adamstan

Aaand... finished The story is nice, even though it seems a bit like "the best of" compilation album from different "summer & island" nakiges - I saw familiar tropes from things like Summer Pockets, Natsuzora Kanata or AIR, but nevertheless liked it. However I feel like the writing and pacing is a bit too messy, with constant flashbacks, visions and jumps - especially in later chapters, which somewhat weakens the emotional punch of some scenes/arcs. Still had decent amount of tearjerkers, so I won't complain too much But the script would definitely benefit from a few more clean-up iterations Art is good, characters likeable, and the music is great. All in all, I think it gets an 8 from me

I'm late to the party again, but I just started playing GINKA. (I found pretty good deal on DLSite - weak JPY combined with some discount coupon that I had meant that it was 40% off compared to Steam price) It looks great, and after two hours it seems to be ticking almost all the boxes for me It seems to be the VN that could be put on a shelf next to Natsuzora Kanata and Summer Pockets, both of which I loved. (I haven't read ISLAND yet...) PS For my first playthrough I'm going to read in Japanese. Then perhaps I will check out the translation afterwards.

Yesterday I finished You & I. It was much better than I expected. Even though it was very generic school-slice-of-life charage, somehow it turned out to be quite enjoyable. Also, I guess back then in 1999 all those cliches weren't as clichey as today - 25 years later The premise is simple - the protagonist missed few weeks of school because of traffic accident (he got hit by a car). He returns to school at the beginning of June, and there he meets (and possibly falls in love) with heroines - the game takes place over one month (and few days). There's no bigger overarching plot or story* - like elections in Princess Evangile or gliders in Konosora - just school slice of life. Sometimes MC complains that everything feels a bit unreal to him, like he was seeing a dream, but is there more to it? You can definitely sense strong dating sim roots here - but it is IMO handled much better than, for example, first White Album which bored me to the point of dropping it. Here there are no "generic" repeatable scenes, and there's no map movement (yay!). However the common route is very long - basically the whole June is common route, and then there are relatively short endings. And there's insane amount of choices - well over 100 . I noticed is that many scenes in common route play out differently depending on your relatonship level with given heroine - there might be additional text, CG or different set of choices. Nice attention to detail. *except in Sayaka's route. Heroines are quite likeable, there's also usual funny MC's male friend - here he's named Fujita, and is class' president. Your usual Sunohara type - although he predates Sunohara . He reminded me of Makoto from Sakura no Kisetsu (which was also done by Tiare). I started with Misaki's route. Class' vice-president, very friendly, gentle, caring and hard working girl. She seems to have crush on the MC right from the beginning. Her route is nice (if a bit naive) "first love" story. I also think that her H-scene was quite nicely and tactfuly written (for an old eroge). Haruka is Misaki's best friend, and has very different personality. She's very energetic, with some tsundere vibes. Keeps "fighting" with Fujita. Her route was a bit weird.. Asaki - quiet, mysterious girl. Her story has some nice twists and plays a bit with the reader and setting (let's just say that to enter the route you need a specific item - a book titled "The Existence of Parallel Dimensions"). And I really loved her ending. Here I also encountered first weirdness of this game's system. In addition to making right choices in the common route, you have to select right prologue when starting new game (there are two) and make right choices there as well. Otherwise the route ends prematurely right after the H-scene - that's really cruel Megumi - shy, introverted girl, member of library committee. Her route has the most drama. Miyu senpai - an idol with pretty zealous fan-club of self-proclaimed bodyguards in school. I quite liked her scenes in common route, but her ending was rather disappointing And finally there's Sayaka - MC's little sister I spent over 10 hours of constant replays trying to get this route! And let me tell you - it's almost impossible without walkthrough. There's even a review over on EGS where someone complains that they couldn't get that route. And there's no walkthrough available on any of the usual sites, like seiya-saiga or sagaoz. I finally found one on some archived page from 2001. And yeah - many choices were rather counterintuitive. Basically it seems like instead of focusing only on Sayaka, you have to keep balanced "relationship score" between all heroines, and cannot neglect anyone, at least in the first half of comon route. However the route was interesting, and quite meta. (Heavy spoilers below) I briefly mentioned that when talking about Misaki's route, but generally I liked H-scenes in this VN. There's only one relatively short scene for each heroine, and I think they are quite tactfuly written, especially for old eroge. Of course there are some usual cliches, but nevertheless it doesn't feel like characters got entirely replaced by their porn stunt doubles. They're having sex, not acting out an JAV scenario - which was my main complaint towards many H-scenes in VNs, and what steered me towards console/all-ages editions Also, for each route we get very nice "pillow talk"/"morning after" scene Just have a look at this Misaki's morning CG: Now for the downsides. This VN is pretty bad when it comes to engine/QoL side. With this insane amount of choices, and one very difficult to get route, you get no backlog only unconditional skip mode only 9(!) save slots, and loading a save always rewinds to the beginning of the scene no keyboard support at all There were also some typo's / editing errors (like repeated words or characters) here and there. Also, the game is only partially voiced. Basically, common route is unvoiced, except for one scene (for each heroine) during sports festival. And only main heroines are voiced. The voices themselves aren't great, but that's quite old title, so I guess it can be forgiven. The music was nice. Considering all of the above - on one hand, quite enjoyable content, but on the other - tedious gameplay, I rated this VN at 7/10 And now, can someone tell me WTH am I writing this wall of text about an obscure 25 years old moege nobody will ever play? Also, for posterity - Here's the walkthrough

I forgot to report, that I finished Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai (console version - including spinoff and FD) around a week ago Overally it was very enjoyable read. With 40 endings and 90k lines it took some time, but I almost never felt bored - this VN created nice environment, where it was just enjoyable to spend time with the characters. Yeah, after finishing whole game I stand by that opinion I also still find the amount of event CGs not enough - but that's a minor gripe. As for "True routes", I think the naming might be a bit misleading. There is just one true route, and main heroine of that route is Nagi - but it also has optional branches for other girls. However, I'd treat that as an extra, since those endings aren't as fleshed out as the "normal" routes for the girls. I'd also like to mention the console-exclusive route for new character - Kingyo. It was great, among the best routes in the whole game That's the second (or even third) time I encountered that phenomenon - the other one being Wakaba's route from Tenshin Ranman, (and perhaps also Chihiro from Kono Aozora ni Yakusoku o). FanDisc provides very nice supplement for each heroine. And spinoff Houkago Shippo Days is just a nice short mini-VN in the same setting. Nothing great, but I liked it nevertheless. ********************************************************** And currently I'm reading perhaps the most random VN so far - You & I. It's the last title by JAST/Tiare (best known for Sakura no Kisetsu, Meisou Toshi etc). It's also their first VN that ditched the command-based adventure game system, and went with Ikura GDL engine (Crescendo, Kazoku Keikaku, Yukizakura etc). This title got released in June 1999, so it's as old as Kanon. But the writing is more in-line with Sakura no Kisetsu So far it seems to be very generic old-school charage, but for some weird reason I'm enjoying it

That was a pretty good one from what I remember. Have fun I'm currently somewhere in the middle of reading Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai untranslated Switch version. I finished all "normal" routes for main and side heroines, and I'm now on first of the "true" routes - Kodachi's. So far I'm loving it Lots of humor and feel-good moments, nice dynamics between characters - and all spiced with just the right amount of drama. I only wish it had more CGs, since there aren't too many - or perhaps they were saving them up for "true routes"? We'll see.

During April and first half of May I went to Japan again. This time I bought less games than last year - only 3 PS2 VNs However I brought back much more music in analog formats - 12 records and 8 cassettes, I also got a cute portable tape recorder from 1968:

No, it isn't dead yet I will finish it someday, although have to admit - currently it's stalled.

How they hell did they put this on Steam? https://store.steampowered.com/app/2781750/Sisters_Last_Day_of_Summer/ I know that I complained in my review about turning promising nakige into nukige, but at the same time I find it hard to imagine the working all-ages edition of this title - too much of the screen time in the original has been devoted to H content, at the expense of other parts. I guess it will be meant solely to be used together with the supposedly incoming +18 patch available at JAST OTOH you could safely skip all H-scenes, and the story (or whatever remained of it) wouldn't suffer - so maybe the Steam version will work after all. It's just that in such case the already short game becomes even shorter.

I already read the fan-TL (while disabling the horrible h scenes) and have japanese Memorial Edition in a box, but I look forward to this Steam release. Having it officially released in HD, with voices and multi language support is great. (It seems that it's goint to be a port of 2023 Switch version)

I haven't made any progress with WHITE ALBUM since my last post in autumn, so I think it's pretty safe to say that I don't feel like finishing it Therefore I decided to Switch to Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai ~Library Party~

FWIW, it turned out to be "My Most Dissappointing VN of 2019" Let me quote myself It's nice when seen as an interactive hentai movie, but IMO falls somewhat short as a VN... I'd say that Lovers ~Koi ni Ochitara...~ from the same developer was better, even though only H-scenes were animated in it. But those were one of the best looking animated h-scenes I've ever seen in a (2D) VN. Hand drawn FTW!

It's a pity that Steam verson doesn't include japanese text I also wonder if they include additional scenes from PSP version - some of those were really good. If somebody (Palette?) did FHD PC port of whole PSP version (including Yutsuki's route and all extra scenes), I'd buy that in a heartbeat, but as it is now, this Shiravune release is a pass for me. (I own physical PSP edition) (Although I have to admit that AFAIR h-scenes in this VN were not bad, and quite tasteful - except for Miu's route ) Oh well, let's hope the TL is decent, so english-reading audience can experience this great title

I read it back in 2021, and I think it falls on the easier side language-wise. The only thing that threw me off sometimes were background male characters - they have no sprites and are unvoiced, so there were moments when I had to stop for a moment and check, if the line I'm currently reading is a dialogue or narration If you managed with H2O, I think it will be no problem. I loved this VN, and wholeheartedly recommend it. However I didn't like the h-scenes in it, so I prefer the PS3 version. It features additional route, which IMO more than makes up for those meh sex scenes - but of course YMMV

Thanks - I'll check it out when it goes on some kind of sale (Steam Winter Sale perhaps?) - full price is too much for me (I guess it's still too "new" game for price drop).

Yay! finally it's here There release is scheduled for tomorrow - 2023-10-26 on DLSite, DMM and Steam. And, like ATRI, it will be multi-language release. Description from Steam page: