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minuore

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    minuore reacted to Clephas for a blog entry, Kodomo no Asobi Part 2: Yuzuriha (moving onto Hatsuru)   
    I went ahead and did Yuzuriha's path, since it and Sera's branch off from one another.  Despite this fact, Yuzuriha's path is quite distinct from Sera's, so you don't need to worry about all of the text repeating or anything like that.  Yuzuriha's path does have one thing in common with Sera's though... and that is that the relation formation stage is pretty long.  In both cases, there is a lot of back and forth, chasing and being chased, and if you have trouble with that, this path might be a bit frustrating for you. 
    Once you get past the formative stages, you get a cute couple... who are really slow about moving forward (this was the case with Sera as well), probably because Kiyosumi is pretty bad at reading people sometimes and tends to hold back rather than stepping forward most of the time, though he can be assertive when he needs to be.  Again, for people who don't like this kind of relationship development, this path might be troublesome for you.  I honestly got the urge to skip through this path repeatedly along the way, just so they would get to the drama... which was sort of anticlimactic.  I guess it is because the actual events in the common route have so much impact, but the heroine paths in general feel like a winding down into 'normal' life afterward... and this is supported by the fact that so far, the ending epilogues have gone forward at least into married life after the main path's end.  Of course, there are a lot of laughs along the way (love-comedy antics, mostly), so it isn't like the ride is boring, but the common route and the endings are the flower of this VN, more than the actual paths themselves. 
     
    PS: The main reason it took me all day to get this far?  Drowsiness from the pain drugs... I keep falling asleep. 
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    minuore reacted to Clephas for a blog entry, 2015, the weakness of a year from a VN-gamer's perspective   
    First, I should say that never before, in my seven years playing VNs, has a year been as... stale as this one has been.  It is not that there haven't been good VNs coming out... it is just that no VNs I might consider worthy of a VN Hall of Fame have come out this entire year.  Generally speaking, I can usually expect about three to five VNs in any given year to make it into my personal 'hall of fame'.  Unfortunately, this year has literally produced none worthy of that group. 
    Understand, when I say 'worthy', it doesn't necessarily mean that it is my 'favorite' VN.  If I were to go by that standard, Silverio Vendetta would be in there, despite its rather glaring flaws.  No, when I say something is worthy, it is that it is a VN that I think has lasting value at least partially independent of purely relativistic values (which tend to be the guides for my ratings in various genres). 
    This bothers me.  Last year was actually a pretty good one, with more than five VNs making a solid entry into my personal hall of fame.  Only 2011 was better in the last five years, and that year was almost demonic when it came to producing first-rate VNs... I've come to expect that at least one or two VNs will be obvious candidates for my VN of the Year in any given year, and that I'll have at least ten to twelve runner-ups... but this year, I've yet to come across a solid candidate for runner-ups, much less for a struggle for the final VN of the Year. 
    I love VNs, for all the pain they've put me through.  I slog through dozens of near-kusoge every year so that I can excavate a few gems... and it is getting a bit depressing how pathetic what gems I do find look like.  I do this because I honestly think that there is no better electronic medium for the telling of a good story, though books in general still do a better job in general (mostly because of the pathetic lack of first-rate writers and a willingness to back them up fully with art and system support).
    However, this year is just a bit too depressing for my tastes.  I've had no great emotional explosions from playing a VN this year (other than a few really really good moments in Silverio Vendetta), and while there have been some technically good VNs, there hasn't been anything to approach Semiramis or Nanairo from last year in terms of blowing me away... or even anything approaching Hello, Lady for first class character dynamics and presentation. 
    On the other hand, anime shows signs of making a comeback... which is surprising, considering how stagnant the medium has been for so long.  Of course, it is likely to be just another 'peak' before another 'trough', but it is still nice to have that balancing out the lowest point in VNs I've experienced yet.  I am a bit tired of playing kusoge though... October produced several good VNs... but that was at least in part because it was the most prolific month in this half of the year for non-nukige.  Most of the stuff I didn't bother mentioning in the blogs was... not worth mentioning.  I tried it, I wanted to be sick, I dropped it.  Hopefully, the November or December releases will redeem this year at least a bit... I'd at least like to see one VN of the Year-worthy VN come out, because even I couldn't honestly name Silverio Vendetta as VN of the Year, despite my fondness for it being an obvious tribute to some of my favorite parts of Dies Irae.
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