Saga Frontier is one of the most oddball rpgs to have been released on the ps1, and the ps1 was long considered the 'era of classics' for all jrpg-dom, with remakes of the earlier major names and innumerable newer classics being released for the system. The Saga series in general is something of an acquired taste, due to the sheer opaqueness of the leveling mechanics and odd, often nonsensical experimentation with random game elements.
In terms of game mechanics, Saga Frontier is easily the most well-explored of the series. It's devoted cult of fanboys and -girls have revealed everything of consequence about the original version over the years, so how much is this changed from the original?
First of all, for those of you who have played the original, a number of quality of life improvements. The ability to quicksave and autosaves at important points mean you are far less likely to trap yourself into having to spend hours regaining progress. The immense expansion of save slots makes it possible to backtrack when you underleveled for the final zones. As important in its own way, the spark trees and probabilities for weapon/fist techniques have been unified into a single one usable by all human and half-mystic characters. Last of all, New Game+ lets you bring over character progress, money, skills, and items between paths, making it unnecessary to keep re-leveling them each time you start a new character path.
However, for true fanboys, the true wow moment is the added content. Now, Saga Frontier is a game that is very sparse on active storytelling. It has the same 'silent presentation of the environment' that can be seen in a lot of the pre-2000 jrpgs taken to extremes, and this is the primarily element that takes the Saga series into a niche of its own. More than anything, I loved that they added in all the cut-out content from the original... especially a ton of content in Asellus's story, which was my favorite and most painful (leveling Asellus is painful at first) path from the original. This includes extra ways to get out of the first area (depending on your method, you end up in different places and have slightly different experiences), the fixing of the old Asellus path bug that sometimes made it difficult to get the Half-mystic or human endings, and a general polishing of the experience in general.
The other chunk of added content is the Fuse path. In the original game, Fuse was a curiosity of a character usually gained too late for him to be of any use (the method for obtaining him requires confronting a firebird on steroids who can incinerate your party in one hit). In this game, he has his own path, which is essentially his case files on each of the characters where his own work intersected with theirs. Since these are always told from his - slightly narcissistic - point of view, they are highly amusing to someone who has finished all the other paths. While this path doesn't add anything story-wise, it is still funny to go through.
Now for my assessment of the base game...
First, the most opaque of the game mechanics, the Battle Rank System. To be honest, this is perhaps the easiest way for someone new to the series to self-sabotage. Every battle you undertake, whether it is against a slime or a dragon, upgrades your Battle Rank (which is unseen), eventually unleashing upon you a new tier of enemies for you to fight. To be blunt, if you sit around in the first area killing the same things, the game punishes you with monsters that can one-shot you in the next area, because you raised the battle rank too high. This means that grinding essentially requires you to leave whatever dungeon you are in every once in a while to upgrade the enemies into something you can actually gain upgrades off of.
That brings me to the second unusual mechanic, the leveling system. Saga Frontier and the series in general doesn't have linear numbered leveling such as is seen in Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy. Instead, depending on probability mechanics and what you did in the battle (hit stuff with the sword alone, used techniques, used magic, etc) you gain a stat upgrade of some sort at the end of battle, though this slows if you are fighting enemies below your character's (hidden) level. What adds an element of annoyance to this is that the probability of whether you get any gains or not is heavily dependent on the enemy group you encounter. This makes only a few of the scaling areas attractive for grinding (pretty much just the Bio Research Lab, which always has the top tier of the battle rank).
Last of all is sparking... which is the process of gaining new skills, techniques, and magic. If you use a sword in combat, your character will not only gain physical stats at the end of battle, but there is also a chance - based on the enemy's 'spark value' (a hidden factor) that your character will be inspired and obtain a new tech or magic. Sword and fist techniques are sparked randomly based on which tech or whether you simply used the weapon devoid of techs. Gun techniques are based off of you using a gun and are given to you after battle. Sparking magic requires that the character using the magic have its 'gift' (gained through quests), have used that school of magic during the battle, and the character's intelligence stat.
For story, Saga Frontier will always be a somewhat disappointing game, despite the sheer beauty of its visuals. There will be innumerable times any given player will have wished for a few extra lines to flesh out a dialogue or for clearer hints to find the next place you need to go. The fact that NPC dialogue doesn't really change significantly between paths says a lot in and of itself, and this is a common complaint for people who play any Saga game.
The fact that I found this to be an immensely enjoyable game is as much nostalgia as the game's actual worth.
Ryuukishi Bloody Saga might very well be the best unique work Akabei Soft 3 has created in the time since ABS2 forced a bunch of subsidiaries to merge to create it. It is a work I also come back to every few years simply because it holds a unique place in my heart.
Ryuukishi is the sequel to Ryakudatsusha no In'en, a Clock-up style super-violent H-horror VN written expressly for the purpose of setting up things for Ryuukishi. As such, to understand this VN, you have to understand the events of Ryakudatsusha, at least to some extent. Ryuukishi is written on the tacit understanding that you already know Roy's background, and there is little to no attempt to explain his personality or actions in the actual VN. Indeed, effort is made to keep you out of Roy's mind 90% of the time, with much of the story told from an unobtrusive 3rd person perspective.
For those who don't want to go through a Clock Up style experience, I'll explain the events in Ryakudatsusha (an outline) in the spoiler box below.
The Ryuukishi setting is one closer to the Witcher than to the Lord of the Rings. Humans only kill those monsters that exist with great effort (though weaker ones like goblins can be beaten easily one on one), and it isn't uncommon for areas to be plagued by monster attacks, though this has apparently lessened in recent times, as methods of driving them away (through planting certain plants that repel monsters and such) have been established. On the other hand, magic seems to be fading to the point where most cities have never seen a magic-user and only know magical energy as a legend, even if they see monsters on a regular basis. Roy himself, despite being a traveler, has never seen magic or magical energy used, to give you a reference point.
Roy is working as a traveling apothecary when the story begins, arriving in Vilduun, a walled city constantly plagued by the attacks of a red dragon. Roy, being obsessed with helping others, promptly plies his trade without compensation for the people of the city in the wake of the most recent attack. This leads to him being invited to live in the knights' garrison even as he helps with reconstruction. He also finds himself being watched over by four female knights (yes, this is a true harem VN) who have varying degrees of interest in him, ranging from budding attraction the case of Saria to suspicion in the case of Lize.
Generally speaking, the story is somewhat slow early on, and there is no dramatic scene where Roy shows up the knights as you might expect in another fantasy action VN. Instead, Roy serves as a constant catalyst for change, as events slowly build up momentum. Later on, there are some excellent action scenes and CGs, but those really are late in the VN.
Story-wise, this most recent playthrough has shown me how clever the design of the scenario was. Relatively minor characters like the Vice-Commander Malter and the seeming weakest of the heroines, Lize often serve to move the story along and prevent any sense of monotony. The villain characters (yes they exist) serve as counterpoints to the more 'normal' people in the story and echo Roy's past.
In the end, Ryuukishi is a story of redemption, where a man with a tortures past and a constant smile breaks free from that past and becomes something better.
I've had numerous comments from people who were asking, 'Do you still play VNs?' in the last year or so because I hardly post anymore. When I do, it is usually litrpg, random commentary, or maybe one game a month. The short answer is yes. The full answer is a bit more complicated.
First, I should note that a lot of this is about timing... to be slightly more specific, a confluence of factors that created a singularity of me just not posting anymore. The events in question are my increasing intolerance for disinteresting themes and pure SOL (that is, slice of life without a central plot, even if it is loose); Coronavirus causing a dramatic drop in the release of non-nukige JVNs; and the resulting tendency I had for going back and replaying stuff I've already posted about in the past (sometimes multiple times).
While the sheer number of VNs I play per year has gone down from 50-70 to about 20-30, a good portion of those are replays. I'd say about a little over two-fifths of all the VNs I've played in the last year and a half have been ones I've already replayed multiple times, another fifth were ones I dug out of my archives, another fifth were kusoge not worth posting about, and the remaining fifth are the ones I posted on.
A contributing factor to this is Coronavirus and the resulting depression in the non-nukige VN market for PC (which I play almost exclusively, since I don't want to mod my consoles for the sake of VNs alone). Companies that once put out games multiple times a year have maybe released one in the last year and a half, other companies have quietly gone out of business, and yet other ones had to drop projects because they couldn't work around the health restrictions. Charage alone have seen an unprecedented decrease in production, with entire months going by with NO releases (something that would have been unthinkable before Coronavirus).
The last major issue is that my burnout on pure SOL (at least high school SOL) has turned into a complete intolerance. I once thought it would ease somewhat with time, but, if anything, it has gotten worse. If there isn't something besides pure SOL in there to catch my interest (like nakige, utsuge, or plotge elements), I simply won't be able to finish them.
If the protagonist is interesting, I can still (barely) play school life that have something in the way of non-SOL elements, but otherwise, they are unplayable to me.
Duelist Engage is one of a number of VNs I was pretty sure I underrated relative to my time doing VN of the Month. The fact that the VN stuck in my mind even almost a decade later says that this supposition was most likely correct. Thankfully, after replaying it (after so long it was mostly new to me) I found that this supposition was correct.
Before I dig into story and character issues, I need to note that one way this VN stands out over modern charage is the expressiveness of the heroine sprites. Before I went back and played this, I never realized just how much the expressiveness of VN sprites has decreased over the years, as well as the lack of any individuality. Certain restrictive conventions that came into place later on (no bangs overhanging the eyes, no extreme changes in posture, etc) are not found in this VN, and it is surprising the degree to which this gives each character sprite more impact. Monaka and Tomoe (his mother) in particular have extremely expressive sprites with a distinctive style and posture that is notably different from what you see in later VNs, even those just three or four years later.
It needs to be said that this is an old-style VN. That comes with positives and negatives. Old-style VNs tended to have stronger heroine routes than newer ones, and characterization was often more extreme to emphasize charm points of the various heroines. Newer VNs tend to be a bit more subtle with heroine characterization, and there is a lot less reliance on dramatic entrances and extreme personality traits. This led to a tendency - particularly in charage - for everyday life dominating VNs, versus the comedy drama that tended to be more ever-present in earlier VNs. It's a matter of opinion as to which approach is better, but I generally prefer the older style.
