Dreamysyu

https://vndb.org/v22310

Overall, yeah, I personally thought that linearity was a bit unsatisfying. To be honest, after finishing it I personally believe that Aselia is the game that you play twice for the story (since New Game+ adds enough new content to make the whole game worth replaying), but you should only aim to finish all the routes if you really like the gameplay. If you enjoy the gameplay, then the multiple route system gives you a chance to play the game more, and there is a bonus that you get some information about the world and the characters only in certain routes. If you don't like the gameplay, then playing one route will give you enough information about the whole story to make replaying really unnecessary. Which brings me to the next point. There are 6 routes: Nozomi, Satsuki, Narukana, Katima, Ruputna, and Naya. I personally only finished 4 out of 6 routes, and, honestly, I literally don't see any reason to play all of them. There's literally even less difference between routes than in Aselia. Just a few lines and h-scenes here and there, and the last chapter is a bit different, but that's it. The only exception is Satsuki's route which adds some interesting stuff in the middle that you don't get in any other route (and introduces a major plot hole). So, honestly, I'd recommend to play Satsuki and then Narukana and skip everything else. If you really want to finish every route, play Nozomi before Satsuki and other routes after Narukana. No, every other route is unlocked from the very beginning. I personally recommend playing Satsuki before Narukana, or you may be a bit lost. I never found one myself. And the problem is that the guides that exist kind of contradict each other. Overall, the route system is more straightforward than in Aselia, so you don't really need a walkthrough. Basically all you need to know: Narukana's route is the easiest to get into. There's a choice in a dream sequence in chapter 8 that only appear on your second playthrough which lets you choose between "Continue watching" or "Reach out for her". If you choose the later, you're locked into her route. That's it. All the other routes are decided by the number of affection point you have with a heroine. You can get affection point by: Choosing dialogue options that favor the heroine in some way. Putting her into the the same squad as the MC and using this squad to defeat enemy squads marked with a heart. This is the biggest difference with Aselia where any enemy squad works. Putting the heroine into the same squad as the MC and letting her get an MVP, which means to defeat the highest number of enemies in the battle. I believe, this gives you the highest number of affection points. In the end you get into the route with the heroine that has the highest number of affection points. That's it.

Yeah, that makes sense. I'm not sure if New Game+ is required, but you definitely need to restart the game from the very beginning, since these routes buid upon some scenes that only show up on your second playthrough. I should probably also add that I've seen people having problems with gameplay in Kyouko's route. I think some unique battles in that route are basically unbeatable if your units aren't high enough level at the start of the game. At least, if you play in the hard mode.

I only used Dakkodango guide, and I didn't have any problems getting into any of the routes. It's been a while and I don't really remember, but I think it's okay that Uruka appeared in that scene. The game will make you follow Uruka's or Lesteena's route before the battle of Mallorigan, but after that you will switch to Kyoko or Tokimi if you did everything right.

I don't know about other places, but as far as I understand, the slavery first appeared in Ancient Greece as the way to deal with bankruptcy. People who couldn't pay their debts were sold into temporary slavery, and they had to work for their creditors before they could buy their freedom back. If you think about it, at the first glance it seems like a pretty natural thing to do, but the downside is that as people get used to owning other people, the slavery becomes normal in the society. Later, during Greco-Persian wars, war slaves started appearing, and slavery stopped being considered as temporary thing and became permanent.

I'd say, just read it yourself from the beginning to the end. Fata Morgana is awesome, it's well worth it.

Looks similar to when there are problems with the locale settings. This shouldn't be the problem if you are playing the official English version, but assuming you're playing it in Japanese or Portuguese, try doing this if you still haven't. PS. Or, if you actually are playing it in English, maybe setting the locale language to English will work.

Pls.

I believe, After should be played first.

I was going to write about Adabana after I finish it, which is going to take some time since I was going through it very slowly and currently I completely switched to Iwaihime. But, yeah, it's pretty good. Especially the art and the music. As for the story, it's interesting, but I'll judge it after I complete the whole game, I guess. As for Iwaihime, I'm currently at chapter 3, (yeah, I'm still slow) and it seems to be slowly getting better, even though the horror parts are still pretty disappointing. On the other hand, Ryukishi was always pretty good at writing character drama, so it could work in the end after the meaning of the horror parts becomes more clear.

Same, actually. I literally dropped Dies Irae due to slice of life scenes. It's not like I particularly hated them, but they somehow ended up killing my excitement for the story, so I just stopped playing at some point and never got back. As for the question, I don't really know. I noticed that I generally don't like how sol scenes are done in chuunige. I'm definitely not sol hater though, I enjoy it a lot in other types of stories. But what I don't like is that many plot-focused VNs just use it as filler, and it just doesn't add anything of substance to the story or character development.

Funny how these threads are getting deader and deader each season. I actually haven't been watching anything so far. Not really in the mood for anime. Though I will check out the new Higurashi anime at some point, at least.

