual novel landscape within the standards commonly set by the High School romance genre it chose. The Dandelion Girl on the other hand is not an original story, being an adaptation of a short-story of the same name by Robert F. Young. To me this was a breath of fresh air, as I always welcome VNs that see themselves more as digital books then as games. The early to mid 2000's doujin scene seemed to embrace this mentality a bit with works like Narcissu and True Remembrance, and accordingly the art style of The Dandelion Girl somewhat reminds me of True Remembrance. In fact as a whole the Kinetic Novel genre/medium seems to be a weird bastard child of VNs that probably would see more success with print novel readers rather than with it's current target demographic of VN readers. Which is probably at least among the reasons that The Dandelion Girl seems to be languishing in relative obscurity. But it is a solid adaptation which really places the reader in the world of the original short story. Its opening scene where the screen fades into a view of a blue sky with a melancholic piano piece playing in the background creates a strong ambiance which contextualizes the writing quite nicely. Overall the music and visuals do a good job supporting the writing. Never interfering with it by being overly flashy, nor contradicting the mood of the prose. It serves its purpose by distracting your eyes and ears, and allowing your mind to effortlessly focus on the story. And before you know it, you'll be finished with the heart warming tale and left with a cozy feeling inside. If Katawa Shoujo is nice meal, than The Dandelion Girl is a nice evening snack to accompany your tea.4 points -
I can sense the raging fanboys as I type the title of this entry, but it's one I promised to do for a while and since I haven't posted anything on this blog in forever, I thought this would be a great way to come back. So what is wrong with Hyouka? Well, in my opinion, pretty much everything. I always manage to get myself caught up in one-sided discussion with people defending this anime, and no matter how many good and some even valid points those people make, I simply can not for the life of me understand how Hyouka can even be considered above average. Let's discuss the first problem I have with Hyouka: The Mysteries. "Oh boy he's just going to rant about how the mysteries were unimportant isn't he?" Well, not quite, I understood from the get go this anime was not trying to put forward some kind of deep detective charade and that the mysteries were meant to be simplistic and, for the most part, fairly minimalistic. The problem I have with the mystery elements in this show is that none of them really matter for anything. I don't get any sense of accomplishment from seeing the characters solve the already miniscule mysteries that they manage to come across. The characters are always triggered by silly stuff and then turn everything into a detective style, clue gathering and crime solving type of mystery, only to solve it and be done with it. The mysteries are, for the most part, unrelated to the plot (or lack thereof) and don't provide any fun addition to the show, they just feel like pointless ways to drag out and pad a way for a really uninteresting adventure. You can say all you want about the goal of the show being "simple mystery solving" or whatever, but that doesn't take away the fact that the mysteries, on top of being minimalistic and boring, don't add any value to the plot and are, quite frankly, really unoriginal and boring, which makes for an overall negative watching experience. Moving on to the second problem I have with this anime: The characters I absolutely hated almost every single character in Hyouka. This is the part where it comes more down to personal preferences, but I'll still speak my mind on it. Chitanda Eru made me want to commit suicide. Her whole character is based off of this retarded gimmick of wanting to solve mysteries for no reason. It's like she's brain dead and all she can say is "I'm curious!". Her character is annoying, doesn't do much for the most part, and just feels like a really sorry excuse for a main heroine of a show. She wasn't fun to watch, I just wanted her to disappear for most part of the show so I wouldn't have to deal with this utter BS. But what this gimmick really ruins is essentially the show's main gimmick: simple mysteries You see, simple mysteries can be cool and all, but not when all your main character does is look for the most fucking pointless mystery she can find, and then drag the entire cast with her in order to solve the absolutely tedious mystery. This, in my opinion, is this show's major downfall. Chitanda Eru was a mistake. This is how it felt hearing