ChaosRaven

So after two years not being held, finally we have Anime Expo returned and for the first panel Sekai here bring some interesting title such as Hamidashi Creative or Parfait (At least GIGA still willing to localize their VN I suppose). I'll list the announcements here later on.
PS - Here's all of the announcements for AX 2022 below, and I'll try to sort it based on the order of the panel.
Sekai Project
Aksys Games
Spike Chunsoft
JAST USA
Mangagamer
That's all for the announcements for the first AX since the pandemic happened, and of course I'll write my comment on those later on.

Well I've been late for this, but better late than never. Anyway here's the announcements from our first convention since the pandemic, although with Nekonyan announced several interesting title this thread here is more or less just for Nekonyan's announcements even though there's also Mangagamer's announcements.
Mangagamer
Announcement 1 - The Patient S Remedy

Announcement 2 - How a Healthy Hentai Administers Public Service
Nekonyan
Announcement 1 - Secret Agent of the Knight Academy

Announcement 2 - Floral Flowlove

Announcement 3 - Kakenuke Seishun Sparking

Announcement 4 - Ren'ai x Royale

Announcement 5 - Irotoridori no Sekai (Yes it's really happened)

That's all for Anime Central 2022 announcements, and I'll comment on this later on. Although I can comment something it would be that good for Nekonyan now that they managed to get Irotoridori back from Sol Press seeing that Sol Press was too in deep to do their responsibilities to release it, and that it's good to see two more Saga Planet VN being localized.
PS - Actually there's one more announcement from Nekonyan in which it's the real Announcement 2, although said announcement is non-VN but instead it's third person shooter Lorena and the Ruins so naturally I'd excluded it from the announcements list here.

Finished the second episode of Supipara a while ago. I've read the first one years ago already and due to the whole funding campaign mess, the seond one vanished from my radar for quite some time. I then picked it up after Higurashi since I wanted something short and also to get it finally finished.
Overall, it was okay. As typical for a Minori VN, the atmosphere was a bit more on the melancholic side, which I quite liked. The second episode focused on Ange, which is the resident tsundere in Supipara. Her story arc is about compensating for the loss of her mother by making a deal with the witch Alice to gain special powers to help others. Those special powers enable her to see into the future and prevent bad things from happening. However, that powers also comes with the price of sacrificing parts of her happy memories. Naturally, when she gets closer to the protagonist, this is causing problems to their developing relationship and the protagonist tries to help her overcome those issues during the route.
It wasn't the deepest plot arc, but still nicely written due to the likable characters. However, Ange itself felt a bit like she was written too much to fit the tsundere cliche. While undoubtly a good person, she talked a bit too much nonesense for my taste. Meaning, she lacked the sharp intellect to back up her foul mouth.
Actually, the true star of this episode - just like in the first one - is Alice the witch. It's pretty obvious that she was intended to be the main heroine, destined for the final true route. She resembles Yuuko from ef a lot, being Minori's unique smart-dere character type. Funny and talkative, but also smart and mysterious. I absolutely adore her.
Graphics were still impressive, due to the many CG's and the fantastic scene lighting, even if some of the character faces felt a bit simple for todays standards.
It's a pity that the VN could never be finished, because the ending of the episode made it quite obvious that the first two episodes were just small fragments of a much bigger story. Especially Rikka and Momiji seem to know a lot more than they were willing to reveal so far. Not to mention Alice, who's quite obvious a big blob of hidden secrets. It also makes the VN hard to rate since it's obviously incomplete.
Heroine ranking: Alice >> Momiji > Rikka > Sakura > Ange
Overall rating: 7/10 (I'd rate the story lower since it's just incomplete, but it gets a bonus for Alice, atmoshere and graphics)

