This is the first of August's releases I'm playing, and to be honest, I didn't really have any hopes for this VN... in a good way, my belief that it would suck was betrayed, though this is a very problematic VN, in a number of ways.
1. It is LONG. This VN is way too long for a story that is almost entirely slice-of-life (though it is an extremely abnormal life) and considering how self-abusing the protagonist tends to be.
2. The music cuts out at irregular intervals, and frequently it doesn't make sense when it does.
Those are the obvious flaws, and I'll just leave it at that. For a doujin VN, the art is about as good as it gets (outside of a few miraculous works of art that pop up once or twice a year). The match of characterization to art is pretty good in this case (in other words, the characters' personalities are properly matched to the expressions and poses of the tachie), though there is very little in the way of pose variances in comparison to a commercial VN.
Most of the music in this VN is generic (though the opening and ending songs are decent unique ones), but it is used properly - where it doesn't cut out and leave you hanging - so there isn't a lot to complain about.
Story-wise... the concept is interesting. The basic idea of the protagonist is that he is cursed to be the 'idiot friend' (think Sunohara from Clannad) who exists entirely to help the protagonist get together with a heroine or to kick him out of his mood and save the heroine. The thing is... he has at least forty groups of such 'osananajimi' characters, each with a 'protagonist' of its own that he has to help. The basic impression is that it is like a full time job... a job he really, really hates.
To be honest, I was kind of amazed they went with a primarily serious story (yes, it is serious) despite the seemingly humor-focused idea of the story. Oh, there is indeed a ton of laughable points... in fact, it is impossible to avoid them even if you try. However, the baseline of the story is serious, to the point where you have to wonder just why they had to lay it on so heavy in the latter part of each heroine route. (incidentally, I'm half-sure there is a hidden heroine route in here somewhere, but because this is a doujin VN, there are no walkthroughs to help me find it, lol)
Well, my conclusion after having played the obvious heroine routes is that this is a decent VN... but only decent. It doesn't get beyond that, primarily because its flaws are glaring enough that they offset most of the good points. This VN could definitely have done with a bit of cutting the fat, especially when it came to the repetitious gags and constant foreshadowing with no progression (it took way too long to get to the point) in Nanami's route.
Grimo Love is a nukige. Now, you'll notice that I generally don't bother to rate or comment on nukige... because most of the time I drop them inside of ten minutes. However, Grimo Love has this sort of dread fascination to it that kept me playing right until the end (incidentally, it wasn't the story or the characters that kept me going).
I'm going to be blunt. This VN doesn't really have a story. Oh, there is one in there that probably would have made for a ridiculously good charage with story if they'd bothered to develop it properly... and the sheer amount of detailed sprites in this VN makes me want to ask why they didn't. However, this is ultimately a nukige and it has that ever-so-familiar 'sex under the necessity' trope going for it.
In this case, the protagonist is a member of the student council and the Second Literature Club (descended from the ancient Occult Research Club, whose leader died ten years before). This VN is so full of supernatural incidents that they actually overwhelm the nukige H by a ratio of 10:1... and that's just weird, for a nukige (and it is one, from the feeling). The school in this VN, its characters, and the constant incidents are comedic and feel unbelievably surreal... and virtually endless. This VN is seriously long. It took me twenty hours to finish, and most of the time I was either smiling or outright laughing.
If you asked me whether this was a pure comedy, I'd say no... but despite all the horrifying incidents that supposedly occur or almost occur around the characters (with a witch teacher who loves evil grimoires constantly causing trouble, ghosts and youkai attracted to the school like moths to a flame, and a vampire True Ancestor sleeping on the emergency stairs, how could it be peaceful? lol) it never quite manages to be serious. Sure, there is a really half-hearted attempt to make certain parts serious... but the characters and their reactions are so silly and blase that it is impossible to take even zombies, ogres, and evil gods seriously. The protagonist's blase reaction to everything that happens around him is what defines a lot of the VN's atmosphere, and since he basically has sex with all the girls as a result of such incidents (or the girls' whims) it is kind of hard to take anything in this VN seriously.
In other words, I laughed but I never cried.
Anyway, now down to my thoughts on Jeanne... Liarsoft's new game. I only started it about five hours ago, but I'm already ready to drop it. Sorry, I just have trouble with Alice in Wonderland-type down the rabbit-hole stories. Mixing it with chuuni-ism and a former French Resistance fighter doesn't actually help as much as you might think, at least for me.
I'm sometimes surprised at how intolerant I can be of this kind of stuff... but it doesn't really help that the writer is making it out to be a huge mystery when what is going on is blatantly obvious to anyone who has read a little bit of history and surrealist fantasy. As a point of reference, I just have unforgiving tastes when it comes to serious fantasy in general. My dislike for surrealist fantasy (I like down in the dirt fantasy much better) is an inevitable result of having outgrown that kind of crap when I was in second grade, lol. Just making it more mature doesn't make it interesting for me.
Anyway, I'm going to play a random VN until I can get into a mood to forgive this VN for being a part of a sub-genre type that I generally avoid like the plague, so don't expect another post on it for at least a few days.
Now... I've already commented on this VN elsewhere, at least to a point. So, I'll just do a quick recap of my initial feelings on this VN. I'll go ahead and get the negative out of the way first.
First, the common, Sara, and Karen routes... as I've said elsewhere, these routes exist solely to give you certain information that adds depth to the story of Rinne and Setsuna. So, lolicons and fans of heroines like Karen, you are wasting your time if you go into this VN if you are expecting something truly great out of those two. Sadly, those routes are about as weak as some of the worst charage routes I've played.
Things change dramatically during the Rinne, Winter, and Summer routes (they extend from one another). The degree of character development quality, story-writing, and narrative is incomparably better than that of the common and sub-heroine routes. This is perhaps inevitable, as this VN is basically a kinetic novel using chameleon-like techniques to make itself look like a normal multi-path VN. Do you think I'm joking? I'm not, seriously.
I'm going to be blunt... I wasn't moved emotionally at all until the Rinne route. I can honestly say that if you are looking for emotional stimulation, the Rinne>Winter>Summer progression is ideal. There is a lot of mindfucking involved (those who compared this to other VNs with similar themes are more or less correct). The biggest complaint I might decide to bring up would be a very simple one... in the VN's 'true' ending (there is a 'good' and a 'true' one, whose actual names I won't reveal, since they are spoilers) the story as a whole isn't actually brought to a resolution. Of course, there is a definite sense of hope that comes out of it, but the writer chose to leave the story unresolved, probably for similar reasons to the people who did so with other VNs of the type.
