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1P1A

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    1P1A reacted to Ramaladni for a blog entry, VN of the Month December 2003 - Saya no Uta   
    You should read this over at https://j-addicts.de/vn-of-the-month-december-2003/ as not only does it have (some) juicier screenshots, but the formatting is much better.
     
    First of all, I believe I should thank the j-addicts/Koutou Yuumin team for their knowledge and expertise. This article grew way beyond my expectations, and I would surely have lost my way without them. Also, to the several friends who gave me feedback and helped me out in various ways, thank you very much. Well then, shall we start?
    This month has four masturpieces (get it?). They are Saishuu Chikan Densha 2, Kadowakashi, Christmas★Present, and Kizumono no Shoujo Gaiden. That being said, there are still several other quite decent games. The game that surprised me the most by the positive and my personal masturpiece is Jam 'n Limit, and the games that disappointed me much were Eisai Kyouiku and Yami no Koe III. If you're looking for this month's overall best game, the answer is probably something boring like Saya no Uta (the answer, not the game).
    How are masturpieces decided, you ask? Introducing: the fap-o-meter!
    In Erogamescape, it's possible to vote on how suitable the H-scenes were for fapping material, ranging from "Weren't useful at all" to "Were pretty useful." Thus, I will attribute a numerical score (from 0 to 5) for each of those and tally up the average. This will be known as the fap-o-meter.
    This isn't a fallible and objective method, but it should give an idea of how much cummies the players were able to get out of these games.
    The Games
    To begin with, I decided which games to play based on EGS's database. This is because it's bound to have more games listed than vndb. Out of 107 releases, I checked out 31 games. There were 21 games I would've considered for review, except that I wasn't able to obtain them as nearly all of them are obscure doujin games, which were sold exclusively at Comiket. I blacklisted 55 games: 32 are moege/charage/plotge – basically, games that have too much plot or other crap in the way of my precious porn, 9 were re-releases, 7 were PS2 games or not VNs, 6 were all-ages and thus no porn, and 1 was listed incorrectly.
    Please keep in mind that just because a game is ranked higher or lower, it's not an absolute indicator of its quality. Some games cater to one fetish exclusively, so they're not bound to please everyone.
    The game titles have been localized by me, as I thought that's something that a predominantly English-speaking audience would appreciate. That is if they don't have one already. The same goes for the synopsis. Many of them are translated by me, and at times, I've had to replace what was very obviously nonsensical machine-translated garbage.
    I am still in the process of learning Japanese, and translating is, well, challenging, but I can assure you that there are no lies, falsehoods, or made-up stuff on them. I will put any game descriptions that aren't mine between quotes and credit them appropriately.
    The screenshots are at 75% of their original resolution, except for one of the games where I could only play the widescreen version, so it's at 50%.
    If you're interested in a specific game, I'd advise for you to CTRL+F search for it. If you'd like to read my overall conclusions on this whole venture, search for My Thoughts and Conclusions.
    One last thing: I did not rely on machine translation tools to play these games.
    1. Midnight Sleazy Train 2
    EGS-Score: 74 (442) Atelier Kaguya TEAM HEARTBEAT Fap-o-meter: 3.26 (91) Saishuu Chikan Densha 2 Main appeal: chikan, forceful sex, group sex 最終痴漢電車2
    "Touch her/Lick her/Verbally abuse her"
    Well, color me surprised! For some reason, this game has hundreds of votes, so I was curious about how that came to be. Perhaps a lot of people watched the H-OVA and became interested in the game that way? That's what I call a marketing success.
    But that's not all. The game itself is a pretty good nukige. Beyond the beautiful art and hot H-scenes, the game bolsters a pretty robust map movement system. Unlike most games where you wander at random, hoping you'll run into the characters, the game tells if there's someone at the place you're about to visit. It sounds like something straightforward, but it doesn't matter how good the game's content is if the system doesn't facilitate the access to that very content.
    Besides that, you also have verb-based interactivity during the H-scenes (filling up their lewdness level gauge), and this makes for perfect roleplaying. You're not just playing as a groping protagonist, you feel like the groper yourself. With all of these factors combined, it's no wonder that so many people enjoy this game and the series, yet to this very day.
    Though, if you're not that big of a fan of uh...gangbangs, you might not enjoy it that much. Maybe watch the H-OVA first and see if it's something you'd like.
    2. Kidnapping
    EGS-Score: 65 (41) ZyX Fap-o-meter: 3.25 (4) Kadowakashi Main appeal: sexual slavery 拐 ~カドワカシ~  
     
    Wow, uh, what a fast development. They really get straight to the action, huh. Within a couple of minutes, the protagonist rapes one of his students, Tomoko. I'm actually not a fan of justifying this as "lol deep dark desires," but I guess that's the setup they were going for.
    The main meat of this game is to sexually train a trio of heroines. True to its name, with Tomoko's help, you kidnap two of your students and confine them in a locked room, starting off with Mizue.
    What really makes this game stand out is the sheer variety in H content. The heroine has stats, most of them sexually-related, and you have to raise them to allow for even kinkier play. You have to be strategic with your options to train the ultimate sex slaves. Though, if you suck, you can play on Easy difficulty.
    When I say variety, I mean that ALL of these options are available at the start (well, as long as the heroine "consents" to it). This means all kinds of play. You can choose to be kind or to be sadistic. You can make her service you or teach her pleasure through shamefulness. Ultimate freedom and variety.
    That doesn't mean you can just do anything. If you're too harsh on her, she'll collapse. Have this happen enough times, and you'll get a game over. So please, be responsible, and take good care of your sex slaves!
    When it comes to the staff members, the spotlight is on the game's artist, Mutou Keiji. He is responsible for the character design and art of many games I have played in the past, from Studio Triumph. It's extremely similar to JAST published Do You Like Horny Bunnies?. Perhaps they had the same teacher? It might seem odd at first, but I grew really fond of this style over time. The sex scenes are also animated, and for once, they actually look good. Nice!
    3. Christmas★Present
    EGS-Score: 70 (62) Ail [Team Riva] Fap-o-meter: 3.09 (11) Christmas★Present Main appeal: BDSM, forceful sex, comedy クリスマス★プレゼント
    This was actually the game I was looking forward to playing the most. Considering this is the month of December, I really wanted to play at least one game that would really get me into the holiday spirit. It took me hours to figure out how to get it working, but man, was it worth it!
    While the description is a bit grim and dark, the game is actually the complete opposite. It's always fun and filled with comedic moments. The best way to describe this game would perhaps be "bakage" (silly game) due to its sheer absurdity and ridiculousness.
    Of note, the game has a sort of "affinity" system. Your actions will increase your "evil" points by a certain amount. So, you can abuse the powers of the Saint's Crest, which can make any wish come true, or you can be a good boy and play along as Santa's Little Helper, spreading happiness all over town.
    The art is beautiful, the sex is hot, the banter between characters is great. This game would make for the perfect Christmas present.
    4. Defiled Girls - Campus of Used Goods Side Story
    EGS-Score: 70 (83) Rasen Fap-o-meter: 2.82 (17) Kizumono no Shoujo -Kizumono no Gakuen Gaiden- Main appeal: blackmail, forceful sex, group sex 傷モノの少女-傷モノの学園・外伝-
    This an insult game. This game has insult scenes, the protagonist and his buddy insult the girls...wait, what? Duh, I mean, rape. Yes, that's the word. This game is basically a side story of the original Kizumono no Gakuen. You don't really need to have played the previous game as it's not a direct sequel.
    Takeshi and Narumi's involvement in the previous incident is briefly explained - Takeshi was forced to film the girls being raped, under threat of being killed, and Narumi was one of the victims. Upon finding one of his old videos, he can no longer contain his excitement.
    I prefer this game to the first one because I like seeing the gap between peaceful school life and the moments of higher tension. That's not to say that the battle royale setting isn't thrilling though. It also feels like more of a personal experience, since you have one protagonist instead of multiple ones/multiple POVs.
    While you might initially think it to be a rape fest...it's just so much more than that. It capitalizes on human emotions: sorrow, anguish, sadness, loneliness...and instead of an abrupt chaotic state, it's gratifying to witness that transition. You can also expect exciting developments such as betrayals when you least see them coming.
    The H-scenes are well, pretty good. There's nothing that bonds friends together any more than doing the same girl at the same time...the story is about the defilement of the girls, as much as it is about the corruption of the protagonist's psyche. Though it helps to have a friend who is crazier than you. At least in this game, the "villains" actually feel like villains as they delve into their intricate plots, instead of your casual rapists.
    Of particular note, this game has a quite nice atmosphere, boosted by a quality soundtrack. Good faps are to be had with this game.
    5. I'm a Booth Attendant - Heisaku and Kenta's Wild Tales
    EGS-Score: 65 (35) Interheart Fap-o-meter: 2.75 (4) Oira wa Bandai ~Heisaku & Kenta no Yume Monogatari~ Main appeal: voyeurism オイラは番台~平作&健太の夢物語~
    One day, a police detective suddenly barged in a certain popular public bathhouse that the protagonist was in charge of.
    "Dan Koutarou! You're under arrest, under suspicion of sexual assault!"
    With a clack, he was handcuffed.
    Several months passed, and after a hellish series of interrogations, his guilt was established.

    "Why, why am I the only one serving a prison sentence?
    Why are Heisaku and Kenta getting away scott free?
    But, it seems that is my fate...
    Even if they were to be caught, it does not mean that my punishment would go away, but...
    Is the public bathhouse that I inherited from my pops done for?
    I've really done something awful to him..."
     
    Man, I can't believe we came out innocent. I feel kinda bad about pushing the blame solely on Koutarou, but this too is part of fate, huh. Kou-chan, just sit quietly in your cell! So, we were cleared of suspicion, but what should we do from now on? You're right...for now, how about we go back to Koutarou's shop, and peek in the bath once again?! There's also videos of those women we filmed that we haven't used yet! To begin with, let's change bathhouse's name! Enter Heisaku and Kenta's Wild Tales! This is a side story, continuing off the ending of the first game. I really recommend that you play that game first so that you'll get the most enjoyment out of the story.
    Basically, this is a real-time, public bathhouse management game. You take in customers, and you can peek at them while they change clothes, are in the toilet or just chilling in the bath. You'll have to follow the schedule carefully and know the exact times when the heroines visit the bathhouse. The game's system is pretty helpful in this regard, but something like a tutorial would've been much appreciated. It takes some time to get used to the gameplay, as you also have to use and buy items that will help you in your peeping quest, but I find the experience to be worth the trouble.
    If anything, the banter between characters is pretty well-done. Most of the characters are actually adults, which is a nice change of pace. I also like that the previous game's protagonist went to jail since that's what happens when you do bad things. The game is pretty similar to the first one, so once again, that's probably where you want to start.
    Interheart themselves published a walkthrough for this game, and I wish I had noticed it before playing...oh well.
    6. Please Teach Nanami and Konomi the ABC
    EGS-Score: 68 (101) Studio Ring Fap-o-meter: 2.61 (18) Nanami to Konomi no Oshiete ABC Main appeal: lolicon ななみとこのみのおしえてA・B・C
    Alright, so uh...yeah. Despite the pretty art and cutesy voice acting, I found this game to be not much more than wish fulfillment for lolicon.
    To begin with, I'm not a fan of deredere, lovestruck heroines, but if you're into this type of content, you're probably going to enjoy it.
    7. Lewd Little Sister BABY
    EGS-Score: 65 (65) Image Craft Fap-o-meter: 2.58 (13) Inmai Baby Main appeal: lolicon 淫妹BABY
    Right, so, uh...yeah. There are two main points of interest in this game. First, it's the art or overall art direction. Not only are the H-scenes fully animated, but the sprites are also constantly changing very fluidly. The artstyle might seem simple, but it's nice and colorful. Honestly, this game very much feels like an anime, to the point I'd almost unironically call it an "anime game".
    The second point is the sheer amount and variety of endings. You have the freedom to craft the story as you please, but remember that everything you do has a consequence.
    Strictly speaking, I'd only recommend this to fans of the genre.
    8. Children Milk Parfait
    EGS-Score: 66 (28) Shiritsu Sakuranbo Shouggakou Fap-o-meter: 2.57 (7) Kodomo Milk Parfait Main appeal: lolicon こどもみるくぱふぇ
    I swear, I'm not doing it on purpose! Anyway, for this game, I actually had to make a decision, since if I included the votes of the 2007 DVD release, it would score much higher. To make things fair, I decided not to.
    In my opinion, I found this game to be boring. The children don't act like children (more like naughty adults trapped in a child's body), and most scenes are teasing.
    I also thought that the OP was really catchy, it even forced me to get up from my chair and bust my moves for a few minutes. The UI is also extremely cutesy, which fits the mood of the game.