I've also read Making＊Lovers and frankly it wasn't my cup of tea. It took me literally months just to finish Saki's route, because it was just so painful to read. The writing was extremely goofy and didn't fit the cast of supposedly adult characters at all. Actually, there was not a single character that seemed to have a mental age beyond 12.
There was also pretty much no common route at all and the characters started dating like they were coupled by a dating agency. An overlapping friendship theme also didn't exist since the heroines only exist in their own routes (juding by Saki's route at least). The protagonist -let's call him Hamster-kun - was also presented as somewhat mentally retarded and really annoying. It's as if they made the idiot friend the actual protagonist. A plot also didn't really exist, so you're stuck with an endless loop of dumb and unfunny jokes, connected by some arbitrary H-scenes.
In terms of positives, the art was quite decent - it's a pity that it was wasted on such a bad writer. The custom dates were also a good idea and some of the heroines at least had potential.
Generally, I think the writing would have fit more to loliges or at least school life VN's with a strong comedy theme. For a romance VN involving adult characters, it felt just completely inappropriate. But to be perfectly honest, I don't think I'll read another VN from this writer or company again. Just not my cup of tea.
Heroine ranking: Don't care
Overall rating: 4/10

Recently Sekai Project announced that final episode of 9-nine will get released on Steam on 2022-03-18. The release will contain all three language versions (JP, CN, EN)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1890120/9nineNewEpisode/
This episode was all-ages right from the start, so there should be no need to worry about any censorship in this release.

The Visual Novel Monthly Recap for February 2022 is now out! A bunch of highly requested patches were announced or released. A few releases people have been waiting for are now out as well. Not to mention some last minute announcements. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Time for Getchu Award 2021, and the winner is Sousaku Kanojo. Also here's all 20 VNs that get the award below, and you can view the source from this link.
1. Sousaku Kanojo no Ren'ai Koushiki - Aino+Links

2. Happy Live, Show Up! - FAVORITE

3. Meikei no Lupercalia - Uguisu Kagura

4. Motto! Haramase! Honoo no Oppai Isekai Chou Ero ♥ Succubus Gakuen! - Milk Factory
5. Monkeys!! - Harukaze

6. Kunado Kokuki - Purple Software

7. Nee Nee Nee - Atelier Kaguya
8. Omoide Kakaete Ai ni Koi!! - Hooksoft

9. 9-nine- Shinshou - Palette

10. Waga Himegimi ni Eikan o - Minato Soft
11. Yubisaki Connection - Hooksoft

12. Madohi Shiroki no Kamikakushi - Lump of Sugar

13. Role Player: Okayu Shimai no Nenmaku Portrait - Gurigucha Live! - Akabeisoft2
-
14. Venus Blood HOLLOW International - Dual Tail
-
15. Amayui Labyrinth Meister - Eushully
16. Homestay A La Mode - Atelier Kaguya HonkyTonk Pumpkin
17. Yukiiro Sign - Wonder Fool

 
18. Hoshi Ori Yume Mirai - Perfect Edition - tone work's

 -
19. D.C.4 ~Da Capo 4~ Fortunate Departures - Circus

20. Fuyukara, Kururu - Silky's Plus

Once again there's additional awards for each categories, and here's the categories awards below.
Best Scenario: Meikei no Lupercalia Best Game System: Senkou no Clarias Best Graphic: Kunado Kokuki Best Soundtrack: Happy Live, Show Up! Best Movie: Sousaku Kanojo no Ren'ai Koushiki Best Character: Ayase Aisa from Sousaku Kanojo no Ren'ai Koushiki Best Erotic Contents: Motto! Haramase! Honoo no Oppai Isekai Chou Ero ♥ Succubus Gakuen! I'll try to comment more on this later on, but if I may something right now it's quite convenient that we have Hollow available in English and that we just got Hoshiori Perfect Edition full translation patch two days ago so at least we already have two title already in English (Coincidentally both of the title are actually re-release). Also I know that I wrote 'Best System' at one of the category in the last year list, although now that I look at it actually the full sentence mean 'Best Game System' so I decided to translate it as such (By the way I'm quite surprised that Clarias is the one that won the award instead of Amayui Labyrinth Meister, but perhaps it mean that GIGA can still make some nice gameplay there).