Intellectually, this VN isn't nearly as stimulating as you might think. For one thing, the protagonist is too much of an idiot to grasp most of what is going on. For another, there isn't much food for thought that hasn't already been covered if you've taken an advanced physics course or two (at least conceptually). The humor in this VN tends toward shimoneta (sexual humor), which is kind of ironic, considering it is an all-ages VN. I honestly enjoyed the humorous character interplay in the various paths, and they did a really good job in the latter half of the game of bringing the various characters and the settings to life. Edit: One thought that occurs to me is that this might be intellectually stimulating if you aren't accustomed to juggling sci-fi and science fiction weirdness, such as the stuff from the Hyperion book series. The protagonist's perspective in this VN isn't so much ignorant as limited by his own psychological immaturity (like a five year old in an adult's body, his immaturity enforced and reinforced by his amnesiac state).
Is this a kamige? No. Three elements make this an impossibility... the common, Karen, and Sara routes, the inconclusive final ending, and the somewhat stale attempt (in my eyes, at least) at intellectual stimulation. However, this is definitely one of those VNs I'll name as 'one to remember from 2016'. It won't make it onto my personal favorites list, because I intensely dislike inconclusive endings, but it is still worth mentioning, just as many flawed VNs I've played have been.
Overall... this VN will probably appeal to the sci-fi mystery crowd and inveterate romantics (love across time, lol) the most. This isn't a moe-type story, despite the art style, but it does take a page from the playbook at times. This is also a relatively short VN, considering how much content they tried to force into it... think about seventeen hours of playtime, total (that is what my clock is saying, anyway). It is about the same length as an medium-length charage, so that isn't necessarily short... but for a story-focused VN that is pretty short. If you were to ask me straight out whether I liked it as a whole, I'd say yes, but if you ask me if I'll replay it, I'll say 'only if they remake the ending'.
…Wow. After the disappointments of last month, it is so nice to encounter such a great VN on my first one of the month this one. Sakura no Mori Dreamers is a horror/mystery nakige based in a medium-sized Japanese town. It is primarily focused on the protagonist, Shinji, and his quest to discover the killer of his first love, Madoka. However, if you ask me if this is a story of revenge in the vein of Hello, Lady, that isn’t the case.
Shinji is one of those rarest of things in a VN protagonist these days… a young man with a strong will and who is actually intelligent enough to figure out the best way to act in most situations. That isn’t to say he is some paragon of the avenger archetype… if anything, he is a normal guy… but he has encountered enough loss in his life that it is pretty easy to empathize with him and his reactions to tense situations lack the frustrating aspects you see in a lot of VN protagonists.
Madoka, his deceased girlfriend, plays a vital role in the story, with the prologue thoroughly introducing her and the relationships between the protagonist and his adopted family (his parents are deceased). To be honest, the sense of loss at the end of the prologue is devastating, even though you know – since every single summary on the web reveals it to you – what is going to happen.
In terms of structure, about thirty-percent of this VN is slice-of-life, with the rest being raw plot. Most of the story is told as part of the ‘common route’, which makes up about 80% of the VN. In fact, the main conflict is resolved in the common route, so afterward it moves from the protagonist’s own personal conflict to that of the heroines… with the exception of Kureha’s path, which becomes something of an extension of the common route near the end.
This VN really touches on the darker side of human nature, with multiple psychopathic killers involved. There is a lot of semi-guro imagery in this VN (like pencils sticking out of the eye of a rotting corpse, a half-pancaked schoolgirl, etc). As such, I can’t recommend it for the faint of heart, especially since it is pretty frequent in the common route.
The protagonist and friends dive into the dreams of killers in this VN and eliminate the evil spirits waiting there… but that part of the VN is actually relatively small in comparison to the ‘background’ that gets formed around each major incident and its human cause. The fantasy-horror element is vital to the story, but it tends to take a backseat in two of the four heroine routes (Mahoro and Hatsune’s routes), whereas it is more vital to the other two (Kureha and Mifuyu’s).
In all honestly, it is quite possible to be perfectly satisfied with this VN after playing only Kureha’s route, which is why I think it should have been locked until you finished the others. There is a definite sensation of ‘true route flavor’ to her route, and I made the mistake of playing it first. That doesn’t mean that the other routes were neglected, but it is the only route where the common route’s main storyline is continued.
Hatsune’s route is probably the mildest… it is basically your classic nakige route with a few minor twists born of the fantasy element. Mahoro’s route is quite similar in this respect. However, Mifuyu’s route is seriously dark at times… primarily because Mifuyu is carrying a bit more baggage than the other two heroines, lol.
Overall, this VN is one of the better ones this year so far. For some reason, this seems to be the year for fantasy-horror VNs (with Tokyo Necro and Akeiro Kaikitan both standing out like burning flagpoles). There are some issues with the setting that prevent it from being a kamige – the evil spirits are a bit too… opaque as an existence, even at the end – but it is definitely worth playing and a solid candidate for May’s VN of the Month.
I actually finished this VN and this post before I went to sleep, but since I lost internet access due to a freak lightning strike (curse you, oh Lady of Storms!), I haven’t been able to get online to take care of things. This VN took me roughly twenty-one hours over the course of five days, but a lot of that was because, until the internet got knocked out, I was working like crazy to meet some short-term deadlines. Moreover, the loss of internet access completely screwed up my work schedule (while also hurrying my play schedule), which I’d re-geared since my doctor pronounced me semi-recovered.
Anyway, I’ve already started Soshite Hatsukoi ga Imouto ni Naru. For those who are wondering… the VN is absolutely nothing like what I expected so far, in a good way, lol. *smiles enigmatically*
... wow, it has been a while since I've come across a VN where I can't use meta terms to explain everything.
If I had to put a genre type to this, it would be 'random/comedy/ecchi'. There are a few really unique elements to this VN that I should probably explain before I go any further. First, narration in this VN is almost nonexistent... roughly 98% of the game's text is dialogue, though the h-scenes are narrated. Second, this VN makes no attempt whatsoever to be serious at any point. I'm not kidding. There are literally no serious points in this VN (I at first disliked it, then when a stuffed penguin appeared with the same brand of beer my father drinks in hand, I completely lost control and started rofling).