    9. Matty, the youngest child
    EGS-Score: 61 (22) Complet's Fap-o-meter: 2.5 (6) Matty Main appeal: straight shotacon まってぃ
    I actually completed two routes of this game...but it's difficult to call them routes to begin with. Okay, first of all, this is what will usually happen. At school, you get two alternating choices that decide what type of event will occur. When you're back home, you get four choices which are meaningless by themselves (e.g., kill time, go back to your room, watch TV, etc.), and if you're lucky you'll trigger some kind of event with the heroines.
    When it's time to go to bed, you can choose between going to sleep right away, going to the restroom, or reading a porn magazine (there are like four to collect, can you get them all?!). The first two of those choices CAN trigger events, but 90% of the time nothing happens.
    And this repeats every single day until the game ends. You have no idea which choices trigger what, you have to constantly savescum if you want to see events with a certain heroine (and of course, you'll have to try all the choices first, every time), and even then, more than half of the scenes are teasing. So all you're really doing is collecting events.
    I hope I was able to convey the frustration I felt playing this game. Why couldn't they have employed a map movement system, where you could just visit everyone in their respective rooms? Why this lazy, inane system? And even worse, the heroine I was aiming for doesn't even have an H-scene or a proper ending. The game just ends abruptly. What a piece of crap.
    Either way, the art by Mame is definitely the game's high point. I recommend that you read the prologue, download a complete save file, and check out the H-scenes. Or play a better game, by the same company.
    10. Surrender - Ravished Body, Broken Heart
    EGS-Score: 60 (3) X[iks] Fap-o-meter: 2.5 (2) Shikkan ~Hazukashimerareta Karada, Oreta Kokoro~ Main appeal: BDSM, forceful sex, mystery しっかん ~辱められた躰、折れた心~
    This is a mystery game where the objective is to uncover the spy and the island's other mysteries. Who is the spy, and what are they after? What secrets does this hospital hold?
    The navigation is done through a map movement system. I usually dislike these, but you can at least trust the characters to hang out in a specific place. There's the doctor who hangs out at her own office, the patient that stays inside her room, the two nurses in the nurse station and the nurse in the psychosomatic ward. If you check out the other areas, you can find out more about the game's world, side characters, and... special tools.
    When you talk to the characters, there's also this interactive system, kinda like the old verb-based games. Except that it's with nouns, people's names, locations and so on.In conclusion, the game's system is kinda annoying, and honestly, I don't feel like doing bad things to the characters when they're so lovely... The dialogue and voice acting are built in such a way that they actually feel like real humans. Speaking of voice acting, it's pretty good! You might recognize some industry veterans...
    I'd say that despite some annoyances, the journey does feel worth it. It's definitely a game I'd like to spend more time with.
    11. Good Girl's Worries Counselling Room - Fantasy World's Immoral Guidance
    EGS-Score: 65 (15) Collection Fap-o-meter: 2.33 (3) Yoi Ko no Nayami Soudanshitsu ~Mousou Sekai no Haitokuteki Shidou~ Main appeal: group sex, forceful sex よい娘の悩み相談室~妄想世界の背徳的指導~
    Essentially, when his brother collapses from overwork, by sheer coincidence the protagonist manages to find out that he was in charge of a counseling website. The gameplay is simple: you check your inbox on the website, pick the e-mail you want to read, read it, and then the protagonist imagines the H-events described on the e-mail. After that, it is your job to give the girls advice through a series of choices.
    I was initially disappointed, thinking it was kinda lame to not engage with the heroines directly, but I find this to be a really novel idea. They take what would be generic H-scenes and give them a backstory, aftermath, and the female character's perspective. The most fun I had with this game was reading those very e-mails and challenging myself to give good advice.
    For example, there's a high school student who talks about how several boys confessed to her at once, and she ends indulging their wish of wanting to create "pleasant memories" with her. I told her that she needs to value her body more and that she should be responsible and pick only one of the guys to be her boyfriend. It really feels like a very personal experience, where I am crafting my own story, almost as if I was actually talking to a real high school student.
    I did not get that far, but it seems, later on, you'll actually be able to meet the girls, so there's something to look forward to. After all, most of the game's H-scenes only occur inside the protagonist's fantasy world, not in reality...or do they?
    Another point I'd make is that while the art might seem kinda amateurish, I actually think it's pretty hot. I like it!
    12. Bright Future - Wet 'N Messy 2nd Time
    EGS-Score: 70 (93) FlyingShine Black Fap-o-meter: 2.17 (12) Akarui Mirai ~Wet And Messy 2nd time~ Main appeal: forceful sex, group sex, wet and messy アカルイミライ Wet And Messy 2nd time
    This is a mystery/drama game that also doubles as a nukige. You, as the leader of the newspaper club, are initially given the task to investigate the so-called "Honey Ghost." The rest is according to the description: you start talking to a girl from the past and then realize that she died. Your objective is to find out what happened and change her terrible fate to a bright future.
    But that's not all. There are also several peculiarities happening in the present. There's the mysterious psychic treatment (psychosomatic) school club, which is in fact just a front for a group of rapists. While you are busy with your investigation, be careful not to let the heroines fall into their grasp...
    True to its name, you can expect things to get really wet and messy, by a variety of fluids...be it water, essential oils (aromatherapy), milk, SEMEN...But while the art is beautiful and the story seems promising, the game actually suffers from the excessive H-scenes. Before you really have time to care about a heroine, you end up peeking on them having or being forced into sex by a group of guys. If the scenes were more spaced out, the game would actually feel like it has some tension. Overall, I Just feel like it's trying to do too many things at once.
    While you get plenty of choices, only very few of them branch out the story. Most of them just give you an alternate or slightly different scene. They don't really have an impact on the story. The series was rebooted as the Kurai Mirai (Dark Future) or Crime Rhyme series. By the name alone, you can see the new direction that they took with the games, which I'm not of a fan of. Because no matter which manners of cruelties they must endure, at least the title name "Bright Future" gives you the hope that there is a way for the heroines to avoid their awful fate...even if not entirely.
    I'm not a fan of these quasi-NTR gangrape games, where you're just walking around, peeking on others having sex, and not really doing much about it. That's not to say that some of the scenes aren't hot, especially if you like it...wet and messy. I like this scene where your previous choice changes whether the heroine calls you senpai or onii-chan. It's, uh, a nice touch since you're pretty much defining the relationship you have with her.
    13. Mansion, the Prison of Lust
    EGS-Score: 60 (12) Girl's Software Fap-o-meter: 2 (1) Ingoku no Yakata Main appeal: BDSM, sexual slavery, maids 淫獄の館
    First, I suppose I should start with what I liked about this game. The art is gorgeous when it comes to the character design and HCGs, drawn by one of my favorite eroge artists. The sexual slavery scenes are quite varied, but there's also a good number of vanilla scenes. You basically get the choice to give in to your "deep dark desires," or to defy your captor.
    To be honest, despite this being a nukige, what I enjoyed the most were the slice-of-life scenes and banter between characters. The music is a great mood-setter, but what made these scenes that much more enjoyable was the stellar voice acting performance. I'm sure that if you look at their names, you'll recognize several industry veterans. I'd point out Isshiki Hikaru, who voices the protagonist's sister in Cartagra as especially memorable. However, all of them were really good, and I also liked their performance in...other parts of the game. That's the thing, though. After spending all that time growing fond of the characters, I don't really want to do awful things to them.
    For this game's negative points, I'd say that getting a good ending is really difficult without using a walkthrough, and otherwise, it just gets frustrating. I also disliked the spontaneous H-scenes during the first part of the game. This is because they are all "dream sequences," more like showing a possible future for the protagonist.
    It feels as if those scenes were just thrown in there because the slice-of-life and comedy sections were too long, and they thought people would get bored if they didn't get some fap material, but eh. They feel entirely out of place because there's no context and no build-up for those scenes.Another point is that when I train my sex slaves, I don't like sharing them with others...especially dirty old men.
    14. Stray Sheep - Disgraceful Confession Room
    EGS-Score: 55 (4) Panda House Fap-o-meter: 2 (1) Stray Sheep ~Chijoku no Zangeshitsu~ Main appeal: BDSM, mystery STRAY SHEEP ~恥辱の懺悔室~
    Stray Sheep doubles as mystery and hardcore BDSM game. The protagonist makes use of his privileged position as the school's new Father to search for the truth, little by time, at times employing more forceful means.
    I did not find myself able to empathize with the protagonist and his revenge-filled heart. It's not that I'm not fond of revenge stories, but if you're going to do awful things to someone, then at least do it to people who deserve it.
    If one thing though, both the CGs and character sprites sure are pretty. Reminds me a bit of Mink's artstyle of that time.
    15. Masquerade
    EGS-Score: 64 (14) Soft Circle Courreges Fap-o-meter: 2 (1) Masquerade Main appeal: maid, pure love story MASQUERADE
    While the setting seems to be grimdark, it's actually kinda wrong to call it a nukige. In fact, you could complete the game while avoiding most of the sexual content.
    I actually completed this game as it's relatively short, about one to two others long. I found the main story to be sweet and very much worth the time I spent with it. Some might find it generic, but I guess I'm fond of these pure love type of stories.
    You can choose to either engage in sexual acts with your maid or to have conversations with her about a variety of topics, getting to know her better. By sexual acts, I mean that you don't force yourself upon her and that everything is done consensually, even if the protagonist is in a position of authority. On that front, it's kinda weak as a BDSM/sexual slavery game, but I appreciate the variety of content and the hot HCGs.
    The negative side is that both these conversations and H-scenes repeat themselves. For example, if you want to unlock further conversations, you'll have to approach specific topics an X number of times. The problem is that the conversations are the exact same the second or third time, so you're gonna be skipping them. It's just annoying. Did they run out of content even though the game is so short? Why force you to repeat conversations? Anyway, you'll probably want to follow a walkthrough.
    The similar happens with the H-scenes, where you can unlock extra scenes or variations of the same scene. Anyway, this is a pretty decent doujin game if you like maids, sweet but kinda corny love stories, are willing to press the skip button half the time, and use a walkthrough.
    16. A Naughty Doctor
    EGS-Score: 58 (7) Sol-fa-soft Fap-o-meter: 2 (1) H na Oisha-san Main appeal: lolicon Hなお医者さん
    So I booted up this game, which is unvoiced and has the same looping soundtrack all the time. And on the very first few choices, I hit a little girl, was sent to jail and got a premature Happy Ending. Great game.

