ChaosRaven

Wouldn't be surprising, Higurashi has a fairly popular anime, while the one of Umineko looks like Ryuukishi07 would have drawn it himself *shudder*. And popular animes matter a lot, even in the VN scene.

Fata Morgana is in the list, just by its Japanese name ファタモルガーナの館. But Umineko really seems to be missing. Rather odd, considering Higurashi made it almost half a dozen times into the list. XD

Well, EGS is blocked for my region at the moment. Oddly enough, it works every two years or so for a few months and then gets blocked again. I think I like the list with >500 votes more, because it filters out most special editions of popular titles. Ever 17 made it three times into the other list. Seeing that, I appreciate that VNDB merges all editions of a title into one entry.

Do the ratings take the popularity (vote-count) into account like bayesian, or just the average height of the votes? Some titles feel really out of place, like a Family Project in the top ten. And almost none of the most popular story heavy weights made it in the list - neither Stein's Gate, nor Umineko, nor Fata Morgana?! But a simple rapige sitting on first place, uh huh... Well, I guess that says a lot about the preferences of the EGS voters...

Understandable decision. Having to rely on the erratic Steamquisition to sell your titles can certainly be quite frustrating. And unlike MangaGamer or Sekai they don't have their own established shop site. Though it's nice to hear that they still want to translate some rare hand picked titles in future. The market is a bit oversaturated anyway, so getting some rare pearls instead of just a bunch of mediocrity doesn't sound too bad.

I've started reading Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception and it's a quite impressive experience so far. This title seems to have some serious production values under its belt. The 3D battle maps are also used to showcase animated events which gives many scenes a cool dynamic rarely seen in VN's. Especially since the 3D art looks quite decent (at least for a VN). The character art style was a bit unusual at first, but I got used to it pretty fast since the whole world has a coherent look where everything fits together. It really oozes atmosphere. The writing was also pretty good so far, with a good balance of plot, slice of life and comedy. The interactions with Kuon are just great, ranging from hilarious to serious depending on the situation. It's also really fun to experience a well made fantasy world. I think the only thing I didn't like that much so far, was the overemphasizing of the protagonists apparent physical weakness in comparison to the furry guys. While he balances it out with smartness and it also created some funny interactions, it still hurts my manly pride a bit when playing a character whose supposedly weaker than a liitle child lol. It also makes the battles with him a bit unbelievable. Though I guess it'll balance out with time. The zero to hero just seems a bit extreme here. In Senren Banka I've finished Lena's route and I'm going to approach Yoshino's route next. I like the characters and the setting, but the plot is progressing at a snail pacing later on, which makes it difficult for me to read longer sections at a time. I wish Yuzusoft would put as much effort into their stories as into their characters.