... which is its attraction. This VN feels a lot like an eroge-version of an American cartoon of the same type as the Simpsons or Family Guy, right down to the movie references and low humor (repeated jokes, sex humor situational comedy, and jokes related to defecation and other weirdness). There are also a huge number of old American movie references (mostly 1980's to the turn of the century) and a few references to TV shows that were old when I was born, such as the Lone Ranger. To be honest, this VN is all over the place...
This VN is immensely fun if you are fine with the kind of insensitive, low humor that is common in the American cartoons I mentioned above, as well as Japanese humor. However, if you don't like that kind of thing, this will probably be pure torture.
PS: All the heroines are bisexual.
There was a time when online multiplayer was the dream of a bunch of idiot techies who thought it was the best idea it was possible for anyone to have.
Those were the days, lol.
I'm not kidding... I can mark the general era when I stopped playing games with other people to the days when online multiplayer superseded in-the-house multiplayer and split-screen coop games. For better or worse, I don't like playing games with strangers. It is uncomfortable, and I never have time to get used to people's habits before I play with them. So, I pretty much dropped about a third of all the game genres I used to like because the online multiplayer had become the center of their experience. I still occasionally buy and play FPS games, but I wait until I can get them used for under twenty dollars because that is all their solo campaigns are worth. I still keep an eye on the strategy game market, but more and more often, the online portions are coming to dictate the designs for the main games (the removal of pause and fast forward functionality is one obvious one for RTS games).
So... when I take a look around the gaming market, I see a massive portion of it that I'm not even remotely interested in simply because it went in a direction I couldn't follow due to my personality. VNs and classic jrpgs are comforting because there is no possibility for a stranger to come in and screw up your playing experience (one of the main reasons I hate online multiplayer). There is no need to compete with faceless strangers for resources in a Romance of the Three Kingdoms game, and I don't have to deal with people screaming about 'noobs' when I go back to replay Suikoden II.
In other words, I loathe the poisonous nature of online gaming. Sure, there are positive elements, but the peer pressure tends to resemble the worst of my high school and part time job experiences. I go to games for stress relief, not to have my stress increased, lol.
I guess it is because I go to games to manage stress as much as for enjoyment that I can't stand online gaming. Social elements of gaming are like a poison pill to me and to a lot of solo gamers... so why is it that they continue to add social elements even to games that really don't have a need for it? I chose to pick up No Man's Sky when it became apparent that even though it was a shared world, there was no need to actually deal with other people to enjoy it. For once, someone is using game servers for something other than proxy socialization and petty one-upsmanship under the guise of gaming... and I'm immensely gladdened by that fact.
In this month's releases comes a sequel I've been looking forward to for two years (since it was quietly first leaked), Tayutama 2.
Tayutama 2 is based fifty years after the end of Tayutama (the original). To be specific, it is based on the Mashiro ending from that one (straight out the best immortal heroine ending I've seen in any charage). However, because it is based off of that ending, it spoils the main story completely, making it a necessity for you to have at least played Mashiro's path to understand how things ended up the way they have in the new game... and because the old heroines return as side or main characters (though not as heroines). This is just based off of me gathering information from the Lump of Sugar website, the official Tayutama website, and Getchu...
Tayutama was my first in-Japanese non-chuunige... and it is the reason I keep going back to LoS, despite the fact that I've been tempted to get a friend to use spambots on their support page for putting out almost all kusoge in the last four years. The magic of Tayutama is that, despite its moe-moe appearance, it showed me that even what I later came to call charage could still have a solid story, a well-designed setting, and a cast of characters that you actually wanted to experience as people, rather than just vicariously experience sex with. In other words, the mercy and lenience I'm willing to grant charage (though it might seem slight) was born from playing this game, so I do recommend it.
For those interested in playing the new game after the old one, an omnibus of the original and its fandisc was recently released, so feel free to get ahold of that one, since it is already Windows 7/8/10 ready, unlike the original version, which requires update patches to work on the later Windows systems, lol.
Now, for those interested in what I intend to play from September's end of the month releases... I'll list them here.
Natsu no Majo no Parade (maybe, maybe not... I don't have enough on this VN to make the decision now)
Kanojo ＊ Step (by the parent company of Hook Soft, which specializes in soft, pure-hearted charage)
Tayutama 2 (as I mentioned above)
Sen no Hatou, Tsukisome no Kouki (I'm a little exasperated that they are using a half-gakuen half-fantasy setting, but there is enough interesting stuff in the description for me to want to try it, despite having my hands repeatedly burned playing August games)
Furerute Love Connect: Ore to Kanojo no Aijou Hyougen (about a 50/50 chance I'll play this... since I dropped Nephrite's first game out of boredom three years ago)
Kyonyuu Fantasy Gaiden 2 After -Osutashia no Yabou (another gaiden story for Kyonyuu Fantasy/Funbag Fantasy. Since I actually like the setting of the game series, I'm curious if this new one will add anything interesting to the series)
Interesting stuff
Nitroplus is releasing an all-ages version of Tokyo Necro at the end of the month, for those who don't want to deal with the rape, choukyou, and other half-offensive sexual scenes in the game. Since h-scenes are actually the least offensive element of this VN, I have to wonder why they bothered, lol. However, I'm sure at least some of you will want to try it.
Liarsoft is re-releasing two more games, one from its Rail-soft lineup and one from its own, at the end of the month: Zettai Chikyuu Boueiki Mega Laughter and Kagerou Touryuuki. While I haven't played either, those who want to see what Liarsoft and Liarsoft's primary subsidiary used to produce will probably find this to be enlightening, lol.
At the moment, that's about it.
A simple question, with the poll closing at the stroke of midnight Monday morning US Central time. Which VN do you want me to play first? Honestly, there is no chance whatsoever of me playing anything else before at least one of these two, so feel free to make your decision based on which you are most interested in.
For those who aren't aware of the games:
Tayutama 2 is the direct sequel to the original game, based off of Mashiro's ending as canon. The main heroine is one of Mashiro's Tayutai followers and it is based fifty years after the original. Those who have read the original will have certain knowledge about the future past this point, but I don't think it is directly relevant in this case.
Sen no Hatou is August's latest game. I don't know if anybody here ever pays attention to my comments on this company... but in my mind this company represents both some of the best and worst aspects of high-budget VN makers... their VNs tend to start well, be interesting in the middle, and flop flat on their faces at the end. This applies to all of the VNs I've played by this company, and it is the reason why I don't list any of their VNs amongst my top fifty, despite their visual and narrative quality. To be blunt, the ending portions of their VNs are almost inevitably... weak even if you include the climax. So, left to my own devices I probably would have put this VN off until I could read a few reviews and see whether I should go in with high expectations or not. However, this VN is the most hyped one for the last third of the year, so I can't really justify not playing it right away. So, it goes in as one of the two first candidates for the month.
Suisei Ginka is the latest VN made by Akatsuki Works, the makers of such classic VNs as Ruitomo, Comyu, and Devils Devel Concept. This was written by Morisaki Ryoto, the writer of multiple kamige including Hapymaher, Komorebi no Nostalgica (as an assistant writer), and Re:Birth Colony. He is one of the most flexible and skilled writers out there, and I've yet to fail to enjoy a VN he's had a hand in.
This VN is based in a port city half-owned by a company that caused a disastrous chemical spill there ten years ago. It begins with the reunion of Izana, a young woman with a rather unusual attitude toward life, and Tetsuo, a straightforward young man with an utter disregard for his own safety and survival. Naturally, this being an Akatsuki Works game, this is the beginning of numerous troubles and tribulations.
Structurally, this VN is pretty 'to the point', in that the story uses the bare minimum of slice-of-life to give life to the characters and setting, while constantly keeping a laser focus on what is moving in the shadows... and the disastrous potential it holds.
Maria
Looking at it in retrospect, I probably should have done this path second or third. However, I followed my instincts on the game's first major story choice, and as a result I got into this path. Maria's path is focused on the company that caused everything to go so horribly wrong, so it reveals details of some factors that spoil the other paths a little bit.
Maria herself is a classic 'expressionless loli' of the type that is common to a lot of chuunige that have loli heroines. Normally expressionless and nearly emotionless, she is very much like a cat, acting sweet to those few people she cares about and disregarding just about everyone else based on their use or lack of to her. Edit: That isn't to say she's completely devoid of emotion... but with the guy who acts as her guardian being the kind of guy he is... she's naturally a little warped.
This path has a lot of violence to it, primarily because of what the characters face in it. It is a solid path though... it is just one that I really should have waited on.
Seika
Seika is Izana's best female friend and more than a little bit prickly toward anyone who approaches her with ulterior motives (and because of Izana's easy manner and physical beauty, that is pretty common). She was raised by a strict asshole father who sees her only as a convenient object to augment his own ambitions for the family line, which is a lot of the reason why she is so prickly in general. Her sole point of softness is Izana, whom she would probably do anything for.
Seika's path is wrapped up in dealing with the plot element that drives most of the protagonist-side characters, in a very intimate manner. It's a fairly standard path for a game like this, serving as a fitting intro to the ins and outs of the story while setting the stage for elaborations in future paths. I liked how it turned out, though a lot of people might find it an odd ending. It is more solid than say... Benio's path in Comyu, which was fundamentally unsatisfying (for some reason, Hino Wataru sometimes chooses to drop a single weak heroine path in some of his games).
Momo
Momo is Tetsuo's guardian/oneesan/coworker. She is a heavy-drinker and a heavy-smoker and she is actually thirty, though she looks twenty. She is also a brilliant (genius-level) individual as well as being highly perceptive when it comes to people in general. She and Tetsuo have lived most of the last ten years around one another, and they know each other about as well as it is possible to know another person without being them.
After playing this path, I definitely realized there was a play order... Seika>Momo>Maria>Izana. The reason is fairly simple... Maria's path reveals too much about the 'causes' of all this, removing a great deal of the mystery about what the protagonist is trying to do at the end of Momo's path and the 'why' of certain elements of Seika's path. Seika's path, on the other hand, paves the way for things that are elaborated on in Momo's path. Izana's path is, of course, the true one.
Momo's path focuses on one of the more obvious, if mid-boss type antagonists. This antagonist is a 'rationally insane' type who has no morals whatsoever outside of their personal ruleset. In addition, this path has more death than the other two paths combined, lol. I will say I liked the ending of this one, as well.
Izana
Izana is the true heroine of this VN. She is also one of those 'always involved with the protagonist's life' heroines in the style of Kagome from Comyu or Suzu from Ayakashibito (meaning that even if they aren't lovers, they never really separate). Izana is a very odd young girl... she seems at first to be something of a tomboy, but when you get to know her, she also shows a kind of quiet wisdom that the average tomboy heroine just doesn't possess. Rather than being intelligent, she really is just 'wise'.
Her relationship with Tetsuo is so strong that it is unchanged by the ten years of parting between them. They both care deeply about one another and trust each other absolutely, without reservations.
Her path, true to the form of true paths in chuunige, is the most exciting of the paths, bringing together all the elements of the other paths with a focus on the central conflict that isn't resolved in the others. Tetsuo shows off his manliness quite nicely in this path, as well as his own bit of wisdom (If he was a D&D character, he'd be a true neutral barbarian with an intelligence stat of 9 and a wisdom stat of 16), though it is born of him having such a solid sense of who he is, where he stands, and how he intends to live and die.
Neither Tetsuo nor Izana is the type to hesitate or stand around worrying about consequences, as they both have very distinct senses of priorities.
I honestly wept at the climax of this VN. I couldn't help but cry for a certain character who got the sharp end of the stick from beginning to end throughout this story (even mentioning her name is a spoiler). A toast to those who suffer so that others can be saved! *Clephas smiles sadly and clings his glass of rum against an empty one*
A few extra comments
One thing you should keep in mind when reading this VN is that neither this writer nor Hino Wataru produces 'standard' romances. Their romantic elements are generally good, but they are almost universally 'romance born out of a stressful situation', so don't expect a charage-style romantic element in here. What romance is in there is good, at least from my point of view, and Tetsuo is straight-out one of the manliest protagonists I've seen in a chuunige (since most chuunige protagonists tend to have issues that make them fall a bit short of that standard).
I'm glad that this VN kept up the four year tradition of good VNs coming out on or near my birthday, hahaha...
