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Clephas

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Everything posted by Clephas

  1. Tokyo Babel maybe? https://vndb.org/c15447 Edit: To be clear, this is literally the only VN that came to mind when I put together 'black hair, non-standard art-style, demonic heroine, and technically human protagonist'.
  2. I hate to say it, but that doesn't really narrow it down. Demon and half-demon heroines are pretty common in visual novels. What color was her hair? Her eyes? What kind of story was it?
  3. To my mind, space sci-fi represents the optimism for the future that has yet to be repressed by people's increasingly negative outlook on our civilization's future. They are futures full of exploration, danger, and wonder, with cultures both different and the same. While many space sci-fi are dark in atmosphere, that doesn't get around the fact that even in the darkest space science-fiction, there are wonders and horrors that stimulate the mind and the spirit. I usually don't make distinctions between types of future sci-fi (as opposed to modern day sci-fi), incidentally. Space sci-fi is relatively rare in JVNs, which are my specialty. One that comes to mind is Fake Azure Arcology, where people were forced to flee from a massive storm of asteroids that devastated Earth's surface, forming unique civilizations within the arcologies they fled to. In a mix of high technology and restrictive lifestyle, it describes the unchanging human condition, even in circumstances that are drastically different. Komorebi no Nostalgica, one of my favorite sci-fi VNs of all time, is based in a world where humans warred against their AI slaves until the slaves won freedom, at the cost of taking the bullet for humanity destroying its own history for the convenience of politicians. It is a world where, interestingly, history is mostly lost to the younger generation, with the older generation only having faded memories of what was destroyed. In this game, society has almost become a blank slate, and the game extensively explores the troubles and possibilities of human-like AI in the two different types - the ancient android Cinema, , and the victorious Metocell, whose emotional emulation evolves over time and experience. More familiar to English-speaking readers is the dystopian worldscape of the Baldr series, where people have practically fled into the virtual world to escape the limitations of the physical. While the Baldr series is a fun read, it is also the most cynical and pessimistic approach to sci-fi I've seen in VNs. It shows the nastiness of human nature, the poor decision making of those with power, and the inevitable failures of a society that lost its way long ago again and again. In the Baldr series, AI alternates between 'ghosts' of the deceased, god-like beings that are omniscient in their own way, and monstrous amalgams that blindly follow their programming with only a surface imitation of flexibility and thought. Sci-fi can be a wonder or horror, but it is always looking at the future.
  4. Did you make sure to change the installation folder to one outside of 'program files'? If you didn't, it likely isn't saving properly because the save data folder is in the same location. Try starting the game on admin, and if that doesn't work move the installation outside of either of the 'program files' folders (if that is the problem). This is a problem that pops up a lot in JVNs where the default save folder is in the installation folder.
  5. The two girls you listed above have deliberately designed speech patterns, incidentally. That particular type of deliberately cute speech pattern in VAs went out of fashion back in 2006, so if you are looking for more distinctive stuff like 'uguu' and the like, you probably won't find it.
  6. Anything by Key or Favorite will have similar characters. Also, I would be more careful with your choice of thread titles... it sounds like you want girls you can trick into bed instead of asking for a VN recommendation.
  7. mmm... As a dark parody of the 'friend' trope: https://vndb.org/v18142 In that one, the protagonist is cursed to be the 'best friend/childhood friend/etc' (Sunohara role) for a bunch of eroge protagonists. He has to deal with the darkness that lies behind eroge and the fates of heroines who aren't chosen.
  8. *Clephas nods with satisfaction as Mitchhamilton is enveloped in her new purple tentacle suit, knowing he has once again done a good deed.*
  9. *Clephas bestows the Fragilistic Perfectio Shining Twinkling Mega-Frazzlestick upon Mitchhamilton's replace- clon*
  10. Clephas opens his mouth and a wave of kilometer-thick tentacles emerge, enveloping Mitchhamilton, who mysteriously turns into a gigantic mahou shoujo before being dragged inside the open jaws. A moment later, Clephas spits out a small tentacle, which grows into a perfect mahou shoujo clone of Mitchhamilton, who takes over the account with a dead smile* The only opinion that matters is the gigantic tentacle monster's, lol
  11. I put the above in spoilers because it is somewhat negative commentary from someone who only played the game halfway through, so if you want to ignore it, I have no problems with it in this case. For more positive commentary, the ero was good (better than most h-anime these days, which have become so similar to each other that you can't tell the difference between different series anymore).