In this VN, the protagonist, Yukito, for the sake of saving his mother's restaurant, has to marry someone from Colangrein (initially his arranged fiance, Violetta) in order to gain access to an inheritance from his father. However, Violetta is a knight and immediately challenges him to a duel, with a ballooning series of antics going out from there as more and more heroines get dragged into a traditional 'shuraba' (numerous girls competing for a single - usually donkan - guy's attention). I'm not going to go into individual heroine routes, so I'll just give you an idea of what the game is like in general.
The heroines include: his fiance Violetta; his childhood friend Monaka; the aggressive loli (one year younger) Erica; the mysterious former student council president, Tsubaki; and the meek but surprisingly big-hearted Hina.
Violetta is your traditional stick-up-the-rear-end heroine, who refuses to marry anyone weaker than herself and is driven to achieve her ambition of becoming the next Knight King of Colangrein. While she is essentially good-hearted, her competitive side dominates her most of the time, and she naturally takes control of most situations just by being present. On the other hand, she is needlessly stubborn and surprisingly cute when she thinks no one is watching.
Monaka is the protagonist's osananajimi (tsundere due to the fact that Yukito is as dense as a warship's hull). Like a lot of early such relationships, the protagonist goes to wake her up at the neighbor's house every morning and feeds her as naturally as one would a pet. That said, Monaka isn't as much of a wild child as others of this particular achetype tend to be. While she can be aggressive, she is surprisingly thoughtful when it comes to others' feelings, which drives her crazy when Yukito fails utterly to notice her infatuation with him.
Erica is the token loli of the VN (token lolis were almost universal in old-style VNs, even chuunige). Like a lot of such characters, she is as childish as her physical appearance would indicate. However, this comes from her upbringing being a mixture of mental abuse and extreme sheltering. Her family isn't exactly warm-hearted, and her bodyguards are constantly trying to rein her in, thus leaving her devoid of anyone close enough to really serve as a mentor or role model.
Tsubaki is your standard Yamato Nadeshiko heroine... on the surface. She has a lot of things roiling beneath that calm and elegant exterior, not the least of which being an extremely aggressive personality that is a good match for that of Violetta, when provoked. She is also desperately poor, living in the belltower of the school, despite being a relative to a wealthy family.
Hina is the most 'normal' of the heroines (even compared to Monaka). At first she merely seems meek and timid, and this is a valid assessment much of the time. However, she has the force of personality necessary to remain next to someone like Erica without being overpowered, and she is perhaps the most honest with herself of all the heroines, especially when it comes to Yukito.
One thing that struck me when I played through the paths was the consistency of the main storyline. Like many early charage, this game has a solid main storyline that continues into the various heroine routes (albeit with dramatically different events following the split), and no relevant element of the setting is left ignored. The fights/duels, while not on the level of a true action VN, are still of some interest when they happen. In addition, this VN was really good at creating an emotional attachment to the heroines, which is an area where most charage tend to fail in the last five years or so.
Conclusion
Duelist x Engage is an excellent example of the best of the nascent era of charage, when they were just gaining momentum as a genre. As a result, it stands out greatly when compared to the charage of today, which tend to be more bland and mundane in comparison. For those who want a bit more substance to their charage, this is an excellent choice.
This is the newest game by Minato Soft, the makers of Majikoi. As per usual, I'll be straight with yall and say that I thought this would end up essentially being a slice-of-life failure like a lot of Minato Soft's non-Majikoi VNs. However, this game is actually much closer to a chuunige in nature than I anticipated. In the end, I gave this one of the highest ratings I've given in a long while, but there are some issues, which I'll mention farther along.
Wagahime's protagonist is a young lad from the frontier called Shaon, the adopted son of the Great Tenken Master Figaro. Shaon is, personality wise, very much like the harem protagonists you see so often in charage. However, he does have the will to fight when necessary and the ability to commit to a course of action when needed, so he definitely stands well above that crowd. At the beginning, Shaon contracts with the Artificial God, Minjara, and gains the power to fight like, well... a god for three minutes every three days, in addition to his pre-existing Tenken, which lets him heal and strengthen others. He then sets off on a journey to see the world and find a wife, along with his little sister Ebiita and his father's friend Peta (a sapient rabbit-type person).
One negative I have to put forth about this VN, though it makes sense considering that the Tenmazoku route is the true one, is that the route order is locked, forcing you to do the Empire and Federation before you can do the Tenmazoku (Krone). There is no common route. Instead, there is a storyline for each country, with a single heroine (and a bunch of fake endings with other girls that just consist of H-scenes). In the case of the Empire, it is the Empress Noa. In the case of the Federation, it is the proxy PM, Erin; and in the case of the Tenmazoku, it is the Tenmaou (Queen of the Tenma) Krone.
Empire
The Empire route is the most SOL-friendly of the three routes, focusing on Shaon journeying across the empire, then his time in the capital, before the climax of the story. Due to events early on, Shaon gets his foot in the door and meets Noa in a fashion that is relatively realistic, albeit only within the setting (it requires suspension of disbelief that a 700 year-old Empire would fail to insulate their royals better from the nobility and commoners). Shaon, given his bond with Minjara, of course quickly manages to gain the interest of a number of players in the political game, making his stay there the most complicated of the three, in terms of personal relationships.
In many ways, this path justifies the locking of the paths the most. The drama here would lose most of its impact if you were aware of the events of the Tenmazoku path, and the drama is pretty good. Action scenes here are very similar to those of Majikoi, albeit often longer-lasting (Momoyo not being there to end things in an instant and most people being on more even terms when it comes to power). The romance portions are pretty innocent as these things go, though the issue of social status does come up (and is promptly squished).
The Federation
The Federation path starts a bit more abruptly than that of the Empire. The Federation is a nation formed on the old frontiers of the Empire by escaped slaves and dissidents from one of the darker eras of that nation. It is a nation of numerous races with a system whereby each province selects a governor, who then votes for the PM. The PM is more of a 'first amongst equals' than a true federalist leader, and the elections are often... lively beforehand.
This path is more action-packed from beginning to end than either of the other two paths, for reasons that make perfect sense as part of the story. Erin, the heroine of this path, is an elf and a politician, through and through. That is not to say she is black-hearted. Rather, she is perfectly willing to use every opportunity to gain positive publicity in the course of pursuing the good of her nation. The protagonist's role here is a bit more specialized (outside of the romance).
As I said before, this path is more action packed than the other two paths, mostly because Erin is so desperately moving around to get elected as the next PM, which results in her personal subordinates having to deal with a lot more in the way of tribulations on a daily basis. Romantically, the issues here are predictable to anyone who has read enough high fantasy with relationships between races with different lifespans.
Tenmazoku
The Tenmazoku path's heroine, Krone is a lot like Momoyo (except about five times as powerful) if she didn't have her grandfather to rein her in and everybody around her encouraged her bad habits instead of restraining them. At the same time, she has the same intensity to everything she does, her affection bringing back memories of Majikoi for me. Honestly, this was my favorite path (obviously), and it was apparent from the beginning that this was intended to be the true path, at least to me.
This path is very revealing about a lot of the setting's peculiarities, certain characters' motivations, and a number of other issues. There are a lot of good action scenes, a lot of familiar comedy routines (to those who played Majikoi), and I honestly liked the parts on Rancage (the Tenmazoku continent) for the sheer contrast to the mainland countries. That said, I believe this path could have been greatly enhanced if more detail went into the early parts of this path after the arrival at Rancage, because it felt like there was an excessive focus on Krone's obsession with Shaon, lol.
The last stretch of the story (the romance is pretty much just an evolution from the main part of the path) is pretty much solid drama and action, and while it lacks the sheer impact of something written by Nitroplus or Light, it was still an enjoyable experience.
The Negative
I'm going to be straight here... they set this game up for a Majikoi-style fandisc or discs. The other 'endings' are simply brief event and h-scenes that cut off abruptly once they've done the deed, which is less than pleasing for me, since I was looking forward to the possibility of actual heroine routes for some of the sub-characters, like Youksha.
Conclusion
Overall, if you liked Majikoi and Minato Soft's style, you'll like this game. If you didn't, there is a good chance you'll have the same issues here. This game has first-class production values and characters, but if you don't like the style, it might be hard to enjoy. The issue with the sub-heroines is a seriously annoying one, albeit one that is likely to be solved in a year or four with a fandisc or two. I gave this game a pretty high rating, and I don't regret it. I also don't doubt that some people will hate on this game, hard.
This might seem like an odd choice for a blog post, but it should be noted that, after more then twelve years and seven hundred VNs, remembering each and every one is impossible. In fact, I hardly recall roughly 70% of all the VNs I've played, and less than 10% are memorable enough that I consider replaying them once in a great while. I'm somewhat infamous for my lists, but I figured one more wouldn't hurt. Remember, these are the VNs I still remember to the point where I can state almost everything about what I like and hate about each. This list is going to be split into two parts, the VNs I loved and the VNs I loved to hate.
The VNs I loved to Hate
Suburashiki Hibi- Yes, I hate this VN. In truth, I hate almost everything written by Sca-ji that I've read. Sca-ji's style drives me up the wall (for some reason, it presses all the wrong buttons), and his love of unreliable narrators only makes it worse. Suburashiki Hibi is just the most obvious example of a VN I can't forget, even though I want to, badly. I can admit that Suburashiki Hibi is interesting... but to me that just doesn't stop me from hating it anyway.
Aiyoku no Eustia- For a chuunige fan like me to actually outright hate a chuunige is actually fairly difficult. 90% of the reason I eventually came to hate Eustia was because of its true/Eustia route. I didn't like Caim's rapid personality change, the fact that elements of the setting introduced in Eustia's path make all other paths impossible, and I absolutely loathed Eustia herself (what is it with the love for the helpless and frail heroine in some games?). That said, it doesn't change the fact that I liked most of the game before I got onto Eustia's path... but it does mean that I will never admit this is a truly great game.