Chitanda say "I'm curious!" She's a hollow shell of a heroine and god forbid the person who thought she was a good character comes up with more stories like this. Moving on, the other two (almost side) characters: Satoshi and Mayaka God, these two made me want to shove forks in my eyes so I wouldn't have to continue watching this appalling show. Satoshi is by far one of the worst main/side characters I have ever seen, his entire premise for acting the way he does is that he feels inferior to the protagonist. And he makes sure you know this EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. He never acts on his own accord, he makes himself inferior on purpose and overall he needlessly becomes a hindrance and a nuisance for no apparent reason other than being an edgy emo teenager. And what's worse, he never evolves from this. He stays like this throughout the whole show. I don't even know who thought this was a good idea. The last main character I didn't like, Mayaka, is the lesser bad of the main ones. While I was profoundly annoyed by her being hung over such a horrible crush like Satoshi, at the very least I could concede that she was slightly more proactive than him. Still though, just like her crush, Mayaka often spent her time mopping around and acting like an edgy emo teenager because we all know being a teenager really is tough. The sole saving grace of the plot, the protagonist Oreki, really can't salvage the whole show, but I will grant that he's the only character with meaningful and interesting development as he goes from being one of those uninterested types to a more proactive character that's interested in stuff (probably affected by the Chitanda virus). Still though, I find Oreki's character slightly bland as, just like every other character in the show, his sole gimmick is being OP at logic. Which, at the very least, is a good thing to be OP at, but other than that he's not really that interesting to watch as he mostly just gets dragged around by people. But since he's the most intuitive of the group, I'll say that he's the sole character I kind of liked in the show. Moving on to the third and last problem I have with this show: The pacing and the story When you have a 22 episode show, you have to make sure you maintain a good pacing and have an engaging story so your viewers really want to stick with you until the end. Sadly, Hyouka fails on this aspect as well. The uninteresting and unengaging mysteries and the generally slow paced and easygoing story only add up to an ultimately boring viewing experience that never managed to make me want to keep watching, but rather it made me feel like I was forcing myself to press on to see if ultimately there would be something worth praising at the end of the tunnel. Spoiler alert: there wasn't. Hyouka is a show with basically no plot, and shows with no plots are something I'm known to like even, but when you have no plot, you need good characterization, you need your characters to be engaging and make things happen, and Hyouka fails on pretty much every aspect of this, making for one of the worst anime experiences I've had. This anime might have been produced with a big budget (based Unlimited KyoAni Works), but if you have a bad source material, no matter how much you sugarcoat it, no matter how many directing tricks you use, it just doesn't work, and Hyouka will always be living proof of it. To those of you who defend Hyouka, I'm sorry, you're allowed to like this anime, really, I understand all the trickery that went behind in making it, I just think that it's ultimately really non engaging and boring and overall a sugercoated turd that I can not wrap my head around no matter how many times I watch it. Just ask yourself this: Do you find an anime based on pointless mysteries that are constantly forced upon you by an annoying teen girl that constantly shouts "I'm curious!" to be fun? If you do, I guess I have nothing to say to you. If you don't, then I hope you understand why I don't like Hyouka as well.1 point
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IxShe Tell Release [UPDATED]
SomethingFunny31 reacted to littleshogun for a topic
