Dreamysyu

How far are you into the story so far? I personally was pretty unimpressed myself before a certain point in the story, but started liking it a lot more after that and ended up giving it an 8. Overall though this VN was very hyped by some prominent community members before its release, but doesn't appear to be that well received tbh.

If you press the same button several times, it switches to a different type of attack. I don't remember the exact sequence, but if it starts with a short-range attack, it will later switch to a long range. There will be more tutorials soon, so that will be explained.

@Clephas Could you please explain what in your opinion makes the world building in Hapymaher good? I personally think it didn't even have that I would define as a well-defined world (since the narrative is fully focused on a small group of people) so I'm a bit intrigued by your decision to put it on your list.

I'd say, overall it depends on whether or not the VN in question manages to makes the reader believe that the world it is portraying could actually exist in real life. Often it comes down to the amount of details it gives about what makes this world function. In urban fantasy and near future sci-fi it usually comes down to how the fantastic elements of the world function, what underlying principles they use, and how the existence of these elements affects the lives of people of this world. In the "other world" fantasy, more futuristic sci-fi and alternate history it also may include other things like economics, language and political systems in the world. When it comes to sci-fi VNs, the only one where I was completely satisfied with the world building is Muv Luv Alternative. For some reason, sci-fi elements in VNs are never developed too deeply. When it comes to fantasy, the situation is a lot better. What comes to mind is Fate Stay Night (+ Tsukihime and other Type-Moon titles, though I stopped following them after the milking of the franchise became completely ridiculous), Rewrite (it's never really brought up in threads like that, but I remember liking what it did with its world, though it may not mean much considering it was my first VN) and arguably Tokyo Babel. I'd also like to bring up Eternity Sword series which could have amazing would building if it tried a bit better, but, sadly, there are too many things about the world that are left completely unexplained.

https://youtu.be/nSuAD3Nsjhw?t=16

That sums it up well, yeah. Well, the way you put it, I guess it's more of a problem with my personal preferences than anything else. Which, I suppose, was pretty obvious considering that most people who played it liked it. Like I said, I personally find her type of personality extremely annoying. It could all still work if the other characters were good, but, like I said, I just found them bland.

Well, it's the only 2019 release where I played more than a single route is the otome game Steam Prison, but if it isn't a disappointment than I don't know what is. Though, I guess I'm in the minority here, looks like the most people from Fuwa who played it actually liked it. Well, I've already talked about this VN a lot in the past, but here's the basic rundown of I what I thought about it. First of all, I've only finished the bodyguard routes. I tried going into the the prisoner routes too, but after none of the problems I had with the game were resolved, so I decided to just drop it. I don't know, maybe it actually gets amazing in the other routes or something, but it's not like I feel like reading through something that I simply don't enjoy anymore waiting for it to get good if I don't know if it even does. When I just started the game, I actually liked it a lot! Well, the very first part made me a bit suspicious about the general quality of writing, but then, after things start happening, it gets pretty interesting. In fact, there are a lot of things that this VN does right. The route system is basically the best that I've seen in any VN so far. There are several major decisions that affect in which direction the story start developing, and each direction later divides into individual character routes. Each route has a massive amount of ending, but what ending you enter mostly depends on how many affection points you get with the character you're pursuing, and the number of points is actually shown in the game so I guess you don't even really need to use a walkthrough (though I used it anyway). Another good point is that the setting is pretty unique and interesting. I'd like to see a bit more details about how the society in Liberaritas is functioning, but overall I'm more or less satisfied with what it does. And finally, the art in this game is absolutely stunning, and that's the main reason why I even became interested in that VN in the first place. The problems started when I entered the character routes... and well, the main problem is that I heavily dislike every major character in this game. The love interests are just very bland and so cliche so even without much experience in otome I know how cliched they are. We have a flirty guy, a tsundere, a yandere, a shota and so on. As for the heroine, the problem is that she's just an extremely annoying musclehead. I mean I find it kind of funny how the story tries so hard to present her as a "strong" female protagonist while in reality she is really the weakest otome protagonist I've seen so far, both physically and especially personality-wise. I specifically looked through the endings I reached to see how many times she actually made any real decision that affected the story in a meaningful way, and the result was exactly once, in the best ending of one of the characters. More often than not all the problems are just solved by the heroes, and whenever she's showing some initiative she just does something extremely reckless and makes things worse. When it comes to her physical abilities, she is extremely talented with a sword... in a world dominated by guns, lol. And her talent for guns is zero. Basically, if the story needs to show how big of a badass she is, it just throws her in a swordfight. But then suddenly a man with a gun appears and she's is just instantly reduced to a damsel in distress, or is just insta-dead if you happen to be aiming for a bad end. It's such a convenient plot point if you ask me. And I'd be totally okay with all that if the story was honest about it, and she actually accepted her weakness and used it to grow as a character. The problem is just that she never does. She just continues to get into trouble for the sake of "justice" without even making sure that she actually can do anything, only to be later saved by one of the heroes. This gets extremely annoying after a while. And honorable mention goes to how I'm expected to like the romance where the guy quite literally takes his girlfriend on a suicide mission without even explaining things to her first and asking for her opinion first. I don't know. I understand that my problems with this title are pretty much exactly that many people have with otome games in general, so maybe otome games just aren't for me. The truth is, it's the fourth otome game I've tried (though it's only the second Japanese one, so maybe that explains it) but I never really had these problems with any other title before excluding one route in The Second Reproduction. And, to be real, I'd rather read a novel with a doormat personality female protagonist rather than an incompetent musclehead who pretends to be a badass.