    "HAPPY ENDING...hell if it is!"
    But it's actually an enjoyable game. You touch the characters in places where you're not really supposed to, but get away with it with some convincing persuasion, and eventually get to do a more direct inspection.
    I actually like this type of games where you play as a doctor and interact with a patient, deceiving them, and abusing their trust. For example, Studio Triumph's games. But well, this one doesn't even compare since the game is too damn short, as the whole thing is about 20-30 minutes long.
    Apparently, there's a voiced version, but I couldn't get my hands on it. The game is decent for what it is, but it's nothing special. I think there should've been more bad endings.
    17. Jam 'N Limit - LOCKED/ROOM/CON/FINE/MENT
    EGS-Score: 53 (18) Studio Jikkenshitsu Fap-o-meter: 2 (2) Jam n' Limit ~Mis/shitsu/Kan/kin Main appeal: roleplay, forceful sex ジャムアンリミット~密/室/監/禁
    The only reason I went ahead and made the description this long is that this is the type of philosophical musings that are constantly present in the game. You can only imagine my surprise, playing this game after I almost considered skipping it - from the cover it seems like a generic nukige, and the score reinforces that assumption. I'm very glad I did not.
    Honestly, I can only do this game justice with a full review, which I'd like to do in the near future (maybe), so this will be a bit of a sample of what's to come. It comes with a fair warning though: this game isn't for everyone. It's probably only for sexual deviants like me.
    I've played this up until I was done with the first heroine's section of the story. Instead of having character routes, you "conquer" one heroine after the other, so you follow the protagonist's journey through madness. That is to say, this is more the protagonist's story than anything else, but you only truly understand the depth of his madness when you have a "normal" person as a reference. But that isn't all, as they too will find their own "madness."
    Your choices in-game have to do with the course of actions you take as much as the preparations you have to make. For example, for your plan to succeed, what kind of precautions should you take, what should you be most concerned about, how will you create the perfect locked room while avoiding suspicion, how will you psychologically corner your prey, how will prevent their escape, and what will you do in the event something unexpected happens.
    Accompanied by an in-built flow-chart, you'll be making these decisions as you try to avoid the game's multiple bad endings.
    I don't want to spoil the content of the H-scenes, but they've mostly based around..."personalized roleplay."For me, this is the best game I played this month and my personal master and masturpiece, or at least the one which surprised me the most, making this whole venture worth it. Please don't overlook it just because it has the "nukige" label.
    It could also be that the game simply left a lasting first impression, which lead me to overhype it slightly. Either way, I look forward to finishing it and publishing a more detailed review, whether it lives up to my expectations or not. Maybe.
    18. Gifted Education Frenzy
    EGS-Score: 65 (89) Kuzuryuu Fap-o-meter: 1.93 (14) Eisai Kyouiku Main appeal: BDSM, sexual slavery 英才狂育
    You might know this from the H-OVA "Study a Broad." With beautiful art from Innocent Grey's CEO Sugina Miki, renown artist responsible for Cartagra, Kara no Shoujo series and Flowers series, coupled with BDSM and sexual slavery themes, what could possibly go wrong with this game?
    Put simply, this game sucks. Sugina Miki's art and the seiyuu's talents were put to waste with this game thanks to an awful gameplay system.
    So, you have three phases during the day: morning, lunchtime, and after school. During those periods, you can visit different locations during the game, taking up one, two, and five time slots respectively. Oh, and I fail to mention that there are ten locations in the game? So, you have to visit the heroines at the RIGHT TIME in the RIGHT PLACE to trigger the events. What a load of crap.
    This game is the ultimate proof that no matter how good your game's content is (in this case, H-scenes), it doesn't matter if it's locked behind a nonsensical and overly complicated system. Sure, you have an idea of where the characters are likely to hang out, but who would've thought that the flower arrangement club member likes to hang out on the rooftop?
    So, definitely use a walkthrough. And don't try to pursue more than one heroine at a time, as the timeslots often clash. That's not everything, though. If you fuck up too much in the beginning, you can get a bad ending. And even if you follow a walkthrough, you probably won't get to see every event.
    This game is as sadistic to its players as it is to the heroines. I actually completed one of the routes - the twins. And there I witnessed some of the most stupid teen drama I ever had the displeasure of going through in recent times. At the very least, the H-scenes are hot, but I don't think it's worth seeing them without the context behind them. How frustrating!
    19. Erosion
    EGS-Score: 74 (21) Black Package Try Fap-o-meter: 1.8 (5) Shinshoku Main appeal: sexual slavery 浸蝕
    I actually edited the first part of this synopsis from vndb because it was filled with lies, so I claim it as my own. Ahem.
    This game unceremoniously starts with four H-scenes in a row. It sure doesn't waste any time, huh? On the very first scene, the setting is established. Toshiya, despite being of high school age, is somehow a hardcore sex slave trainer, all because his mother was a whore when he was a child. The orphanage's director is already his sex slave, as are other girls in school, and then he "infiltrates" this loving family intending to make them his sex slaves just for the lulz.
    You witness the mother, who knows the protag for nothing but a few days (or like, 10 minutes in-game), masturbate while calling his name. I mean, what the fuck. Already? She hardly even knows him! This protagonist is literally the equivalent of an isekai anime protag who one-shots everything in sight on the first episode.
    I did not find the art or the voice acting appealing either, but there's plenty of variety when it comes to the training scenes, I guess.
    If I had to mention any positives, it would be that the game is quite technically advanced. There's an in-built flowchart, a read text marker, the ability to jump to the next and previous choices, and voice lines on the backlog.
    All in all, this game is nothing more than rape fantasy and is completely disrespectful and demeaning towards women.
    20. Last Order
    EGS-Score: 70 (50) 13cm Fap-o-meter: 1.75 (8) Last Order Main appeal: sexual slavery, group sex ラストオーダー
    This is a game which seemed to be nothing more than a generic nukige, but ended surprising me. If there were such a thing as a theme for this game, it'd be moratorium, the postponement of social responsibilities. The protagonist and other characters deal with this issue on different degrees: feeling like they're growing up too fast, being afraid to become a full-fledged adult, or being too attached to things of the past. As someone finding themselves within this very period of transition, I felt I was able to connect to the game on a personal level, if even slightly.
    The sexual content mostly revolves around the use of devices for sexual training and bondage. With two new waitresses bolstering floréal's ranks, so are there two new prey for the protagonist to lay his hands on.
    I have mentioned this several times before, I believe, but I'm not fond of sharing my sex slaves. After the slaves' training is cumplete, you have them serve the customers, often multiple at once, and this happens when you had just thought they became yours. I'd say that might be why the fap-o-meter is so low, even though this is actually a quite decent game.
    21. Intense Pregnant Belly - Senpai, Please Acknowledge My Child!
    EGS-Score: 41 (18) Acme X Fap-o-meter: 1.67 (3) Hageshiku Botebara! Senpai, Watashi no Ko, Mitomete Kudasai!! Main appeal: forceful sex, group sex, yuri 激しくボテ腹! ~センパイ、私のコ、認めてくださいっ!~
    First of all, I gotta ask. Who the hell came up with such a dumb title?
    This game is just a tasteless and senseless complete rapefest. It is disgustingly evil and cruel. I'm sorry, but I don't have much else to say. I dropped it because I'm not a masochist and there's hardly a redeeming factor to this piece of crap. I guess some people might be into it, but I'm not. Moving along.
    22. Say Yah! Happy New Year 2003!
    EGS-Score: 55 (9) Authoring Heaven Fap-o-meter: 1.6 (5) Say Yah! 2003 Main appeal: comedy, straight shotacon Say Yah! 2003
    This game is not only a sequel to first Say Yah!, but it also features characters from other Authoring Heaven and Complet's games, as they're both imprints of the same stock company. You can expect similar kind of content and humor from the same games.
    Basically, you have a map, and you choose which house to deliver presents to... in the form of sex. It's not really my cup of tea, but the game is kinda funny, if you're into that type of humor...
    23. Married Woman Slave Coffee Shop 2
    EGS-Score: 60 (20) Black Lilith Fap-o-meter: 1.6 (5) Hitozuma Dorei Kissa 2 Main appeal: sexual slavery, group sex, forceful sex 人妻奴隷喫茶2
    "To think that you'd really take pictures like these...you're scum, human scum!"
    I played the first game too just so I could understand this game better. Thus this will serve as a review for both games. They're about 20 mins each, so that wasn't an issue. But well, there isn't that much to say, except that the games suck.
    On the first game, these three high school students with nothing better to do than wander around town manage to spot a lady shoplifting. And somehow, they make use of that knowledge to blackmail her into becoming her sex slave. After the first H-scene, it's scene after scene until the game ends.
    On the second game, this chick finds The Three Stooges talking about how much they love sex, and apprehends their sex toys. After calling them human scum, she ends up fapping with those toys inside the classroom, and she follows them to the coffee shop because she's secretly a colossal pervert, I guess. The rest plays out the same as the first game.
    The games have slight ero animations which kinda look good, but since it's a zoomed up close-up, they end up covering most of the CG. These games are cheap, they're too short, and they suck.
    24. The Voice in the Night III - Summoning Circle Pentagram of the Three Desires
    EGS-Score: 60 (45) Black Cyc Fap-o-meter: 1.5 (14) Yami no Koe III ~Gobou San'yoku Mahoujin~ Main appeal: corruption of characters 闇の声III ~五芒三欲魔方陣~
    Wait, what is a Black Cyc game doing at the very bottom? To truly understand this, you'd have to play the first two games, as this one is part of the original Yami no Koe trilogy. Thankfully, I am perfectly suited for this review as I played all of the three games. However, this is a game that I would like to review at a greater length, so I'll try to keep this short.
    Basically, this game sucks. No, it would be more correct to say that this would just be an average nukige, if not for its preceding legacy. Because it bears the Yami no Koe name, anyone who plays this game expects high-quality nukige, the same as the first two. But it's the complete opposite.
    Here's how the gameplay goes: you have a box with several magical items, starting with five, and each one of them is supposed to awaken a dormant fetish within the heroines. Once you reach the second stage, you get up to ten items to use on the heroines.
    Sounds awesome, right? Well, not really. The heroines are only receptive to one or two of the items in each stage. Most of your time is actually spent trying out different items, getting a generic "this item wasn't very effective" message, reloading, trying out a new item, getting the same crap all over again until you get it right. That's not all. While a heroine might've been receptive to an item at first, it might happen that they will not be interested in it in the future. So, it's save, reload, save, reload, save, reload. How about I just quit, uninstall this piece of crap, and never play it again?
    Even worse, the protagonist doesn't interact with the heroines directly. Thanks to K's powers, he makes the item magically appear in front of the heroine, and they'll make up a suitable excuse on their own for why the item is there. What a load of bullshit. The only time you have sex with them is at the very end (if you managed to corrupt them all fully), on what feels like the developers' way of mocking and trolling the player.
    You know when you play a sequel to one of your favorite games, and it's complete shit? Except that here, you can't blame EA, like with its sudden takeover of Bioware franchises such as Mass Effect or Dragon Age. No, it's literally the same writers, the same director, the very same team. They knew what they were doing with this game, and it's nothing more than a quick cash grab.
    I hope I was able to convey my feelings on this matter accurately, and looking at the scoring, it's no surprise. Everyone felt let down by what is the weakest game of the Yami no Koe series.
    The only good point to this game is the amazing art, by one of the best eroge/nukige artists. Even Conjueror agrees! However, he gave the second and third games the same score, so I wonder if he actually played them at all.
    25. Rape Secretarial Office 2 -Midou Shirou's Chapter
    EGS-Score: 65 (12) Maika Fap-o-meter: 1.5 (2) Ryoujoku Hishoshitsu 2 ~Midou Shirou Hen~ Main appeal: sexual slavery, mind control, forceful sex 凌辱秘書室2 ~御童志狼篇~
    This game is about rape. It has rape in the title, and even the game's executable file is called "RAPE2.exe".
    Basically, you have Midou Shirou, who can use some sort of mysterious power, which translated literally would be something incomprehensible such as "Obscene Vortex Core Fist." Probably some kind of wordplay.
    When he says specific keywords, it triggers something within the heroines - there are no tools that need to be used, so it's just a special ability of his. And by special ability, I mean that it's a complete cheat.
    After you meet all the heroines, you can choose one of them to be your trained sex slave, as in, it's something that already happened. I found that to be interesting at first, but it's actually kinda lame. Let's say you were interested in a character, would you want to conquer her or would you want the game to gift you her as your already trained slave?
    Your objective is to obtain sensitive financial information and have lots of sex while you're at it. Your chosen sex slave will assist you in this task, so you already have six slightly different ways of playing the game. This all sounds awesome, but it's simply too easy. It's too easy to make the heroines fall thanks to Shirou's ability, having them call you "Master" by one H-scene's time.
    To begin with, the protagonist is already a cool stud, does he really need this power? He doesn't have any interesting motivations or something you can empathize with. This game is just a trashy rapefest, which puts its beautiful art to waste.
    26. I'll Grant Your Wish - A Gift Received in Winter
    EGS-Score: 58 (17) High Soft Fap-o-meter: 1 (1) Kanaete Ageru ~Fuyu ga Kureta Okurimono~ Main appeal: group sex かなえてあげる~冬がくれた贈り物~
    The premise is rather simple. The protagonist wants to have sex with his girlfriend, but it's totally not happening any time soon, and he faps to his sexual fantasies all day. Wow, he and I are not so different after all!
    So, these girls suddenly appear in his room and make the proposal as mentioned earlier. The story is well, as you could imagine, nothing special. It's nothing but senseless H-scene after H-scene, without any thread linking the events together. Put simply, it's just boring to read/play.
    You literally play as Santa's little helper, as you go from house to house, and research which present to give to the residents. Depending on the presents you pick, your relationship will improve with one of the heroines. This is a quite cumbersome system, and not very easy without a walkthrough. I wasn't able to find one...
    Since the protagonist is the only one who can see the girls, it could also be that he's simply had one fap too many, and none of this is real. Yep, that's probably it.
    27. Let me fuck 'ya, teach!
    EGS-Score: 50 (11) Tryset Fap-o-meter: 1 (3) Yarasete! Teacher Main appeal: straight shotacon やらせてっ!てぃーちゃー
    For a while, I thought I was playing a Complet's game, as this one has similar art, humor, and sexual content. You play as an overly perverted brat and constantly tease the new assistant teacher. Instead of proper routes, just like Matty (ugh), you collect events. The difference is that you trigger those events by moving around the school, as you pick the location you want to visit. I find this blind guessing system to be annoying, so I'd recommend a walkthrough once again.
    I actually liked the H-scenes, and I'm pretty surprised this game is sitting here at the bottom, especially when you consider that it spawned a whole series. Maybe Tryset were off to a bad start with this one, or the players just found the system to be too cumbersome.
    28. Day-care worker <3
    EGS-Score: 45 (9) Triangle-delta Fap-o-meter: 1 (1) Hobo-san Chu! Main appeal: roleplay 保母さんちゅ!
    Thought I'd start by giving a warning that, despite the protagonist's profession and the game's setting, all participants in sexual activities are consenting adults.
    That already makes for strange setting though. Who thought about mixing up daycare work with...roleplay? The worst part is that they do a pretty poor job at explaining the need for such a thing in the first place. I mean, I don't think it helps her understand the kids' feelings any better by changing adult diapers or making her piss on the ground.
    Overall, the setting just feels at odds with the game's sexual content, but it does make for an interesting premise, I guess. I do commend them for trying out something different, and I do find the H-scenes to be not that bad...
    The main highlights are the beautiful OP (no need to listen past 2:10) and yet another casting by Isshiki Hikaru.