Ryuusei World Actor- Similarly to above, this is a chuunige I love to hate, despite it being memorable. There is one simple reason for this... it was made to be a prequel rather than a whole game in and of itself. There is no sense of completion, no satisfaction to be gained by completing this story. In addition, it was only recently that its sequel was - finally - announced. Worse, Kinugasa Shougo's style of never really explaining the setting, except in the most oblique of fashions, greatly harms the enjoyment of this game's plot. In the case of his previous works, it was relatively easy to extrapolate and speculate yourself into an understanding of the setting based on what was there, but there is a definite sense that way too much is left unsaid about this setting.
Sakura no Uta- Oddly, this is a game I thought I would have loved, given the twisted relationships and messy backstory involved. However, once again Sca-Ji's style of presentation and love of unreliable narrators drove me nuts. Not to mention the constant abuse of foreshadowing and repetition
VNs I Love so much they are unforgettable
Dies Irae- Obviously, Dies Irae is one of the penultimate chuunige ever made. While I personally think Masada turned into a complete incompetent after KKK, there is no denying the quality of Dies Irae's narrative, its characters, and the way it seems to age so well. Dies Irae is one of those rare VNs that doesn't suffer at all from the passing of a decade or more between its original release and now. That isn't to say it hasn't been left behind somewhat by the conventions of the genre, but in the end, that doesn't matter as much as you would think it would.
Fate/Stay Night- Arguably the VN that turned chuunige from a mere curiosity to an actual niche genre. While many people have a love/hate relationship with Shirou and the Nasuverse, there is no denying that much of the game is enjoyable and it embodies most of the virtues and flaws of the early era of the genre.
Draculius- The VN that changed my viewpoint on the harem ending and actually did vampires right (outside of the comedy, anyway). In all honesty, before I picked it up at random, I had no idea this would become one of my most-replayed VNs of all time. While this game has aged poorly in some ways, in others it's presentation is almost ideal.
Evolimit- In my mind, this game is Higashide's masterpiece, the defining game of his career, whereas others will argue that it was Ayakashibito. However, for all that I enjoyed Ayakashibito, this is the game I go back to play over and over, whenever I want my faith in JVNs revived.
Devils Devel Concept- No, this is not the best game out there. It is a total niche within a niche game. I love its characters and setting, but most people would probably drop it solely based on the artwork. Devils Devel Concept taught me that the protagonist didn't need to be the good guy to be interesting and that heroines didn't need to be fainting lilies to make a chuunige work.
Haruka ni Aogi, Uruwashi no- Let's be clear... visually this game has aged horribly. It is from a much earlier era than most of the games on this list and it shows. However, I have to note that it is one of the single best nakige ever made. I can still go back and cry for Tonoko, Shino, and Miyabi no matter how many times I replay it, and the sense of salvation after the end of one of those three paths, the catharsis is so strong that my stress buildup is perfectly lanced afterward.
Houkago no Futekikakusha- I frequently give this as an example of the ideal 'hard' utsuge. The situation the protagonist is in is hopeless from the beginning, and his suffering his pre-determined. Moreover, when the story begins he is already broken almost beyond repair. The way it is presented provides great catharsis, though like many hard utsuge, the setting is all over the place.
Konata yori Kanata Made- Many consider the first Konakana to be the ideal for the 'soft' utsuge genre, and I don't generally bother to argue with them. While similar games were made later on occasion, one can always feel the influence of this game in them, often to the point where it feels like they are almost plagiarizing parts of it.
Akatsuki no Goei- I have a love/hate relationship with Kinugasa Shougo. He hates completing stories, he never explains anything unless he has to, and his endings are always open-ended unless he is coerced to make them not so. Akatsuki no Goei (the series) embodies him at his best, with Kaito being a complex character that only appears to be your typical 'dameningen' protagonist if you aren't paying attention.
Hapymaher- What often comes back to me about Hapymaher, compared to later Purple Soft games, was the ideal synchronicity of its aesthetic and its music. It is very, very rare for me to bother complementing a VN on its music, since most essentially use rearrangements of old BGMs without accounting for unique themes and atmosphere. While there are some severe obstacles to making this an easily replayable game (the Christmas arc is overwhelmingly boring the second time around), it is still a VN worth experiencing.
Semiramis no Tenbin- Semiramis no Tenbin is an oddity. It is a game based in a school setting in modern Japan that doesn't gloss over Japan's social flaws or exaggerate them to excess. I say this because the Japanese are as good at pretending certain issues don't exist as we white Americans have been at pretending racism doesn't exist. Not to mention that the beginning of this game locked it in my memory eternally.
Nanairo Reincarnation- This is one of the few games in my VN experience that I actually out and out named a kamige on first playthrough. I don't regret it today, and I don't think I ever will. I could put down any number of reasons to love this game, but it is better, in this case, for readers to make their own conclusions.
Akeiro Kaikitan- I mostly chose to keep multiple VNs by the same author and team off this list. However, I should note that I have actually replayed Akeiro six times since its original release... despite it having been released in 2016, a mere six years ago. I play it about once, sometimes twice a year. Why? Because it is still interesting no matter how many times I read it. The presentation of the various paths is about as close to the storyteller's ideal as it is possible to get, making it difficult to get truly bored of if you put some time in between replays.
Komorebi no Nostalgica- Say what you like about Takaya Aya, but his moments of brilliance definitely leave an impression. Komorebi no Nostalgica is easily the best (mostly) non-action sci-fi VN I've ever read. Ironically, the primary reason for this is how the central non-heroine character, Cinema is handled in the various paths. It is impossible to fully explain to someone who hasn't played the game just how powerful a role Cinema plays as a supporting character as well as the game's central character, and I'm not even going to try here.
Ayakashibito- While Evolimit is my favorite Higashide game, I can't fail to mention Ayakashibito here. Ayakashibito is the work of a genius, and it most definitely shows. It was also the VN that first showed Higashide's basic style, which almost always utilizes a protagonist with an intimate relationship with the true heroine that continues to thrive regardless of heroine choice. Ayakashibito is less refined than Evolimit, but in exchange, it also feels more freeform than some of his later works. It also established his creation of high-quality antagonists (Kuki Youkou, Shannon Wordsworth, etc).
Ruitomo- Ruitomo is probably the most famous of all the Akatsuki Works games, for good reason. It is a high-quality classic plotge from an era where such games were relatively plentiful, and its style was the one that defined the expectations of fans for the company's games, though they later took things in a more action-focused direction.
Kikan Bakumatsu Ibun Last Cavalier- This VN is one I push for weaboos who like the romanticized eras (Sengoku Jidai, Bakumatsu era, etc). It is based in an alternate world where young Japanese women are sometimes chosen by 'demon-aura stones' that grant them immense physical powers and heightened intelligence in exchange for being unable to have children and being naturally more aggressive than is the norm. As a result, these women are generally adopted by samurai families and raised to be bodyguards, assassins, and in various other roles normally reserved for men. The protagonist is a young man raised by a feminized version of Kondou Isao and Hijikata Toshizo and is essentially Okita Soujirou. It begins previous to the formation of the Roshigumi and branches off after the initial stages of the rebellion that began the collapse of Tokugawa power.
Sekien no Inganock- This is pretty much the only Liar Soft game I didn't have trouble playing. In retrospect, it isn't as good as I remember it being, but it is still enjoyable.
Majikoi- Say what you want about Majikoi. Various people either love or hate it and everything by Minato Soft, but I personally think it was an excellent base that they used effectively to milk the setting. Later games and fandiscs added depth to the characters and expanded the cast, and this, the original was a great game (in my eyes) in itself.
Grisaia- Probably the most popular VN to introduce VNs to newbies now that Tsukihime and FSN have become so dated as to be almost unreadable for new people. Like many VNs that got translated, it has a lot of people either worshipping or hating on it, but its quality (in Japanese) is undeniable.
Soukou Akki Muramasa- Easily the best game Nitroplus has ever produced. While it is a heavy read, it is also a VN worth reading at least once, if you have the mastery of Japanese to do so. However, it is also emotionally draining, so many who start it never finish it.
Hello, Lady- I could have chosen any of Akatsuki Works' chuunige, but with the final version of the game that includes the FD routes and the new true route, this game has easily become my favorite Hino Wataru game.
Kitto Sumiwataru Asairo yori mo- A game by Shumon Yuu. Nothing else needs to be said. Play it, or you aren't a true JVN fanboy.
Tenshi no Hane o Fumanaide- An oddball sort of chuunige by Shumon Yuu. This one is fully voiced (protagonist included) and has a solid story and cast of characters.
Silverio Trinity- of the three Silverio games, I'll say right off that this is the one I liked the most. While Vendetta has some great moments, Trinity is where I thought the setting first came alive truly.
Sakura, Moyu- Honestly, I think this is the best VN, by far, that Favorite has produced. I cried more while I played this game than in all the other games combined, and I was more emotionally invested in the story than any of them by far.
While reading litrpgs, I sometimes come across ones that stray into the realms of Xianxia or are simply Xianxia mislabeled as litrpgs. Xianxia is a genre of Chinese-origin, creating a system of magic and abilities based off of Qigong practices. Technically, stuff like Naruto and Hunter X Hunter would fall into the realm of Xianxia, given its use of many of the same concepts.
Xianxia books have a number of common issues, in my opinion. Some of them are quite enjoyable, but even the enjoyable ones seem to love the heavy-handed ladling of the 'power is everything' and 'hubris comes before the fall' themes. In some series, a protagonist will constantly obsess over the former and get kicked in the ass by the latter several times over the course of a single book. This is particularly bad in the case of Xianxia translated from Chinese, where genre tropes are almost as ingrained to them as charage ones are in Japan. Another trend is protagonists who are so amoral they aren't even really characters, as well as protagonists who are inconsistent and hypocritical to an extreme degree, even to the layman's point of view. I love the ones who go on to create or destroy worlds, and I love sagas spanning ten books and hundreds or thousands of years. What I hate is that every Xianxia novel that gets translated seems to read like a reprint of the previous one.
There is another type of Xianxia, mostly written by Westerners (I call it Weabooist Xianxia), that combines these tropes with a tendency to sound like a bad translation from Japanese. They will constantly repeat the 'I need more power', the infamous 'it can't be helped', and other turns of phrase that will cause winces from any experienced translator. It is appalling that anyone who considers themselves a writer would consider some of the crap that comes out of many of the Western-based Xianxia writers to be even adequate, much less good. It never fails to amaze me that some of these people actually got through the editing process.
