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This game is a peculiar one. This is the third time I've played the game, and the second time I've posted on it. If you want to see my original review, please look here: I'm going to focus here on coloring in some of the details of why I like this game and think it is underrated amongst Western readers of untranslated VNs. First, the factors that lead to it being underrated. 1) The protagonist takes on a man-whore role through large swathes of the game and isn't a pure-hearted boy by any standard. For some reason, man-whores aren't received very well by a lot of Western readers, especially ones that are calculating and intentionally act that way. 2) The visual style of the game differs significantly, if subtly, from the more common styles of the post-2010 era. It is rougher in some places and more elegant in others. 3) A large portion of the readers don't like Arika. Now, there are good reasons not to like her in many's eyes. She is whimsical, manipulative, and lazy as all hell when she isn't interested in an activity. However, she is also hyper-intelligent, intuitive, and has the same kind of super-luck that Cap did in Majikoi. Unfortunately, she is the kind of character that seriously divides readers. 4) People's expectations of trap protagonists. Most people going into a trap protagonist game expect a lot of comedy antics related to the cross-dressing. However, Hajime doesn't bungle things and doesn't panic the way a lot of trap protagonists do. In addition, 'calculating' is a quality that many who actually like trap protagonist games don't like in them... and Hajime is nothing of not calculating. 5) The surprising darkness of the setting. People go into trap protagonist games thinking they will be comedic and moe-moe festivals. Ojomasu is neither. There isn't a lot of comedy in the game, and there is very little in the way of moe fanservice. 6) The prologue H-scene. Probably the thing that annoys a lot of people is the h-scene in the prologue and how it came to be. For people that go into this game with a 'I want to see pure love romance from beginning to end' attitude, this is a huge downer. That it is followed by Hajime using the affections of a number of other women during the course of the story only enhances this impression for this part of the crowd. 7) Ginko isn't one of the heroines. Yes, in any other game, Ginko would have been one of the heroines. The things that make this game worth playing. 1) Everything above. Seriously, the fact is that a lot of the people who play this game aren't the intended audience. In some ways, this is a more down-to-earth version of the 'guy infiltrates a girls' school' trope. 2) Despite only having three heroines, those heroines provide a full spectrum of personalities. The whimsical Arika, the stoic and straightforward Benio, and the sweet-natured Peko provide a lot of variety without any real overlap. If Ginko or Rion (the ones the largest part of the fanbase seemed to want routes for) were heroines in this game, it would distract from things greatly. Moreover, there is way too much overlap between Ginko and Arika personality-wise. 3) There is just enough darkness to the setting and story to create a firm contrast to the soft atmosphere of the girls' school. In a lot of cases with these 'girls school infiltration' VNs, there is a sense of unreality created as a result of poor buildup of the setting. 4) This game doesn't even attempt to imitate the success of other companies. I honestly think they should have named this game something else, because the title makes it seem like a game that should be a soft romance rather than the more complex story it is. 5) Hajime is a protagonist you can enjoy self-inserting into. He is capable, intelligent, and ambitious, a combination that is a refreshing change from most VN protagonists in general.

Hi all! My name is Fer. Honestly I wasn't aware of Visual Novel's world until I had to work in a project on my current job, so I'm here to learn a little bit about. Thanks!