So, I finally finished this and it was a very nice read overall. Maybe not a master piece, it does have some weaknesses, but it was certainly an entertaining story. The good stuff: I think the VN was rather well paced for most of the part. While some parts might have felt a bit generic and lengthy, they usually weren't too long, because the VN iterates beween slice of life and plot arcs. In that regard, the VN felt rather well organized anyway. It had several connected cases and a bigger overarching plot arc. That's at least for me one of the best ways to write a story, because it gives you a feeling of progress if you can finish a case and then there's new stuff coming to keep you interested. On the other hand, there's still a bigger overarching plot with each case being one piece of its puzzle pieces. I also found the story reasonable explained for a super-natural thriller. They did neither try to overcomplicate nor overexplain things. There are some clear rules how the Bodach world works and they tried to stick to those for the most part, with some smaller unknowns left to keep the mystery. I also liked the protagonist. He was proactive and had a clear mind. I also appreciate that they didn't try to bore me to death with a time loop. Taking a 5 hour story, stretch it to 10 hours and then further multiply it to 50 hours via time loop isn't something unheard of. If a plot arc is over, then it IS over and you don't have to go through it again a dozen times. It's also nice, that despite delivering a full story full of murder mystery, you still get heroine routes with several H-scenes each, even if the routes felt more like extended epilogues. Although the VN has some rather creepy scenes and darker moments, it still keeps the mood comparatively light. Even if it's a bit darker than the 9-nine series and has more plot focus, I'd still also classify this as a story-moege mix. There was also considerable effort put into the VN, to pull that off. I counted well over 150 CG's im the image gallery, which is massive. Most VN's keep it well below a hundred - usually more in the ~70 region. I think Aokana had a similar CG count - probably even more and the quality was higher though. I also played all routes, even Hatsune's, which is saying something. But granted, the routes itself weren't that long. The not so good stuff: I think most of my complaints could be summarized with one word: the execution. The moege roots of its creators are gleaming through in almost every aspect - art, sound and writing. While the VN does have some creepy scenes, it can feel almost undistinguishable from a generic slice of life of moege in its more peaceful scenes. Although this is a murder mystery, the whole mood and style isn't really comparable to darker counterparts like Kara no Shoujo. The VN also had some problems how to switch between the lighter and darker parts, especially at the start. It also suffered from a severe disregard of male characters. I found almost all male character sprites and voices lacking. That's a typical moege problem. All the effort goes into the girls, while male characters barely make it beyond idiot-friend. And then the weird poses of some of them. Take Hidenori for example, he always has its arm at its head - ALWAYS. Rule number one for every character artist: If a character has only one pose, always use a neutral one, NEVER EVER a special gesture one. Tomonari's was almost worse. I think the only male character that was kind of okay was the detective. Since some of the male characters had important roles, you can't just leave them in the dust like that. Fortunately, at least the event CG's with them were usually better. Writing and story was also a bit uneven. Some parts were actually pretty good. I think I liked the first case with the restaurant the most. It had good foreshadowing, decent introduction into dream diving and an intense finale. On the other hand, the case directly after felt more like 'monster of the week'. Character motivations were also relatable on paper, but with the cheap sprites and voice acting of male characters, they often came across as rather generic and one-dimensional. The heroines were a bit overshadowed by the omni-present Madoka. That made it difficult to follow the fast switch into a heroine route after the main plot. It's admittedly not an easy thing to get right considering the circumstances. And I'm pretty sure I've seen worse in story VN's, provided they even have heroine routes which certainly isn't a given. The last thing I want to mention is a bit of a, let's say 'luxus complaint' - the VN lacks a bit of 'flair'. The cool characters of a Dies Irae, the engrossing atmoshere of a Kara no Shoujo, or just the pretty character art of a Palette or Purple Soft title. While the female character sprites of Sakura no Mori † Dreamers aren't bad, they have just a front pose and the facial expressions could have been better. I played that in tandem with Senren Banka and Yuzusoft puts more effort into those things than anyone else, even if I'm not sure if they also have back poses like Palette. Conclusion: Although my complaint section is pretty long like usual, most of it is still more on the nitpicking side. They got the important parts right I think. Heroine ranking: Madoka > Mahoro > Kureha > Hatsune > Mifuyu Overall rating: 7.5/10 It doesn't reach the 8 in my book, mainly because of the problems with the male characters, but it deserves an upper 7 rating. It was certainly the best VN I've read this year so far, even if that doesn't say much. But I do appreciate what Moonstone tried to achieve here and for the most part they did succeed I think. I hope they keep that up and even improve with their future titles.

Actually, there's a pretty good discussion on VNDB about it with some interesting pro and con arguments about it, and I think the things that I'd consider relevant and interesting might be addressed after the third iteration. Ironically, most people seem to hate that part lol. Still, the story is a bit too gamey and far fetched for me. I mean...

Yes, too bad it was pretty much just eye and ear candy. Hakuoki should be a much better choice, provided you don't have a particular dislike for the samurai genre.

Yes, I didn't read that far into Summer Pockets yet to really judge it. That's why I just stalled and didn't drop it. But for Raging Loop you'll better bring a lot of patience - you'll need it for all those iterations.

