adamstan

Makes sense to me. I'll go ahead an unpin it, and we'll see how that goes. I doubt it would get buried fast anyways rn with the... lack of activity in other threads.

Hi,
I think that getting the WAYR thread pinned actually hurts its visibility and traffic - since it alway stays in the same place, between announcements, it's easy to overlook it. Ironically, forum users often seem to pay less attention to the pinned threads - they kind of fade into the background.
So I'd like that thread to be returned to a "normal" thread status.
(Even though I'm not sure if it helps anything with current overall traffic situation...)

I'm done with Clover Days. That was fun. Very cutesy.

I once asked ChatGPT to write me a short story. It was very bland. Honestly, it wasn't even a story in the usual sense of this world, it felt more like a bad retelling. However, when I read it, I suddenly realized that I had played several human-made VNs whose stories were even worse.

So, Bokuten. Had to pause playing for a few weeks, since I was either on a trip or busy, but I'm mostly done with Minamo's route. There's still the second ending left, but I doubt it changes much. And, well...
The common route was truly amazing. Honestly, compared to many other vns where it's just a complete filler, here each chapter of the common route tells its own complete story, and I believe it's a very good idea. Minamo's route, however, is simply boring. Honestly, it's just your cliche VN stuff without much substance. These types of stories is exactly why I don't really play many VNs anymore. I'd usually recommend to skip this route, but the true route is locked before you finish everything else, so it's not an option.

I am currently in the middle of PSVita version of Ano Ko wa Ore kara Hanarenai and it's a bit disappoiting So far I finished 3 out of 5 routes - I'm going in the order the girls are listed at choice screen, so I've already read Yuzuki, Manami and Haruka's routes. Console version gives not-so-subtle hint about Yuzuki being main heroine, since only her route gives gold trophy, with all others being silver And I think I'm glad I did her route first. It was decent, and common route was quite funny. But then, when reading Manami's route the things started to feel quite repetitive, and the SoL in this game isn't strong enough to carry it - they're no ToneWorks, that's for sure. But at least this route had a bit of a plot.
However Haruka's route that I finished yesterday was really awfuly bland, and when it ended I was like "Wait, that's it?". I checked against PC version, and it seems that this game is one of those borderline-nukige-moeges, with the main focus being on H-scenes (four per heroine, and the routes aren't long). And it became obvious in Haruka's route, which in console version has almost no meaningful content left 😕 GIGA went really cheap on this game - providing no extra content for console version at all. It's even bigger disappointment compared to how brilliant all-ages versions of Chocolat, Parfait and Kono Aozora ni Yakusoku o were. (But then, those three are written by Maruto, so I guess they're different league )
I don't remember now, if  Aonatsu Line had additional content, but it had good enough story, that stood on its own without H content.
I'll read two remaining routes, but I start to regret buying this VN 😕 At least I didn't pay too much, since I got it on some sale But if main body of GIGA's moege output was as bland as this title, then it's no wonder they folded 😕

So, I guess I'm almost done with Bokuten common route. Well, that was something. Quite often, even in good VNs, common routes feel like a waste of time. I like SOL when it serves a purpose in the story, but I hate it when it's used as useless filler. However, the common route in Bokuten is nothing like that. Basically, every chapter tells its own finished story. And the choices it gives are often pretty difficult. Almost every option comes don't to whether you let a couple of lovers fall apart or let them come together despite all the complications it will bring them. I decided to follow a walkthrough since there seems to be a recommended route order, but now I wonder which route I'd end up at if I chose what I believed was right.

Well, I tried not to read them in too much detail since I didn't want to be spoiled. It's entirely possible that things will go in the wrong direction later, and it totally happens with VNs sometimes. Hapymaher, for example, had excellent first few chapters, but later things got very weird. However, so far the writing in Bokuten seems pretty good, and while it does feel a bit cheesy from time to time, I can kind of relate to the characters. And the MC seems pretty good, which is rare for VNs. I think some people may find him annoying, but I somewhat understand where he's coming from. And yeah, he's quite obviously severely depressed.
So, I guess, I'll try not to have too big expectations, but I hope everything turns out well.

According to the localisation staffs, the route order are Minamo, Yuri, and Naruko before finally proceeding to Aine's route (aka the true route). As for using walkthrough, the choices are simple enough, although you may as well check the spoiler free walkthrough if you want to be sure.
For Bokuten, well, to me one of the route is like soap opera. Still, have fun on playing Bokuten if you didn't mind some sad story.

I feel like it's been twelve thousand years since I posted in this thread. So, I started reading Bokuten, and I hope I finish it. Actually, it's stupid that the last full-length VN I finished was in 2020. I started quite a few since then but lacked the motivation to continue.
So, does anyone know if there is some recommended route order in Bokuten? And should I use a walkthrough? I generally prefer to avoid using it, but there are some cases when necessary.