So, I've just finished the new Kyonyuu Fantasy 3 if with all routes. Considering that it was just released about 3 weeks ago and it's a rather long VN, that's very fast for my standards. For obvious reasons that also means that I've enjoyed it quite a bit. I was looking forward to this VN in particular for several reasons. First, KF1 - Gaiden 2 had some impressive world building with its recreation of medieval europe and its major powers. Second, I'm a bit of a history and mythology nerd and KF3's setting of the Roman Empire and the greco-roman pantheon of deities is of particular interest to me. Third, it has some significant improvements in the art department compared to its predecessors, with some rather striking character designs for a change like the ones from Athena or Zoe. Fortunately, those weren't the only improvements. Overall, pretty much every aspect was improved ranging from writing, music, art and characters. World-Building: The world building in this VN is particular impressive, because it didn't just cover the mortal world of the Roman Empire, but also its pantheon of gods, including the underworld and the empyrean olympus. There was quite some care about historical accuracy with roman titles and customs and they also covered the beginning of Christianity with the followers of the new church of the Holy Rood making their first appearance. There were also real rules of how the gods could interact with the mortal world. They were not free to do so and usually just had a limited time to do so, otherwise they would be tracked down by Faron (aka Charon) and brought back by force. They could also manifest themselves in ethereal or material state. It was even mentioned that Astrae was the last goddess to descend to the mortal world in the greek golden age, which even I wasn't aware of. As it was common in mythology, the gods also had some specific powers over their divine domain, like a war god being good at fighting, Apollo being capable of prophecies or love gods like Venus or Julinas being good at... well you know. Protagonist: The protagonist was actually one of my biggest worries in this VN since I never really got warm with Lute or Ruin from KF1 or KF2 even if they certainly had their moments. But despite being a somewhat similar boob-obsessed character, I found Julinas surprisingly likable. And there are several reasons for that. First, while Lute was technically just a big pervert, Julinas is an actual love god, so being somewhat more horny than usual is just part of his divine domain. Second, Julinas is rooted in normality, as crazy that may sound for an underworld god. But in his life in the underworld Faron and Medusa are close and important friends and Hades and Persephone have strong parental roles in Julinas life. Neither of those characters are involved in a sexual manner with Julinas and there was also little to nothing naughty going on in the underworld anyway. And since there are long episodes in the underworld you can see a rather normal and caring side of Julinas. And oh yeah, he has his own personal pet hell hound. Furthermore, while Lute or Ruin solved a lot of problems just with dumb luck, ridiculous events or by help of others, Julinas actually does a lot of stuff himself. He might be just a lowly god of the underworld, but he still IS a deity with some powers and most of his actions were somewhat comprehensible for a world of mythical powers. And last but not least, Julinas had a good chemistry with most of the heroines. As a lively trickster god, most of the heroines found him likable or at least funny from the beginning. In the case of the human heroines, it was even understandable that they looked up to him. In KF1 or KF2 the heroines often went from pure digust to worship, which was simply not believable anymore. Story: The story had pretty much two main arcs. The first one covers Julinas first interaction with the mortal world after being stuck in the underworld for 500 years. As the lowest god of the underworld he therefore gets his chance to get his own followers and a temple dedicated to him by helping the people of Doronium to get rid of a terrible curse. He also helps out the roman legion fending off the attacks of a minotaur army, further widening his influence in the mortal world. The second story arc covers the conflict between the gods of the underworld and the empyrean. There's a strong rivalry between them and it's one of Julinas greatest wishes to lift Medusa's curse which was put on her by Athena as punishment. This is probably the strongest arc since most of the gods got some rather strong character development. Their personalities did reflect their mythological counter parts pretty well, with Hermes being as fast trickster god, Athena being a strict but just maiden goddess, Venus rathere easy going, Apollo being quite the looker, Mars being not a nice guy at all (Ares in particular was considered a rather dark god of bloodshed and massacre), Jupiter being the patriachic leader and brother of Hades. It was quite fascinating to see the greek pantheon come to live in a surprisingly authentic manner. That arc also had some rather heavy and touching moments regarding Medusa's curse with Julinas showing some impressive mental strength. Sound: It was quite refreshing to not having to endure the same music of 5+ years of rehashed KF music again. To fit the vibes of the antique rome, they fortunately used some new soundtracks. Most of them at least decent and some of them even great like the olympian theme or the theme from Venus. I might even listen to those independently. Oh and did I mention that almost every major character and not just the heroines have their own theme music? It really gave the characters more personality and added more vocal diversity to the game. I was also surprised that several of the male main characters got better voice actors. Like Jupiter having a voice actor from Silverio Vendetta and his patriarchic voice was pretty impressive. Some recurring ones also seem to have improved their performance like Hades and some particular bad ones were just left out. Minor characters might still sound a bit cheap but the main character case was definitely solid or better. Graphics: The good news is that most of the heroines and the major character were rather wel drawn. H-scenes in particular were a massive improvement compared to the older KF titles, even if Gaiden 1 & 2 already had some improvements for the newer heroines. And we're talking about like 150 H-CG's here. It's also impressive how much character sprites they have in this VN. With all the major characters and the support cast put together, we get over 50 sprites. That's just massive and blows most other titles out of the water. However, the bad news is that some of the minor character sprites look almost worse than in the former titles. I've no idea why Japanese VN developers have a problem with the eyes of minor characters, but they somehow love to hide or leave them out completely. While that's a bit odd I can usually live with that. But the latest fashion seems to be to make them black,... which makes them look like they got infected with the T-virus and are about to turn into zombies and attack you. So that makes them stand out even more than if they'd just have drawn their eyes like normal. Fortunately it's just the minor characters. Flaws: Besides the aforementioned T-virus sprites, this is still a KF title. So even if the writing is improved, it's still simple and can occasionally get rather cheesy. And although they managed to embed this type of protagonist extremely well into the world, he's still a horndog on many occasions, which can be certainly annoying. And while the B-movie feeling isn't as strong as in previous titles, it's still there. The H-scenes also have a tendency to come in avalanches which can get a bit overwhelming. Hours of pure story are often followed by multiple H-scenes for several heroines, especially in the first human arc. I don't really understand why they can't just use an optional character event selection like Koihime Musou and other VN's are doing it rather successfully. The human heroines were also a bit left out in the rain after their arc and didn't get much more development. Medusa or Persephone which were technically just side heroines had way more screen time than most of the main heroines which felt a bit odd. Paia was also rather annoying, especially at the beginning. Nevertheless, this is still mostly nitpicking. Conclusion: Overall this was a quite impressive VN, especially considering that this tackles both story and ero rather sucessfully and also offers lots of content for both. Ironically, it's probably also one of the most sophisticated VN's I've read so far, since the writer did not only put a lot of effort into the research of the historic and mythologic backgrounds of the world and characters, but also managed to combine them into a very entertaining story. Heroine ranking: Athena = Ajura > Venus > Zoe > Destra & Eskelda > Farnelia > Constancia >> Paia I left out Medusa and Persephone from the ranking, even if they were some of the best characters. But they were more like family, so it felt weird to mix them into a dating ranking. Overall rating: 8/10