Time for a little update on my reading progress I think. I tried another otome with Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly, but unfortunately this was the weakest one I've read so far. The VN tempts as a mystery thriller with several young people trapped in a mysterious mansion, but while art and soundtrack are actually quite decent for that type of VN, the same can't be said about the story. This is actually slice of life in disguise and the slice of life is presented in probably the most boring way possible. Imagine this: you're reading the VN, the teens wake up in a strange house wondering what's going on, and then you suddenly get a message that you can't progress with the story before reading X random episodes which are locked in the flow chart. To unlock them, you have to earn points in a very crappy shooter game with horrible controls where you have to kill black butterflies. Fortunately, you can resign the game and at least get some points. But the real problem are the random episodes. Beniyuri cooking with the guys, Beniyuri chatting with the guys about random stuff, etc. If there would have been at least some context for the slice of life, but I guess the writer was too lazy for that. It goes without saying that this drags the flow of the story down to an almost unbearable degree. I think I only managed to finish the neutral ending because I liked the soundtrack and the background art. The characters sprites could have been better though, too flower-boyish for my taste. The few parts of the actual plot that were left buried between all those random slice of life episodes weren't that great either. And Beniyuri pretty much confirms all bad prejudices against otome protagonists: helpless, dull and plain. The neutral ending I got probably just revealed the basics what actually happened, with more to come in the actual hero routes, but I decided to call it a day - enough for me. Final rating: 5/10 I also dropped Raging Loop somewhere in the second iteration. While this has an interesting story premise and at least a semi-competent protagonist, it suffers from simply too many issues. The VN freely admits at the start that it's inspired by a certain werewolf game I personally never played myself. There are a few werewolfs randomly selected at the start and the players have to find out who they are during the day and can try to eliminate one of them hoping they judged correcty, while the werewolves kill one player during the nights. The players win if all wolves are eliminated. Now, there's nothing wrong with being inspired by a game, but it gets a problem if you're so obsessed with it, that you'll completely neglect how people would react in reality to such a situation. The story comes across as extremely artifical with countless extra rules and conditions, so the writers could 'enforce' the game on the denizens of a tiny village. Not only the wolves are randomly chosen and brainwashed into happily killing their own family, but there are also snake, spider and monkey characters which are mostly useless since they can't prove it to the others. In addition, there's a strange mist keeping the villagers from fleeing and a corruption that kills everyone outside during the night. And then there are more annoyances. The game has a lot of choices, but the writer reeeally wants you to read the bad endings and therefore locks the good choice until you finished reading the bad ending. Well, too bad that this makes the choices itself absurd since you can't choose anymore. And what's even worse is that it kills all the excitement if you made a good or bad choice if the VN already spoils it. And it goes without saying that the story flow comes down to a drag that way. And then the obligatory time-loop that forces you to repeat almost the same stupid discussions again and again, instead of progressing with the plot. The VN is also very cheaply produced. Very few event images, and sprites and backgrounds are practical at best. The heroine cast was also pretty forgettable, so nothing to see here in that regard as well. The protagonist was kind of okay though and probably the main reason I didn't drop the VN earlier. Overall rating: 4/10 Currently I'm iterating beween Senren Banka and Sakura no Mori † Dreamers. The latter in particular seems to turn out surprisingly good. It's a bit rough around the edges and especially at the start it's kind of obvious that both writer and artist are more rooted in the moe and slice of life genre, but there are definite improvements later on and the story itself seems surprisingly well thought out so far. I don't want to praise it too soon, since it could still turn into a mess like in Chaos Child, but so far it's the most entertaining VN I've read this year. I've also tried Summer Pockets, but it seemed to consist mainly of meaningless choices and meaningless mini games with no plot in sight, so I stalled it in favor of the more entertaining Senren Banka for now. Heroines were likable though, so I might pick it up again when I'm finished with the other VN's i'm currently reading.

For a bit more light and ero focused fantasy experiences: Kohime Musou, the Kyonyuu Fantasy series and Boob Wars. For a more serious experience in past Japan: ChuSinGura 46+1, Utawarerumono series and Hakuouki ~Shinsengumi Kitan~ if you're also okay with otome. For a more serious experience in modern era: Dies Irae has war themes even if it's not active war and Baldr Sky could also qualify I guess.

I'm usually not very bothered by unvoiced protagonists, as long as the VN is in ego perspective, since I'm pretty good at self-inserting and letting my imagination do the job. However, if the protagonist appears on screen the whole time, it can be a bit awkward though. Because that's a 3rd person view then and I'm more 'accompanying' the protagonist instead of 'being' him myself in that case. Personally (as a guy), I usually prefer the former for male protagonists and the latter for female ones, for obvious reasons. If you have a protagonist like 2B from Nier: Automata, you just HAVE TO see her! Anyway, as said before, the main issue with voiced protagonists are probably the costs. And trying to keep the costs low by just hiring a low level voice actor can do more harm than good, because most people wouldn't be able to endure that voice through the whole VN. I mean, getting a voiced protagonist sounds great if you can get someone like Fukuyama Jun, who voiced Zero in Code Geass and Maou in G-Senjou, or Tsuda Kenjirou from Hakuouki or Nightshade. But unfortunately, with Bishoujo VN's who spend there main voice budget for female voice actressess, you're usually stuck with three basic types of male voice actors: idiot friend, whiny wimp and scum villain. And that's pretty much like comparing rotting food to a five star menu - better pass on that meal completely if that's all you can get.

That sounds bad indeed. I've still an old HDD for my data and was thinking about replacing it with an SSD. But I'm not sure anymore if the SSD's can die completely from one moment to the other. Though I do have monthly backups, so the risk wouldn't be as big. Still, sorry for your data loss. I'd be furious if I'd loose my art collection of fantasy, scifi and anime images.

Word of mouth, checking new releases from English publishers like MangaGamer, Sekai Project, NekoNyan, etc. and browsing their catalogue. Checking Steam releases and suggestions is also a good way, and looking at the top-X list of most popular VN's on VNDB also helps.