I just finished this game a few hours ago, and I’m honestly not sure what I should write about it. It left me with so many different impressions and emotions, I’m kinda overwhelmed. One thing is for certain though, this game was absolutely amazing. It made me laugh, it made me cry, and, dammit, it scared the crap out of me a few times.
Chrono Box is a mystery from start to finish. As a result, one of the things that makes the writing and the story so good is the element of surprise. In other words, twists you don’t see coming. There are tons of these, and they are done very well. The writers really did a fantastic job in my opinion. I was constantly trying to piece together the puzzle in my head. However, they just kept on taking me by surprise, making me more and more confused. (In a good way. Confused as in, the kind of confusion you want from a good mystery.)
You are fed information on a regular basis, but it is never enough to come to a complete conclusion. Honestly, comparing it to some of the other mystery stories I have read, this was by far one of the better ones. I often manage to somewhat guess most of what is going on by the halfway mark in these types of stories, but here I was at a loss until the very end.
To be honest, because of the fact that this is a mystery, where spoilers really can ruin the experience, I don’t want to get into any details about the plot. In fact, I recommend that you do not look into the plot at all, as stupid as that sounds.
My recommendation is this: if you have some interest in reading the game, just do it. Don’t read any summaries or reviews, don’t look at any CGs. Just read it blindly. Well, use a guide if you want. The guide luckily won’t spoil anything at all, as all the choices are map movement choices, meaning you won’t have to worry about «spoilery choices» whatsoever.
I will say one thing though. The game has a lot of H. I know some people aren’t really big fans of H-scenes, and ends up skipping them. DO NOT DO THAT IN THIS GAME. Don’t skip any scenes. Read everything, even if it bores you. Trust me, you want to read absolutely everything in this VN. Every little detail matters.
Anyways, Chrono Box is definitely a must read for horror/ mystery fans in my opinion. It's one of those stories I wish I could forget, just so that I could experience it all for the first time again.
Well, the fourth anniversary of my VN of the Month series of posts is coming in another week or so... and to be honest, I'm a bit amazed at how long I've kept this going. Four years of playing most of the non-nukige VNs that came out each month, writing something on them, then picking one to be VN of the Month (or not, if none met my standards)... to be honest, my opinion hasn't changed much since the last time this time of year came around. VN of the Month is one of the single most grueling tasks I've ever set myself outside of work, and I can honestly say that there are a lot of times when I just want to put it all aside.
However, I inevitably find myself coming back and playing more VNs. If I take a week off from VNs, I inevitably tear back into my addiction with insane glee, and it usually at least takes three or four bad VNs before I finally run down and need a recharge.
I thought about making a poll asking if I should stop, like I did the other years... but the results - and the suggestions - are always the same, so I'm really more interested in what people have to say about this whole thing.
Yay, Clephas is contributing to a controversial topic in his blog! *listens for the hisses and boos of his loving public*
More seriously, I'm not out to bash fantranslators, localization companies, or anyone else involved with the process. I've been on both sides (consumer and producer) and I can honestly say that I can see all four sides of the argument (the producer side, the negative consumer side, the neutral consumer side, and the positive consumer side).
The Positive Consumer
Based on my personal experience (beginning with jrpgs in the nineties), most people begin in this stage. Honestly, I didn't know enough to figure out when things were badly translated, and as long as the lines weren't too out there (spoony bard, lol), it never really got to me. There are plenty of people out here who remain in this stage forever, never taking interest one way or the other in the translation aspects of things... and that is perfectly natural. Most Americans (if not people from other countries) are essentially linguistic bigots, and as a result, they won't care if things are wrong as long as they can't tell just by playing a game, reading a book, or enjoying an anime or film.
The Negative Consumer
Most people with at least some knowledge of Japanese end up in this stage at some point. The reasons are manifold, but the biggest one is the 'literalist disease'. Almost everyone who gets involved with translation or knows enough Japanese to nitpick is under a peculiar delusion... that 'Literal Japanese to English translation isn't an oxymoron'. Unfortunately for their delusions, my personal experience and the experience of many others does not bear this particular one out.
Literalist translation is a delusion born of a misapprehension of the Rosetta Stone concept... basically because we can generally match up most words with their equivalents in our own languages given a decent reference point, that perfect translations are both possible and should be provided without hesitation by mechanical translators (often literally). However, this ignores two major issues... the cultural basis for the formation of modern language's concepts and the difference in how the language is structured (grammar in other words).
This isn't the only reason for ending up in this stage... some people are in it because it makes them feel superior or they like trolling 'lesser beings' (I'm sure you know what I'm talking about). Others simply disagree with the way the translation is handled or the usage of censorship. There are innumerable reasons for ending up in this stage, and that is the reason why it is the single largest one in the 'experienced' community.
The Neutral Consumer
This is the smallest grouping... mostly because it pretty much demands that you have resolved to stop caring one way or the other about localization quality. The most common reason to end up here is because you can play VNs, watch anime, and read manga/LNs without a localization, so the concept becomes irrelevant (or at least of less interest) to you. Another is that you get tired of being trolled (or trolling yourself) and decide to shut off your emotions about it. Last of all are the people who just want to 'spread the word' and don't really care about quality issues (people who are just happy VNs are getting localized). Since a lot of this group don't even buy localizations except to 'support the cause', this group has a lot less invested in the arguments, overall.
The Producer
... need I mention that being on this side sucks? No matter how good a job you do, you get bashed by someone, and inevitably someone is going to decide to nitpick every one of your word choices. Literalists will hate you for not doing exactly what they want, generalists will hate you for picking obscure/dead words from actual literary English (as opposed to spoken English) because the concepts involved are dead in modern English, and everyone else will hate you for censorship or because you are too slow.
While you get combative people or apologetic people from this side every once in a while, most just stop paying attention to the noise, for the sake of their mental health.
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).
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.