The very best Western Xianxia writers manage to do something great with the genre, something that the Chinese, as restricted as they are, seem to be incapable of doing... breaking out of that seventy-meter-deep rut. The worst read as badly as the worst translated Xianxia.
Let's be clear, I really, really enjoy the gradual power-gaining of cultivation worlds, the martial arts, the gratuitous and even casual violence, the duels and rivalries. What I don't like are the linguistic conventions and pathetically overused tropes that seem to get dropped into so many of them.
Recently, I've been devouring anything written by Daniel Shinhofen, the writer of the Binding Words series I recommended in a previous post. Shinhofen is a harem specialist that can vary from having non-existent ero to full-on BDSM in his stories, but a common element to all of them is that all his protagonists end up with a harem and that harem is happy (for the most part).
Lest I make that sound like he scrimps on story, the very reverse is the case. Every one of his series is extremely dense and packed with deep characterization and storytelling. The reason I chose to do these two very different litrpg series in a single post was because they represent opposite ends of the spectrum for the writer's characterization and storytelling.
Apocalypse Gates is a story focused in a game world where the protagonist, Alvin, is a brain-copy of his original self (sold by his cryo-corp) to serve as a test subject for a post-apocalyptic digital world with permadeath. Alvin is... well, he's what is called an amoral familist. This term is one that isn't in common use, but its essential meaning is that the individual in question only really sees people that are a part of his group as people and all others are merely objects. Alvin frequently self-describes as a sociopath, and in a very real sense, when it comes to non-family/non-friends, that is true. Alvin frequently and quite happily blows the brains out of people who even look like they are going to seriously annoy him, and he has absolutely no moral qualms about it. However, he is passionately, even obsessively protective of the small circle of 'real people' he builds around himself.
Another issue is that he has an extreme reaction to abusers (rapists and those who take advantage of the helpless), and he will kill them with extreme prejudice wherever he finds them, regardless of consequences. Considering that Apocalypse Gates is a digital version of the year 2000 where the Rapture occurred and all those soulless bodies rose as zombies to attack the living, this means he ends up killing a lot of people across the series. I won't spoil his harem for you (really, seeing it get together is a treat, though it is definitely a BDSM harem) though. This series is full of blood, gore, and looting the ruins while screwing like bunnies in their free time (and happening to make the world a better place as an entirely unintended side-effect).
Alpha World... is not what you would think from reading its description of the first book. While there is plenty of sexuality, there are no actual sex scenes in this series (as compared to Apocalypse Gates, where sex scenes were ubiquitous for the first five books before it settled down later). In this series, a convict named Seamus, in hopes that his experimental data will be used to take the pressure off of the overcrowded prison systems and provide help for victims of crimes similar to the one that drove him to his own, agrees to be permanently placed in a pod for a virtual game called Alpha World.
The first book has him forming his initial relations with the people that will later become his friends, family, guild, and harem- of course. However, it is later books that really make this series stand out... to be blunt, this series reminds me of a nakige. The characters, including Seamus, face issues of extreme emotional depth born out of their pasts and their emotional scars, showing off their flaws and virtues to the reader in such stark detail that, for books three and four at least, this aspect eclipses the other aspects of the story entirely. I cried for almost the entirety of these two books, I cried for Fluff, I cried for Karen, and I wept for Seamus.
This particular series also confronts an issue that will inevitably pop up as AI becomes more advanced and our games become so immersive we have trouble telling the difference between real life and the game... is there any essential difference between a fully-sentient digital character and the human minds interacting with them? This particular aspect is deliberately kept partially vague, with Stacia - the protagonist's NPC lover - being the only NPC whose perspective you get to see through. However, Stacia's depth as a character - despite her somewhat simple and straightforward personality - definitely represents the argument for there being no essential difference.
My favorite character in Alpha World, surprisingly, is Fluff (aka Fluffball or Julia). I'll be straight with you... Fluffball's past is heartbreaking to a degree that will make any soul with a scrap of compassion furiously angry and extremely protective at the same time. In many ways, Fluff is the most important character when it comes to forcing the others to confront and overcome their own issues. Her intense vulnerability and fragility serve as a counterpoint to Karen's ferocity and Stacia's inherent resilience, while also putting up a mirror to Seamus's own fractured spirit.
Overall, these two series showed me the depth of this writer's talent, and I thought I'd share it with you all.
It was remarked by Veshurik recently that it seemed like I wasn't really around anymore... but that isn't really the case. I still play VNs, but the fact is, I don't play many new VNs that I haven't already blogged about yet. I simply can't muster enough interest to play most of the new stuff that comes out, simply because there just isn't that much that looks interesting coming out at any given time. Senkou no Clarias, by Team Baldrhead, was the game I thought would break through my boredom, and while it succeeded at the time, it was nonetheless a depressingly underwhelming game in the end.
First, the gameplay... this is perhaps the most easily maligned part of the game. I say this because Team Baldrhead made two cardinal mistakes... choosing to partially replicate the much-maligned Baldr Bringer battle system and linking character affection to both path choice and character ability progression. The first is problematic to rally insult, because it was obvious they were trying to pose the game as Escaflowne to the Baldr series being Gundam. It was made clunky because the mechs were supposedly magical constructs without most of the purely mechanical aspects that made the Baldr series combat so fluid pre-Bringer. However, this makes for an incredibly frustrating experience when there are enemies who can mix ranged and melee and your characters are solely one or the other outside of special moves. Not only that, but the counter and evasion systems are downright awful... yes, it is possible (with a really long learning curve) to master the system. However, the difficulty of doing so is definitely a put off for someone who enjoyed the intuitive nature of pre-Bringer Baldr series.
The latter issue is more problematic... Linking affection to both heroine choice and mech growth was incredibly stupid and short-sighted on the part of a team as established as this one. In a lesser company, we might see this kind of mistake, but in this case, it was jarring. It essentially creates a situation where the player must keep heroines crippled to let you pick your favorite. If you are following Sherry's path, this is actually not much of an issue, since the game naturally provides more in-story opportunities than any other character to build her affection. However, if you are picking Yakumo - or god-forbid - Camus, there is a distinct need to cripple the growth of all other heroines almost completely.
Now, down to the story... tbh, this is something that will be very, very familiar to fans of early isekai fantasy anime and manga. The protagonist finds a weird egg in an exhibit in a train station in London and gets transported to a magic-driven otherworld full of mechs and sorcery. There are a few reasons why this setting is hard to suspend disbelief for. One reason is that there is absolutely no way whatsoever that Sherry's position in the setting would have worked out the way it did in a nation as autocratic as Seirem. The missing traitor's daughter? Prison or execution, one or the other. No powerful (and Seirem's monarchy is powerful) monarchy would ever leave such an obvious scapegoat to live the quiet life trying to clear her name.
Another issue is Ruu... while it might make sense for a neutral country's nobility to send their kids to school in a powerful neighbor's capitol, for them to allow a former enemy (as in less than a generation in the past) to do so beggars the imagination, given that there were no apparent diplomatic concessions made one way or another.
I'm not even going to mention Yakumo or Camus' situations beyond that it was obvious they were essentially stuffed into the burrito of this story for the sole purpose of providing a variety of heroines.
In terms of actual storywriting, setting aside issues with setting and character backstory, I actually found it relatively enjoyable, though those issues I just mentioned constantly scraped at the edge of my consciousness. There were a few issues here too, though. In particular, splitting up the sub-character events even though they don't effect the story to any significant degree struck me as unnecessarily immersion-breaking. Another issue is that relatively little attention is given to making you actually care about the heroines. Most chapters consist of a very brief setup for the chapter's drama before you get plunged into battle. Heroine characterization is kept at a minimum due to this, mostly relying on the optional (and free of context) scenes you can pick on the free days.
All in all, while I just bashed this game up one end and down the other, I don't hate it... I just felt like Team Baldrhead made a bunch of immersion-breaking and amateurish mistakes in how they handled this game. A lot of the methodology for progression used here is methodology that was rejected by fans years ago in other genres. The fact that the heroine paths have relatively little difference and all end the same way is the final nail in the coffin.
In conclusion, this was a game that showed signs of potential all over the place but fell well short of where it could have been, despite an obviously large cash investment on the part of Giga.
Everybody Loves Large Chests (the series) by Neven Iliev is probably the most horrifying dark comedy fantasy I've ever read. I laughed almost constantly throughout the first five books (what I've read) of this series... simply because it is just so far out there that it insulates you from the sheer horror of what is going on.
This series is focused on the antics and life of an aberrant, sociopathic, homicidal and ever-hungry mimic (yes, the treasure-chest monster) named Boxxy T Morningwood (yes, that's its name, lol). It begins with the nearly brainless creature devouring a hapless adventure... and gaining a few levels and some intelligence in short order.
I say intelligence, but Boxxy is pretty much an idiot savant with a gift for homicidal mayhem, torture, and somehow always making out better than it should have been able to. While Boxxy begins passively killing and eating 'tasty' adventurers and collecting 'shinies' in a dungeon, it quickly progresses to... doing the exact same thing (with added flair) outside the dungeon (well, with 'tasty' extending to just about everything along the way). This ever-hungry idiot savant is somehow one of the single most hilarious protagonists I've encountered... anywhere. Some of the things he gets up to (actually, most of them) are straight out of a Clock Up VN, and he only gets more horrifyingly evil as time goes on.
Even though he does get more intelligent as he levels and evolves, his central interests forever focus on 'shiny' and 'tasty'.
Let's be clear, if I didn't make it so above... Boxxy is evil. There is no redeeming value to him, despite what you might think of him at times. He likes eating things, collecting shiny things, and killing to level up. However, he proves that evil can be hilarious, if you know what you are doing.
This is the third game in Crystalia's series based on a world where a sport has grown up around using spiritual swords and a prequel to the original game, Kizuna Kirameku Koi Iroha. For those who haven't played the other games, I can say that you might or might not get more out of this game by playing the others first, as playing the original spoils you on the winner of the tournament and a few other issues. On the other hand, this game also fills in a lot of gaps on characters from the original, such as Miyako and Tsubaki.
I'm going to come out and say this outright... this game is probably the best of the three. Why? The more obvious reason is that the battles are generally better quality than the other two games. However, the larger reason is the way it is structured. Ninety-percent of the game is actually a straightforward seishun drama based around a class of talented dropouts and a teacher protagonist. Romance doesn't change the outcome, and actual heroine paths are actually in the 'omake' section of the game, rather than being the main focus.
This comes as a trade-off. For those who want romance to be the central element of their VNs, this game will probably be a disappointment. However, if you like seishun drama with fierce competition and lively interaction between the characters, this is a first-class game.
The protagonist, Murakaki Iori, is a member of the JSDF's Tenju Tokka unit (wields Origami and Tenju as part of their tactics), and he gets pulled for a side mission involving educating a class full of talented individuals who normal teachers can't seem to handle. Iori is, on the surface and for the most part, a good-hearted and hotblooded teacher with a true belief in acting in the best interests of his students and treating them equally. However, he does have a somewhat traumatic past and that past isn't ignored during the story.
Takamine Setsugekka is your classic 'aho no ko', also known as the 'idiot child' or 'airheaded' heroine. She wields a close-in style wielding a ninjatou and hand-to-hand combat, and she starts out at the lowest point of all the heroines in terms of skill. She occasionally, when hurt or driven to rage, goes berserk and wields immense power, but in this state she is easy to handle for an appropriately skilled opponent. Typical of this kind of story, she grows the most in skill as time goes on.
Suzakuin Momiji is, on the surface, a competent and cool swordswoman who focuses on taking apart her opponent's style and habits until she can predict and lead them down the path to destruction. She wields a long katana similar to that of Sasaki Kojirou from Fate/Stay Night. She is Tsubaki's (from the original) eldest sister. However, behind the scenes she is a lazy young woman who can't be bothered to pick up her own trash or get out of bed if she isn't forced to. In all honesty, the first time I saw her chugging non-alcoholic beer (apparently, when at her family home, she goes for the real stuff) with sashimi in her other hand, I fell in love, so I favored her from the beginning (yes, I'm a bit weird sometimes with my heroine preferences).
Kuki Asahi is the younger sister of Iori's best friend and former rival, Kuki Takahisa. From a very young age, she has been in love with Iori, but for some reason she has grown up into a very yandere-ish Iori-worshipper who will ruthlessly act to protect her hold on him. Her preferred style is 'iai-battou', a defensive style where the user counters their enemies with draw-slashes. Emotionally, she is perhaps the most volcanic of the characters, though I imagine some will say Setsugekka is.
Tobe Ririmu is a gyaru swordswoman who has a rather unique style that is very-dance like, combining Tenju illusions with unusual steps with a difficult to predict rhythm. In all honesty, I felt bad for how this game treats her toward the end. While she has a strong presence throughout much of the game, that presence fades almost to nothing due to the events of the tournament near the end. In a very real way, she is a character that existed solely to provide emotional firewood for certain events near the end. She is something of a free-spirit, with a desire to combine fashion with Jindou, designing combat costumes and Origami skins. In many ways, she is like your typical 'slightly delinquent-like child' character, especially when it comes to dealing with teacher-student issues.
The Litrpg genre has a bunch of subsets, from the gamelit (characters are actually in a game) and portal fantasy (go through a portal to a game-like world) to Wuxia/xanxia style cultivation and anime-style harem setups.
William D Arand is an interesting writer... He is definitely on the harem side of things, because all of his protagonists end up with a harem of women who are both devoted to him and end up running his life, as well as being deadly, amoral and more than a little crazy. Most of his books are based in the multiverse of his 'Selfless Hero' series, and the protagonist of that series is involved peripherally in all of them.
Happily, there are no actual sex scenes in his books (I say happily because a lot of harem fantasy writers tend to make sex scenes take up two-thirds of the book), and most of the girls react realistically (jealousy, murderous impulses, etc) to the situation even if they end up accepting it. One girl, in particular, strikes me as being one of his favorite archetypes, even if she is always low in the girls' hierarchy in each series.
In the Selfless Hero, it was Alexia, the goddess of thieves and assassins. This type of character is the 'psychotic monster yandere' type, with a side of a need to be dominated. Normally a girl like this would be relegated to enemy status, get killed early on conveniently, or otherwise cause massive problems. However, he seems to like building into his protagonists a wide degree of tolerance for a number of heroine types. Heck, Felix (Super Sales on Super Heroes series) has a girl who kills one of the other girls on a daily basis (the other girl creates clones of herself) simply out of jealousy and with permission from the other girl... and soaks her sheets in the other girl's blood and eats her flesh... and he is perfectly at ease with her.
Overall, his books have a rather dark charm to them, with just enough in the way of 'moralistic' heroines to provide a baseline for you to realize how out there some of the other heroines are, lol.
This is the latest game by ASa Project, a company that rose up during the Golden Age of VNs, making a name for themselves as solid comedy charage makers. To this day, their style hasn't changed significantly, but in some ways that gives them an advantage over modern charage, which tend to be less comedy-focused (actually, most newer charage makers don't seem to know how to make the readers laugh anymore).
This game is focused on the harem of a young man named Hirotaka. The situation is, structure-wise, a classic 'all the girls already love the protagonist' setting, a style that you don't see as often anymore. Instead of the girls getting along and being friendly (the more common modern iteration of this setup), is almost 90% the girls fighting over Hiro. Moreover, the girls are so over the top I couldn't stop laughing throughout the common route, to the point where my voice got hoarse by the end of the day.
There are four main heroines and two sub-heroines with one bad ending extra heroine and two male-oriented 'normal endings'. The main heroines are: The returning idiot osananajimi who throws everything into chaos with her return to town, Mari; the narcissistic and more than a little perverted (too self-absorbed to realize she is a pervert) Shione; the yandere-ish little sister, Nonoka; and the idol who constantly goes back and forth between being a straightforward deredere heroine and deliberately acting cute, Renna. The sub-heroines include the popular idol Yuuna and the class president Ikuyo.
Something important to note about this VN is that the constant byplay with the side-characters contributes a great deal to the comedy and bringing the heroines to life, another technique that requires skill that most modern charage writers lack. The fact that Hiro is something of a forgetful airhead (who happens to be handsome and subconsciously seduces heroines without even realizes he's doing it) as well as being a bit crazy also helps, since it generally means that things never really ease up or calm down.
Yuuna
Yes, I did a sub-heroine first... but most people who get through the common route will understand why. There are just too many reasons to pick Yuuna for a first heroine, even aside from her being an interesting character. Though I call Yuuna a sub-heroine, she is actually a strong enough heroine with a long enough path to be called a main heroine.
Her path is mostly straight-up ichaicha and dealing with the main heroines insane levels of jealousy (seriously), as well as planning for the future. It is generally heart-warming while also keeping the comedic atmosphere of the common route. I liked that the path had a 'years later' epilogue.
Renna
I had to play Renna's path after Yuuna's, because I wanted a good comparison between a sub-heroine path and a related main heroine path. Renna is Yuuna's understudy and younger partner in the idol group Gloria Snow. Renna is a pretty straightforward character who uses a 'cute' persona to seduce the protagonist. In all honesty, since Yuuna was my favorite from the beginning, I kind of wanted this to be a 3P path, but ASa seems to be ignoring the trend toward such paths, lol.
Like Yuuna's path, this one felt like an extension of the common route, with perhaps a bit more in the way of drama (short drama that doesn't really add anything to the experience) and about the same amount of ichaicha. So, for those who just want the ichaicha comedy, it is roughly equivalent to Yuuna's path in those terms.
Shione
I'm going to be blunt... this is the path that kind of made me stop playing the game. It wasn't that it wasn't funny... but as a heroine, Shione's clumsy attempts to take control of the relationship made me nearly go crazy. This path spent way too much time dancing around instead of getting to the point, and as a result, I felt like it took a lot of fun out of the more humorous moments.
Conclusion
For fans of old-style comedy harems where the girls are constantly at each other's throats, this is actually a great VN. If you want romance, it isn't. I say this because, except for Yuuna's path, the romance is the weakest part of the game. The heroines are mostly psycho (makes for great humor and catfights, but not so much for romance), so, while I spent a great deal of time laughing, I didn't get much out of the romance. I did like that the girls never did stop trying to reclaim Hiro, even after he chose one of them... the way girls always seem to give up entirely in other VNs always struck me as odd.
In action stories, often the story's quality is determined by the quality of the antagonist as much as the quality of the main characters. The antagonist acts and the main characters react, creating the drama that pulls at our heart strings and excites us. The more complex the story, the more likely the need for a strong antagonist will exist, at least in modern fiction. I decided to put down my top ten and my reasons for making them my top ten here. These are my top ten, but there isn't a particular order to them, save for the top five being the absolute best.
1- Shannon Wordsworth-
2- Mercurius-
3- Kefka- Final Fantasy VI's main antagonist. He is frequently listed as one of the craziest bad guys in all of gaming history, with good reason. He is the nihilistic result of experiments with granting humans magic, and as a result he gets the bright idea to destroy the world... and actually succeeds. His psychotic laughter (in 16 bit sound) is familiar to anyone who played the game, and his psycho clown character traumatized an entire generation of gamers into thinking clowns are inherently evil.
4- Christopher Valzeride- The heroic antagonist of Silverio Vendetta.
5- Reinhardt Lohengrin- Legend of the Galactic Heroes- While he can also be considered the protagonist of the massive space opera, he is also an ongoing antagonist. Reinhardt is an ambitious young man whose meteoric rise in the militaristic and expansionistic Galactic Empire are driven by his twin desires to wrench his sister away from her position as the incompetent emperor's mistress and conquer the galaxy. A fierce man with a warrior's demeanor that usually only serves to fuel his strategic and tactical victories, he honors both enemies and allies who show ability and contempt for those who rise above their level of competency. As a ruler, he is ruthlessly fair with those of ability who are capable of loyalty and brutally ruthless with those who are incapable of it. As an enemy, he is one of the most frightening (non-magical) men in any anime, game, or VN I've ever seen.
6-
7- Mikado Ruri-
9-
10-
Be warned, this is full of spoilers for one of my favorite VNs, Evolimit. Shiranui Yoshikazu is one of my favorite protagonists of all time, and I thought it would be good to just lay out why I loved the guy from beginning to end.
Shiranui's past
The Disaster (MAJOR Spoilers. Don't read this part unless you have finished at least Kazuna's ending)
Even entirely ignoring the events of the main story, Shiranui's story is one of quiet heroism, of sacrifice, and of love-born duty. A flawed hero who often acts the fool, while always stepping up when he is needed, without hesitation or regret. A pioneer in the best sense of the word (as opposed to the Manifest Destiny version) who acted out of duty and compassion to a girl who dreamed of Mars even as she never rose from her hospital bed. A man who, in the end, always acted for others as much as or moreso than for himself.
The Emirillia Chronicles by Michael Chatfield (incidentally my favorite litrpg author), the writer of the Ten Realms series, is one of the more fascinating ones I've come across. Unlike the Ten Realms, which is fairly unfocused due to Erik and Rugrat's generalized motivations based on their personal ethics, desires, and whims, Emirillia has a somewhat clearer goal for the characters.
In the series, humanity was defeated by an alien empire called the Jukal, but the Jukal almost lost everything in the process. Humanity's innovative and competitive nature made them devastating opponents, despite their lower tech base, so the Jukal decided to destroy them utterly... until one of them, a scientist named Lok'al, came up with the idea of tricking special-grown humans into killing more aggressive species for them.
What they came up with is the Trapped Mind Project, where 'cycles' of people grown in a simulation of Earth, believing they are 'logging in' to a VRMMO, are physically manifested on the planet and sent against aggressive species. Natives of Emirillia are also human variants, made by tweaking DNA to make them seem like the legendary races (dwarves, gnomes, elves, demons, angels, dragons, etc). By the time the protagonist, Austin Zane, 'logs in', over eight hundred years have passed and Emirillia has become something of a reality TV show for the Empire, used as the 'opiate of the masses'. Aggressive races that would have been exterminated previously are instead used as opponents for Players, and the POE (People of Emirillia) get caught in the crossfire, more often than not.
The protagonist is a brilliant engineer and scientist, a man who managed to exceed the parameters of the Earth simulation by creating a company that mined space and dumped the resources on Earth (something that normally didn't happen), and his desire to enter the 'game' was to build a cabin and get away from everything. Unfortunately for him, Bob (Lok'Al) has other plans, and Dave (as Austin comes to call himself) is too good-hearted and active by far to sit idly once he knows what is going on.
Generally speaking, much like the Ten Realms, this is a series for people who like to see the characters growing in power and helping others growing in power. It is also a series for those who like innovative and brilliant main characters (as the main ones are) and nasty characters getting their comeuppance. It is a rather large series (12 books), but I honestly hardly noticed the passing of time while I read it. This game has a significantly stronger western influence compared to the Ten Realms, which was more influenced by xianxia cultivation stories than anything else.
Really, the name of this game says it all... 'A Dragon Princess's Lazy Life'. This game centers around Takeru, a young martial artist NEET who will do anything to avoid real work, his osananajimi Suzuka, and the dragon he picked up off the street, Haru. I'll be honest, this game is pretty similar to Nekonin in length, if not in quality (it is slightly better), and I mostly enjoyed it because the double-boke of Takeru and Haru is so hilarious. Neither Takeru nor Haru has anything resembling common sense, and they are both perfect sponges, so most of the game has them quite naturally sponging off the people around them, Suzuka in particular.
The H in this game is plentiful for its length (four scenes in a three hour game), but they really aren't that important. Neither Haru nor Takeru has a serious bone in their body (all they think about is food).
I'll be honest when I say I can't call this a great game... but it was amusing. I'd hoped that this would be a new plotge by Whirlpool, but I guess I can live with a short comedy VN.
A few weeks ago, I picked up the Steam versions of Silverio Vendetta and Silverio Trinity. My reasons in the latter case were pretty self-explanatory... I wanted to read the append after story that Light so cavalierly and cruelly only included with the all-ages version previously only available on the Vita. Considering that the after story append serves as a bridge between Trinity and Ragnarok, as well as giving you what amounts to a four to five hour extension to the true route... I can say it was worth paying for, even though I essentially skipped through the entire game to unlock it.
There are two new append stories included. The aforementioned after-story is one, and the other is Ashley Horizon's origin story. For those who haven't read the main game, this will contain major spoilers.
The after-story append could have easily become the core of a fandisc for most games. It is extensive (about four-fifths to two-thirds as long as one of the heroine paths) and is action-packed, as well as being chock-full of content of the sort fanboys like me can't help but scream with glee about. (More spoilers below)
Say what you want about Light, but their tradition of extensive append stories and gaiden stories is one I think more plotge companies should consider imitating. Too bad they went down with Masada's delusions of glory.
Edit: I should note that there is currently no text hooks for the Steam versions of either game, so if you want to use a text-hooker, you'll have to either create an h-code for yourself or beg someone who already knows how. I had a huge headache from the usual Light 'I've got to gather all the rare kanji into a single sentence!' when I was done.
If nothing else, it is worth it to see this.
Since I'm still messing around with Cabbit's new game, I thought I'd drop a short review of a litrpg series I just finished reading.
Project Crysalis is based in a future where Earth has been abandoned (not because it is ruined anymore, but because the first non-Terrestrial human nation forced people to leave) in favor of living in colonies all across our solar system. The main political and scientific power in the first three books is Lunar, a nation built on the Moon that began when a private corporation morphed into its own nation-state and managed to completely defeat the Terrestrial nations when they tried to challenge their independence.
That said, it is still a solar system of many nations, with Lunar essentially being the mammoth whale in the room that everyone pretends not to be scared by.
The protagonist of the story, known for most of the story by his preferred game handle of Sagie, was one of many orphans that were presented with their first parents - in a virtual realm - at the age of twelve, when he was first allowed the use of a full immersion pod. While he experiences a brief period of blissful happiness (mostly due to how good of a fit he is with his new family), a horrid betrayal by someone he trusts ends up with him exiled to the in-game Hell, where he is subject to the kind of suffering (and the pain is real) that is really, really hard to picture, even with vivid descriptions from the author, John Gold.
As for how he handles it... well, Sagie isn't exactly a fragile sort. Rather than rerolling, like most would expect, his desire to return to his virtual (but realer than life) family drives him to climb his way up through a very horribly realistic Hell, inuring himself to suffering and gaining power along the way. For those with a weak stomach, most of the ways he gains power are pretty morbid. He uses blood rituals, necromancy, eats demons, and deliberately goes out of his way to strengthen his resistance to the various types of damage and pain Hell can dish out. Sagie, while he was extremely focused even before his fall into Hell, becomes focused to the point that it is almost painful to read his story at times.
The first four books basically focus on his adventures in Project Crysalis, as the virtual world essentially shits on him at every turn (Shield Hero had it easy in comparison). He tries to help people, he's seen as a monster. He tries to defend himself, he is seen as a monster. To be honest, I cried more than once for him, just because it was so godawful.
The last two books are... a different animal entirely. To be honest, in order to avoid spoiling it, I'll only say that those who came to love Sagie in the first three books will be frustrated for large portions of the second three. I know I was. That's not to say it wasn't interesting, it was immensely so. However, I often felt cheated, because I loved following that manic little demon while looking over his shoulder in fascination to see what crazy idea he will come up with next (and many of his ideas really are insane).
The last two books are full of conspiracy, horror, and self-sacrifice on a grand scale. Even just taken on their own, they would be first-class books. There just isn't that much of Sagie there until the final entry, where you get to see him up to his usual craziness, albeit in a way that is quite different from before.
Overall, it is an excellent book series. It has its bumpy parts and can be frequently frustrating or emotionally painful to read, but for those willing to delve into it, it is completely worth it.
I haven't decided which of these VNs I will play this month, but I thought I'd let yall in on my thought processes.
Basic Impressions (based off of previews, official pages, and Getchu pages)
Hamidashi Creative- This looks like a solid charage, just from the way they actually decided to handle the intros. https://vndb.org/v27449/chars?view=2S-7Nx23xHY#chars
1) No protagonist intro- Speaking from experience, when the protagonist doesn't even have a brief introduction on the official or Getchu sites, that usually means there is a good chance of a kusoge. This is because it usually signals the writers' intention to twist the protagonist's personality to fit the heroines in each path, rather than giving him an actual solid characterization.
2) The story summary actually describes something valid to the story, giving you at least an impression of what the game might be like- This might not seem that important, but games that avoid giving such impressions, focusing 90% on introducing the heroines only, are basically moe-whore-bait. Very few aren't kusoge in those cases, and the ones that aren't are because the writers were actually hiding a story behind the fluff they put up beforehand (a tactic that tends to have negative consequences, but still some companies do it).
3) The existence of an imouto heroine- Very few charage that don't have an imouto heroine or imouto support character are any good. I don't say this because I love imouto characters (though I am moderately fond of them), but rather because for some reason, imoutos as support characters tend to help characterize the protagonist and heroines both. For some reason, charage writers seem to have trouble making heroines feel real if there isn't a token imouto standing by in the wings.
4) One of the heroines is presented as being 'whimsical'- This might seem like a weird sign for me to mention, but if at least one of the heroines (preferably an older one) or support characters is a whimsical and influential individual, the game tends to be more amusing and/or interesting. This is because the whims of this character can break up the monotony that plagues the average SOL game in ways that keep the reader interested, even if it isn't their favorite genre.
Sakura no Kumo * Scarlet no Koi https://vndb.org/v26664
1) NOT based in the modern era- This in itself can make things interesting, depending on how it is handled. Generally speaking, the 'present-day SOL school setting' is the most abused and overused setting in all of JVNs and visual novels in general.
2) Possibly a mystery VN? To be honest, this isn't that much of a draw for me. However, sending a modern-day guy back to the Taishou era (twenty years previous to WWII, before the extremist fires of Imperial Japan reached their peak) sounds like an interesting premise (technically Hachimyoujin did something similar, but it isn't the same thing). As such, I will definitely play this eventually, even if it isn't picked for this month.
3) Protagonist is introduced in the official and Getchu pages AND he has a sprite- This really is important, because it shows how much, in the way of resources the makers of this game are putting into it. Most of the time, even if the best friend and support characters have sprites, the protagonist won't, mostly using a FP perspective as an excuse (and it is an excuse). That he doesn't have VA is a downer, but VAs for protags outside of chuunige are rare, at best.
Kagi o Kakushita Kago no Tori https://vndb.org/v25670
1) Cabbit game- All Cabbit games are weird. No, I'm not kidding. They can be SOL one moment, with mild-mannered heroines doing normal things, then turn creepy as all hell the next moment, depending on choices or the events of the story. Midori no Umi was creepy from the beginning, but their other games were a bit more up and down. You can never tell what a Cabbit game will be like just by looking at it, so I'm interested to see what they'll do to my brain this time.
2) Androphobic heroine- This might not seem like a positive element, but the act of slowly getting past the guard of an androphobic heroine can be extremely therapeutic for the reader. It is also often interesting (unless they go the dark nukige route) to watch. Of course, depending on how it is handled, this can destroy the game too, lol.
3) Murder Mystery- This isn't the first time I've played a Cabbit game with a murder mystery, and, considering how they handled it in the other games, it is probably going to surprise the hell out of me. That said, I've already guessed the two most likely perps, but I'm still interested to see if I'm right (cues in character descriptions).
I took my first steps onto the road of the otaku in 1992, when I watched the poorly dubbed (all dubs were godawful back then) Record of Lodoss War Volume 1 OVA VCR tape. Now, I was already a heavy fantasy addict, having been introduced to the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance in 1990, and my obsession was at its peak at the time. When I watched Record of Lodoss War, I saw the typical 'elven maiden with human hero' romance in a new way (incidentally, this is a pretty typical romantic theme in those days, less so nowadays). I also saw oddities that stood out as odd to me precisely because of the oddly black and white point of view enforced on one by the various D&D universes.
Of course, I was a chuunibyou brat by that time, already, so it should surprise no one that I got obsessed. It got ten times worse, however, when I encountered Chrono Trigger as it was played on my cousin's SNES. Chrono Trigger is still, to this day, one of the single best rpgs ever made. Looking back, considering all that has been done since then, it is almost TERRIFYING that someone was able to do what was done with Chrono Trigger with the limitations placed by using the SNES system. The story, the world, and the various layers of time were put together into such a subtly complex experience that, to this day, I've yet to see any other rpg manage it. Chrono Cross would manage to imitate some elements of this with its parallel world jumping, but Chrono Trigger's jumping around in time gave you impetus to explore how every aspect of the world could change based on how and when you did certain things. Rumors constantly abounded that there were secret endings (such as the infamous 'vampire Chrono' or 'Save Schala' fake rumors, which some believe led to the way the Chrono Cross storyline was handled), and people - such as me - would play the game repeatedly, using all the meager saves allowed by the cartridge limitations of the time, in hopes that they might trigger those endings or find a way to discover something new.
In all honesty, Chrono Trigger being the game that got me into jrpgs probably ruined me for life. It set my standards to a ridiculously high level on a subconscious plane, resulting in me comparing every single jrpg experience since then to it. Aesthetically, musically, and structurally, it was a true jrpg kamige. It was also the game that turned jrpgs into my second otaku obsession.
During the SNES-PS2 eras, I literally bought and played EVERY jrpg that came out. I still own them, in fact. I played most of the PS1 and SNES era games multiple times.
However, it was also in the PS2 era (often called the 'dawn of the mainstream jrpg') that jrpg quality began to fall off drastically. The kind of genius and artistic flair using minimal resources you saw in previous eras was lost entirely within a few years of the release of FFX (FFX being a good game that also turned VO from a curiosity to a mainstream 'thing'). Musical direction, a role differing from composition, where someone was assigned to decide the timing of using a musical score and which ones fit which dungeons, which story scenes, disappeared in the middle of the PS2 era, as VO was used to fill the gaps of emotionality. However, this also meant that the subtlety of previous eras was lost with a swiftness that left me bewildered at the time.
By the time the PS3 era came around, jrpgs were slowing down, due to what I now call 'flashy kusoge fatigue'. Oh, a few sub-genres, such as the Atelier series' alchemy obsessed SOL titles and the more action-based titles continued to be prolific, but what were called 'console-style rpgs' started to vanish. MMO elements were introduced into normal jrpgs, making progression and gameplay less interesting as a result (mostly because it seemed to have been done primarily to draw the WoW crowds into solo rpgs). Storytelling was dying a surprisingly swift death, as tedious gameplay elements (for loot and level-obsessed completionists) began to devour higher and higher proportions of each game's overall playtime.
There is a very good reason why people go back and play so-called 'retro' jrpgs so much. There simply aren't that many more recent jrpgs that have that kind of flair and subtle genius. I know for a fact that one of the best ways to get people addicted to jrpgs is still just to let them play Chrono Trigger.
Ironically, it was VNs that saved my soul. This was back in 2008, four years before I joined Fuwa. I was introduced to Tsukihime by a fellow anime fansubber, and, for the first time in over three years, I had something interesting enough (story-wise) that I was given a perspective on the nature of my growing irritation and fatigue with jrpgs in general. At the time, the JVN industry was still as vital and full of genius as the jrpg industry was in the PS1 era. Tsukihime and a few other major classics put out near the turn of the century had created the potential for a market of story-focused VNs that had allowed more and more creative people to get into the medium. Masada was releasing his latest version of Dies Irae, and there were literally hundreds of potentially interesting VNs for me to try.
Needless to say, I lost my mind almost as badly as when I first played Chrono Trigger. I must have blown four grand of my meager savings on VNs within the first year, and I didn't regret a penny of it. Yes, roughly two-thirds of what I bought was pure crap. However, the gems I discovered gave me a taste of the potential of the medium in a way that was horribly addictive. Moreover, after a few years of being starved of any decent new stories, even the worst VNs had something that I could find I liked about them.
In retrospect, I have an addictive personality. I get addicted to things easily, especially when they scratch my story bug. People have said to me, when it came to my jrpg obsession 'if you want a good story, why don't you read a book?', to which I usually gave them a blank stare and said 'I'm already reading good books. I just want stories in my games too.'
Interestingly enough, there were a few bursts of true creativity in jrpgs in the years since, like Tales of Berseria and Nier: Automata, but they partially stand out due to the sheer bleakness of the genre landscape. People praise Octopath Traveler and Dragon Quest XI with intensity, and they practically worship Bravely Default. However, I have been shocked at how low-quality the presentation of these stories has been. It's like an entire generation has gotten used to ineptness in presentation to the point where they can be charmed by backhanded efforts at retro-nostalgia. Octopath has all the grind of the old SaGa Frontier games with none of the charm, the best part of each of the paths being at the beginning. Dragon Quest XI retains the horribly grindy nature of Dragon Quest games without improving on the formula in any real way. Moreover, locking so much content into the post-game annoys the hell out of me (I prefer new game +, obviously).
JVNs have suffered their own decline, which is ironically due to the same demographics that inflated the medium in the first place (the dominance of the moe/charage lovers). VNs were always destined to be a niche medium, but the over-specialization of the industry has led to an inability to adapt to changing spending habits and demographics. Even if they wanted to regear for a new generation of consumers, most companies no longer have the access to the necessary talent to do so.
I'm fairly sure that jrpgs suffer from a similar lack. Yes, there are some excellent composers and graphic designers in the jrpg industry, as well as access to the solid voice-acting industry of Japan and the growing one here in the US. However, there is a severe lack of writers capable of bringing a story to life, and there is no point in a top-tier OST that has no one to properly coordinate its use. The very fact that something like Undertale could bury so much of the commercial rpg industry, in the eyes of rpg fans, says everything about how far the industry has fallen.
So what am I getting at? Not really anything, in truth. I just needed to blow off some steam. Thank you for reading.
Seishun Fragile is the latest of Purple Software's VNs. Purple Software is famous these days primarily for powerful nakige/borderline utsuge like Aoi Tori, Amatsutsumi, and Hapymaher. However, they also are responsible for Chrono Clock and Mirai Nostalgia which, while having an actual plot, are closer to charage than their more plot-centric brethren. This game is much closer to Mirai Nostalgia in style (based on a few comments inside the story, it is probably based some years after the latest point of Mirai Nostalgia, while utilizing the same world setting) than it is to the Hapymaher style, so the emotional impact is greatly reduced in comparison. However, it does have its high points.
This game focuses on Yugahara, a hot springs resort town where a young man named Shiki Yuuto lives in a mansion that used to be a bed and breakfast. Other than the fact that he is a magic-user, there is nothing really remarkable about him. He has a lot of standard-issue charage harem protagonist qualities, like being insanely dense about his osananajimi's deredere attitude and accepting his fake imouto maid's service with a blase attitude, but he is surrounded by a few stranger characters, such as his self-proclaimed magic teacher Liz and his stalker (yes, she is stalking him for real) Setsuna.
To be blunt, Setsuna is the main heroine of this game. The constant hints about a past (serious one) between Setsuna and Shiki, her very real stalking habits, and any number of cues will tip you off if you have been playing VNs as long as I have. She also has the type of heroine profile that has become typical of true/main heroines in recent Purple Soft games (though I can't reveal what it is without spoiling it for you).
Despite that, I went ahead and played another path first, though.
Liz
Of course I played the foreigner girl path first. Yes, a ditzy blonde with no sense of self-control is weirdly attractive to me, even after so long. The fact that she can use magic is just icing on the cake.
Liz's path was... uninspiring. To be honest, while it had some high moments (mostly comedic), I found the drama to be excessively derivative and disappointing for a Purple Soft game. Liz, despite her issues, has a rather straightforward personality, and the drama feels kind of forced because it requires a level of complexity that anyone who was reading the common route would have had difficulty reconciling with her characterization. While I liked the ending, it still felt like this path wasted my time, at least a little, despite my fondness for some of the more comedic moments.
Setsuna
Setsuna's path stands in direct contrast to Liz's. I will state this openly... Setsuna is yandere. Oh, she puts up a good face, but there is a ton of darkness hidden behind her joking manner and 'playful-seeming' stalking habits. To put it bluntly, Setsuna is more than a little dependent on Yuuto for her mental and emotional stability, and the reasons for it make absolute perfect sense after you get halfway through her path.
To be honest, the degree to which this path differs in quality to Liz's pretty much finalized my viewpoint on who the main heroine was, if I hadn't already got it from the common route's cues. This path has much better emotional buildup than Liz's, and the drama toward the end is actually pretty enjoyable to read, though it made me feel even more like a voyeur of people's pain more than any of the recent works I've encountered.
Toune
Toune is Yuuto's fake imouto/maid. She is originally from a family that served his since their arrival from Britain a century and a half previously, and she has seemingly devoted her life to feeding her 'dame-oniichan' and cleaning up after him.
Generally speaking, if you aren't in her path, Toune takes a supporting role, usually taking Yuuto down a few pegs when he looks to be getting full of himself. She has a cheerfully optimistic personality and a very strong sense of what she wants out of life, and she is a bit obsessed with resurrecting the B&B that the Shiki family used to run (out of their mansion).
Most of her path is a normal 'I always loved you but it was more important for me to be with you than be your lover' transition. To be honest, this isn't one of my favorite tropes, but it works out all right in this case. Toune's path gets pretty emotional toward the end, but it lacks the darkness that was so evident in Setsuna's path, giving it less impact over all (more evidence to my Setsuna is the main heroine hypothesis).
Hio
Hio is Yuuto's osananajimi, the younger sister of Hibiki, who runs the Sakuranomiya ryoukan (Japanese inn). From early childhood, the two families have had close relations, while being sort-of rivals (obviously, that ended when the B&B went under, lol). Hio is a rather obvious tsundere with a tendency to retaliate against Yuuto's ever-present density (think nuclear reactor shielding thick) with pro-wrestling moves. To everyone but Yuuto himself, her feelings are ridiculously obvious, and she is horrible at hiding them even in the best of times (even for a tsundere).
Ah... but about the path. 'Predictable' is the word I'd use for the romance portions. To be honest, if you have seen a tsundere osananajimi heroine get together with a dense protagonist often enough, you've probably seen a variation on this path. There is some serious drama, but the drama is even weaker than Liz's path. Hio is pretty adorable as a girlfriend, but again, that is fairly typical of tsundere heroines once they lose most of the tsun. Probably the best part of this path was the protagonist's firm belief that sexually harassing Hio doesn't count as sexual harassment (no basis in fact). Use of that particular running joke was spaced out just enough that it didn't get boring.
Yura Extra
Anyone who reads the common route probably likes Yura. Yura is an occult-obsessed yurufuwa girl who can generally be trusted to make the situation funnier. Honestly, other than Setsuna, she was my favorite female character in this game, so I had hopes that this would be an actual path...
... unfortunately, it was just a brief set of scenes with Yura and Hibiki, followed by an H-scene with each. To be honest, I was saddened, since I liked both characters. Maybe we'll see an actual path in a future fandisc? Especially considering that this game doesn't have an official true ending.
Conclusion
By charage standards, this would be a top-level game. By nakige standards, it is undeniably sub-par. To be honest, if this game had only had Setsuna's path or if there was more complexity to the other paths (maybe removing Hio's path, since it was the weakest), this game might be worthy of replaying in the future. However, as it is, this one is unlikely to drift to the top of my list anytime soon. Setsuna's emotional darkness and traumas made her path interesting, but the other paths feel like half-assed attempts at nakige paths (Toune's path was reasonably good at drawing at the emotions, but Liz and Hio's path didn't manage it).
For most people who play VNs, taking a break is a normal thing. Even taking a hiatus of a few months or a year seems to be standard for many in our little community.
For ten years, for me, it wasn't.
My new addiction to litrpgs succeeded in breaking me of my compulsive VN-reading for the first time in a decade. While some might consider this a bad thing (and have told me so), others have said that it was a good one. Personally, as I've started playing Purple Soft's latest game, Seishun Fragile, I'm leaning more towards good than bad. Many things that had ceased to be joyful in recent years have regained their luster, such as cheap manzai humor, obvious moe, and general donkan harem protagonist antics.
I won't say I love that last part (ha, like that would happen), but I can say that my viewpoint on it is less... bitter and jaded than it was before. I've had a refresh, and
I don't regret it, despite how much it built up my backlog with those few games I bought anyway despite not starting any. One thing I find interesting is that I find it easier to find good stopping points than before, instead of just forging on ahead for a straight twelve hours and then flopping into bed. I no longer stare at the screen for entire days while downing endless snacks and bottled water.
I also didn't want to get rusty on my Japanese, which is why I started up a new VN today. It was then that I realized that I no longer felt the pressure that still remained, even after I tossed aside VN of the Month. To me, this was an amazing sensation, harking back to my third year playing VNs, when my love of the medium was at its most fanatical.
I've advised many people to take a step back and rest from VNs when they have started to lose their way, but this was the first time I took my own advice... and it worked (even if it was by accident).
I have only recently 'discovered' the litrpg genre (for those unfamiliar with this, the most similar examples I can give are Overlord, SAO, and Log Horizon) of novels. As such, I'm not going to presume to review things like stat systems and how the stories 'played'. It would be ridiculous for me to do so (since I'm not a min-max freak who loves all that math), and it would also be boring as hell to listen to here, lol. I will note some classic tropes: Protagonists who jump to wrong conclusions about the 'systems', meaninglessly horrific tribulations that seem tailor-made to force the protagonist to grow, a higher tendency toward gamer brain (dual-thinking amorality, a tendency to consider people not from Earth to be soulless NPCs, etc), and min-maxing and/or crafting obsessed protagonists.
The Chaos Seeds
In the Chaos Seeds, a dark force plotting on a Jupiter-sized world called the Land decides to summon humans from Earth using a video game, whereupon he believes the Chaotic nature of the humans of Earth (who all have a bit of Chaos in their souls) will destroy the seals holding his kind. Richter, the protagonist, is one of the first such individuals. Richter is a clever man who was also a heavy gamer on Earth, and his reaction to be ripped from his homeworld is oddly muted (at first). Rather, he quickly throws himself into adapting to his new world, making the best of it, mostly forgetting Earth as irrelevant. This story has a lot of fighting, crafting, and town-building for those interested in those things. I will also say that it doesn't make one of the greater mistakes some litrpgs make, such as making brain-shots non-fatal if the individual has high hp, lol.
Singularity Online
To be honest, this is one of my favorites (a relatively recent one). Essentially, the protagonist, a guy named Jeff from a future that seems just one step removed from the horrors of Giga's Baldr series, is a programmer involved with the company making a VRMMO named Singularity Online. The setting of the game is an interesting combo of Lord of the Rings and Wheel of Time setups, with corrupted races, a powerful and unkillable ultimate evil, and enclaves of the Light surrounded by Blight and Darkness. Jeff, who is a genius programmer and scientist, through the game's system, manages to gain the class of Sorcerer, which allows him to make his own spells (yes, very D&D), though this requires imagination, inspiration, will, and passion to succeed. Jeff is a pretty all-around awesome guy, in that he has a powerful sense of self, a strong sense of compassion, and a knack for figuring out stuff he wasn't supposed to. Reading his story as he works is one of the better litrpg experiences out there, at least so far.
The Silver Fox and Western Hero
I'll be honest. This is actually more Wuxia than litrpg, with the only litrpg element being the protagonist's ability to look at his progression in cultivation. The protagonist of this story suffers from racism constantly throughout the story, with only rare individuals considering him on a personal level instead of a racial level. Not only this, he is constantly forced to weather assaults from all fronts in his path toward ascendance, with allies suffering for getting involved with him and those he loves constantly under the most horrific of threats. He is an insanely stubborn individual, determined to find his own path, forever denying the easy way. While this series can be immensely stressful, it is also very good, so far.
Ten Realms
This series begins with the Two Week Curse, which is both the name of the first book and the name of a phenomena where people from Earth spontaneously begin displaying semi-magical abilities before suddenly disappearing two weeks later. Erik and Rugrat are mercenaries, playing bodyguard to people from a parasite corporation in a war-torn African nation (unnamed), until they get ambushed (due to their client being a total moron) and Erik loses his legs and gets the Two Week Curse. They immediately begin to prepare, with Erik using his newfound mana to create a healing spell that lets him regrow his legs and Rugrat building a capsule full of guns and supplies to take with them. They are then taken to the new world, the Ten Realms, a game-like world with a mix of traditional leveling and cultivation. Most of the series, so far, has Erik and Rugrat forging a path of progression while dragging their increasing (rapidly) number of followers in their wake. Erik is the one who constantly pushes the limits of what is possible, while Rugrat tends to rest a little more on his natural talent than his friend, while also supporting him in various ways. One of the most important things of this series is the soldiers' bond between Erik and Rugrat, that of two men who trust each other utterly, knowing both their own abilities and those of their partner. It adds a rather unusual flavor to the usual litrpg/Wuxia combo.
Conclusion
These are the series that have left the best impression on me over the last three months. While I've read almost forty series and ninety books, these are the ones that stood out the most.
Needless to say, when I hit my latest speed bump in the form of another partial burnout on VNs, I was left wondering what to do with all that free time. For about forty hours of that time, it was Ghost of Tsushima, but when that was over, I accidentally picked up my first litrpg on Kindle Unlimited... and oh god, I almost wish I hadn't.
The problem, when I analyze it in retrospect, is that my fondness for anime like SAO, Log Horizon, and Overlord had primed me perfectly, my addictive personality instantly latching onto the familiar elements to draw me in beyond retrieval. While roughly two-thirds of the books I downloaded weren't worth reading, the ones that were left me unable to stop (The Chaos Seeds, in particular).
I'm pretty sure anyone who paid attention during the peak of my VN of the Month years can probably guess that I have a tendency to throw myself into my addictions rather than trying to restrain myself. In this case, it was made worse by the fact that I'd been 'starved' of anything worth my attention (new) for months on end, so when my first litrpg dug its claws into my stimulus-starved brain, I became incapable of stopping.
In fact, I haven't really stopped even now, despite 70 different books completed from over a dozen authors in just under forty days. I even ignored last month's releases, despite Phantom Trigger's latest episode having come out. I don't even remember the VN I was playing at the time anymore, because I've consumed so much content of late between long bouts of stress working with even more stressed out clients who want even more for less than usual.
I'm mostly writing this post to laugh at myself, since I have absolutely no intention whatsoever of ceasing to indulge in reading the near-endless list of litrpgs available for free with my KU subscription...