    29. Petite Idols - Disgraceful Fan Appreciation Day
    EGS-Score: 52 (14) Black Lilith Fap-o-meter: 1 (3) Puchi Idol ~ Chijoku no Fan Kansha Day Main appeal: lolicon, cosplay, forceful sex, group sex ぷちアイドル~ちじょくのファン感謝デー
    This is just bad. I feel like I really hit the bottom of the barrel with this one. It comes with a really stupid reasoning for revenge: the two idols are cheeky and foul-mouthed and treat their greasy, sweaty, disgusting otaku fans with the disrespect they deserve. But then came fan appreciation day...
    30. Nestle Close III - Manager Hibiki
    EGS-Score: 70 (3) Haikara Kissa Fap-o-meter: 0.5 (2) Nestle Close III Main appeal: onee-san, big breasts, glasses Nestle Close III
    I physically cannot play this game, as short-haired heroines with glasses are the worst. Next.
    31. Soft and Tender Lesson
    EGS-Score: 50 (11) Trabulance Fap-o-meter: 0 (1) Pururn Jugyou Main appeal: breasts, big breasts, big tiddies, tits, oppai ぷるるん授業
    As advertised, the heroines have enormous breasts to the point that it's sure to cause back problems. If you're into this type of thing, you might get some enjoyment out of it. However, I found the game to be a completely average nukige.
    Of particular note, there is a toggle correct choice indicator. Interact with the same heroine enough times, and you'll have sex with them. Wow, now that I put that in words, it seems that'd describe most games. Either way, despite being thrown to the very bottom, it's certainly not THAT bad. Then again, there's only one vote which is... mine.
    My Thoughts and Conclusions
    First of all, thanks to everyone who stuck with me until the very end. Or perhaps you're one of the people who scrolled down to the very bottom? It's alright, I don't blame you.
    The truth is, this format sucks. Usually, you'd first find a game you like, play it, and then maybe review it, not the other way around. This would've worked much better if I had a team of perverts working with me. Each one of us could pick a game that we might like, play it, and then review it. This was way too much work for one person, as this was all my own, original commentary, but I did my very best for the quality not to suffer.
    The very idea of reviewing eroge and excluding nukige would be ridiculous, as despite bearing the "stigma" that comes with the nukige tag, there are some pretty good games amongst those that I reviewed. Making people aware of that was my initial objective, and I hope to have realized it.
    Not surprisingly, there's a good number of games focused in particular fetishes. I think it's interesting that there wasn't a single Netorare game amongst these, perhaps the genre hadn't taken off yet. There's a big divide between games with consensual sex and games with forceful sex. The first usually focuses on lighter fetishes, while the second group often goes all the way with hardcore sexual slavery.
    I play my games on fullscreen, so I wasn't bothered by the resolution. And there are plenty of games with beautiful art, mood-setting soundtrack, and stellar voice acting performances nonetheless.
    The most significant conclusion I'd take is that most of these games, well, suffer from too much gameplay at times. Like I've said on my very first review, it doesn't matter how good your content is if the system is cumbersome in a way that players have too much of a hard time accessing it. You can have a map movement system like Eisai Kyouiku's, which forces you to check a walkthrough every 10 seconds, or you can have one like Saishuu Chikan Densha 2's, where you can worry less about optimization and focus more on having fun. The second is one where the creator really thought about the player experience, how would people actually feel playing the game.
    I also found it interesting that most protagonists are actually adults. There are several university students, but you have them do all kinds of jobs: ordinary salarymen, teachers, daycare worker, clerk, doctors, idol manager, grocer, businessman, restaurant floor manager, tutor, even a priest... You also have many different kinds of settings, as if everyone was trying hard to carve their own niche. Makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside thinking about how everyone, even the little guys, was working hard, giving up precious time during the holiday season to provide us with great fapping material. God bless you.
    Oh, you’re probably wondering why I didn’t talk about Saya no Uta. Well, it’s the title that needs no introductions, so I decided to go ahead and not talk about it at all to make my job easier. The point of this article was to have short reviews and summaries for lesser known games of the month, so I can’t just feature the most popular ones and not or just dismissively ignorant talk about the rest. The fap-o-meter is astonishingly low, which is complete blasphemy. This is one of the hottest english published eroge out there, with also one of the best translations available. There’s a story about how Makoto wouldn’t sell his translation until his writer parents approved it, so you can be certain of its quality.
    As a closing statement, please, by all means, do try some of these games and enjoy yourself to your heart's content. If you have any questions you'd like to ask me, please go ahead and message me or leave a comment below. As always, thank you for reading, and I appreciate any and all feedback.
  2. Confused
    1P1A reacted to kivandopulus for a blog entry, Sayonara o Oshiete さよならを教えて ~Comment te Dire Adieu~ [Craftwork]   
    Sayonara o Oshiete has a good number of English reviews (1 2 3), plus reddit comments (4), but what strikes me is that all of them are positive despite some noticed flaws. But as a plotge fetishist and pragmatist to the bones, I demand demolition of fake idols. This bastion shall fall today.
    Video playthrough:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh8pCRc3CEs&list=PLs4Gp5VU4Fv8rKP5oDa1nzt0KevjFrmhw