Ok, for those who read my first post on this game, you probably have a good picture of how I see the gameplay in this game. There are hints of really excellent possibilities in the actual battle system... if you can ignore the fact that you have to equip skills (as medals) - even the personal ones - and the fact that many of the characters you get access too later are at one of two extremes... either way too weak or way too strong for the time in which you get them. As an example, the angel is way too strong when you get her, and Tsumugi is really weak when you get her... it generally goes that way throughout the entire game, as you get various characters. Making it worse is the fact that all the advantages of the game system go to the characters you got earliest, meaning that evolving your party past a core of characters you got relatively early on is fairly difficult... Another issue is that the orbs you get as you go along are way too slanted in how they appear (each map completion gets you a certain orb or two), and this means that characters whose own ability grids are slanted in a different direction - mages in particular - are pretty much screwed as far as growth goes. A final issue with the battle system is actual skill use... all magic skills have to be activated without movement and archer attacks are the same. Of course, considering the way some of the environments are put together, the ability to use high level magic or archery after moving would be a bit of overkill, but for large time-limited maps, this pretty much eliminates the usefulness of mages and archers entirely. This unbalance is a huge problem in making mages useful at all...
As for the story... it takes a really, really long time to get going, you have to choose one of two heroines relatively early on (neither of which is all that attractive, in comparison to some of the non-human girls)... but things do start to pick up a bit about the seventh and eighth chapters. Unfortunately, considering that means there was nothing but hints of what might happen and repetitive fights with predictable 'oh Eld is such a mysteriously great guy despite being weak' events. To be honest, that gets old really quickly...
Edit: Understand, I'm not hating this game. However, considering how good they did on the side-events (many are amusing, some are exciting), you would think they would have done a better job with the main story so far... There just isn't that much impact to it, and the atmosphere just isn't one conducive to emotional involvement as well as intellectual, which is a big downer with a high fantasy setting.
Yes, I have indeed decided to add books to my regular posts, mostly due to Rooke's suggestion. Understand, if you think I've read a lot of VNs... that is nothing in comparison to the number of books I've read over the twenty-eight years since I learned to read. That number is somewhere in the tens of thousands... and one of the reasons I can be so intolerant when it comes to the excessive reliance on conventions in VNs, lol. Honor Harrington Honor Harrington is both a character and a series written by David Weber, one of the more famous science fiction authors out there. He tends to write military sci-fi, mostly, and in a different way from Ringo (Ringo being the most famous name in military sci-fi), he has reshaped the way I saw science-fiction to some extent. Honor, in the book On Basilisk Station, is the captain of a light cruiser named Fearless that has been exiled to the hardship post/dumping ground of her star nation's holdings for the crime of being an incidental part of the humiliation of one of her more well-connected superiors. Throughout the series - up until this point (there are over twelve books now, and Harrington is both older and wiser), Harrington in many ways embodies all the military holds up as an ideal. She is courageous, intelligent, aware of her duty, and she has a knack for ending up in the worst positions you could imagine (both politically and militarily). Her character, over the course of the series, advances from a somewhat immature young officer to a wise woman who is all to0 aware of the cost of doing her duty. She and her treecat (an alien empathic animal that occasionally forms bonds with humans) survive some of the worst hells, psychological and physical, that you could imagine existing in the mortal universe... and endure the loss of those who don't. Now, a good military sci-fi series is no good without an enemy empire to deal with... and in this one, it is the People's Republic of Haven, a massive interstellar star nation with an apparently overwhelming advantage in numbers... but an economy that is going down the drain to the welfare state and the deliberate sabotage of the education system by the political elites (sounds kind of like a combination of democratic socialism for the first and Republican education policy for the latter, lol). In Haven, over two thirds of the population is on the Dole, the name for their welfare system which basically hands out a living allowance to everyone who wants it... in exchange for making the 'legislature' and all other government positions hereditary some three centuries before. Unfortunately, this has caused a slow but accelerating decay in the system as a whole, as entire generations grow up with the deliberately castrated education system and no incentive to try to rise above their peers. This has led Haven to a very simple - and short-term - strategy... conquer neighbors, gut their economies to feed the worthless mouths of the mob, then include them in the Dole... rinse and repeat, ever expanding outward. Unfortunately for Honor's homeland, Manticore, it has been slated as the next morsel to go down the throats of the faceless masses, and the antiquated but massive navy of the 'Peeps' is planning to make itself the fork. The first few novels are basically preliminaries to the outbreak of open war (albeit bloody ones), where Honor finds herself in some really nasty situations as she does her duty and in the process incidentally foils the best-laid plans of the other side. One thing to keep in mind is that warships in the Honorverse tend to have hundreds to thousands of crewmen... meaning that every breach of the hull can kill dozens, further meaning that even in a 'minor confrontation' dozens to hundreds will die... and Honor rarely gets into 'minor confrontations'. The guilt of a commander that loses men to the enemy is an important theme throughout the series, though not a primary one. Manticore, Honor's homeland, is a small three-planet, two-system star nation at the beginning, ruled by a constitutional monarchy, complete with a House of Lords and a House of Commons... Generally speaking, the position of the monarch is kind of similar to the current one of the Queen of England, both in law and substance... in other words, while she has very little actual direct authority by law, her influence is immensely strong, both as a symbol and as an individual. The House of Lords, which was basically formed by ennobled 'original' colonists who were there before the plague that caused them to bring in large numbers in a second wave, is supposed to act as a restraint on the elected House of Commons, and generally the Prime Minister is chosen from amongst its members. Manticore is probably the most advanced nation in the entire human-ruled galaxy (outside of genetics, which is Beowulf's and Mesa's specialty), at least partially because their prime system is at a wormhole junction that allows a much faster movement from one end of the ginormous Solarian Union to the other. This gives them massive amounts of money and direct access to technology from other worlds that has let them build up a huge advantage in relative terms over the People's Republic, which is an issue that is important throughout much of the series. In many ways, it is easy to think of Manticore as a futuristic version of the British Empire without the colonialist tendencies and racial arrogance. Throughout the series, characters on the 'side of good' are put in situations that are pure hell, forced to make hard decisions, and they frequently live or die by those decisions, with Honor always at the forefront. The series as a whole is really well-written... with realistic-feeling antagonists and easy to love characters on both sides of the war (Theisman from the second book comes to mind for the People's Republic), as well as people that are truly worthy of hate and contempt on both sides. The more serious elements are broken up by the humorous interactions of Honor, her subordinates, and her friends, and there are many times throughout the series when big issues of morality are brought to the forefront (such as the morality of gene-manipulation, stating a big one). If there is one thing you'll notice about any David Weber book... it is that he manages to create characters that make you want to cheer them on... even on the other side. He rarely, if ever produces a side of one of his books' wars that doesn't have people that are good despite the system they work within, and even the best of his people - including Honor herself - have their moments when they show the baseness of human nature's darker side. Honor is the type that leashes her dark side with duty and unleashes it on the enemies of her people... but that dark side definitely exists, chained beneath the surface (as is seen rather clearly in the second and fourth books). My conclusion about this series - which I've reread four times - is that I can honestly recommend it to anyone who likes science fiction and space operas... but for people who can't handle complexity - both of scenario and of moral/philosophical issues - they will probably have difficulty with it. The Honorverse is still going strong, currently... though it has several anthologies and two side-series (one based in the early days of Manticore and another focused on characters involved in the anti-slavery movement). Honor herself hasn't been sidelined... but the story has evolved beyond that small portion of space that contains Haven and Manticore, meaning that it is not so focused around her anymore.