That really takes me back. I got in contact with visual novels around the time MangaGamer started localising them. Still remember learning about them through the Shuffle intro logos. It was my second VN after Fate/Stay Night. I had downloaded it from some barely trustworthy torrent and thought it was a fan translation like Fate, since I had no clue at that time that they were actually sold in the west.
Actually, Tsuriotsu is also coming to Steam - in Chinese and Japanese. Unfortunately, no English in sight. Still curious to read this and find out if Luna is really so great that she deserves the Getchu character award she won three years in a row.
MangaGamer's latest title selections felt a bit low profile to be honest. Though they had some questionable title choices in the past as well, so it doesn't have to mean anything. They are probably just buried in their countless Rance projects. Still kinda hope they can get their hands on Kara no Shoujo 3. Story titles of that quality are so rare nowadays.

Wanted to try a new series idea, talking about the history of various visual novel aspects. In this video, I'll be talking about the VN publisher MangaGamer, mostly about their different releases by developer, as well as other interesting information.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Visual Novel Monthly Recap for January 2022 is now out! There was no shortage of visual novel releases, new and old, especially towards the end of the month. And then of course one of the most controversial VN-related announcements in recent history.
 
 

Quite some time since my last update, so I guess it's about time to write a few words before I forget everything.
 
I guess I'm late to the party, but I finally read ~150 hours of Higurashi. I had somehow missed the news that this also got a graphic update from PS3, so I ignored that for quite a while, since I didn't want to be emotionally scarred by Ryuukishi07's drawing skills.
That said I enjoyed the ride quite a bit, at least for the most part. Higurashi is widely considered as *the* classic horror and mystery VN, which I think isn't really accurate. I'd say Higurashi is first and foremost a VN about friendship. And it might well be the best VN I've read about that theme so far. Actually, it frequently reminded me of Steven King's It, which also has a group of friends trying to fend of an ancient evil and which is also a personal favorite of mine (both movies actually - I didn't read the book).
Along with the friendship goes a lot of slice of life and comedy, which somehow hit a nerve with me. I found the slice of life very entertaining and the comedy freaking hilarious for the most part. Mostly because Ryuukishi07 found a good balance of when he could get a bit over the top and when to get serious. Especially the gaming sessions reminded me of my own youth, even if I didn't cheat that much. I swear! 
It also has to said that with the graphics update, the VN felt extremely polished. The art style did fit perfectly and the music and voice acting were also top notch for the most part. Ryuukishi07 also has a talent to create powerful scenes by choosing the right music and sound effects to emphasize his writing. This applies for both comedic and serious scenes. On the other hand, he also a tendency of not finding an end. Actually, for people who want to read this mostly for the thrills, this might actually be a rather boring experience, due to the excessive slice of life and comedy. I personally enjoyed it a lot, so I wasn't really bothered by it.
The actual plot is a bit of a mixed bag and I want to split this into two parts.
The first part is the world building, which is imho one of the biggest strengths of the VN. The whole history of the village and the aftermath of the damn conflict on the different characters is really well written. Especially the two Mion/Shion episodes 2 and 5 shine brightly in that regard, finding the almost perfect balance between slice of life, comedy, drama, world building and horror.
The second part is the actual main plot about the repeating Watanagashi murders, and that's the part I wasn't completely satisfied with. First, it takes literally 6 episodes (!!!) until this part actually progresses. Until then, you just get some hints about what could go on, and tons of unrelated side stories. The VN in structured into 4 question and 4 answer arcs, but it's actully more like 6 question arcs and 2 answer arcs. The individual endings also felt a bit lackluster since having one of the characters go nuts for no reason wasn't really that interesting, especially if it's repeated in a similar manner half a dozen times. It's probably best to see episodes 1 - 6 as character routes and the final two episodes as true route, though episodes 5, 6 and part of 7 from the answer arcs felt like they could have easily merged with their equivalent question arcs to get a better pacing and progress.
The final episode which should have been the great show-down was also unfortunately more a huge let-down. The hints in the previous episodes weren't particular difficult to follow, even if you ignore the somewhat obsessive hint sections of each episode, so I wouldn't exactly say I was surprised by the final resolution. However, it was probaby the most boring story resolution he could come up with, bundled with the worst writing of the whole VN. Honestly, you expect a show-down with a great ancient evil and what you get is instead:
Seriously, did he play too much Resident Evil at that time? The only well written parts in episode 8 were the orphanage scenes. Though it already started in the second half of the previous episode with Satoko's overdramatized story arc. And as well as most characters were written, Ryu really has to work on the quality of his antagonists.
Nevertheless, despite its flaws this was overall a very well written story, I enjoyed quite a bit.
Character ranking: I loved the whole group of friends, though Rika, Mion and Hanyu maybe a bit more than the others.
Overall rating. 7.5/10 (Could have easily been an 8+ rating with a better story resolution)