    1) Sayonara o Oshiete has a synopsis, but does not have a story. Deal with it. Nothing happens, like absolutely. Protagonist just visits three students out of five after school before going home. He sees some delusions involving the students. Getting into heroine route only tells us about each heroine specific theme. Just as theme starts to uncover there's the same abrupt end for each heroine. Credits.
    2) Heroines totally lack charm. Sugamo Mutsuki is presented as a pure angel and supposedly main heroine. But pretty much the first H scene almost made me throw up. There's no realism or depth in the heroines, just specific theme and some cleverly written dialogues paired up with actually eminent voicing. 
    3) Protagonist is no good. He can be renamed and is an abstract mass of destruction delusions. He's impossible to sympathize with. 
    4) H scenes. Roughly only half of them are shocking, but the rest are quite conventional. And that's a huge problem for me. It looks like game bears some idea half of the time, but also wants to appeal to as many players as possible and becomes a plain nukige. From idea point of view For Elise ~Elise no Tame ni~ was perfect. H events in delusions were 100% appalling. Sayonara o Oshiete is basically about same horrible delusions, but with very sexy heroines sprites and often appealing H events. There's not enough real trash in H events.
    5) Loli abuse. Can't deny - all loli scenes are drawn in a very traumatic way here. But I just detest any loli H events, especially such hardcore ones.
     I've seen transformation of nukige genres since the 80s. There has been shift to museum type vns, then to training SIMs, then to devil games, and currently I cautiously try to grasp when the shift to corruption visual novels happened. And Sayonara o Oshiete is the first candidate so far to be grandfather of all corruption games. With the half-measures Craftwork actually managed to depict sexy destruction, and that's no way a compliment considered that I detest corruption games the most.
    Horrible as it may sound, I'm relieved to see game translation project stalled, because completion  would cause an outrageous reaction and backlash at Japanese developers due to very troubling content involving loli characters.
    The only definite strong sides of Sayonara o Oshiete are first-class voicing and great song theme. Visual and textual decisions are questionable. But for me the number of negative elements outweighs it all. The only lingering taste after the game is nausea, and I hope to forget it as a nightmare asap.
  3. Haha
    1P1A reacted to Fiddle for a blog entry, rant   
    I hate how Vancouver isn't located on Vancouver Island.
  4. Like
    1P1A reacted to Zakamutt for a blog entry, Cooking with Zaka: Lazy-ass pork wine stew   
    Are you the kind of guy that loves stews but hates having to prep all the shit going into them? If so you’re uncomfortably close to being me holy shit stop. Anyway if you try to google up recipes for a pork stew using wine you inevitably get something that could be much simpler. Here’s my attempt at such a thing; I’ve cooked this twice and IMO it’s excellent.
    INGREDIENTS (serves 2 if you’re me and my dad)
    ~500g pork meat cut into medium pieces 1 bouillon cube ~200ml red wine ~100ml water 1 onion, chopped 1 clove garlic, chopped chili flakes to taste LITERALLY THREE PLUS ONE FUCKING STEPS BECAUSE I PUT THE PREPARATION STEPS IN THE INGREDIENTS PART
    1. Brown the meat in your fat of choice on high heat in a saute pan. Salt and pepper those shits for good measure, though honestly idk if it matters so I cba to put them in the list.
    2. Turn down to low heat and add wine, water, onion, garlic, chili flakes, and crumble in the bouillon cube. I usually mix it all together but who knows if this is even needed? Not le watakushi.
    3. Let stew w/ lid on for as long as it takes for the meat to be nice and tender.
    4. Serve with magically appearing rice I didn’t tell you about.
    QUESTIONS
    How do I know how long the meat will take to cook?
    Since this is a general recipe I can’t tell you, but pork chops took ~1h 15m and store-tenderized pork chop meat took like an hour. Tougher cuts made for stewing might take as much as 2 hours 45 minutes or more. I also recommend the “google it” and “ask your mum” options if available. On your first time using a new kind of meat, I recommend sampling the meat at likely points. This will fuck with your rice timing which sucks, but so does life so nothing new there really.
    How do I make this efficiently timewise?
    The main timewaster is the slow boiling process, so the goal should be to get that started as soon as possible.
    Start by cutting the meat into pieces unless it is already. After that use any downtime, for example when the fat’s warming in the pan or when you’ve just put the meat in and are letting it rest for some surface, to chop the onion / garlic. It’s not particularly important to add the garlic or onion or really anything to the stew at the same time as you add the wine, just get them in once you finish processing them.
    Ok but I have beef not pork
    Then do the exact same things and it will probably still work lol.
    Ok but I have chicken not pork
    Then make this high effort recipe instead. Or just try anyway. Cooking time will be much shorter though.
    Ok but I have <other kind of meat>
    We live in a society, dear reader. I’m sure you can figure it out.
    That’s still too many ingredients
    Fair enough. I don’t think the garlic is essential and chopping it is annoying so take it out if you wish. The chili flakes are also a bit of a flourish and you might not even like them so omit them if you want.
    I would not omit the onion but if you’re a hater it probably won’t kill the dish entirely to take that out too, I’m never actually going to try that myself though so good luck.
    Ok but I don’t have a bouillon cube
    I will assume you have liquid broth then, use that. Otherwise supply your goddamn kitchen. Since broth will increase the total amount of liquid you probably want to cut down on or use no water at all. I have not tried this at home but like it’s a stew it’ll work out.
    Actually I think a few more ingredients would be ok
    I would suggest looking up more traditional recipes at this point but here are some things I have not tried: mushrooms seem like they’d fit in well. Carrots are also often mentioned though idk if I like the idea as much. I can also see bell pepper but I have a bell pepper fetish. As for spices you could try grated fresh ginger (obviously ditch some or all of the chili then I’m not responsible if you kill yourself with this) or maybe szechuan pepper.
    Where’s the obligatory shitty picture?


    View the full article
  5. Like
    1P1A reacted to Kenshin_sama for a blog entry, Learning How To Learn Japanese, Part 3: Productivity Apps   
    Index
    Disclaimer: I am not being paid to promote any of these apps.
    From here on out, I’ll be shifting the focus of this blog to the more indirect methods of improving learning efficiency. While these techniques aren’t designed for learning Japanese specifically, they can greatly enhance your ability to retain information and study consistently. Sorry I won’t be able to write more posts like the one from last week, but I’m still learning at a snails’ pace due to college-imposed time constraints. Hopefully I'll be able to write another post like that in the future as I continue to study.
     
    Pomodoro Technique
    The pomodoro technique is an effective learning method that can not only improve your concentration and motivation, but help you manage your time more reliably. The way this technique works involves setting a pomodoro duration for somewhere between 20 and 45 minutes (25 is recommended), taking a short break (typically 5 minutes) between each pomodoro, and taking a long break (typically 15 minutes) after finishing a set of 4 pomodoros. Concentrating on any kind of learning material is going to be taxing on the brain, so you’ll want to let it cool down at times to make studying more productive and enjoyable. It’s thanks to this technique that I can study for 8 hours in a day without getting a migraine, and I am finding it easier to not get lost in thought.
     
    There are specialized pomodoro timers you can use that will give you a timer for both the study and the break duration, and they'll be able to keep track of when you need a longer break instead of a shorter one. You should be able to find one just fine in Google Play or App Store, and you can buy a physical pomodoro timer on Amazon if you don’t have a smart phone (a kitchen timer and pen and paper can work if you don’t want to buy this). I don’t know much about the options for App Store or physical timers, but I do like Pomodoro Timer Lite on Google Play since it has a minimalist design, decent customization, and only shows a single popup ad asking you to buy the pro version once per day (it's a minor annoyance, but can be removed for just a few bucks (USD)).
     

     
    Habit Development
    One of the most effective ways to commit yourself to studying Japanese is by making it a regular habit. It takes roughly 30 days for something to become a habit, and 66 days to become fully committed to it. The key to making this work is setting realistic goals for yourself and overemphasizing the importance of following through with them every day. You’re free to choose whatever method fits you best, but I like to take a baby steps approach by setting small goals that only require a trivial amount of time, and gradually building on them by increasing the duration after a successful 66-day commitment. Even on the most miserable and depressing days, I can bring myself to study Japanese for one Pomodoro duration at the bare minimum, and aim for three pomodoros when I’m not down in the dumps. While going for the minimum may not produce the most optimal results, it’s still better than doing nothing.
     
    I recommend using a habit tracker app so that you can reliably measure the number of days you commit to a habit without the frustration of noting everything on paper. For both App Store and Google Play, I recommend using Habit Bull since it’s ad free, gives you reminders to update your habits, and provides a good interface to work with. I’d advise staying away from the pro version since you shouldn’t be tracking more than 1-3 habits at a time (anything more than 3 is difficult to sustain), and I’ve come across several reviews and posts from their in-app forums talking about how the devs aren’t very responsive when it comes to purchase issues.
     

     
    Developing habits can also serve as a useful method of measuring success when learning Japanese, and being able to measure progress is an excellent way to keep yourself motivated. As I mentioned in the introduction post, learning Japanese will take years of commitment, but developing a habit is something that can be done in a matter of months.
     
    Daily Routine Checklist
    It’s never a bad idea to give your lifestyle some form of structure, especially when you have issues committing to tasks you want to do. Even though I’ve been doing it for years, making lifestyle changes has always been a struggle for me because I didn’t have a good point of reference to look to. But that has changed drastically since I started writing down the steps to a workable daily routine using a checklist. That’s not to say I didn’t at least try to follow a routine before, but oftentimes I would either add too many changes to adjust to or I would forget to do something I wanted to. Given how unreliable the human brain is when it comes to extracting details from memory (usually), it’s much better to see the steps you need to take written out for you. Doing so can also make it easier to adjust to whatever changes you may need to incorporate.
     
    For this particular task, I can really only recommend ColorNote on Android. Unfortunately, I’ve not been able to find a reasonable alternative on iOS for managing a daily routine, so I’m afraid you may be out of luck if you own an iPhone (if anyone has suggestions, please let me know). And managing something like this without a smart phone is probably more trouble than it’s worth. As far as ColorNote goes, it has an easy-to-work-with interface that allows you to add checklist notes from the top or bottom, uncheck everything on the list through menu commands, rearrange notes using an edit mode, and organize a list of notes through color coding mechanisms. That way I can write down my entire routine and check each item off as I go through them. That’s not to say I’ll spend the whole day looking at a checklist; I mostly find myself using it during transition periods. Another neat aspect of ColorNote's list design is that you can skip certain tasks when you're not able to do them and come back to them later when you're able to.
     

     
    Distraction Management
    Unfortunately, many of the methods you’ll use to learn Japanese (especially as a beginner) will require a computer to use. This means that you’ll be subject to a number of potential distractions a computer can provide. Thankfully there are a couple solutions available to help you stay focused.
     
    If you’re anything like me, you’ll likely have some kind of obsessive compulsion to browse through various social websites, hoping to find that one voluptuous post that caters to your lust for immediate gratification. Thankfully, LeechBlock provides a solution to that. This addon is surprisingly well-designed, given how it allows you the freedom to block specific web pages at specific times and days, and even prevents you from accessing the options to change settings when it meets the conditions you set. Oh, and did I mention it has different block sets for multiple conditions? Yeah, it’s sexy. Unfortunately this plugin only works with web page loading on Firefox, so you’ll want something like Stay Focused (which isn’t as good, in my opinion) for Chrome if you’re ever inclined to use that. Since I’m mainly a Firefox user, I only use Stay Focused to keep myself from switching browsers when my blocks go up. I haven’t found anything for Microsoft’s browsers, but I would like to think no one is desperate enough to fall back on those.
     

     
    Now for any applications you have installed locally, you’re going to need something that can directly interact with your OS, which is where Cold Turkey comes in. As with LeechBlock, you can have this set for specific times and days, but it works for applications in addition to web pages. Sadly, this does come with a $25 price tag, but at least you’ll have the option to try it for a week before buying it, and you only have to pay for it once (not a bad deal, really). Once you’ve entered a time period you’ve set for a program/webpage, Cold Turkey will terminate the program or block the page on the spot, and it will kill blocked programs immediately if you try to start them back up. That way you can keep yourself from accessing distracting games and desktop apps and focus more on your studies. Unfortunately, you are still going to need some semblance of discipline to not distract yourself with something that isn’t on your computer, or find a workaround to get to your blocked content. But at least you won’t be as easily distracted as you were before.
    Afterword
    Thanks again for your continued readership! Ya know, this article was a lot shorter before I started editing it, which is unusual since my edits mostly involve cutting content. But yeah, this time I wanted to add in a few other applications I didn't have originally since they were also very helpful to me. Also, if any of you are wondering why I kept the title as is despite the nature of this post, it's mostly because I consider the Learning How To Learn series a documentation of my own personal development in the form of a guide. It's definitely not the most conventional way to write a guide, but I think there are more than enough of those already, lol. I'm just going to keep writing what I want to and hope someone finds them useful.
     
    In part 4, I'll go over some methods of coping with depression in order to keep it from significantly interfering with your learning goals. Hope to see you there!
  6. Like
    1P1A reacted to bakauchuujin for a blog entry, Picture of all my physical visual novels   
    Here are pictures of all of my physical visual novels.
    Some of these I have already done a review of while the others are planned to at some point get a review once I have read them.
    There are also going to be more visual novels added here in the future. For instance have I backed physical tier of kickstarter for Island, Momoiro Closet and Newrin as well as having pre ordered the complete box for Grisaia.
     
     
    Some of my english visual novels

    More of my english visual novels

     
    Grisaia complete box

    Aokana

    Nekopara vol 4 and Sengoku Rance

     
    My english visual novels with nsfw cover
    English Console VNs

    Japanese visual novels for PC

    More japanese visual novels for PC

    Some more japanese physicals, some of them have NSFW box
    My japanese visual novels for PS Vita

    My japanese visual novels for PS3 and PS4

     
     
  7. Like
    1P1A reacted to Darbury for a blog entry, Killing the ellipsis (“...”) in VN translations   
    Let’s not mince words here. The ellipsis is a blight upon English translations of visual novels. It must be uprooted and killed with fire.
    Before the slaughter begins, however, let’s review some basics. As the name suggests, the ellipsis represents an elision — that is to say, omitted content. It functions as the “yadda yadda” of the English language. It is the “Step 2: ???” before the all-important “Step 3: Profit!” A writer deploys those three little dots to indicate either the intentional removal of something that once was there, or the pointed absence of something that should have been there.
    That’s it. That’s what the ellipsis is supposed to do. You wouldn’t know this, however, by reading nearly any English translation of a Japanese visual novel. Ellipses are scattered across the text like so many rhinestones on the sweatshirt of a Midwestern mom. They’re at the beginning of sentences, the ends, stuck randomly in the middle — sometimes even chained end to end like a writhing Human Centipede of punctuation, each little dot in the chain crying, “Kill me now!” into the anus of the next.
    It’s an absolute abattoir in there.
    This particular road to hell is paved with good intentions, however. You see, all those ellipses are also present in the original Japanese and, in an attempt at faithful translation, the TL teams have left them all sitting there for you to enjoy. The original writer had a reason for putting them in, the reasoning goes, and it’s our job to offer the purest translation of his/her vision possible.
    This, of course, is bollocks. Punctuation operates differently in different languages. Japanese ellipses are used much more liberally than their Western forbearers, particularly in popular culture (e.g., manga. light novels, etc.) Want to indicate a pause? Ellipsis. Silence? Ellipsis. Passage of time? Ellipsis. Need to fill some empty space? Ellipsis. Is it Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday? Ellipsis, ellipsis, ellipsis. When ported over to English, most of these usages look less like carefully crafted sentences and more like a transcript of a particularly drunken Snapchat session.
    Put simply, what works in one language doesn’t always work in another. When I’m translating a Line of Text from German, for Example, I don’t capitalize all the Nouns because that’s how it was in the Original. I normalize it for English. The same needs to be done in any VN translation.
    My current rule of thumb while editing — I’ll bold it for you in red here — is as follows: Remove/replace all ellipses in a line of Japanese text unless doing so irreparably breaks the sentence or significantly changes its meaning.
    Luckily for us, English has a toolbox full of punctuation to get the job done. Commas, semicolons, periods, dashes — they’re all your friends. So let’s discuss some common situations in VNs and how we might handle them.

    The trailing ellipsis
    You’ll see lots of these littering the ends of sentences and lines, mostly to little effect. More often than not, they indicate a thought closing on anything other than a 100% full and decisive stop. Since they don’t hold the place of omitted text, we can almost always replace these ellipses with periods.
    There are a handful of situations, however, where keeping a trailing ellipsis makes sense. These include:
    The Pregnant Pause: 
    When something’s strongly implied at the end of a sentence/line, but left unsaid for dramatic effect.
    The ellipsis fills the place of the implied content, so it gets to stay. (Fun bonus fact: pauses are the only things that can get pregnant in VNs.)
    The “And So On”:
    When a statement is implied to continue for an unspecified length beyond the end of the sentence/line.
    The ellipsis here indicates there may have been a few more beers after Michelob, but the writer has decided to spare us and jump straight to Bob’s objection. Had this been more interruptive in nature, with Bob cutting Joe off immediately after “Michelob,” the ellipses would have replaced with an em-dash (—).
    The Trail-Off: 
    Similar to the “And So On,” but with the character choosing to let a statement taper off into nothingness, rather than the author.
    The opening ellipsis
    You’ll see these slightly less often, but they’re by no means infrequent. Typically, they indicate some slight hesitation at the beginning of a line of dialogue. But again, the nuance ends up being so slight and the impact so watered down through overuse that you’re almost always better off removing these ungainly beasts. An exception can be made for:
    The Reverse Pregnant Pause: 
    Just like the original Pregnant Pause, but it appears at the beginning of a sentence. Often holds the place of something a character doesn’t want to say.
    Rather than just pausing in passing, Joe is actively not admitting he thinks Joe is a jackass. That makes this line a strong candidate for an ellipsis.
    The mid-sentence ellipsis
    So, so many of these. You’ll close your eyes at night and they’ll haunt you. They’re almost always meant to indicate a slight pause in speech or thought, but trying to the read the resulting text is an exercise in frustration. There are... just so... many unnecessary... gaps. (Full disclosure: When writing scripts for TV, I’ll use ellipses like this a lot. But that’s for a very specific purpose: helping to communicate the particular rhythm of a line to the actor(s). I always avoid this in audience-facing text.)
    In almost all cases, unless there’s a marked pivot in thought, a comma will suffice.
    If the ellipsis is holding together two complete yet interwoven thoughts, a semicolon will do nicely.
    If the ellipsis is holding together two complete and independent thoughts, a period should be used.
    If ellipses are used to indicate an interruptive thought, one that breaks the main flow of the sentence, em-dashes can be used.
    Again, there are a couple situations where these mid-sentence ellipses can remain:
    The Ta-Da:
    When a pause is used for obvious dramatic effect, the ellipsis should be kept.
    The Shatner:
    When halting or stilted speech is intended for dramatic/comedic effect, ellipses may be retained.

    The empty line ellipsis
    You’ll see a lot of these. Holdovers from manga and light novels, they are explicit indicators of silence, being at a loss for words, holding one’s tongue, etc.
    In English prose, these silences would normally be held with narration — e.g., “Baconator just sat there, dripping ketchup.” You’d never see a sentence such as: ‘Harry Potter said, “...” and continued looking out the window.’ That’s because, unlike most VNs, traditional novels don’t have the crutch of character sprites and name cards appearing alongside dialogue. Due to such VN conventions, along with the technical limitations of translation — it’s frequently impossible to replace character dialogue with unvoiced narration — you should almost always leave these ellipses in place. Based on your best judgement, you can also choose to leave such variants as the questioning silence ("...?") and the excited/alarmed silence ("...!").
    It should be noted that such empty line ellipses can also be used outside of dialogue. Often, these will just indicate time passing. There’s also a long tradition in Japanese art of the “pillow” — a held moment of contemplative emptiness. It’s the bit of formal textual throat-clearing at the start of a poem. It’s the 10-second cutaway to a babbling brook that connects two scenes in a movie. In a VN, this pillow can evidence itself as a single line of narration, empty save for an ellipsis. There’s no good English alternative for this, so it should be kept wherever you encounter it.
    Extra credit: The multi-line ellipsis
    I saved this one for last, because it’s a bit of a special case. Against all my better instincts, it involves adding ellipses in places where the original text has none. It’s painful but it’s for a good cause.
    Sometimes, when editing or translating a VN, you’ll run across sentences that spill over onto two or more lines.
    Unlike in poetry, which uses line breaks to very deliberate effect, these multi-line monsters are almost always the result of the VN writer just running out of highway and choosing to keep on driving. Whenever possible, you should attempt to restructure such sentences so they don’t break across lines. Often, splitting an overly long sentence into two smaller ones will do the trick. If it resists your best efforts, however, maintain the break and indicate it with ellipses — one at the end of the first line, the other at the beginning of the second.
    How many dots? ALL THE DOTS!
    Another peculiarity of ellipses in Japanese VNs is that they don’t always have three dots. Depending on context and the arbitrary whims of the writer, you’ll typically see anywhere from two to six dots at a time. I’ve even seen 27 in a row once. I think it was a sex scene. Or a fight scene. Maybe both.
    Don’t let this worry you. If you’ve been following my advice, you’ve already purged most of the ellipses from the text. Of those that remain, almost all can be reduced down to familiar three-dot English ellipses. But as always, there’s at least one exception.
    Content-bearing pauses: In most cases, it’s of little concern to us whether an ellipsis consists of three, four, five, or even six dots. They’re all slight variations on the standard pause, but since English punctuation doesn’t make any such distinction, neither will we. An exception comes when the length of a pause not only adds flavor, but provides content. Consider the case of an ever-lengthening silence:
    The lengthening of the line suggests the passing of increasing amounts of time; the scene isn’t the same without it. Or consider an explosive outburst after a deafening silence:
    If you opt to stretch out an ellipsis like this, only do so in increments of three. If you’re musically inclined, think of three dots as a quarter note, six dots as a half note, etc., each one holding the silence just a bit longer than the last. Following the rule of threes keeps the text visually streamlined and helps if you ever need to convert a bunch of soft ellipses ( “...”) to hard ellipses (“…”) late in the translation process.
    A quick note about spacing
    I opt to keep things simple. If an ellipsis is at the start of a sentence or line, put one space between it and the first word. If it’s anywhere else, use no space before the ellipsis and one space after. If it’s a string of ellipses, it should be an uninterrupted series of dots with no spaces in between.
    There are also differing schools of thought as to whether an ellipsis at the end of a sentence should also be followed by a period, resulting in four dots total. Again, I opt for simplicity here and advise three dots in all cases.
    The mark of the beast
    It’s easy to tell professional translations from fan projects, it’s said; just count the number of dots. While not always true – plenty of slapdash commercial releases exist in the wild — there’s definitely something to this. More often than not, fewer ellipses are a sign that someone has taken the time to not just translate a text word for word, but thoughtfully localize it.
    Seriously, just dump the dots, folks. Your readers will thank you for it.
  8. Thanks
    1P1A reacted to solidbatman for a blog entry, Killer is Dead: The Case for Aesthetics   
    About a year and a half ago, I completed the Suda51 title, Killer is Dead. I honestly am not sure what happened but I will do my best to sort it out. Despite me not knowing really what was happening, something aside from the mediocre gameplay kept me going. It was the aesthetics. I'm done with that bit now btw. 

    Spoilers ahead.
     
    The whole point of this post isn't to discuss the story or the quality of the game Killer is Dead, but rather to examine the art style and how it made me want to complete the game. Killer is Dead is a hack and slash game from the mind of Suda51. Opinions on his ability to craft a good game aside, his art direction tends to be on the more creative side. The art of Killer is Dead is why I set aside my qualms I had for the gameplay and story and found myself continuing to play it to completion. Take David for example...

     
    He some sort of king or something living on the dark side of the moon. But what stands out to me isn't his story. It's his god damn gold clothes. When the first major boss of the game looks like this, I cannot help but be intrigued. I honestly remember nothing about David except that the little shit shows up and ruins breakfast at one point in the game while wearing a stupid shit eating grin as shown here.

     
    This is a man set on ruining your breakfast. I think he might have been your brother or something but he time traveled and killed your mom at breakfast [citation needed]. But lets take a look at some of the other screenshots from the game.

     
    I honestly don't remember what any of these are from in the game, but the actual visuals of the game are what stick with me after all this time. Not the gameplay, or the story, but just the visuals. That leads me to my rambling point that I haven't argued. Graphics can totally be the only thing a game has going for it and that is fine. Killer is Dead is a prime example of this. The gameplay is forgettable, while the story is only memorable because it is driven entirely by the unique art direction of the game. Killer is Dead was entirely worth the time and money I spent on the game for one reason: it was so damn interesting to look at. 

    Now I want to look at a more mainstream example of a game with a strong, unique, direction of art. Persona 5. Now now, I am not shitting on the game right now. That is for an upcoming blog post. But, when we get down into the nitty gritty details of the gameplay of the sequel, it really isn't much of a step forward for the Persona series as a whole. Some interviews from the development team likened to jump from 4 to 5 like the jump from the P2 duology to Persona 3 [citation needed]. What we got, however, was just an expanded 4 with most mechanics renamed and a mild rehash of the story from 4. What makes the game seem as if it is a completely new leap forward for Persona, in my eyes, is the amazingly slick visuals and art direction. The art sets the game completely apart from Persona 3 and 4 with character cut ins and super stylized labels and text. Persona 5, unlike Killer is Dead, has much more solid gameplay that actually does hold up on its own without the eye popping art direction.

    I'm not so sure that if Killer is Dead featured a more bland style of art, that I would remember it, or even finished it. Lets take another Suda51 game as an example; Lollipop Chainsaw. I never could finish the game. The game's poor frame rates and some what repetitive gameplay killed it for me, but what had kept me going was the candy popping colors of the game. Then I got stuck on some part and stopped caring, but before that, the art direction, once again, had kept me going in that pretty mediocre game.


    What is the final point I want to make? Well, that I am a fucking idiot that lets pretty colors dictate what games I finish and what I set aside. Also look at this unicorn from Killer is Dead


     
     
  9. Haha
    1P1A reacted to Plk_Lesiak for a blog entry, Sweet Volley High (failed VN)   
    Outside of new releases, I usually try to avoid reviewing bad OELVNs in-detail, unless they’re especially interesting or notable despite their failures – after all, in any semi-amateur game development scene, the poorly-made, misguided or horribly iterative titles will be far more numerous than those actually worthy of your attention. Writing that much about the former, especially when my goal is to promote OELVNs as a niche worth exploring, is arguably a waste of time and possibly even counter-productive. However, just like Carpe Diem: Reboot, today’s game is a great opportunity to look at some problems and tropes very characteristic of the Western VN scene, in a game that actually had the production values and traces of genuine effort that should at least make it an average, reasonably enjoyable product. And the sin that made it ultimately fail was not silly writing that plagued Carpe Diem, but something arguably even worse – boredom.
                Sweet Volley High, developed by New West Games and released on Steam in October 2016, was marketed as a “yuri/otome Visual Novel”, featuring a female protagonist and both female and male romance options. While some might already feel unease about such use of the terms "yuri" and "otome", both of which usually denotes a bit more than just romantic configurations available, it hints at a much deeper problems – game’s utter lack of personality and very poor use of the themes it tries to tackle. While trying to appeal to a broad audience, in reality, it wasn’t able to replicate the appeal of neither yuri nor otome games, just as it didn’t manage to create a satisfying alternative to those formulas. But, why exactly is that the case?
    Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com
  10. Thanks
    1P1A reacted to kivandopulus for a blog entry, Lilith リリス [Four-Nine]   
    Foreword: Game's totally obscure and there just one quite shallow Japanese review exists, so I'd probably miss this wonderful game unless saw Four-Nine as developer. And I'm really happy I did!
    Title: Lilith
    Developer: Four-Nine
    Date: 1995-12-16
    VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v8949
    Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_1nGf0P0-M&list=PLENAECnNmAq8obEJUzYJkNq8XOxyNZ-0s

     Synopsis: An intense night battle between kunoichi clan leader and evil biblical spirit Lilith ends with kunoichi falling into coma state. 
    A cat gets into an ordinary student Koketsu room, transforms into a girl and claims that Koketsu got her master kunoichi spirit and must help her master and defeat Lilith. The problem is that nothing is known about Lilith but the name and together they set to uncover its secrets.
    Structure: One route 
    Length: 11 hours
    Game type: Command selection adventure
    Difficulty: Challenging since there are gameplay elements introduced with walking on schematic map and triggering events including traps, some of which result in game over. Once I even managed to trigger game over during a H event! And there is no scene replay - you'll have to replay from the last save game.
    Character Design rating: 7/10
    Protagonist rating: 8/10
    Story rating: 9/10
    Game quality: 8/10
    Overall rating: 8/10

    Rating comments: I can't praise this game enough. Lilith came a year after Gao Gao 3rd and it fully inherits the spirit of Gao Gao series, just with a slightly different setting. The story is surprisingly solid and long. Protagonist is the strongest compared to all the Gao Gao series games. Characters serve the story purpose mostly, but they spend so much time with Koketsu that we get to know everyone very well. The gameplay elements are really annoying when encountered, but those get easier and easier as story goes on, so the impression gets balanced. Being PC-98 exclusive, game is not voiced and can feel monotonous at times and only for that it's not a perfect score.
    Protagonist: Koketsu is a normal student proficient in Kendo. And I can only admire how he manages to beat all kinds of beasts, demons and undead all by himself with his wooden sword! That kitten girl is absolutely useless in battle and strong allies join up quite late in the game. There are strategic retreats at times, but mostly he just beats crap out of anything! It's been a while since I encountered protagonist that strong. He's funny, cool and takes decisions himself. He reminds Wolfy from Gao Gao 3rd-4th a lot.
    Characters: I'm not really sure for transcription, but cat-girl is Miya. There is also childhood friend Minoru. Eventually a fox girl comes into stage and kunoichi Sasame comes out of coma, so we get quite a harem here! And most of enemies are girls, of course. What actually delighted me is that not every female enemy gets a H event unlike Gao Gao series. There are also numerous neutral/episodic female characters in the game, so there's not enough time to devote to separate heroines.

    Story: I absolutely liked the story since it was absolutely unpredictable and full of great enemies, battles and blood. There are so many civilians and enemies killed violently that Gao Gao does not come into comparison even remotely on the matter. I also liked that at some point story got some structure as heroes needed to get all three spiritual stones. So each of these spirit stones parts and next fighting parts have each a beautiful legend in the core. Some of those stories are even about our enemies which totally blasts. Since I divided the videos by structural parts, it's well worth to mention those when talking about the story, but without too many spoilers, of course. So Koketsu with Miya just gather information about Lilith from various sources and work out a course of actions in introduction. Then gathering of three spirit stones follows. And second half of the game is devoted to numerous encounters with old and new enemies. That's the gist of it, but there there is a lot of content for 11 hour story.
    CG: Relatively big number of CG, but as usual for Four-Nine, only HCG are full screen size. What I especially liked is that there aren't many H events in the game. And H content is filled by inserting many random H events that are peeped while investigating some locations. Quite a lot of H events with Koketsu are packed by the end of the game since he needed to restore a lot of energy and we know an absolutely best way to give an injured bleeding hero energy!
    Sound: About 10 tracks, but those are totally different and very nice non-mechanic. BGM really adds to the charm of the game. 
     

    Themes: 
    1) Lilith is the supposed first wife of biblical Adam, so religion has an important role in the game.

    Humor: I was surprised to see so much mild humor in the game. It's totally the Gao Gao type. Some cases that come to mind to get a taste of it:
    1) Christian priest says he studies Japanese culture and he already knows of ninja, geisha and hara-kiri!
    2) One heroine was found in the bushes and she just can't excuse Koketsu for stealing her first breast! As it turns out it's the the same thing as the first kiss, but about touching a breast.
    3) An exchange student is asked if she knows something about Lilith. It's a girl who went through a mirror to the wonderland (No, it's "Alice")! It's a game where you turn blocks and stick them together (No, it's "Tetris")! It's a fighting game between monsters where king is the mummy (No, it's "Anakaris")! It's shameful to say it as a girl, but it's what men have between the... (PLEASE STOP RIGHT THERE!)
    Overall comments: This is a masterpiece and the exact kind of hidden gem that I would like to find in visual novels. A rich event-driven story with very unusual, but appealing characters (most of characters are half-bests as in all the Four-Nine games). So why is it so obscure then? There are many versions: command selection gameplay, trap/puzzle sections, bad endings, slow start of the game. But I also blame December - there are so many visual novels issued each December that it's sometimes difficult to find the place in the top 10 and the rest are deprived of attention.

  11. Like
    1P1A reacted to MaggieROBOT for a blog entry, [Review] Togainu no Chi   
    Nitroplus sure is popular and there's always hype surrounding their games. Their imprint Nitro+CHIRAL receives the same treatment by the BL fanbase. And that was one of the reasons that I was afraid to approach their games. Overhype frequently kills anime and manga for me, and I believe that the more a media is popular, the more parroting we see instead of legitimate opinions, I can't even count the times I read reviews that, if you erased all positive adjectives, you ended up with nothing. Even so, I tried to play this game because its plot was genuinely interesting. Too bad it got so easily abandoned halfway through the game.
     

    Game's cover is more badass than the game itself

    Togainu no Chi, Nitro+CHIRAL's debut title released in 2005, tells the story of Akira, a champion in some turf war style game, that got falsely accused of a crime. Japan is in a pretty post apocalyptic state and its society is falling apart so he had almost no hope in ever clearing up the misunderstanding. Except a woman named Emma appears before Akira with a deal to free him. And for that, he have to enter another game, this time a battle royale, named Igura. Accepting the terms, Akira travel to the ruins of Tokyo, where Igura take place. The world building is well done and full of good ideas, that unfortunately falls flat when you reach the character routes. The game takes its time to explain all rules of Igura and show all of the weird quirks the game master added just for fun, just to gives us like two fights and then shift the focus of the plot to something else. Of the five routes, only one actually elaborate a bit more about Igura and that ended up being my favorite route. Of course, they tried to tie the Igura plot with the game's true plot, but the excuse they used still doesn't make Igura actually important for anything.
    This feeling of disconnection between the beginning and the later parts of the game was so strong that it almost made me want to try the game's trial. Like, the prologue had special portraits for characters that had only one scene worth of appearance (the game have three or so base NPC faces, but these guys are different), three completely useless character had sprites, there's a fighting sequence with some homeless people that acted like wild animals that's never explained or even mentioned again. I do wonder if the game was supposed to be one thing and because some development problems it became something else...
     

    Even Akira is sad with how the game turned out...
     
    Now for the characters. First we have Akira, the main character, and mostly a silent badass type of guy. Or that's what we expect him to be based on the prologue. For a said champion, he's overpowered way too easily by pretty much any character that cross paths with him. Add the fact that after 90% of said defeats his opponent states how pretty Akira is and how much he wants to rape him (of course, stating too that he doesn't care if he's a guy), and we have one of the most "damsel in distress" MC I ever saw. The thing he said the most in the entire VN is "let go!", seriously (his "hanaseyo!" just played in my mind). Sure, he accomplish some things by himself, but nothing end game tier. He just goes where the plot carries him, over and over again. And to make things worse, his development is tied to the fact that he should warm more to others and not to his uselessness in combat.
    Among our five heroes we have: Keisuke, the clingy childhood friend; Rin, an energetic shota; Motomi, a laid back older guy; Shiki, the edgelord that goes around killing guys with a katana and vanishing the next second; and Nano, a mysterious guy that says a lot of things that doesn't make much sense. We also have bad endings with Arbitro, a super eccentric guy, and his two bodyguards Gunji and Kiriwar, but they're pretty short and not really plot relevant. With the exception of Shiki, all of the others have some character growth. 
    Personally, I loved Rin's and Motomi's routes, since it developed well not only each character, but also the couple. You can see them growing up and moving on together. Keisuke is your typical childhood friend route, but his route have a twist that's sadly repeated in every single route, making his route completely pointless if you don't care too much about his character. Nano's route had a good start, but guess he was a bit too detached for a medium length game, so his development was way too rushed in the end. Shiki's route is a complete disaster that I'll talk about in the H-scene part of the review, because his route barely had anything else.
     

    "No love for an older guy, huh", Motomi thought, remembering how N+C put him out of view in the blowjob part of the h-scene...
     