Well, that was a bit of a surprise... after people's iffy ratings of the trial, I'd honestly expected this VN to be disappointing, in general, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that the VN as a whole exceeded the expectations I'd had for it previously. What were those expectations? I thought it would be a mere variation on the usual 'human goes to another world, gains ultimate power, defeats the evil, and gets a harem' theme that defines most VNs that have a protagonist go to another world... with a strong taste of Japanese nationalism. However, it wasn't anything of the sort. Oh, the protagonist is indeed a kamikaze pilot, as advertised... but his outlook is a lot more interesting than you would have expected from someone willing to smash himself into the side of a ship with a plane. In fact, his view on patriotism in general is pretty negative, despite his own insistence on his duty. He is short-tempered, quick to get in a fight... and just as quick to drink and party with those he was fighting with a moment before (if they weren't trying to kill each other). He is definitely a soldier, because his point of view is written in a very similar way to that of various historical fiction written by Vietnam and WWII vets (outside of some certain areas). It does retain that uniquely Japanese 'emotional surrealism' that is a part of all otaku literature, and he spends an indecent amount of time philosophizing in his head for someone who is essentially an iron-skulled grunt by nature. His description of his feelings about WWII resembles a great deal several first-person accounts written by soldiers on the Japanese side, and it is quite obvious that the writer of the story did at least some research on the matter. One thing some of you should keep in mind is that, despite the fact that a lot of girls fall in love with him, this protagonist is not a ladies' man and he generally doesn't indulge, except with his chosen heroine (he's definitely monogamous, lol), so you needn't worry about the kind of careless going back and forth between various women that defines a lot of 'go to another world' protagonists. If you were looking forward to a harem story, you'll be disappointed though. This VN is a lot darker than it shows from the front, much as Grisaia was designed to be much darker than it seemed at first (has the same writers, so it stands to reason). While there is a lot of light-hearted stuff in here, there is also a lot of bloodshed, slaughter, and betrayal as well. This is perhaps one of the grittiest 'trip to another world' VNs I've ever read, and I honestly was impressed with the degree to which the writers and artists were willing to dig into the down and dirty aspects of the war. The issue that will, on some level, inevitably come to the mind of anyone who reads this VN all the way through is the zombies... to be honest, the artistry of the zombie designs in this VN is a bit ridiculous, in the sense that they actually went to the trouble to make them look graphically disgusting (torn off ears, exposed muscle and sinew, etc etc). There are even dragon zombies, which are pretty freaky as well. Story-wise, this VN has pretty much just two pitfalls... it requires you to read between the lines on a lot of issues, and there is perhaps less detail to the endings than you might wish. Frequently, you'll be directly prevented from knowing the thoughts of certain characters at certain important moments, simply to keep you from spoiling the heroine routes or to give impact to later scenes. This is actually a well-used technique, but it also makes the dog-people chapter a bit hurried toward the end, because of how much isn't touched upon deliberately to make Aira's path more powerful. The endings... honestly, Yukikaze's and Aira's are good. However, Ria's and Meltina's endings are kind of lacking. In Ria's case, this is inevitable, for reasons that become obvious at the end, but in the case of Meltina it is just a little frustrating. Ria's path is unique amongst all of them in that it is almost entirely told from the heroine's perspective, outside of some scenes near the end. Indeed, the protagonist's on-screen role is very limited, and the most important scenes are always away from him, with Ria on her own. You are required to play Yukikaze's path first... and the reason for that is pretty obvious... she's the main heroine. The heroine paths are all distinct toward the end, but it is Yukikaze's that has the most straight-out, easy to understand impact. Ria's path has a lot of impact for another reason... but it also has the weakest ending/epilogue (though Meltina's is also a bit weak). The music in this VN is really good... but it is also a mix of rearranged and slightly altered themes from several chuunige that I recognized... surprisingly this doesn't matter all that much, because the music is extremely well-used, frequently with an artist's touch for timing. Visually... if you liked Grisaia's everyday visuals, you'll probably like the everyday visuals here. The protagonist in this VN is deliberately made to look like a somewhat ugly guy in his late twenties, so that is a change... and as I said before, the zombies in this VN are pretty hideous (in a 'good' way). For some reason, they reused Michiru's mouth design on a number of characters in this VN, and I found myself considering them to be morons from first meeting, even i they weren't, lol. Unfortunately, this VN won't be for everyone... people who want a moege won't have much fun with this, and there is perhaps a bit too much moe for those who want something really dark. At the same time, people who can't stand zombies will hate this VN, because zombies make a lot of appearances (and one of the heroines is a 'special' zombie). The fact that the main heroine is a bit overly idealistic/emotional at times will also be a letdown for someone expecting her to be a classic warrior princess. However, this is also a VN that brings a lot of disparate elements together to create an interesting whole... In other words, for me it was a good ride... for you? Honestly, there are a lot of points in this VN that will bother at least some of the population, and there is a lot of subtle criticism of certain WWII issues that might offend others or make them feel like this is a purely ideological piece. Indeed, there is a definite sense of 'Gundamness' around some of the themes, but I honestly found it enjoyable and stimulating, overall.
Edit: I'm finding it kind of funny that some people are joining vndb just to give 1 scores to VNs to drag the numbers down... Anyway, what I really wanted to add a few points... first, a lot of people are going to be tempted to see Visra as the US... but it is actually a lot closer to if you added Nazi Germany's leadership to America's industrial and natural resources, with an even stronger dose of 'ethnic cleansing'.
