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I guess it's time to post some mini reviews of the VN's I've played in the last half year or so, before I forget about them. I list them in the order how much I liked them. The last VN I read is the first episode of Tokeijikake no Ley Line and it's also the one I liked the most. I haven't read a VN so far that managed to capture the feeling of a Hogwarts magical school so well like this one. The art style is really great, even if the sprite dynamics felt a bit too static if you're used to Yuzusoft stuff. The music is also decent most of the time, even though some tracks felt a bit repetitive after a while. The protagonist was a pretty cool dude and the heroines were also very likable. The VN does focus mostly on the story, with the heroine stories being rather short. But the VN did actually commit to the story, so almost everything was drawn that was actually happening, which is in no way a small feat. According to Steam it took me about 25 hours to read, which is pretty fine for the prelude to a trilogy. Heroine ranking: Tsubaki > Fuhito > Ushio > Rito > Neko Overall rating: 7.5/10 (Could get even better depending on how the trilogy continues) Tokyo Nekro was a VN I had a particular technical interest in, because it's using an actual game engine. Meaning it has a lot of animated characters and stuff. And in general I'd say the VN did succeed in what it tried to achieve. While the background textures did feel rather PS2 area outdated, the characters itself turned out surprisingly well. The combat scenes in particular deserve praise. At least the third person scenes, because they were pretty well done, while the ego scenes felt a bit too much like cheap Doom imitations. Nevertheless, the VN had a visual fidelity that bordered on an anime. Story wise it was a bit hit or miss. I was actually lucky to accidentally end up in Con Su's route, which actually felt like the true route. It wasn't really a romance route and more of a platonic friendship route focused on Con Su and Ilia and their origins. I was also lucky that an update had overwritten the adult patch. I restored it for the other routes and I did regret it. The H-scenes felt completely random and all over the place ranging from vanilla to disturbing. I heard that Ilia's route would be the main route, but I'd definitely disagree. It was just running after Milgram forever. It shared a lot with Mitsumi's route, but Mitsumi's was better since it was shorter. Something that was irritating about the VN were the two protagonists. I'm not a big fan of that in general, but this was really exhausting. The protagonists did switch so frequently that they were almost rotating. Sometimes even other characters got protagonist which made it even more confusing. Another annoying thing was the helmet view, that blocked almost half of the screen. It did took me almost 50 hours to finish the VN with only the Kiri route left, which felt a bit too long for my taste. I'd also give a small warning that this VN has some VERY gory scenes, that can easily compete with Kara no Shoujo. And I'm not talking about simple zombie splatter, but stuff like opening the skull of an arguably living person to manipulate its brain. Overall rating: 7/10 (Could have been better with single protagonist and less edgy content) Next is Hello Lady. The highlight of this VN is probably the protagonist and the male voice actors in general. The story is a bit of a spin off of the Count of Monte Cristo. While the protagonist was kinda cool, his frequent Casanova phases of excessive sexual harassment got old and tedious pretty fast. Another problem of the VN was the lack of commitment towards the story. It felt like they took the CG set of a pure moege and tried to twist it with a half assed story where barely anything plot relevant was drawn. Another problem was the lacking chemistry between the protagist and the heroines. I never got the feeling that they are more than just playthings for a few days to have some fun with until they are thrown away. His maid Hishia Mori felt like the only one he seemed to have some feelings for. The routes therefore felt very lackluster since neither the romance nor the plot was convincing. Especially since the routes felt extremely repetitive and the true route wasn't much better either. In total it did cost me almost 60 hours to finish the VN and it was in no way worth that time. Maybe 30 hours, but not 60. Heroine ranking: Somehow none of them really clicked with me, even if I didn't dislike them... Overall rating: 6/10 Next was Cyanotype Daydream. This was a rather odd VN, since it's pretty much split in 3 side stories and a final true story. I've seen comments comparing this to The House in Fata Morgana due to its plot structure. However, I beg to disagree. While the introduction stories of Fata Morgana have a lot to do with the actual plot, introducing most of the main characters, the same can't be said about the ones in this VN. They share a bit of a 'broken romance' theme, but besides that they are so unrelated to the actual main story that you could just pick a few random VN's from VNDB and read those instead. Even worse, none of them was particular convincing and I skipped most of them after a while since I found the characters not particular likable and the storys somewhat boring. That said, the actual main story is actual quite decent with likable characters and an interesting world. However, it suffered from the fact that a lot of resources were wasted in some rather mediocre side stories. The VN would have been a lot better if they would have fully commited to the main story and flesh out the world with more characters. Heroine ranking: Yonagi > Izumo > don't care Overall rating: 6/10 (I'd rate the main story higher, but forcing those mediocre side stories on me demands punishment) Okay, I wish they would have stopped the Flowers series with the last part -Le volume sur automne- on a high. Instead we got this. So, there are two main problems with this VN. First, there's no romance arc this time, so the VN has to rely on its final revelation plot to justify its existence. Which leads us to the next problem, that the revelation plot was a complete joke and it came extremly late. Even some of the micro mysteries of the predecssors were better than that. Furthermore, it tried to antagonize some of its best characters which just made no sense. There were also almost no new characters, and the whole slice of life that was left felt like copy & paste from the previous VN's. Overall, this was a fan disc at best and even for that it did a poor job. My personal recommendation would be to just skip this VN, since it adds nothing of worth to the series. Overall rating: 5/10 So, that was it for now. Currently reading the recently translated TypeMoon VN Mahoutsukai no Yoru, with the second episode of Tokeijikake no Ley Line next in line.