  12. Isekai Maou-... Kvan, that was another inappropriate assessment. Except in that it is an isekai anime, it has nothing to do with Konosuba, which is an anime that uses ridiculous situations and characters to lampoon isekai. Please actually watch the anime in question before you make comments like that. This is an ecchi-oriented isekai with a communication-challenged protagonist who stays in his character from the MMO he was playing when he was summoned. It has a decent story and is well-presented. The first season is actually really well-done, but the second season was a disappointment. Satsuriku no Tenshi- A pretty incomprehensible death-game style horror where most of the main characters are murderous psychopaths. Yuragi-sou no Yuuna-chan- Ecchi comedy focused around a ghost inhabiting a ryokan and a psychic protagonist. Lots of lucky-sukebe moments and slapstick humor. Hyakuren no Haou- A pretty cruddy isekai anime that starts in the middle of the story, leaving the watcher detached from what is going on. Jashin-chan- Brutal slapstick comedy in the style of the early 2000's, if a bit more extreme than anything other than Bokusatsu Tenshi. Happy Sugar Life- Psychopathic yandere yuri lolicon heroine murders people like crazy to hide her relationship with the little girl she has locked up in an apartment owned by one of the people she killed. It was like watching a train-wreck in slow motion.
  13. My first JVN in Japanese was Jingai Makyou. I stumbled over some of the language in Dies Irae at the time, because most of my vocab was standard textbook and anime-related stuff at that point. A lot of Dies Irae's difficulty lies in Masada's wider vocabulary and his tendency to write like a regular novel-writer (not a light novel writer). As a result, whether it is his characters' dialogue or the narration, the language difficulty tends to be higher than you would see in most other VNs.
  14. For me, about twenty-two to twenty-nine hours on Dies Irae, seventeen hours for a complete playthrough (all endings) of Paradise Lost. Edit: I'm not a good reference though. Those times were from my most recent playthroughs in 2018 and 2015 respectively. My first playthrough for Dies Irae took 43 hours, when I was first starting to play VNs in Japanese back around the time Acta Est Fabula version came out.
  15. Polyamory, whether it is harem or multi-directional, is a difficult issue for people raised in the modern era in first-world countries. While it is beginning to be normalized in some countries, it has been demonized for so long that it will probably be a long time before the stigma associated with it fades away, if ever. In VNs, I think the one that takes polyamory to its ideal end is Draculius, one of my favorite VNs. While Jun, the protagonist, is central to things, each of the heroines has a defined role within the family that can't be played by any of the other girls. Belche is the mother, Xeno is the protector, Rika is the attacker, and Lian is the representative. I do agree that in most cases a harem should stop at three (one primary and two secondaries with a relationship aside from that possessed by the primary). To be blunt, there is only so much time one person can put into other people, and expanding to the ridiculous size some VN harems have is just undoable. Traditionally, there were any number of reasons for a harem to exist. One was in the case of royals and high nobles, where numerous heirs were necessary to solidify power and ensure passage down to the next generation. Then there were rich merchants and leaders of settlements. In both cases, this prevented too much wealth being permanently settled into one bloodline and reduced resentment from the population at large. It also provides a larger supporting family for the raising of children, reducing individual burdens for child-rearing and making things more flexible without going outside the family group. Generally speaking, early human civilizations didn't place emphasis on and in some cases didn't even have the concept of romance. That is why some cultures retain arranged marriages and defacto polyamorous relationship setups. (for JVN fans, the example would be the way it is tacitly understood that powerful Japanese men - like high-ranking politicians and corporate leaders - will have lovers outside of their wives).
  16. Mashiro-Iro Symphony is often mentioned as being the peak of the company's moege/charage era games. It was made during the latter-stages of the 'golden age of JVNs', in 2009 (The 'golden age' is generally seen as being from 2005 or 2006 to 2011 or 2012, depending on who you ask), and it was an example of quality in a time when VNs had only just branched out into distinctive genres and sub-genres but before the templates had been set in stone. As games of the type go, it is an excellent choice for localization.
  17. I was hesitant about Hakkenden because the original story of the nineteenth century novel by Kyoukutei Bakin was a bit too moralistic for my tastes. It was the second Japanese classic novel that I read (after Genji Monogatari). It was also the most annoying to read, since the version I got hadn't been redone in modern language (unlike the version of the Tale of Genji I read), probably because the original version was still readable (barely). Lots of bad memories there...
  18. Basically, UQ Holder is a sequel focusing on the after-effects of the manga-only chapters that led to the end of the original series. The most important remaining character from the original is Evangeline. It is a more action-focused and darker-natured series than the original Negima.
  19. Ragnarok is decent, but it definitely falls a step behind Frontier story-wise. Normally, in Venus Blood games, you are presented with a choice between Chaos and Law (more direct translation being Conquest and Rulership), with numerous available endings on either end. However, Ragnarok is the first game to directly add in the 'Ruin' element to the story. Certain choices in heroine scenarios are presented that can incur Ruin as well as Chaos or Law. In order to get the Chaos path, you have to have a certain amount of Ruin, whereas the opposite is true of Law. Sadly, if you fall short of either, you get a bad ending at the game's turning point. Ruin is generally incurred by choices that would 'break' the heroines (think of it as being similar to the Madness choices in Hypno/Hollow) past the standard 'turn to darkness' level. Generally speaking, the story of Ragnarok would be 'average' for the series as a whole, being better than Empire but falling short of Frontier or Hollow. The gameplay is basically a slight update on Hollow's (and like all new VB games, whether it is an improvement is entirely subjective). Given a choice, I would probably skip to Lagoon, because it is just more interesting, but I suppose they have their reasons.