    The h-scenes... sigh. There's eleven scenes in total, and only three aren't rape. And they aren't even dubious consent scenes, it's no consent whatsoever. And most of them are totally gratuitous. There are more routes than consensual h-scenes, so... you know what to expect. I could actually forgive such a ratio if this was some dark and dramatic story. It's not. It's the actually the same annoying BL cliché that plagues a lot of older works: rape turned love. Guy A forces himself on guy B (usually the MC) because "he can't express himself very well". But no worries, because the rapist liked the other guy all along. And the one raped can see beyond the abuse, guy A have other worthy qualities. And then, happy couple ending~ Aaaaw, can I vomit already? I mean, what? How can they even call that romance??? I know the game deals with some dark themes, so the least they could do is treat it with seriousness and not like some "cute" shipping material. Although this description here fits mostly Shiki (except one of his bad endings, that actually depicts some sort of mindbreaking), there's one more character that had a rape scene that came completely out of nowhere, for no real reason and it so happened to be the only h-scene of the route... My headcanon is that one of the "drugs" (drugs are never named in those media, huh?) they use actually turns them into rapists, but who knows the right answer.
    And when that's not the problem, we have the unnatural dialogue. "But we're both guys!", oh I didn't even noticed, thanks for telling me! "I don't like guys, it's just you!", he's a guy regardless, give up. "I don't care if you're a guy, you have a pretty face!" (actually this particular quote wasn't in a h-scene, but in a rape attempt scene) I thought that was the norm for BL MCs, how is that not gay? The game really goes out of its way to basically say "NO HOMO!" sometimes... There's so many turn off moments that only positive thing I can say about the h-scenes is that Akira's voice actor do an AMAZING job, one of the best h-scenes voice acting I heard.
     

    Nano!!! Please don't sleep!!! I swear Shiki's route is almost over!!!
     
    The art is nothing really special. The background can get a bit repetitive with so many gray tones, the CGs are good, better than the sprites, the usual stuff. The soundtrack on the other end is pretty good, enhancing various okay moments to something cool. It sets the mood just right, the song that plays in the bonding/emotional scenes in particular had such a lonely vibe, I liked it a lot. And the good ending song is so beautiful I constantly hear it (and I feel obligated to share it).
    And, because it's an old game, I had to add one more section to this review: technical stuff. It's a known fact that this game have some compatibility problems with windows 8.1 and 10. Back when I played it in windows 8.1, I had to do several "tricks" (compatibility mode with windows XP, put it in high priority in task manager) to unfreeze the game after loading a save file. I had to change the tricks (clicking in specific points in the screen, don't ask why) to play it in windows 10, but after some updates it's now completely unplayable for me. Some people had more luck and said tricks still works, others never had any problem, but are you feeling lucky? Nitro+CHIRAL released a new windows 10 compatible version, but, as you can guess, you can't use the english patch in this version.
    Another way to play this game is grab the all-ages PS2 version that even added a new route. Even then, I couldn't really bother with reading this again. It's storytelling is so outdated and filled with bad BL stereotypes. But unfortunately there's so few BL translated that this became some sort of mandatory reading.
  12. Confused
    1P1A reacted to Yuuko for a blog entry, Purpose of Life   
    Hello! Glad to see you reading this.
    Welcome to the Anti-Blonde blog! This is a blog where we hate on blonde girls because it is a bad hair color. So I thought I'd finally write my first blog post here after the Riddle Joker one. It is 1AM currently so don't expect quality.
     
    Today I went out with friends for the first time in maybe 2 years lul and there was this cute blonde girl who was so sweet and fun that I decided that I need to get my own one that I can hug and have sit on my lap. Uguu
     
    以上です
  13. Like
    1P1A reacted to Clephas for a blog entry, Changing views of localization   
    Yay, Clephas is contributing to a controversial topic in his blog!  *listens for the hisses and boos of his loving public*
    More seriously, I'm not out to bash fantranslators, localization companies, or anyone else involved with the process.  I've been on both sides (consumer and producer) and I can honestly say that I can see all four sides of the argument (the producer side, the negative consumer side, the neutral consumer side, and the positive consumer side).
    The Positive Consumer
    Based on my personal experience (beginning with jrpgs in the nineties), most people begin in this stage.  Honestly, I didn't know enough to figure out when things were badly translated, and as long as the lines weren't too out there (spoony bard, lol), it never really got to me.  There are plenty of people out here who remain in this stage forever, never taking interest one way or the other in the translation aspects of things... and that is perfectly natural.  Most Americans (if not people from other countries) are essentially linguistic bigots, and as a result, they won't care if things are wrong as long as they can't tell just by playing a game, reading a book, or enjoying an anime or film.
    The Negative Consumer
    Most people with at least some knowledge of Japanese end up in this stage at some point.  The reasons are manifold, but the biggest one is the 'literalist disease'.  Almost everyone who gets involved with translation or knows enough Japanese to nitpick is under a peculiar delusion... that 'Literal Japanese to English translation isn't an oxymoron'.  Unfortunately for their delusions, my personal experience and the experience of many others does not bear this particular one out. 
    Literalist translation is a delusion born of a misapprehension of the Rosetta Stone concept... basically because we can generally match up most words with their equivalents in our own languages given a decent reference point, that perfect translations are both possible and should be provided without hesitation by mechanical translators (often literally).  However, this ignores two major issues... the cultural basis for the formation of modern language's concepts and the difference in how the language is structured (grammar in other words). 
    This isn't the only reason for ending up in this stage... some people are in it because it makes them feel superior or they like trolling 'lesser beings' (I'm sure you know what I'm talking about).  Others simply disagree with the way the translation is handled or the usage of censorship.  There are innumerable reasons for ending up in this stage, and that is the reason why it is the single largest one in the 'experienced' community.
    The Neutral Consumer
    This is the smallest grouping... mostly because it pretty much demands that you have resolved to stop caring one way or the other about localization quality.  The most common reason to end up here is because you can play VNs, watch anime, and read manga/LNs without a localization, so the concept becomes irrelevant (or at least of less interest) to you.  Another is that you get tired of being trolled (or trolling yourself) and decide to shut off your emotions about it.  Last of all are the people who just want to 'spread the word' and don't really care about quality issues (people who are just happy VNs are getting localized).  Since a lot of this group don't even buy localizations except to 'support the cause', this group has a lot less invested in the arguments, overall.
    The Producer
    ... need I mention that being on this side sucks?  No matter how good a job you do, you get bashed by someone, and inevitably someone is going to decide to nitpick every one of your word choices.  Literalists will hate you for not doing exactly what they want, generalists will hate you for picking obscure/dead words from actual literary English (as opposed to spoken English) because the concepts involved are dead in modern English, and everyone else will hate you for censorship or because you are too slow. 
    While you get combative people or apologetic people from this side every once in a while, most just stop paying attention to the noise, for the sake of their mental health. 
     
  14. Like
    1P1A reacted to Clephas for a blog entry, A List: Chuunige likely to sell in the West   
    Understand, chuunige mostly appeal to a very core fanbase.  The style, the fact that they don't translate well, and the fact that most of the action/story is so 'out there' makes the games unapproachable.  The sheer amount of text means that localization costs are through the roof, which makes things worse, of course. 
    I'm being realistic, ignoring my inner fanboy who screams everybody should love chuunige because charage suck in comparison.  However, that is the flat-out truth. 
    So, I decided to make a list of chuunige I believe would sell in the west/appeal more to the western brain... and not just the core fanbase.  I have these ordered by the most likely to the least.
    1.  Bullet Butlers- I say Bullet Butlers is the most accessible precisely because it uses a lot of elements that Western audiences can easily grasp without having to be 'deep' into otaku media.  Zombies, elves, dragons, and orcs.  Firearms as the most common weapon type, superviolence, and a film noir atmosphere to a great deal of the game.  If I were to name one chuunige that has the potential to be a hit (by VN standards), if properly advertised, it is this one.
    2.  Draculius- If I were to name a sort-of chuunige that is accessible to people that don't particularly like chuunige, this would be it.  If you liked the best parts of Libra and hated the rest, you'll probably like this game.  It has aged somewhat, but the characters are unique, the story is excellent, and the humor is recognizable on both sides of the ocean. 
    3.  Hello, Lady- Yes, I went there.  If you can enjoy Narita Shinri, you will like this game, regardless of your genre preference.  Narita Shinri is a protagonist who will earn as many haters as he does lovers, and there won't be that much room in between.  However, his story is very much one that is visceral and easily comprehensible for any human who has lost someone they loved.
    4.  Shinigami no Testament- 3rdEye's chuunige are accessible.  I could put any chuunige by that company in this spot other than Bloody Rondo and say that it has the same potential for success.  Even Bloody Rondo does have some appeal outside its genre (in fact, it probably has more, lol).  3rdEye is a company that I can use to brainwash newbies without overwhelming them, which is why I was happy when Sorcery Jokers got localized, lol.
    5.  Gekkou no Carnevale- I can guarantee someone is going to ask why I didn't mention any other Nitroplus game besides this one.  However, the themes in this game are very Western, for the most part... and werewolves and murder are always guaranteed to catch the interest of a certain (surprisingly large) crowd over here.  Put in living dolls and mafia connections as well, and you have a recipe for success. 
    I actually thought of naming some others, but when I seriously thought about it, the hurdles for a Westerner and non-chuunige addict for playing those were just too high.   Anything Bakumatsu is going to be translated poorly, so Last Cavalier is out.  Evolimit has potential, but I thought BB is more likely to catch hold of westerners who aren't already part of the scene.  Anything like Dies Irae is almost guaranteed to flop if it isn't 100% crowd-funded (as in, all costs paid for by the crowd-funding), so Bradyon Veda and the Silverio series are out.  Vermilion has similar problems.  Muramasa suffers from swordsmanship infodumping that will probably cause the average reader's brain to go numb early on.  Tokyo Necro has zombies, but the chances of people actually getting past the prologue are relatively low, despite the coolness of the story and setting.  Izuna Zanshinken has enormous potential in the US, because of the style and the themes it tackles, but its episodic 'feeling' is a huge negative for some of us... 
  15. Like
    1P1A reacted to Clephas for a blog entry, Releasing VNs in pieces   
    First, I should say that I disapprove of releasing visual novels in pieces.  I'm perfectly willing to wait three or four years for a good story, but I hate nothing more than being interrupted in the middle and having to wait another year for the next one. 
    The habit of releasing VNs in chapters was a vice mostly restricted to doujin VNs in the past.  The more obvious reasons are people like me who hate having their stories interrupted, the previous dominance of physical media, and other issues.  However, as digital releases have become more common, companies have begun to try to find ways to suck more blood out of their readers without investing as much money.  The result has been a rash of fragmentary game releases, like Corona Blossom, Grisaia Phantom Trigger, and the Uso series by Campus.
    Now, while I used them as an example, those are mostly positive examples.  All three constructed their 'pieces' so they could stand on their own.  Phantom Trigger takes an episodic approach, making each entry feel like an anime episode in a series or a novel in a series that does a good job of concluding the events of each entry, so that you don't become desperate waiting for the next.  The Uso series by Campus made each entry so that it stood on its own without needing previous knowledge of the other entries, despite their interlinked setting and characters.  These are probably the two best ways to approach micro-releasing VN stories... but in both cases, I would actually much prefer to read all the chapters at once, lol.
    I say I hate micro-releases, but that is because I see VNs as game hybrids.  For me, I only want to invest money in a game once.  I hate subscriptions, I hate microtransactions, and I absolutely despise random additional (paying) content.  I can justify buying a season pass along with the game itself, but that is because it is a one-time transaction that gets me everything without having to concern myself with continuous pushing of bits and pieces of essentially worthless digital merchandise.
    In other words, I hate that this has become more common because I instinctively fear the day when some 'brilliant genius' manages to incorporate true microtransactions into a pure VN.
     
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