Are you sure it's really the SSD itself? I'd at least try to connect it with a different cable and/or to a different port first. Maybe it's not the SSD itself that's broken. Nevertheless, that's certainly bad luck right after Murphy's law.

I'm currently going for Ao, but so far she did interact with nobody except her pet fox yet.

I'm not far into the VN yet, but I can't help wondering, do the heroines also interact with each other sometime? The VN feels a bit... lonely so far, because all the characters seem to be isolated from each other. The heroines are charming, but I honestly miss some simple friendship vibes here.

That's certainly true, the ending of the first season had a bit of a cliffhanger, so the second season could bring some interesting developments. I'm still a bit worried about the creators tendency to add new girls though. He really seems to like that, but at some point you have to stick to what you have and go with it. Not sure if he can resist the temptation though.

I honestly found this a bit of a letdown. It's a good nukige I think, but in terms of plot and characters Acting Lessons was better. Derek in particular was an absolutely terrible written character and a walking disgrace for everyone around him. No idea how we could get from a likable buddy like Liam to this... thing. The hell week trials were also too long and too exagerated to be even remotely believable anymore. And it was almost impossible to focus on just one heroine, though that was an issue in Acting Lessons too. H-scenes improved a lot though, no doubt about that.

I just went purely by how I liked the heroines from the parts I read. If you've read the whole thing, you've probably a way better picture of the heroines. Originally, I had Rain in front, but towards the end of the first route her endless whining got so on my nerves that I switched off her voice and she dropped to second place in popularity. lol

You can't go wrong with PersonA ~Opera Za no Kaijin~.