Yeah we have Nekonyan announce the exact release date for this. As for me while granted I know that some reviewers didn't exactly have favorable opinion on this, I still look forward to the release of this. Also I'm quite surprised that Nekonyan decided to release this first seeing that I did guess they'll release Hello Lady, but more VN is always good so I have no problem with that. I'll add the heroines along with their VA info later, and of course the poll as well. Forget to say that the title is the pun of 'aishiteru' (TL Note: Aishiteru mean I love you). The tweet from Nekonyan below for the proof, and yes we also already have Steam store available for this as well (The link to the Steam store). Edited - As promised I'll add the VA info for the heroines below. 1. Hanamori Shiori The MC (Hajime) childhood friend in that she's quite devoted to him, in that she'll do anything for the sake of Hajime including helping him to abolished the romance ban rule. That said, she's quite anxious so much that she prefer to show her intend through action instead of words. Her VA is Nakajima Saki in that she's voiced Kouzaki Umi from Koiresort, Saotome Miharu from Miagete, Shigure Kanako from Konosora, Alexander from Eiyuu Senki, Sasamori Karin from To Heart 2, and Mochizuki Maho from Daitoshokan. 2. Koshimizu Kasumi She somehow know Hajime from the past, and she decided to transferred into his school in order to know him more. That said rather than she take the initiative, after she confess her feeling to Hajime she prefer if Hajime himself is the one who take an action to her. Her VA is Ozaki Mami in that her roles are Okihara Misa from Hoshiori, Aritagawa Nio from Loca Love, Amabane Madoka from Love Cube, Bors from Eiyuu Senki, Ginjou Haruko from Tsukiyori 2, and Okita Shino from Ouka Sabaki. 3. Yuuki Ayaka The winner of school beauty pageant for two years straight. Because of her personality in that she's quite bright and bombastic people did think of her as a playgirl, when in fact shes more or less quite innocent when it come to the romance in that she's hoping that the romance is like fairy tale. Her VA is Ui aka Oohashi Ayuru in that she also voiced Enomoto Kaho from Your Diary, Narutaki Maho from Sukiren, Sairenji Murasaki from Seven Days, Hotaru Rinne from Astral Air, Sakurakouji Luna from Tsukiyori, and Eurasia of End from Noraneko duology. 4. Kozuka Yui The youngest heroine in IxShe Tell who is also the student council president for the sister school. Despite being the youngest heroine, Yu also tried her best to act as an adult so much that she looks older than her age is, and she also didn't like that people judge her character based on the her appearance alone. Her VA is Suzuya Maya (I prefer her alias this time) who also voiced Nashiro Momiji from Ginharu, Liese von Archlond from Venus Blood Hypno/Hollow, Forunisgein from Kami no Rhapsody, Nanase Shizuku from Imopara 2, Seguchi Saya from Onikiss, and Spartan Clarke from Evenicle 2. 5. Yamabuki Yoshino The vice president of student council president (Forgot to mention that Hajime is the student council president) in that she's against Hajime revoke the romance ban rule. That said even with her political stand is against Hajime, slowly but surely she find herself to fall in love with Hajime. Out of all other heroines VA, Yoshino's VA here (Gotou Mai) here is have quite a number of well-known roles such as Narumi Toa from Wagahigh, Wakakusa Nanoha from Baldr Sky, Hayama Mizuki from ef, Angelica Rocca from Katahane, Takekawa Benio from Comyu, and Mukou Aoi from Kimikoi. That's all for the heroines along with VA info, and I guess what I can suggest in regard of this VN would be just treat this as a moege (In the most normal sense, not in a sense like 'all VNs are moege' or 'hot blooded VN are moege').1 point -
A Sky Full of Stars Fine Days Has Been Released
yelsha57 reacted to Infernoplex for a topic
Just sharing the news https://alkatranslations.com/a-sky-full-of-stars-fine-days-translation-patch-released/1 point -
Regional pricing is pretty much irrelevant in my country, but Steam sales are a big deal and the convenience of having my whole catalogue under one client is huge. Also, I have my tiny Curator account to shill for EVNs I like, so if I can find something on Steam I'll rather play it there and review/catalogue it. Plus I generally don't care for H-scenes, so the kind of censorship Steam forces on some VNs do not bother me, or is even preferable... Of course, that is when Valve does not randomly screw over developers and remove games for no legitimate reason, but that's a whole different conversation.1 point
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I understand why you want Duelist X Engage get translate or which possible you could translate yourself. It look very intressing out and i love the plot.1 point
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A Sky Full of Stars Fine Days Has Been Released
Infernoplex reacted to Stormwolf for a topic
Naturally meant miharu1 point -
A Sky Full of Stars Fine Days Has Been Released
Infernoplex reacted to NowItsAngeTime for a topic
Yeah can't wait for Yoshioka1 point -
A Sky Full of Stars Fine Days Has Been Released
Infernoplex reacted to Stormwolf for a topic
Ohh so best girl finally got her route. Best news today!1 point -
What are you playing?
