alpacaman
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Posts posted by alpacaman
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Haven't read any of these, but Steam Prison's main villain (?) is called Sachsen Brandenburg, which is the German equivalent of calling a character Wyoming Nebraska, making it the obvious choice.
- Silvz, Plk_Lesiak and lunaterra
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I'm not talking about stuff like tsunderes, amnesiac protagonists or baseball scenes. It's more about the way the VNs handles world building, portraying character arcs and working them into the story. There is a reason these are handled the way they are in most titles, and it's not that easy to change major parts of the formula without everything becoming a huge mess.
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I'm close to finishing rereading VA-11 HALL-A. While thinking about a few storytelling tropes that tend to annoy me in VNs I remembered how clever it was at avoiding them. Which I wasn't even aware of the time I first read it as it was one of the first VNs I played. So I thought it would be interesting to check it out again after having become more genre-aware. I might like it even more now than I did before.
Other than that I have only reread titles with major gameplay elements like the Danganronpa and Zero Escape series so far.
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Spoiler
Marimo's death scene
in MuvLuv Alternative still is my favorite holy-sh*t moment in any VN.
On the lighter side I'm glad I witnessed the Goat-kun scene in Umineko because it comes out of nowhere, adds nothing to the plot, doesn't fit the tone of the story, is incredibly silly, and absolutely amazing. Which is common knowledge in boxing.
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Just now, Frullo NDE said:
This. Reviews or analysis of single VNs are fine, but I would love to see more in-depth articles about VNs as a medium.
If you search the blog section, there are a a few interesting older ones (especially those by Palas imo), but recently there has been very little content in that regard. I'm thinking about starting one myself, but I'm not really an expert on these things and tend to struggle with keeping up my motivation up for long term projects. Right now I'm trying to rearrange my loose thoughts on weak protagonists into a cohesive text.
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I'd love to see some more in-depth critique and analysis of VNs in general, be it about themes in certain titles, storytelling techniques, common tropes and genres, and so on.
- Chronopolis and Frullo NDE
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Umineko.
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Yup, I'll DM you a gift link.
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40 minutes ago, Trickay said:
I took the plunge for Clannad and G-Senjou no Maou, but the Sunrider 'sims' look interesting too.
I've been told I won't be missing much with all ages version of G-Senjou no Maou, that true?
As far as I remember, the H-scenes don't add that much to the plot. Well, technically one of them does but the all ages version gives you all the information you need to follow the plot.
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In case you missed it, there is a Humble Bundle containing mostly visual novels on sale right now. For a total of 15$ you can Clannad, the voiced edition of G-Senjou no Maou, two Sunrider titles, and several EVNs like the yuri title Highway Blossoms (which you can get for just 1$). Everyone paying at least 10$ also gets 20% off National Park Girls and Heart of the Woods. Also includes a weird looking game called Genital Jousting.
I already own most titles but will probably go for the 10$ for Ladykiller in a Bind and Purrfect Date as well as the Heart of the Woods coupon. I'd be willing to gift the other titles to anyone who asks nicely (including Genital Jousting!) although just one game per person if interest is high enough.
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My favourite VN (Umineko) doesn't have any routes, but now I want to know what the Erika route in a dating-sim spin-off would be like. Probably quite BDSM-heavy and completely insane.
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True, but are endings without any hope that common outside of stories where them being mean spirited is the point? Even in something like Narcissu the main characters get at least a little bit of positivity out of the things they go through.
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Spoiler
It's not like anyone can just shut off their senses or physical responses to stimuli. If that's reason enough for you not to read MLA, I can't force you to. I can just tell you that all the things you mentioned keeping you from reading it are handled and explained properly in the story.
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Spoiler
She enjoyed the rape only because of the physical stimulation, not because she's secretly into tentacles. She is still heavily traumatized by it, if that makes you feel any better.
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Of course an ending can be fitting or unfitting for a theme. When a story is about the protagonist learning how to grapple with the loss of a loved one, bringing back the loved one at the end makes his whole arc pointless.
The most important thing for an ending imo is that it fits the arcs of the plot and the characters. If every character learns an important lesson and becomes a better person, I'm totally fine with them getting a happy ending, as long as the character development feels earned and the VN doesn't force you to suspend your disbelief much more than it did before that point.
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8 hours ago, Stormwolf said:
Hmm, romance or not, protagonist feeling like she's not part of the plot is not a good sign that :/ what's the point of a protagonist if he/she is redundant in the story?