Well, I'm also playing Iwaihime, though, as far as I understand, I only just finished chapter 1. And, to be honest, I'm not entirely convinced about this VN so far. The very first scene was pretty well done and overall disturbing, but after that it kind of got kind of cheesy. The horror scenes after that aren't particularly impactful, since they just don't feel real to me, which reminds me of my experience with Phenomeno. I don't know, I hope I'm wrong, but this may just turn into an inferior version of Higurashi. At the same time, I am moderately intrigued by where this whole mess is going. From what I understand, while the scenario for this VN is written by Ryukishi, the original idea isn't actually his, so I don't really know if I can use my experience with his previous VNs to make assumptions. That said, I do seem to recognize certain hints here and there, but they may just be red herrings.

Pretty much this. You can basically see the first game as an extended prologue that introduces the world and the main characters. I'd say, the first half of the first half of the first game is a bit boring because of numerous infodumps, but it gets pretty good in the later half when it gets to the main intrigue of the game. The second game has better pacing, and they improved on some other things, so it's a really good experience from start to finish. I personally liked how they used the visual effects to make the experience feel more cinematic, and the ending was also pretty powerful.

To be honest, I'd just recommend to contact tech support (if you actually bought the game, of course). I doubt anybody else would help you with problems like that.

It's been a lot of time since I read Air so maybe I just don't remember it right, but I'm pretty sure they weren't particularly relevant, and some of them were even unfitting. I mean, Air is the VN where h-scenes were literally added to the script after it was already completed since the authors weren't sure if it would sell without them.

I wonder, will they have to start the translation from the scratch, or will they be able to use the old translation they did with Degica?

It's out! Well, that first scene was really disturbing.

Whenever I look at Black Cyc VN entries on vndb, I have very conflicting feelings about them. On one hand, most of them seem unique enough to make me actually want to play them. On the other hand....

That's basically all Key's true endings in a nutshell.

Sure, but 3D games are a lot more popular. Comparing them to manga and light novels, VNs are a lot more expensive to make. Anime are even more expensive, but they are typically based on existing stories from the other media that are already popular enough, while most VNs are original. Also, manga and LNs are usually episodic (or, otherwise, very short) so the publishers can get some invested money back relatively soon, while in case of VNs they typically have to make a full product first, and then if it works then it works.

I personally think that VNs right now are in a sense stuck in a cursed loop. VNs as a medium just really lack variety and as a result appeal to a small number of people. Even most all-ages titles follow the same story structure: even in non-adult titles a male protagonist always has to be surrounded by a lot of female love interests; it almost always has to take place in high-school; even in plot-focused stories there are a lot of slice-of-life scenes, which aren't even well written, and mostly just serve as a way to stall the story for some time rather than developing the characters; finally, the personalities of the protagonist, the heroines and even the side characters typically just follow certain well-known archetypes. So, if you just happen not to enjoy some of these titles and just want to find something more unique, you're much better off watching some anime or reading a manga. Otome games are a bit different, but, from my limited experience with them, they seem to have a bag of different, though slightly similar, problems. There are indeed some unique and experimental VNs that do things differently, but most of these are doujin titles and don't get that much exposure. Most of them aren't even that good, since good authors are likely to join some company at some point and start making a lot more standard VNs, or leave the medium altogether. Also, we, the current VN fans, enjoy these tropes to at lest to some extend, and a lot of us actually prefer them. As a result, in a short run it's not a very good strategy for companies to experiment with story structures, since they don't know if the fans would like these changes, and they just stick to the strategy that worked thus far. And VNs are also expensive to make, so they don't allow for much flexibility. Nowadays, manga and light novel authors don't even have to make any initial investment at all, since they just can start posting their stories online and see how people react to them, or even completely stick to episodic online distribution. In case of VNs, even a single financially unsuccessful product can make a whole company go bankrupt. I personally think that if VNs somehow let this loop, there's a good chance that they would start appeal to a bigger number of people. They probably wouldn't be the same people as the current VN fans. Will they ever do that? I doubt it, but I don't know. EVNs might actually lead to something interesting at some point, who knows?

@Mr Poltroon Happy birthday!

Key VNs generally have quite a lot of choices that generally matter to some extent. The best example would be Clannad. Though you will probably need a walkthrough to play it, since the choice system is just too complex, so getting some specific routes may be troublesome. Otome game Steam Prison has a pretty interesting route system and quite a lot of endings. Though, in this case, not that many of the individual choices matter, but they affect affection counter with the characters, and which ending you get is decided by how much affection the target character has (there are exceptions though). Not what you ask for, but I'm also going to mention Kimi to Kanojo to Kanojo no Koi. as a VN you may be interested in. It's very linear and, in a sense, only has a single route, but the choice system in it is very unique, for a lack of a better word.

Best of wishes to @littleshogun!