Mr Poltroon reacted to Eclipsed for a topic
And so my Utawarerumono marathon finally comes to an end. 30 hours for the first game, 30 hours for Mask of Deception (MoD), and 45 hours for Mask of Truth (MoT). I didn't write up a review thingy after Mask of Deception because it kind of ended on a cliffhanger; a bit of a shame cuz I thought I could get a full story via MoD and then another full story via MoT but they both together make one big story. Considering Mask of Truth released only a year after Deception I guess they simply ran out of time and so they pushed out Deception first and then went straight back to the dev room to finish up the rest via Truth. Favorite MoD BGM: A nice surreal nostalgic reflective theme ~~ I'm probably part of the small demographic that got to binge this entire series in one go instead of reading the original and then waiting a decade for the sequels. So whereas the original Utawarerumono started you off as this amnesiac protagonist that wakes up in the arms of a beautiful nice girl-next-door type with animal-like ears and a tail whom he gropes out of curiosity, the sequel Utawarerumono Mask of Deception instead starts you off as this amnesiac protagonist that wakes up in the arms of a beautiful girl next door type with animal-like ears and a tail whom he gropes out of curiosity. Yup, you red that right. It's the same exact setup! Why hello there, Eruru- I MEAN UHH, WHO ARE YOU?! The main heroine this time around is named Kuon. She's a well meaning girl who contrasts herself from the passive obedient nice girl-next-door Eruru by being the clever strong independent type. She just happened to be on a solo self identifying carpe diem journey around the world when she happened upon the unconscious protagonist and decided to become his caretaker. And she's quite the looker indeed. After exchanging some pleasantries, Kuon decides to give the protagonist a name: Haku. Hoh... Haku, as in Hakuowlo from the first game?! Naturally the first thing on my mind is whether this Haku is some reincarnation of the first Haku(owlo) and Kuon is some reincarnation of Eruru. Kind of like The Legend of Zelda, where you have multiple generations of Link and Zelda across multiple generations/timelines. That'd be cool, right? This VN however does a good job of just dangling the carrot, teasing you and never really getting around to confirming or denying your suspicions. You even meet a major character named Oshtor, and his appearance just screams a Hakuowlo ripoff complete with the mask and all and you're just like EYYY THERE'S NO WAY THAT THERE IS NO CONNECTION BETWEEN THESE GUYS LIKE WTF C'MON NOW. Hakuowlo Haku Oshtor Q: Which one of these three is the main character? A: They're the same person I jest. But it totally bugs me that no characters ever say "Hey Haku, you look like this one guy Hakuowlo that I knew from a long time ago". Not even Kuon, and she was the one who gives Haku his name AND Hakuowlo's trademark steel fan weapon. Hell, no one even goes "Hey Haku, you look like Oshtor", and these two will get plenty of screentime together. It's one of those audience-character red herring disjoints that will forever plague your mind as you read this. It's kind of like how Ash Ketchum and friends are always oblivious to Team Rocket's disguises when it should be an obvious as fuh thing to notice and exclaim about. Haku's a good protagonist. I didn't realize it at the time, but Hakuowlo was actually super, like SUPER bland. He was too idk, capable and perfect? Since he was thrust into a ruler/leadership position quite early on he always had to be serious and couldn't really afford to banter and goof around. His inner monologues would be dull and to the point. Haku instead gets the easygoing/laidback/lazy but dependable-when-it-matters persona, and his inner commentary is much more flavorful. He'll whine, complain, have snarky remarks, and oftentimes push Kuon's buttons just enough for her to want to wrap her tail around his head and CRUSH. In general the writing and dialogue in this VN flows much more nicely than its predecessor (though that could be the result of translation, or my attention span got better, who knows). Characters: 8.5/10 Characters make or break a VN. Why the heck would I care about what's going on in the story if I don't care about the characters? Not gonna lie though, it did take me a bit to warm up to the