It's like having an Indiana Jones movie where he is sidelined the entire movie. Would be terrible. Point is, the story belongs to the protagonist, otherwise it's best to tell the story from an outside perspective (not sure how to explain this) or jump between the characters the writers give a crap about as the story goes.
It's completely common in fictional media to have a protagonist who isn't the focus of the story. Most comedies have a straight man character as protagonist who gets thrown into other peoples shenanigans. Detectives in crime stories usually aren't the center of attention. Mad Max in Fury Road just happens to tumble into someone else's story. It seems to be even more common in Japanese media (which is one of the reasons I like VNs). The protagonist's role in these stories is mainly to be the perspective the reader or viewer witnesses the story through. That's why so many VNs with character routes have weak protagonists. If the protagonist just went along and solved everyone else's problems the heroines' routes wouldn't be very interesting most of the time. If you just switched to a character's perspectives once you enter their arc the story would feel very disjointed, which is why it's usually only used for short sequences or in fandiscs. It can make a lot of sense to have the protagonist mainly be a spectator depending on what kind of story you want to tell. Which isn't to say they shouldn't have a personality or their own arcs.
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The Danganronpa series, the Zero Escape series and euphoria come to mind. Umineko follows this premise to some degree, but I guess it's probably not really what you're looking for (although I still highly recommend reading it).
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I have played it using the walkthrough in this forum and can't remember it ever being wrong or missing something.
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5 hours ago, namiultedjapanXD said:
To slow down the growth of my growing depression. Ironically sometimes they make me feel worse. Those are always fun.
I started to really get into VNs when my depression was at its worst. But even dark stories usually make me feel better as they at least evoke an emotional response.
The reason I read VNs is a different one though. I like reading, but need auditory stimuli to really concentrate, so VNs are the perfect compromise between those two things.
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16 minutes ago, Seraphim88 said:
Shouldn't an AI be able to learn proper grammar, use of context and whatnot? It might not be on the table right now for everyday consumers, but I feel like it's something that could really revolutionize translation processes in the near future.
There are already programs like DeepL that are very good at this, just not for Japanese to English, as far as I'm aware.
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Read and finished Fatal Twelve over the last couple of days. I really liked it. Building a Battle Royale scenario around the regrets of people who already died, despite being not exactly revolutionary, is an interesting spin on the genre, allowing the storytelling to focus on the characters instead of action and suspense (although there still is plenty of both). And the characters (at least the ones that make it beyond the first few rounds) really are Fatal Twelve's strong suit, especially the ones who are framed as villains at the beginning. I wasn't that much into the love interest, but I think that's due to personal tastes and not bad writing.
The only weak part in FT is its final act, which is too reliant on info-dumping and deus-ex-machinas. But it's not that long anyways, so I don't care that much.
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So I read Aviary Attorney, and basically it's Ace Attorney with BoJack Horseman's sense of humor and a pretty unique art style set in France in 1848. The gameplay mainly focuses on the investigations and not the actual trials. Aviary Attorney's shortness is its main flaw (Ace A has cases that are longer than all of Aviary A), leaving little time for character development and even most major characters are pretty flat. Still, it's a fun way to spend a few hours, especially if you're suffering from Ace Attorney withdrawal or would like to see a more mature take on the lawyer game genre.
- Alcorin and Kenshin_sama
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Alternative works well enough as a standalone story. There is very little exposition in Extra or Unlimited that you need to understand the plot of Alternative and it's not that hard to fill in the blanks yourself. That being said I'd still heavily recommend reading MuvLuv first as otherwise you won't get the protagonist's complete arc and his motivation remains kind of abstract when you haven't seen him and certain characters in their original environment. Also there is some emotional payoff in Alternative that works better when you've been through Extra.
Happy Easter Everyone! Also, spiders!
in The Coliseum of Chatter
Posted
These two topics look like they belong together. Just like our local social democrats and the easter eggs they gave away as presents in their European Parliament election campaign. There probably is some hidden ironic layer in there that went over my head, but spiders are way more interesting, so let's keep talking about those. My arachnophobic girlfriend once found one like the one in the lower picture in a drawer in our apartment. That was a fun experience for her. At least we could get rid of the spider by just carrying the drawer outside. Spiders are good for eating flies and moscitos, but the way they look and move is creepy. So on a scale from 1 to 10 I give them a 4.5.