Quite some time since my last update, so I guess it's about time to write a few words before I forget everything.
 
I guess I'm late to the party, but I finally read ~150 hours of Higurashi. I had somehow missed the news that this also got a graphic update from PS3, so I ignored that for quite a while, since I didn't want to be emotionally scarred by Ryuukishi07's drawing skills.
That said I enjoyed the ride quite a bit, at least for the most part. Higurashi is widely considered as *the* classic horror and mystery VN, which I think isn't really accurate. I'd say Higurashi is first and foremost a VN about friendship. And it might well be the best VN I've read about that theme so far. Actually, it frequently reminded me of Steven King's It, which also has a group of friends trying to fend of an ancient evil and which is also a personal favorite of mine (both movies actually - I didn't read the book).
Along with the friendship goes a lot of slice of life and comedy, which somehow hit a nerve with me. I found the slice of life very entertaining and the comedy freaking hilarious for the most part. Mostly because Ryuukishi07 found a good balance of when he could get a bit over the top and when to get serious. Especially the gaming sessions reminded me of my own youth, even if I didn't cheat that much. I swear! 
It also has to said that with the graphics update, the VN felt extremely polished. The art style did fit perfectly and the music and voice acting were also top notch for the most part. Ryuukishi07 also has a talent to create powerful scenes by choosing the right music and sound effects to emphasize his writing. This applies for both comedic and serious scenes. On the other hand, he also a tendency of not finding an end. Actually, for people who want to read this mostly for the thrills, this might actually be a rather boring experience, due to the excessive slice of life and comedy. I personally enjoyed it a lot, so I wasn't really bothered by it.
The actual plot is a bit of a mixed bag and I want to split this into two parts.
The first part is the world building, which is imho one of the biggest strengths of the VN. The whole history of the village and the aftermath of the damn conflict on the different characters is really well written. Especially the two Mion/Shion episodes 2 and 5 shine brightly in that regard, finding the almost perfect balance between slice of life, comedy, drama, world building and horror.
The second part is the actual main plot about the repeating Watanagashi murders, and that's the part I wasn't completely satisfied with. First, it takes literally 6 episodes (!!!) until this part actually progresses. Until then, you just get some hints about what could go on, and tons of unrelated side stories. The VN in structured into 4 question and 4 answer arcs, but it's actully more like 6 question arcs and 2 answer arcs. The individual endings also felt a bit lackluster since having one of the characters go nuts for no reason wasn't really that interesting, especially if it's repeated in a similar manner half a dozen times. It's probably best to see episodes 1 - 6 as character routes and the final two episodes as true route, though episodes 5, 6 and part of 7 from the answer arcs felt like they could have easily merged with their equivalent question arcs to get a better pacing and progress.
The final episode which should have been the great show-down was also unfortunately more a huge let-down. The hints in the previous episodes weren't particular difficult to follow, even if you ignore the somewhat obsessive hint sections of each episode, so I wouldn't exactly say I was surprised by the final resolution. However, it was probaby the most boring story resolution he could come up with, bundled with the worst writing of the whole VN. Honestly, you expect a show-down with a great ancient evil and what you get is instead:
Seriously, did he play too much Resident Evil at that time? The only well written parts in episode 8 were the orphanage scenes. Though it already started in the second half of the previous episode with Satoko's overdramatized story arc. And as well as most characters were written, Ryu really has to work on the quality of his antagonists.
Nevertheless, despite its flaws this was overall a very well written story, I enjoyed quite a bit.
Character ranking: I loved the whole group of friends, though Rika, Mion and Hanyu maybe a bit more than the others.
Overall rating. 7.5/10 (Could have easily been an 8+ rating with a better story resolution)