So I've finished several VN's - time to drop a few words about them. First on the list is Hatsukoi 1/1 which I was playing for quite some time now. It's a slice-of-life VN, so I had to consume it in smaller doses while reading other VN's as well. So it took a while to finish, even if I only played Maya's, Kyou's and Midori's routes. Overall, I think this VN kinda clicked with me. While it wasn't super special, I think the characters had a good chemistry with each other and the whole cafeteria stuff turned out to be more entertaining than expected. I also appreciate that you had two male buddies to hang around with, which weren't just idiots - reminded me a bit of Da Capo 2. They offered a refreshing change of pace to the cafeteria commitee with the girls. Heroine routes felt a bit too long and overdramatized though. I had the impression that if they would have cut the last third of each route, the VN would have been better for it. The protagonist could occasionally get a bit annoying, but on the other hand he shows some remarkable growth in some routes, especially Midori's. Heroine ranking: Maya > Kyou > Midori > Runa > Yukino Overall rating: 6.5/10 I was even thinking about granting it a 7, but decided against since it was lacking a certain something that would make it stand out, like Aokana or the 9-Nine series. Still, it's a decent slice-of-life VN. So the next one on the list one is a quite unusual one for my standards: Koutetsu no Majo Annerose. Me playing a Lilith title is certainly something that doesn't happen every day, and this will probably also stay an exception. Usually, their H-content is far too extreme for me, but on the other hand they have some interesting settings and cool adult heroine designs. Lilith are one of the rare companies that somehow managed to distance themselves from generic school life moege and still be successful with it. It's a pity that they just waste their potential for fetish nukiges. Annerose is a bit of an exception since it has a male protagonist and at least half of its H-content is just vanilla. The majority of the more extreme content is optional in bad endings or you get a choice to avoid it. It's also rather plot heavy to a point that I wouldn't call it a nukige anymore. There's a reason why it's the highest rated Lilith VN on VNDB. The story was certainly quite refreshing. You're pretty much captured and killed during a slave raid by the Steel Witch Annerose and cursed into her undying slave servant. During the course of the game, you're slowly ascending from a useless lackey to a powerful and reliable partner of Annerose. The plot is about finding the truth about an evil cyber-werewolf running amok in the city and killing lots of people. This is also a true cyberpunk setting with fantasy elements almost like Shadowrun. You've evil cons, street-samurai, assassins, gangs, zombies and all kinds of shady people to interact with. And not to forget, a school girl equipped with a fully armed machine pistol which she uses on almost EVERY occasion against EVERYONE around her out of fear of rapists, making her one of the most dangerous persons in the city. XD I really liked the more 'feme fatal' character designs and the overall anarchic and violent cyberpunk atmosphere. Riku also made a good team with Annerose and Michiko. Music was also decent, but it was a bit annoying that the VN didn't use its full 800 x 600 resolution. Heroine ranking: Annerose > Mayfeng > Ray > Michiko > Miki Overall rating: 7/10 The VN wasn't too long and for its length it offered enough content to keep me entertained. I also appreciate that it was possible for the most part to avoid the more extreme content. It's a pity that Lilith stopped compromising and just produced plain hardcore fetish nukiges since then - what a waste of potential! So this will most likely stay the only Lilith VN I'm reading. So, the last on the list is Baldr Sky Dive, the VN with the most potential and that 'should' have been the best on my list. Just that it's not. But let's start with the good things first. The VN looks surprisingly good for such an old title. The effects were smooth and the character designs still look decent enough. They also used such a good text font that they didn't need a text box, so even if it was just 800 x 600, at least you could see all of it. Every VN should have that. Music was okay, some soundtracks better some worse. I wasn't interested in the gameplay and therefore set it to very easy, and it really was easy to breeze through in that mode, which was nice. Now to the not so great things. The VN consists of three core themes, a cyberpunk world of the present, a school life episode of the past and mecha for the fights. Unfortunately, none of the three themes complement each other very well. It's more the opposite, the whole thing would have been better if the writers would have focused on one theme and skipped the others. Instead of trying to establish the cyberpunk world as good as possible, the VN lost itself constantly in school life back-blendings, with most of them completetly irrelevant to what's currently happening in the present. It would have been better to just make a separate 'MuvLuv Extra' out of it, which you could just finish for good first. It's also odd to have a heroine route where the protagonist is constantly hitting on other girls, even if it is just in back-blendings. Overall the first 2/3 of the route had literally no story flow at all because of the constant interruptions. Only in the last third it got a bit better. Another problem is the mecha theme. It's actually not just a game for the reader it's also a game in the VN because it's purely restricted to its virtual reality. It's pretty much just like League of Legends in our world - even kids play it. The only thing that differs is that you can switch it to fatal mode in certain regions. But besides that, it could also just be a Tetris contest. That means that the whole military background like sweaty mechanics, repairs and conflicts with all kinds of other troop types is missing. This is NOT a mecha VN like MuvLuv, it's a cyberpunk VN where the hacking part was realized with some nice mecha combat. The whole 'mercenary group' stuff with military titles was just silly since they were actually just hacker groups. But it's even worse, because since all conflicts were played out with the mecha gameplay, the entire armed conflicts of the real cyberpunk world were missing. It's ironic that just the two antagonists Gregory and Gilbert got the idea to make an (incredible successful) attack outside of cyberspace. The protagonist itself never got that idea and tried to solve every conflict via mecha combat. The plot itself stays minimal and almost doesn't progress at all. Gray Christmas gets mentioned hundreds of times and even if it's pretty clear from the start what happened, they try to strech even the most basic information through most of the route. They tried to bring up some pseudo intellectual themes like designer childs or living Ai's but barely knew what to do with them. The antagonists were completely forgettable and just your typical unlikable 'Muahahaha...' types, easily recognizable as just that from a mile away. It's remarkable how they could stretch so one-dimensional characters to two dimensions. The plot in the actual present also only involves just about 5 - 10 characters, since half of the cast only appears in back blendings. Drawn support characters pretty much don't exist, neither in CG backgrounds nor as sprites. Most 'factions' are just represented by their leader. Their troops are handled mainly as mechs. As compensation they used Sora's sprite for pretty much everything. Overall I'd only advise this title to people who are really interested in the gameplay. If you just want an interesting story you won't find it here. The first route took me over 30 hours and from that probably 5 hours at most had any plot relevance with the rest just being painfully boring filler scenes. So I'll leave it at that. Even a short VN like Annerose did a much better job at showcasing a convincing cyberpunk world with all its grey tones - what a disappointment! Heroine rankings: Sora > Rain > Aki > Don't care Overall rating: 5/10

Man, you must really love that title if my review is still bugging you. Especially considering that I already gave it a pretty high rating for my standards. But I kinda envy you, it has gotten really hard for me to really fall for a title nowadays. But if a title really clicks with you, it's a truly awesome experience that blows pretty much all other mediums like videos or books away. Anyway, I hope you aren't a fan Baldr Sky as well, because I'm about to write a short review about it soon that certainly won't be pretty.

You seem rather well informed, not even VNDB has any info that there's an English version coming. I assume it's not via one of the usual English publishers like Sekai, NekoNyan or MangaGamer and they are doing their own thing? It looks pretty interesting, will you write something about it or... did you already and I just missed it? Yeah, I was already scratching my head about the first one, but apparently there seems to be more than meets the eye. There must be a reason why it's so popular. I would have preferred that as well, but I can somehow understand the reason for it. With all the animation and stuff, it would have been a pretty expensive title and therefore a financial risk.