I've red a handful of VNs over the past few months but never got around to really doing one of my usual misc. thoughts/comments 😅
A Clockwork Ley-Line: good if you're still into SoL high school setting, except make it in a magic school setting. There's not really heavy emphasis on the magic itself ie. no classroom infodumps about magic and/or students learning about magic and battling each other sorcerer vs witches style, just mainly protagonist Koga Michiru and friends from the Bureau of Investigation club running around trying to capture rogue magical artifacts that cause supernatural shenanigans to occur in the school, with an overarching mystery regarding the school itself. Trilogy, so you have plenty of time to get attached to the cast and watch the blossoming romance between Michiru and main heroine Shishigatani Ushio. Now that I think about it, I actually didn't finish this lol, stopped early on in the last episode because life so I'll pick it up #soon. 7/10

"Ya, the Bureau totally works for the sake of the school and aren't a part of any sketchy conspiracies "
 
Corpse Factory: randomly tried this OELVN, yes you read that right OEL, ENGLISH VN, and surprisingly had a pretty good time with it. The English voice cast was decent enough that I actually listened to most of the lines fully instead of my usual half-listen-but-then-move-onto-next-line-before-audio-finishes for regular JVNs. Plot was alright, was mostly intrigued by the characters themselves and how messed up in the head they can be. 8/10.

"Yeah... I've never actually watched DEATH NOTE (i know, blasphemy, sue me), but I'd imagine there's some inspiration taken from it..?"
 
Process of Elimination: The Detective Alliance consists of 100 super detectives that have a particular special ability and they are trying to capture "The Quartering Duke" a criminal mastermind who's been on a killing spree. 14 of the detectives get isolated trapped at their very own Detective Alliance Headquarters, murders start happening, and chances are the mastermind is among the 14...Yup it's a Danganronpa offbrand isolated murder mystery setting type with a quirky cast each with specializations, but hey you have technically 14 Ultimate Detectives this time around so how hard could it be to find out who's the mastermind ?
The "investigation" and eureka! segments are played out as strategy RPG gameplay where you turn based move characters to points of interest and analyze evidence. Not as flashy as Danganronpa's classroom trials, and overall most of the murders and cases are pretty meh and ultimately the confrontation with the big bad totally falls flat and totally cannot hold a candle to Danganronpa's Hope vs Despair shenanigans, but it was fun enough. 7/10

"^This here's 'Ideal Detective', and yeah, they totally made her such an ideal type lol. Btw the protagonist is known as 'Incompetent Detective'"
 
Umineko: When the Seagulls Cry: Sigh, yes, I finally got around to reading the masterpiece that is Umineko. I red someone say that Umineko's mass 10/10 ratings is from survivor bias- this thing is LONG, like probably the longest VN I've ever read, and took me like 1-1.5months on and off casual reading to take down lol. The 75hr length estimate on VNDB is no joke. And that's just for Ep 1-4, with 5-8 also being another 70+hr estimate!!! And so the people that did manage to finish were the ones that thoroughly enjoyed and thus were able to make it to the end.
Umineko's very good. Especially for its time. It's basically a murder mystery with an emphasis on battle of wits on whether it was done via a witch/supernatural or whether everything could be logic'd out and the culprit was human with realistic methods. It unfortunately kinda... devolves and drags later on, but I enjoyed my time with it. 8/10
"^If you don't get absolutely hooked on this VN by the time you reach the end of Episode One and hear this BGM, just drop the VN."
 
Master Detective Archives: Rain Code. Spike Chunsoft's latest Danganronpa x Al: Somnium Files had a baby. Technically not a pure VN since they have enough adventure game aspects so this game got the Zero Time Dilemma treatment on VNDB but yeah. 

"If you enjoyed Danganronpa's Classroom Trials this game implements some of that, and if you enjoyed Al Somnium Files' quirky female companion or the Somniums this game also implements some of that via Shinigami and the Mystery Labyrinths. Play it."
 

I'm feeling strong urge to reread Princess Evangile once again - that would make it fourth time 😮 It was neither the first or the best VN I've read, but I feel some strange connection to it - it became my "Comfort VN"
Welcome to the club
BTW another confession - one of vndb mods started to add "Censored Edition" to the titles of many all-ages Steam releases (like Aokana). I really don't know why it bothers me so much, but I got quite upset about it

Confession. To be honest, I don't even know why I still visit this forum, since it's been quite a while since I actually finished a VN. Well, I still hope I'll return to them eventually. I think I'll stick to all-ages versions though.