As a non-native English speaker I'm probably not the best to judge the translation quality, but I personally had no issues with it. And if I remember correctly, MangaGamer did re-translate all episodes from scratch for the Steam release back in the days, which took quite a while. So they certainly spent a lot of effort to get the translation right.

Quite some time since my last update, so I guess it's about time to write a few words before I forget everything.
 
I guess I'm late to the party, but I finally read ~150 hours of Higurashi. I had somehow missed the news that this also got a graphic update from PS3, so I ignored that for quite a while, since I didn't want to be emotionally scarred by Ryuukishi07's drawing skills.
That said I enjoyed the ride quite a bit, at least for the most part. Higurashi is widely considered as *the* classic horror and mystery VN, which I think isn't really accurate. I'd say Higurashi is first and foremost a VN about friendship. And it might well be the best VN I've read about that theme so far. Actually, it frequently reminded me of Steven King's It, which also has a group of friends trying to fend of an ancient evil and which is also a personal favorite of mine (both movies actually - I didn't read the book).
Along with the friendship goes a lot of slice of life and comedy, which somehow hit a nerve with me. I found the slice of life very entertaining and the comedy freaking hilarious for the most part. Mostly because Ryuukishi07 found a good balance of when he could get a bit over the top and when to get serious. Especially the gaming sessions reminded me of my own youth, even if I didn't cheat that much. I swear! 
It also has to said that with the graphics update, the VN felt extremely polished. The art style did fit perfectly and the music and voice acting were also top notch for the most part. Ryuukishi07 also has a talent to create powerful scenes by choosing the right music and sound effects to emphasize his writing. This applies for both comedic and serious scenes. On the other hand, he also a tendency of not finding an end. Actually, for people who want to read this mostly for the thrills, this might actually be a rather boring experience, due to the excessive slice of life and comedy. I personally enjoyed it a lot, so I wasn't really bothered by it.
The actual plot is a bit of a mixed bag and I want to split this into two parts.
The first part is the world building, which is imho one of the biggest strengths of the VN. The whole history of the village and the aftermath of the damn conflict on the different characters is really well written. Especially the two Mion/Shion episodes 2 and 5 shine brightly in that regard, finding the almost perfect balance between slice of life, comedy, drama, world building and horror.
The second part is the actual main plot about the repeating Watanagashi murders, and that's the part I wasn't completely satisfied with. First, it takes literally 6 episodes (!!!) until this part actually progresses. Until then, you just get some hints about what could go on, and tons of unrelated side stories. The VN in structured into 4 question and 4 answer arcs, but it's actully more like 6 question arcs and 2 answer arcs. The individual endings also felt a bit lackluster since having one of the characters go nuts for no reason wasn't really that interesting, especially if it's repeated in a similar manner half a dozen times. It's probably best to see episodes 1 - 6 as character routes and the final two episodes as true route, though episodes 5, 6 and part of 7 from the answer arcs felt like they could have easily merged with their equivalent question arcs to get a better pacing and progress.
The final episode which should have been the great show-down was also unfortunately more a huge let-down. The hints in the previous episodes weren't particular difficult to follow, even if you ignore the somewhat obsessive hint sections of each episode, so I wouldn't exactly say I was surprised by the final resolution. However, it was probaby the most boring story resolution he could come up with, bundled with the worst writing of the whole VN. Honestly, you expect a show-down with a great ancient evil and what you get is instead:
Seriously, did he play too much Resident Evil at that time? The only well written parts in episode 8 were the orphanage scenes. Though it already started in the second half of the previous episode with Satoko's overdramatized story arc. And as well as most characters were written, Ryu really has to work on the quality of his antagonists.
Nevertheless, despite its flaws this was overall a very well written story, I enjoyed quite a bit.
Character ranking: I loved the whole group of friends, though Rika, Mion and Hanyu maybe a bit more than the others.
Overall rating. 7.5/10 (Could have easily been an 8+ rating with a better story resolution)

Who doesn't like talking about some unpopular opinions or hot takes sometimes? In this video I'll highlight just a few of them I have related to visual novels.
 

To say December 2021 was a stacked month for visual novels is an understatement. 2 big visual novel translations that have been delayed finally got released, many anime adaptations announced, and other cool releases and announcements!
 

So, almost a month ago, I read the latest Youjitsu volume, and a bad habit of Kinugasa shows up in it, so I decided it was time to read Akatsuki no Goei and Reminiscence to see if the endings were really that bad.
Well, let's start with the conclusion: I didn't mind the way the routes ended, but didn't like the endings themselves. I'll come back to it later.
First, AkaGoei 1.
It was honestly pretty disappointing. Yeah Kaito is amazing, yeah the comedy is great, but that's it. Worse, the structure of the routes is terrible. Really short common route, then heroine route starts, but there is some common route chunks inserted in between creating some incoherences in the way the characters act. Also, the start of each heroine route is basically another common route considering that whatever stuff happens without leading to anything.
Anyway, the only thing AkaGoei 1 has for it is the comedy. The rest is just some patchwork making it looks like a VN.
 
Next, AkaGoei 2.
Well, it's a FD, so nothing much to say about the after stories (or the fact that Reika totally got the short end of the stick). Kaito's past was interesting and make you understand why he's so strong, so it was pretty good.
 
AkaGoei 3.
The first half is amazing. The rest not as much. Kaito gets to shine more this time, but then come another problem I have with the trilogy: we never get to see Kaito being serious. Or rather, he does get serious, but never can show his 100% (either he's tired, or injured, etc) Kaito is so strong that Kinugasa had to do that to have some sort of tension, which is a shame. Then back to my other problem: not having either an open ending or harem ending. Like I said above, I didn't mind the way the routes ended, but my problem is that considering canon stuff happening in the series, there are 2 girls who literally can't live without Kaito, and arguably 3 others who most likely will never find another man beside him. So even if not a harem ending, an open one with everyone would be better. (though, considering Anzu is only in the Forbidden Area part of the story, it'd be difficult. At least she's with Kaito in all the Forbidden Area endings).
Anyway, even that aside, Kaito's awesomeness and the comedy were totally worth the time I invested in the trilogy. Special mention to Son, and his antics with Kaito. More stories should make you love the male characters like that, rather that just using the heroines.
 
Now we go 150 years in the future with Reminiscence.
It's even more of a disappointment than AkaGoei. I think the main reason is because I played them almost successively. Hidetaka is a good MC, but when compared to Kaito (who I was with for 3 VNs just before), he just pales in comparison... Also, I wasn't particularly fan of all the negotiation stuff (the cases were so obvious). Another thing I didn't like was the fact it's the future of AkaGoei. Yeah, it's just an alternate future, but still. Even more so considering the crumbs we learn (and that CG in Kyouichi's POV). Still, it wasn't boring and I did went through all the routes. Special mention to Aki's, I guess. In a way, the whole story is all about her and Hidetaka, so once you've done her path, the way you see the other routes is different.
Unfortunately, I just can't care about Re:Collect, so I'll stop here.
 
TL;DR: AkaGoei Trilogy was great and worth my time. Reminiscence wasn't bad, but too long far what it was, so I feel like I wasted a little of my time.

A few days ago I finally finished Muramasa. My feelings towards it are complicated. It seems like Nitroplus applied their own law of balance where for each brilliant idea in the game they had to put in a bad one as well. To name one example, one of the core ideas Muramasa poses is how using violence / killing someone evil for the sake of good actually makes you evil as well, making the case that those one considers evil have different ideals for which they deem using violence justified, like you do for yours, putting you on the same level morally. While I personally don't agree with the conclusions the Muramasa draws from this seeming contradiction, I admit it makes its case well and in a nuanced fashion, at least for the most part. It would be easier to accept these ideas though if the "villains" our "heroes" are supposed to be morally equal to weren't either
There are a lot of really interesting concepts like how the individual mecha (which are sentient btw) and their powers are basically the manifestation of the violent form of the ideals of their masters. I know it's not exactly revolutionary to have a character's personality match their fighting style but imo Muramasa handles this aspect especially well, turning fights into battles of ideas with stakes that go beyond "will the protagonist survive". To balance this out, a few of these mechas
Speaking of H-content, I'd even say most of these scenes involving the protagonist are handled relatively well. There's pretty dubious consent in most of them and I totally get if they cross the line for anyone but at least for me they kind of work in their thematic context. Then again there are numerous rape scenes that just exist to show you how evil a certain character is.
There is a lot more stuff (good and bad) I could write about. But overall I'd say Muramasa is worth checking out, at least if you can stomach a few rape scenes, an extremely gloomy protagonist (don't get me wrong, I think he's well-written and his overly literal and honest character makes for a few very funny scenes, I just wish he wouldn't take himself so seriously sometimes) and some pacing issues in the first half. I would say Muramasa has too many flaws too be called a masterpiece, but it's definitely one of the most ambitious "mainstream" VNs out there, and when it gets good, it gets reeaally good. It actually has some depth to its themes, the fight scenes can be extremely suspenseful and it has a strong main cast. I gave it an 8/10 on vndb. Without all the bad stuff I might have landed on a 9 or even 9.5, but even so the bad stuff can get quite annoying at times but at least to me not distracting enough to award Muramasa anything close to a low rating. But I totally get how it could ruin the experience for someone else.

The October 2021 version of Visual Novel Monthly Recap is out. Lots of interesting announcements including  a brand new released Japanese VN, an open beta, more surprise Shiravune releases, few moeges releases, and a company closure.
 

They put a VN full of rape and guro on Steam and act surprised that it gets banned?!? The level of naivety shown here is baffling. 

They put a VN full of rape and guro on Steam and act surprised that it gets banned?!? The level of naivety shown here is baffling. 

They put a VN full of rape and guro on Steam and act surprised that it gets banned?!? The level of naivety shown here is baffling. 

They put a VN full of rape and guro on Steam and act surprised that it gets banned?!? The level of naivety shown here is baffling. 

They put a VN full of rape and guro on Steam and act surprised that it gets banned?!? The level of naivety shown here is baffling. 

They put a VN full of rape and guro on Steam and act surprised that it gets banned?!? The level of naivety shown here is baffling. 

Wow lol, I tried to read 9-nine in one go, I actually played the original one with Miyako but got bored of it right after the plot twist, I then just skipped to Sora's and well I read the whole saga in a week and its really good.
9-Nine as a series is good in the sense that it doesn't have some insane character depth or central plot element, it's just that it does every standard trope really well and sometimes does it spectacularly. Most of the characters are the usual character stereotypes, without much depth to them, but I liked reading their dialogues and stories anyway since they're well executed. To be more specific, the characters felt very unreal, they didn't have any sense of realness to them in the sense that their traits don't feel real, it rather feels instead that they had specific traits in mind to appeal to each otaku fetish, and made a character around them. While this may be a harsh thing to say, it was still enjoyable in its own way.
9-nine's last game around Noa was probably one of the best last games in episodic stories like this, where every information in the past games are used and everything led to that moment but its hard to say much about it without being spoiler-ish.
I'm not gonna make a review about this since there has been a ton of reviews about 9-nine already, I only make reviews on games without reviews. 
Spoilerish thoughts: