Carycary246

Haven't played through all of them on the list, but certainly agree with Mashimaro having the good ero. The loli onee-chan scenes unfortunately weren't as good as the others, but all the heroines had all night long h-scenes until they passed out. Good stuff.

I appreciate the insightful breakdown Decay and for the most part, I agree with your sentiments. I'm about 3 hours into the game and its mind boggling how a 'professional' translation like this is being released as is. Quite frankly, it's unacceptable for the quality to be so poor with extremely literal translations that barely make sense in English. Sentences are constructed awkwardly and many don't read like a native English speaker would expect. Mikandi should have hired more competent translators that are actually well versed and fluent in English. To be honest, I don't have many hopes for them to salvage this translation with an editing pass, but it would be a wise choice if they want to uphold a good reputation. It is really quite a shame since this is their first step into the English VN market. I was really looking forward to Libra since the art style and girls are cute and the story seems fun. However, a bad translation like this really dampens the enjoyment.

Really enjoying Chrono Clock so far and wanted to give some general thoughts on the VN and the routes I've finishied - Michiru, Misaki and Makoto's. Like some of the others here, I have also found the translation odd at times. In particular, 'buster' really bothered me whenever they put that in Misaki's lines. DD's speech is indeed very awkward in japanese and I'm not sure if using the japanese words in place of her 'engrish' is the best way to do it as it may be difficult to understand for anyone without a basic understanding of japanese, especially since her engrish is sometimes hard to understand too. Personally, I had no issues but I can see why many have complaints on that end. Michiru's route was surprisingly not focused that much on the incest aspect as I had thought it would be, but was instead very family-oriented. True to a moege, this route was filled with lots of lighthearted and heartwarming scenes. The lead up to the end was well done too, although not much of a surprise since they continuously dropped hints throughout the route for the 'twist'. One gripe I have was that her blindness seemed more like a convenient plot device to stick to Rei rather than an actual disability for her, and at times it seems the writer kind of forgot about it. There was one point where Michiru quickly hid under the bed covers from embarrassment (she can't even see so why is there a need to avoid Rei, and how would she know exactly where the bed covers are?). She also seems to know exactly what's happening around with her superhuman senses and it’s almost like she's not even blind. But don't get me wrong, aside from that, I still found the route to be highly enjoyable and it ties in nicely with the 'time' theme of the VN. Misaki's route was very standard with your typical tsundere heroine. Her antics are fun with everyone teasing her all the time and her dere side is cute as well. She got bonus points from me for being hardworking and playing violin since I’m a bit biased to music related stuff. I also liked the extra touch on her character design - treble clef hair pin to show her relationship to music. If you like your tsunderes, then this route will be enjoyable. Makoto's route was quite different from the other routes. I went in expecting some conflicts with her family’s background but got something entirely different which was a nice surprise (chuuni stuff and battle). The downside (for a moege) is that there’s a bit less of the lovey-dovey slice of life stuff in her route since the focus shifted to the main conflict. I thought it was a nice change of pace and the CGs were really memorable because of that contrast. I’ll probably be finishing the rest of the VN this week and so far it’s been great, although I kind of wish the routes didn't end at the just the confession/getting together. Looking forward to DD, Cro, and Miu routes.

Put some of those whipped cream on my "Yaoi stick" Dropped the game after reading all heroines except Michiru. And Chisato is aint that bad, she is just ur normal bitchy selfish teenager,seriously give her some slack and her route aint that bad either IMO. My fav route gonna be Hazu-i mean Satsuki's, but Isara will be my number 1.She is just amazing i want her as my IRL gf and ask for her smile and her trademark laugh(Ahaa~~) everytime. Just finished the whole game today. +1 to Isara being best girl. Can't get enough of her 'Ahaa' (props to her VA for making her sound adorable) + smile xDD. I have the exact same feeling as the protagonist whenever I hear it so I went straight for her route after finishing Chisato's default route. Isara's route was quite the contrast with Chisato's route and was pretty depressing when everyone left the club. There was also the guilt-trip every time you got with another girl other than Chisato too. I actually found all the heroines pretty likable with each having their own distinct personality (tropes) and I enjoyed going through each route but I can see how people dislike Chisato. They really try to drive home the point that she is the main girl (especially in Mifuyu and Isara's routes) so the game probably wouldn't be as enjoyable if you hate her. If I had to rank them by route, Satsuki = Isara > Mifuyu > Michiru = Chisato Overall it was very enjoyable. Would recommend :D.

Just finished Kara no Shoujo 2 as well and had a blast reading through it. Really liked the way everything tied together - past to present, characters and their motivations. I found it much easier to play through blind and didn't land on any bad ends on my first playthrough. They gave more than enough hints to let you figure out who did the murders. Pacing did feel a little slow in the first part but it picked up once we get back to Reiji's POV. OST was great and definitely help set the atmosphere, although the first game's songs (azure bird) were more memorable to me. I have to agree that I found Yukiko a bit underwhelming for being the poster girl of the game (Touko best girl). Overall, it was a great sequel and now I can't wait for Kara no Shoujo 3 (dat true ending ;-;).

Ah, that certainly explains the difference in writing quality with the routes. Mayura's route didn't deal with any complex themes so it's a fairly good start for the new writer. I agree about the tone shift for the h-scenes although I can see why they chose to do it that way. Typically those scenes only serve one main purpose and they tend to not have any significant developments. They could have definitely polished it up to be more consistent.

Yeah, Haruka is indeed awesome, especially the way she trolls Shuu with those multiple personas. I felt that her route was pretty close to Towa's route and I'm glad I played through it second, otherwise it would have overshadowed Mayura's route for sure.

Preface I’ve come to love Minori games as of late, and I’d like to share some of my thoughts on their games and see what you guys think about it. Recently, I had the pleasure of playing Eden* Plus mosaic, a short kinetic novel by Minori which has had an official English translation. Being the first of the Minori games that I had played, I was thoroughly impressed by the art, especially the backgrounds and the way characters were integrated into the environment seamlessly. Often times in other VNs, the characters sprites stick out like a sore thumb and stand out against the background. Now at the moment, the only other Minori game released in English is ef – a tale of memories, which I had already seen the anime for, and as such, is still on my backlog. I am however, anxiously awaiting the Supipara release by Mangagamer. As for the other Minori games, my Japanese is rudimentary at best, having only taken 2 semesters of beginner level Japanese in university so it’s difficult to attempt to read any visual novels in Japanese. Fortunately, being able to read Chinese, I discovered that the Chinese apparently love Minori games and have them all translated, which is quite impressive considering the latest game, Soreyori no Prologue, just came out several months ago. Mini-review (with minor spoilers) Over the past 2 weeks, I’ve slowly finished playing Soreyori no Prologue, which I personally thought was a fantastic read. It seems Minori likes to add a supernatural element into their games as the basis for their character interactions and drama to explore the themes that they present in their games. I suppose this is what differentiates it from typical high school setting visual novels. This game is medium length and probably took close to 30 hours for me to finish it, playing for a few hours each day. Pacing was spot on, and never felt like the story was boring and tedious. As for the characters, there are 3 heroines with one true ending/heroine which is unlocked after clearing the other 2 routes. The game plays out very straightforwardly and is essentially a kinetic novel, with only 1 choice for determining the order of the routes and it’ll automatically send you back to the point where the choice is made once you finish to save some time. Story Synopsis Our protagonist Miyasaka Shu, is an introverted high school boy who was born with the ability which they call ‘empathy’, to feel the emotions of everyone around him. They use the metaphor of waves to describe a constant onslaught of feelings that bombard him, whether they are tranquil feelings of peace which gently ripple outwards, or surging feelings of anger and hatred. Like the ebb and flow of a tide, the sensations of human emotion pour into Shuu’s mind. This unique power serves as the basis for Shuu’s character and as a central device in the story’s plot. Shuu lives alone, reflective of his introverted and weak-willed personality as he chooses to avoid contact with people to primarily diminish the effects of his power and the ‘noise’ that invades his mind. While he can feel emotions, he lacks experience and foresight to understand them leading him to see the contradictions and hypocrisy in human actions versus what is in their hearts. These repressive negative emotions induce an enormous burden on his mental health. Everything changes one day as he has a fateful encounter on the train to school. An irregularity from the usual whirlpool of emotions – a girl with a glass-like gaze and an expressionless visage standing amongst the hustle and bustle, as he could sense nothing from her… not a drop of emotion seeped out from her existence. And thus we are introduced to Himeno Towa, a name that means ‘forever’, opposite to Shuu, meaning ‘the end’. Like two sides of a coin, yin and yang, she has an innate ability to block out any emotion from reaching her, including Shuu’s power. However, the cost is that her own emotions are also sealed behind the impenetrable walls encompassing her heart. As if detecting each other through their abilities, they inevitably sought each other out and begin a warm and endearing relationship of mutual reliance. Art Art is one of the strong points of Minori’s visual novels. There are highly detailed backgrounds – almost photorealistic and crisp characters that mesh in well with the environment. As with previous works, there is no shortage of CGs, especially when reaching pivotal points in the story. It is important to note that the story does take place within a set area so the scenery and backgrounds won’t be vastly different. Instead of numerous backgrounds, they use a large amount of character centric CGs. Filters such as vignette, lens flare and depth of field effects are used nicely along with good camera angles and changing perspectives. Animated scenes are present, such as animated fire, rain, moving background on the train, background moving when walking (such as in Ef). A good word to describe their art would be ‘cinematic’. They even have a mini animation for when characters turn around. A minor grievance that I have is that while the characters are attractive and beautifully drawn, their designs aren’t particularly notable (mainly Towa being too similar to the sister in Perseus). On another note, the H-scenes