Because we're cool and there are more and more cool all-ages titles you can play

Good question. Unfortunately the correct answer is
 

I'm playing Atri:my dear moments(though today is 2023/6/22)

Yeah, definitely skillful. I guess whisper-singing is not my thing, if used as a default mode And yeah, she definitely has quite "non-japanese" sound. My problem is that I actually like that "sameness" of japanese pop - their "vintage"/old fashioned melodies and chord progressions, that make it stand out from the modern mainstream euro or US scene.

Aye, she definitely has a very specific sound/vibe she's going for, but I found it admirable how much it stands out when even the better parts of Japanese indie pop are usually very samey. The sound and her whisper-singing could be annoying to some ears, but it's surprisingly skillful for someone this young.
 
Oh, and while I'm chain posting, why not drop another underrated thing ;]
 
 
 

Interesting. Perhaps a bit too, how to say it..."cold"... for my usual taste, but neverheless interesting and well played  

This girl's compositions and arrangements got me pretty mesmerized lately~
 
 

Man... I've been away from this thread for so long...
Little update: I finally bought a Steam Deck! I was torn between that or the Switch, but I own all my games on my Steam account haha
I'm almost finished with Steins;Gate , but I'm waaay too lazy to write on each route asjhbdaswvd
Let's just say Suzuha's ending was the one I found the most interesting.
I finished Mayuri's ending today and next week I will read Kurisu's route. Phew! Finally one "classic" scratched from the big list!
I'm not forcing myself to read it, and I'm really enjoying it!

I've been playing Dies irae which I wanted to finish during this month, but some parts honestly give me a splitting headache to read so I've also started White Album 2 in the meantime to clear my head a bit. Not really fond of the fact that the text isn't completely enclosed though. Plus the full blown conversations going on in the background are kinda distracting. 
 

Just want to get two VN's off my list I didn't like too much and therefore dropped.

The first is Kin'iro Loveriche - a story about a boy accidentally ending up in a noble private academy for rich kids. Felt a bit like a poor man's Yuzusoft VN. Not the worst thing to be compared with, but the VN has a few peculiarities which I found rather off-putting. First, the protagonist is lazy, dumb and perverse, which made the whole heroine cast fawning over him rather unbelievable. Carrying tons of porn magazines around, drawing nude girls in lessons instead of studying and 'enlighten' his comrades about new fetishes on a daily base like a pimp. And not to mention the running gag going on about his countless hardcore sex fetishes - you get the picture!
That said, I wouldn't go so far to say that he's a bad guy, and his interactions with Ria in particular were almost mature and well above the rest. Unfortunately, besides Ria the rest of the cast was pretty generic. I played Elle's route, which was trash, with no chemistry whatsoever between the two and little to no plot. I also tried Sylvia's route, but almost died of boredom and Sylvia's absolutely bland personality didn't help either. And I found Reina's 'I'm more lude than you' attitude pretty annoying, so I just skipped it. Maybe Ria's would have been better, but it just wasn't worth having to go through all the other routes, just to 'maybe' get a decent route. Besides Ria, I had an odd liking for Akane, but she didn't seem ready for a relationship yet and especially not with the protagonist.
Though to be fair, it's not the worst moege you can play and I've certainly played worse. However, this VN had a strong 'lude & cute' vibe going on, which I simply found unfitting and tasteless. Just not my cup of tea.
Heroine ranking: Ria > Akane > Don't care
Overall rating 5/10

I also played Amatsutsumi, but didn't like it. First, from the three Purplesoft VN's I've played so far, this was certainly the most boring one by far, with absolutely nothing happening whatsover. But well, a VN can still get decent without much plot if it offers at least good romance. However, the protagonist was apparently taken straight out of a nukige. Pretty much a walking boner who barely thinks about anything else than sex and seems to think that the world is his personal brothel. He therefore bangs all the heroines already in the common route - who needs a romance anyway? Ironically, the VN would have been way better if it would have been at least honest enough to fully commit to a nukige. Instead it tried an inbetween ride with the most misplaced and unfitting H-scenes you can imagine. Kinda "Oh I'm so down and depressed - let's f*ck?!" cringe.
I also found the character designs - with the exception of Mana maybe - rather bland in comparison to previous works, with HapyMaher in particular standing out with an incredible audio-visual design. Though, to be fair, the visual effects of many backgrounds (usually involving water) in this VN are off the charts.
While all PurpleSoft VN's I have read so far had their issues, they at least got the basics of romance right. This VN fails even at that. So yeah, if that's the future of PurpleSoft VN's, it'll be a future without me.
Heroine ranking: Don't care
Overall rating: 3/10 (I added one bonus point for the visual effects)

Servers was down for awhile. some things happend. but solved for now 🙂

If we're at it, I strongly recommend Amber Quartz (it was made by NekoNeko Soft's offspring - Cotton Soft).