  20. Death March- Despite it being a rather abortive attempt to put a great LN/web novel series into anime form, there are some good points to this anime. The animation itself is good, as is the characterization. The everyday life parts are first class, and the animation (if not the action itself) in the action scenes is pretty good. The reason most people don't like it is because the story never goes anywhere and it is a bit too much of a slow life anime. This is a hazard inherent in making anime out of incredibly long book series, so it isn't surprising in retrospect, but this was about when they began seriously overdoing isekai, so this series became a victim of the excesses of the time. Grandcrest Senki- Decent action high fantasy anime. However, it never goes beyond being decent. Killing Bites- People have genetically-altered humanoids combined with animals fight each other for entertainment. Generally doesn't go anywhere, though the action is good at times. Beatless is an example of what NOT to do when making a sci-fi anime. The AI characters are too alien to be relatable (including the supposed main heroine) and the protagonist is too much of a simpleton. It makes it impossible to invest emotionally into the story, so the watcher generally isn't interested in the results. Overlord II is more Overlord. If you liked the first season, you'll like the second. Sword Gai- Random sword monster rampages, no real story beyond that. Saiki Kusuo 2- It's Saiki Kusuo. If you like the series' humor, you'll love it, if you don't, you'll fall asleep. I laughed.
  21. Inuyashiki- Honestly, I loved this anime, despite how weird it was having an old man as the main character. Good watch for an out there sci-fi series. Juuni Taisen- Battle Royale full of people with weird talents and abilities. I never managed to invest in the characters, so my opinion of it isn't high. Dies Irae- ... a perfect example of failure in translating a great visual novel into an anime. The first episode is an example of what not to do (such as disrupt the measured revelations that made the game interesting by revealing the most important stuff at the beginning). Because it wasn't intended to be a long series, the developments are rushed, the presentation is weird, and the characters are somewhat off.
  22. No, it is more that nukige that actually have something approaching a romance story stopped existing shortly afterward. The two 'umbrella genres' only became more and more strictly split as time passed. There weren't that many hybrids in the first place, but at some point they just started specializing.
  23. It would be fine to state that... if you had actually watched that anime. While I'll be the first to admit that reusing the same universe/multiverse places constraints on the writers/creators in question, there are plenty of times where a sequel surpasses the original in some aspects. In this case, the only repeated characters from previous entries are ones who only make cameo appearances. All the main characters are unique to this particular plotline... and the fact that you didn't even notice this tells me you are basically looking at the Fate name and saying 'oh, it's Fate, so I'm going to bash it for being Fate'.
  24. Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomo ni- Iyashikei 'easy-mode' isekai series. An early example of the type that was a bit too light. Fate Apocrypha- @kivandopulus This is not a sequel but rather an alternate world with a completely different set of characters and on a timeline that diverged around WWII. Unlike other Fate series, the war is a larger-scale one between two sets of seven Servants, and the resulting battles and stories are of a much larger scale. This series is also known for having some of the best battle scenes in anime, so it isn't something that should be dismissed outright, even if you don't like Fate. Knight's & Magic- This was my first experience with the maker/fighter type isekai reincarnation. This type of protagonist started to appear more in the last five years or so, and a lot of the web novels and light novels of the type are pretty good. This one in particular is a fun watch, as the battles remind me of Escaflowne if they had a mech-obsessed Earthling redesigning them from scratch. Isekai Shokudou- A mostly 'stand-alone episode' series about a cafeteria connected to an isekai. It is basically iyashikei and little else, but it is fine if you want a break from heavy stories and don't necessarily want girl meets boy. Youkai Apartment- Another slice-of-life series, it was one of the few I actually enjoyed in the last ten years. The jokes are pretty old and the story isn't anything to write home about, but I enjoyed it anyway. No Game No Life Zero- @kivandopulus Umm... your misunderstanding is pretty obvious here. This is a prequel to No Game No Life, covering the mythological age before the world became Disbordia under Tet. I need to note here that the translation/localization (all of them) for this movie is abominable. I actually just recommend watching it without subs, because the subtitles will only confuse you. Somehow, they managed to mess up EVERY SINGLE IMPORTANT LINE IN EVERY SCENE of this movie. I was really amazed that it was still possible to mess up a localization this bad in modern times. It made me nostalgic for the pre-crunchyroll age, when if someone put out bad subs, someone would come along behind them and fix them. The dubs are even worse, since they also mess up all the most important scenes, making it incomprehensible. On the other hand, the animation, the story, the characters and the voice-acting for this movie are all top-class (in Japanese). I don't know how many times I've rewatched this movie, crying every time.
  25. Nukige that are also worthwhile romantic-wise: Erect; Sakura Iro Quartet; Prima Stella; Sara Sara Sasara
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