Thanks! Actually we're working in two related projects. The first one is a software to create visual novels and publish it as iOS apps. It's called Boken Engine and is available here. The other is a visual novel app using the former tool and we're still in the first steps. Its name is The Ikkai Saga, curse of blood, and is also available here. Feel free to take a look and provide feedback if you want. Thanks again for the warm welcome!

Hello and welcome What's your project, by the way?

So I've been doing some reading over the last couple of weeks. I finished Musicus!. In my opinion it deserves most of the praise it's receiving. It feels to me like the kind of novel you'd read in literature class that everyone found extremely boring except for the literature geeks, so being this highly rated on vndb despite reaching a more mainstream audience thanks to the hype surrounding it is a pleasant surprise to me. I usually dislike it when people defend a boring story by saying it has ~themes~ (cough, Himawari, cough cough), but in the case of Musicus! I'd say it actually is themes-driven rather than plot- or character-driven. Characters often represent certain ideas or outlooks on life and once those are developed to a certain degree the game has no issue dropping those characters completely, and its approach to scene selection is somewhat similar, rushing through scenes that seem central to the plot and instead showing some slice-of-life surrounding them. Occasionaly there is an edgy philosophical monologue, but a lot of the time Musicus! communicates its ideas through small details, like most of the protagonist's classmates only getting sprites once you enter the school route or the bad route completely lacking BGM. I also read Meeting in the Flesh, a free otome EVN about romancing monsters in a gory fantasy world. What seems like the premise for a (bad) parody game turns out to be one of the most powerful love stories I've encountered in a VN so far. It reminded me of Saya no Uta to a certain degree, but inverts its core theme of how your perception of the world shapes your outlook on things, instead showing how an open and loving mind lets you find even the most deeply hidden beauty. This game is also one of the rare cases where I'd really recommend reading the R-rated version, despite, you know, the vore and tentacles. The CGs aren't that explicit anyway.