Hmmm. I had no idea anything but the h-scenes was censored in the Steam version. I mean, I don't know how much they didn't show, and it's not like there's much of it, but I would be pretty pissed off if they censored some iconic scenes. By the way, the universal opinion seems to be that the h-scenes are pretty awful and aren't worth wasting you money on.

So, Chuusotsu - 1.5th graduation just became available for Kickstarted backers, with the official release on January 17th. So, I guess this marks the first time when I finished a game even before its official release. VNDB doesn't even let me vote for it yet, lol. And, apparently, Steam is being Steam again, since they made Fruitbat mark this all-ages release as having sexual content, because apparently the jokes are too suggestive. I mean, there is some light sexual humor, it's not different from what we usually see in the anime and VNs. Overall, this game is pretty much what you would expect of Chuusotsu, with the exception that the release seems a bit rushed. Actually, it seems like I forgot how good the original game was. I had been wondering if it really deserved the high vote I gave it, but after playing the side story I realized that yeah, it totally did. It's a pretty well-written and thought-provoking story disguised with the facade of a light-hearted anime-style comedy. Though, again, the biggest problem I have with this series is that it's episodic. I mean, I understand that this type of release schedule is pretty natural for doujin works, and both the first part and the side story work completely well even without continuation, it still bothers me that the second part wasn't even announced in Japan yet. Still, definitely deserves a 'good' mark. 7/10. Also, VN community in a nutshell: Also, it's been almost a month, but I finished Katahane. It was very good. It's always feels good to find a work that tries to do things differently in the genre where the road to success is to rely on cliches as much as possible. Well, Shirohane chapter is just funny and light-hearted as good slice-of-life comedy should be, and Kurohane is just as touching as a proper nakige should be. I found it quite interesting how it allows to choose through whose eyes we experience some scenes, though, to be honest, I feel like this is the case where the multiple routes structure takes away from the experience more than it adds. In none-true routes the conclusion for Kurohane isn't shown before you reach the true route, and in non-true routes the chapters feel completely disconnected. At one moment you're reading slice-of-life comedy, then it suddenly switches to drama, then it's suddenly comedy again. I gave it 8/10, though I admit it's a bit on the weak side.

I played almost nothing that got released last year. Steam Prison had some really cool moments, but overall was pretty disappointing. And I'm still in the middle of the first route in Baldr Sky, and the speed with which I'm going through this VN suggests that I'm probably not going to like it either.

I looked through my screenshot library, and here are a few things I found. More serious quotes: Seabed The House in Fata Morgana Less serious ones: Himawari Hapymaher Subahibi

Well, second seasons for Kaguya-sama and Honzuki are my obvious choice. I may give Bakarina another chance, but, don't know, neither the LN nor the manga really managed to catch my attention.

Oh, it's a prequel fandisk, and it's a lot shorter than the original game. I believe, it's about the length as one or two chapters from the game. Still, I definitely recommend it if you like Fata Morgana! Edit. Well, "just as good as the original game" was a bit of an overstatement. I should've said "just as good as any chapter in the original game".