new cast of heroines but man by the time I was reading Mask of Truth I was super fond and invested in all of them. Haku is great for his modern day protagonist revision and Kuon is the poster girl so she's obvious best girl, amplified onehundred fold when you finally learn just who she really is and consequently just want to give her a big ol' hug. Atuy is your local ditzy girl who calls everyone "-han" and has a bloodthirsty battle side; Nekone is the younger genius sister type that finds everything that the protagonist does stupid and scolds him accordingly; Nosuri is the well meaning airheaded robinhood justice thief type, Rulutieh is the nice softspoken girl that loves supporting everyone by cooking (lol how stereotypical), Anju is the spoiled bratty princess with Munechika as her strict honorable guardian. Then you get Saraana and Uruuru and while they're a bit overbearing with the absolute servitude with sexual implications towards Haku you learn to appreciate them too. The male cast is slightly underwhelming outside of the prodigy Oshtor and while they all have their bro moments with Haku none of them really stood out too much. It's always funny when you take a step back and think about how a cast this crazy ends up banding together. Story: (MoD)- 7.5/10. Mask of Deception is sort of like the Muv-Luv before Muv-Luv Alternate: the calm before the storm. It devotes itself entirely to establishing its new cast and setting. After Kuon declares herself Haku's guardian, he decides to accompany her on her journey and the two will eventually settle upon the land of Yamato and then spend practically all of the VN's some 30 hrs in its Imperial Capital and dealing with its shenanigans and adding more heroines to the harem. Yamato is practically a utopia: the land is massive and flourishing and there is a benevolent ruler called the Mikado who is loved by all and recognized as a literal God for his mystical feats. He has 8 trusted generals dubbed "The Eight Pillar Generals" and two army commanders dubbed the "Imperial Guard of the Left (and Right)", and they'll all be relevant to the story at one point or another. Most of the VN is structured as slice of life; the first 20 hours you'll spend meeting new friends and allies and getting to know them while learning more and more about the land and its customs. It really gives an overall grand and satisfying feel to the land of Yamato. To keep things interesting, there are even nods to the first game's events/lore and plenty of foreshadow-candy opportunities regarding Haku and Kuon's backgrounds. Unfortunately, the peaceful tranquil days aren't fated to last forever, and Haku will be inevitably forced to make an irreversible decision, and- CLIFFHANGER LOLOL GO READ MASK OF TRUTH NOOB!! (MoT)- 9/10 Shit hit the fan, whoop-dee-doo. No more fun and games sadface. Can't really talk much because it's a big spoiler on the ending of MoD, but Mask of Truth is basically a 30 hour war campaign. Sounds boring at a glance, I know, but like I said, if you care about the characters you'll hopefully get a massive buff in caring about the story. Each location you visit during your conquest will actually be a hometown of one of the heroines and so you'll get to bond more with that particular heroine and see their family (many of whom were only briefly mentioned in MoD, and are prominent characters such as being one of the Eight Pillar Generals). The writers made sure to prepare them sweet sweet ethos to get you to care about these locations (unlike the first game where you could care less that some random named village got utterly decimated). Although, I can definitely see some readers finding the war campaign a chore/boring, especially if they never got around to liking Anju. Which I don't blame them if they didn't, the girl really didn't offer much in the likeable department. Overall though it was just great to see the camaraderie and struggles of the cast I grew to become so fond of during this conflict. The REAL fun though happens after the war. I thought the VN was gonna end after the war so I was pleasantly surprised that it kept going. You get another hearty 10-15 hours to finally get some much needed Haku+Kuon alone time and fully explore their backgrounds and also revisit and tie up any loose ends from pivotal events/lore from the FIRST game. And it does so so, so, beautifully. *Tear* Art/Music: 