are high quality as well (if you prefer large-oppais), being spread apart sparingly, ensuring that they’re not ‘wasted’. Multiple CGs are used for every scene and they explore a variety of provocative positions to keep things fresh and interesting. Body anatomy is slightly exaggerated, emphasizing the boobs and ass, although it is perfectly fine for me. I feel like considerable effort was put into these scenes and are better than scenes in many nukiges (they even added sound effects this time to help with immersion). Of course they may not be everyone’s cup of tea as the scenes are also quite vanilla so there’s nothing too kinky. Example of fire animation: http://gfycat.com/BrightLivelyDiamondbackrattlesnake Sound The OST by Tenmon is similar to previous works on Minori games. Generally the soundtracks fit the mood and key tracks are played during the right moments to bring out the atmosphere and emotions. For the most part, the tracks are tranquil and are easy on the ears and help to set the tone of the story. Melodic piano pieces play softly in the background for many scenes with a few upbeat tracks and slower darker melancholic tracks set in a minor key for dramatic moments. Sound effects are present and are not overly grating. They generally suit the purpose for whatever is being described in the text and situation so there is not much to complain about on this front. As mentioned earlier, they’ve added sound effects to H-scenes as well, which I feel is a plus to help with immersion, although not everyone may like it. They seem varied enough to not feel like the same effect is being looped over and over again. Voice acting was enjoyable to listen to and I felt they portrayed the characters well. Their voices were pleasant and emotions were properly conveyed at important points in the story. Lip sync was fairly accurate most the most part as well. I also appreciated the use of binaural/positional audio where if the characters were standing behind you to the right, then the sound would come for that direction (provided you are wearing headphones). Its little details like this that highlights the effort and work they put into this production. Characters and Routes Common Route (Spoilers) The common route is essentially the ‘prologue’ of the story where Shuu encounters Towa. Relying on each other and helping Towa understand emotions was a big part of their interactions in this part of the story. They had a lot of sweet and romantic moments together, and the whole route plays out like a heroine route. *MAJOR SPOILER* Himeno Towa Towa without a doubt is my favorite character in this visual novel. To be honest I'm a bit partial to softspoken girls like her so I was instantly sold when she first appeared. Being the opposite as our protagonist was important in letting them be foils for each other and experiencing a unique juxtaposition and relationship. Unsurprisingly, as the true route heroine, she has the longest route and at least for me, the most impactful. Their conflict and drama is not excessively complex with random twists and instead follows a natural and logical progression. Her interactions with Shuu felt believable and I felt did an adequate job of stimulating his character development. My only minor complaint with her route was that the resolution for the ending was a bit too easy although it fit thematically and logically. Overall I still really enjoyed this route. Sakurai Mayura She was the first route I completed and she fulfils the childhood friend archetype which I felt was the most simplistic and weakest route of the three. The plot is quite straightforward without many surprises. She has decent chemistry and a longstanding history with our protagonist. It was endearing to see how she helps Shuu out and let him grow and come to terms with his ability. It plays out very nicely like a youthful romance story and did have some heartwarming moments. Although I said it was the weakest route, it wasn't bad and I had a good time reading through it. Tsuzuki Haruka Appearances are deceiving as she is not what she seems to be at all. She's popular in school as well as coming from a prestigious family. I highly enjoyed this route as well. Her character design is more distinct which I appreciated and the conflict in this route is deeper and more complex than Mayura. As we enter her route, we immediately discover that she is a compulsive liar which leads to the question of why she became like this. In conjunction with Shuu’s ability to read emotions, a very engaging and interesting relationship was established between them. Her motivations were unclear and I found her character to be extremely fascinating. With some thought and foreshadowing, I predicted the eventual outcome and resolution of this route but it was still quite satisfying. Side Characters A few side characters are present over the course of the story and have some comedic interactions with Shuu to set the mood and lighten the atmosphere. At some points they also help move the plot along so they're not completely unrelated to the main story and do provide actual support for our protagonist. Conclusion To conclude, I feel that character interactions are the main driving force in Soreyori no Prologue. The best parts are the happy lovey-dovey moments that Shuu spends with his beloved girls. The plot is engaging and allows the player to become immersed in the world and see it from Shuu’s perspective. Minori’s outstanding work on the art and amount of CGs really helps bring their world alive and I would definitely recommend this VN to anyone who likes a story with some romance and drama, mixed with a tinge of supernatural. Discussion Let me know what you guys think of my mini-review on Soreyori no Prologue and maybe general things about Minori and their other visual novels. They’ve definitely converted me to a fan with their works. I’m also currently playing Natsuzora no Perseus and will likely play 12 no Tsuki no Eve after.