This is a good idea, i'm pretty sure it would benefit them to have someone translating the game for them and maybe with their help the translation could be released even quicker.

Alright this will be a long one, but please bear with me. Some of you might have seen this coming (some might have not) but I cannot continue translating this anymore due to a request from NekoNyan. Please do not hate anyone for this. This is mostly an oversight from me. ...Let's talk about a story. This was about... over a year ago. I had a conversation with my friend that went something like this: "Hey this game is great you should play it" "Okay but my Japanese is bad" "That's fine just take your time" "I'll play on the weekend" On the weekend: "Weekly reminder for you to play Sakura Moyu" "Okay" *disappears* The next weekend: "Weekly reminder" "Okay" *disappears* ...And that went on for about a year. Yes, a year. I think it was even more. At one point, I think I lost it and said: "You know what, if you can teach me how to edit the game files then I'll translate it for you" "lmao ok" And then we spent the next few nights looking up for tools to decompile the game files and edit them. Few months pass, I get some more people to play my initial patches, I go around editing it over and... I reach here. Do I have any regrets? Nope. None at all. I have probably spent a few hundred hours on this. After getting the initial know-how I mostly worked on it alone, that included figuring out how the script works, breaking it a couple of times and falling into despair (after which I made sure to create backups like everyday), figuring out how some of the formatting worked by looking at other games made in FVP, photoshopping the images, dealing with errors in the existing translation tools due to them using outdated libraries, practically having to learn English in Japanese, and making sure I didn't miss any references (mostly a few songs, although it's about impossible to tell in the translations). But that's okay, as long as more people get to know about this game, that is more than enough for me. At the very least, I got some of my friends hooked to the game. As for what I want to do next, I don't know. It likely won't be a translation project. Maybe I'll learn to draw and make a game of my own, or maybe just focus on my studies. Some people have asked me to translate other games instead. I can understand your feelings but I honestly cannot get myself to translate anything else when this game sits untranslated. The only other game in my mind was Sakura no Uta, but it seems that someone else has already started translating that, and I'd say that's a good thing in its own. With that, I only hope the best for the future of this game with whoever takes it into their hands.

Kara no Shoujo: The Second Episode Licensed by Mangagamer Summary "To become my true self... I'll become one with them." Prewar-era Japan. Deep in the snowy mountains of northwestern Japan there exists a settlement called Hitogata, the Village of Dolls. On the night of the festival honoring the clay idol Hinna-sama, a girl is murdered. The villagers all blame Hinna-sama's curse. One outside the faith has joined in the festival of Hinna-sama, and brought the painful death of the curse down upon themself. October, 1957. Two years have passed since Kuchiki Touko's abduction from her hospital room. Tokisaka Reiji's younger sister saves a man who had tried to commit suicide. He, too, is the most recent victim of "Hinna-sama's curse". Reiji begins his investigation, clinging desperately to the hope that Touko can be saved, and at the same time, a strange religious group said to have dissolved six years ago begins to move again to put a certain plan into motion... The curse will be carried out, whether by the gods or by human hands. Ending Guideline / Suggested Route Order Kara no Shoujo: The Second Episode is a linear story with eleven endings. There are no individual heroine routes. There are seven gameover endings, four endings, and one true end. You have access to all gameover ends, but only one ending on your first playthrough. The other three endings and true ending can only be accessed upon getting this ending and starting your second+ playthrough. You also need to get Bad End #2 "To Search for Toko" to get True and Obsession Ends. Route Guideline *Due to the mystery nature of this VN, it is strongly advised that you make your first playthrough without a walkthrough to avoid spoilers! You can do it! *Though, to avoid being locked into Bad End #3, you have to make sure you visit Yukiko at least 3 times during your Free Time before 1/9 First Playthrough I have included Save Points in the walkthrough for Memories of That Day below since all Bad Endings can branch from it. End (Ending 08) Memories of That Day Bad Ends (Endings 01 ~ 07) 1. Hinna-sama’s Curse 2. To Search for Toko... 3. The Holy Prophet 4. Disappearance 5. Yukio 6. Karen 7. The Two Yukaris Second Playthrough Must obtain Ending #08 "Memories of that Day" and start a new playthrough to get these following endings. Also must get Bad Ending #2 "To Search for Toko" to get True End and Obsession Ends There are extra dialogues and scenes scattered throughout the story this time, so pay attention if you are control skipping! There are H-scenes for Yukiko, Ayumu, Nanako, and Meguri. Ends (Endings 09 ~ 11) Normal End True End Obsession Attribution This Kara no Shoujo 2 (kns2) walkthrough is based on info attained from a source with some adjustments made by Eclipsed.