8/10. Art is modern moe, always love that stuff. Music is nothing special since the remastered first game included tracks from all three games so I heard nothing new. Gameplay: 8/10 I said I didn't like SRPGs but they really improved the look and feel for the SRPG gameplay that it was actually decently fun. The first game was horrifically limited, you can only mostly attack or heal units one space away, unit had only one combo attack string, etc, very outdated and played poorly. MoD and MoT gave units multiple combo attack strings to fit variety of situations/positions and your heals are AoE instead of only healing one panel etc. Not gonna do a longwinded misc. thoughts/comments, there are TOO MANY feelsgood/bad moments across the 100 hours I spent on this trilogy (70 for MoD/MoT), but man it was all totally worth just for this (ULTIMATE SPOILERS): P.S. Kuon is best girl by a huge mile, but I cannot for the love of god believe she is voiced by the same VA as grumpy scientist Mio from Chaos;Child. Like wtf man.1 point -
Noratoto - 18+ Restoration Project
nene reacted to casual_scrub for a topic
... 3 hours later.... The current patch is intended to be used for the current Steam version of Noratoto. Please support HARUKAZE! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1010600/The_Princess_the_Stray_Cat_and_Matters_of_the_Heart/ Google Drive: https://bit.ly/3aVH6oc GDrive Mirror: https://bit.ly/3gifJWt Mirror MEGA: https://bit.ly/3l9ysXP Usage: Unzip the archive and copy the two folders and the files inside the folder you've installed Noratoto. This is how your installation folder should look like: https://imgur.com/Ahe2YEf To uninstall the patch, just delete said files/folders or move them out to an outside folder. The saves created at the original content should works while any save taken at the new content will be broken. What is included now: -20 Hscenes previously cut were integrated to the story, along with smaller text sections before and after them. These are all untranslated for the time being, however the original japanese text is still available if you select the appropiate language setting." -CGs and character sprites are restored to their original forms. No white light rays and fog anymore! -The new CGs appear in the ILLUSTRATIONS menu as you encounter them in game. -A brand new MEMORIES tab containing the Hscenes you've unlocked. What is planned for future patches: -Patricia Hscene scripts will get translated first, resulting in the second partial patch. -The rest of the routes will come later, one character at a time. -Restoring cut lines from the original, non-H script. Example: https://imgur.com/a/DjxsTmB What is not planned to get fixed: -The backlog is broken for Hscenes and for the part of the script that was originally cut. It will start working again as the player returns to a part of the original script, including the jump functionality. -It's recommended to set English as the main language and Japanese as the sub language. If only English is set as the main language, then a few untranslated choices will have no captions. -Remember to save occasionally, the game is poorly optimized and tends to be unstable. -If you find a reproducible bug, you can post it here in this topic. Please attach a savefile so we can take a look at it.1 point -
Noratoto - 18+ Restoration Project
UnHolyFiretruck reacted to Markovich for a topic
Hey y'all. Been a while since the last update, huh? Sorry for the delay but our TLer has been super busy given his work, and now he's even caught COVID so I told him to take it easy. To make up for it, we're planning on releasing a beta patch which restores all H-scenes, but still untranslated. It should come out rather soon(ish), so stay tuned for it. We also found something horrendous while debugging. As it turns out, Harukaze cut other stuff outside the H-scenes also. We still don't know the extend of it, and the hacker said it's gonna take a while, but we will restore these too.1 point -
8/13 Forums Update - Bugs/Complaints Here
Plk_Lesiak reacted to Tay for a topic
For those keeping score, I am still slowly going through the front site updates. Should be done within a few days. Eventually I'll be done with it and we can move on to more important things like community direction. Still here. Just cranky about the front site.1 point -
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