This is a VN made by a long-defunct company called Cait Sith. Its members went to a number of places afterward... the more famous ones include Nekoneko soft's art crew and the writer of Sekai to Sekai no Mannaka de. In fact I can see that, in this case, some of the inspiration for the writer's later works definitely came from this VN. It is about a young man living in a mysterious village of youkai. He was raised from a very young age by the town's doctor, Waka-sensei, and he was watched over warmly by the town's various youkai, until one day a young human girl named Yuuna was brought home by Waka-sensei, leading to the beginning of the story.
Generally speaking, this is a warm-your-heart story, with three youkai and one human heroine. Riku is essentially a lump of warmheartedness, incapable of squishing a fly. His friendly and easygoing nature endear him to a lot of the youkai residents, and he is generally beloved, though thought a bit odd. The human heroine, Yuuna, is a pretty straightforward innocent genkikko... she is pretty much what would happen if you made Riku female and even more naive. The second heroine is the Yukinko (variation on the Yuki-onna theme) Sayuki, who is responsible for bringing winter to the village. The third is Rin, a bakeneko in training to become a nekomata (higher level of cat youkai) while she runs the village's only general store. The fourth and last is the kitsune tochigami, Aya, who is a hedonistic, lazy kami that prefers drinking and sleeping to doing her job.
The individual heroine paths in this VN are pretty emotional, designed to bring out tears, but this doesn't go down the utsuge path, sticking to something closer to a nakige. While the paths tend to be a bit predictable from the perspective of someone who has played as many non-violent fantasy VNs as I have, they are still touching (there are certain developments that became archetypical in the last few years that were new back in 2008, lol), because they feel more natural. I honestly liked all the paths in this game, though I'd say Aya's path left a really strong impression in my memory (mostly because Aya has the most interesting past and the protagonist's full past and nature come to light in this one).
Overall, this is another good addition for people who like soothing VNs with mild catharsis and youkai heroines. It has an aura similar to Toppara in some ways, though the protagonist isn't a self-pitying young man like in that one. Those who liked Toppara or Kaminoyu will probably like this VN, whereas those who wanted something a bit less peaceful probably won't enjoy it that much.
Yes, I'm serious about dropping this VN. There are a number of reasons... but the main one is a pet peeve that has recently become my primary one when it comes to VNs... and that is flowcharts. I HATE flowcharts. Making it worse is that Kadenz Fermata's flowchart is combined with an unbelievably annoying 'gameplay' system that requires you to take a really half-assed 'active' part in the battles to bring them to the best possible conclusion... even though that conclusion is often identical to the one that would have occurred if you hadn't intervened.
I'm not kidding. Every single battle scene - and there are a lot of them - requires you to 'intervene'
breaking fourth wall setup) and change the flow of the battle by picking a course of action to take... and without a walkthrough, it is pretty close to impossible to figure out. Moreover, if you don't manage to get the best result, you get the bad ending... again. I say again because the game takes you through one of the two protagonists' viewpoints to the end, where everything is irredeemably fucked over, and then forces you to start over from the beginning (adding a whole bunch of extra side-character events to the story, but essentially following the same path with a lot of extra battles and a newborn ability to 'intervene').
I never thought I'd run into a chuunige where I hated the battle scenes, but this game actually makes it possible. Nachsten tended to play up the old-style chuunige 'endless powerups' to the extreme, and for that reason I named it 'the first true generic chuunige'. In other words... Nachsten is to chuunige what Shuffle is to charage/moege... the 'average' of the whole mess. Making an already stale formula tedious? Did they really think that was a good idea?
About halfway through my seventh battle scene in Kadenz, I realized I wasn't even enjoying the game anymore. Do you have any idea how ridiculous that is for someone as addicted and biased toward chuunige as I am? I adore chuunige battle scenes. I love the over the top moves and CGs... but this is the first time I've ever encountered one where I grew completely apathetic about the battles. A part of it is that I don't believe in breaking the fourth wall in VNs like this... I think it is a terrible idea, and the results are almost never good.
Another issue is Freya... I never thought it was possible, but Lacryma managed to create a female protagonist who is basically a copy of the third-rate 2001-2005 'heroine who is a naive, unbelievably stupid and thoughtless tool'. I never once wanted to root for her during the entire thing. I hate fanatics/zealots who are incapable of facing reality, and she is pretty much the epitome of that. It is barely tolerable in a heroine and enjoyable as 'side-character who dies horribly, suddenly, and meaninglessly just for kicks', but it is completely unforgivable in a protagonist, at least for me.
Last of all... I was never enthusiastic about them actually creating a direct sequel after they milked the original story so thoroughly before tacking that shitty/half-assed set of endings onto it. Fortissimo isn't that great a story (though the setting is almost halfway decent), and I honestly thought it was a particularly bad example of a battle royale situation. Continuing to use the same characters in Kadenz with an addition of yet more (bringing the cast over 20) just thinned my overall interest in them, and in the end I found myself not even the least bit interest in what happened to anyone.
This VN also has some serious art issues... though I'll set aside characters who were obviously drawn (as in even to my less than discerning eye) by different artists. However, the slipups with sprite proportions (one sprite suddenly being outright bigger than the rest for no real reason) drove me a bit wild at times... and the sudden shifting in some of the non-battle CGs to Irosekai's style kind of made me go 'eh, what?' Of course, I also have to mention issues with sound... such as the fact that the voices are so low in this game as to be almost impossible to hear over the BGM even on the lowest settings at times... or the fact that sound effects will sometimes carry over to multiple scenes...
To put it straight to you, everything Nachsten did wrong, this also did wrong, while adding even more problems due to the designers getting 'clever' with their half-assed ideas 'to get the player involved'.
Edit: I really do think that this is a perfect example of an immense amount of money being poured into a 4th class game. Where Nachsten is tolerable, this one strays into kusoge territory due to the tedium of completing it.
For those of you who didn’t already know, this VN is based in the same setting as Nanairo Reincarnation and by the same company. Nanairo Reincarnation was my VN of the Year 2014, and it is a VN that has remained strong in memory ever since.
This VN has a much stronger ‘horror’ influence than Nanairo, which tended to be more of a nakige for much of its length. The protagonist, Yashiro, is a young guy who was born particularly vulnerable to spiritual influences while not having the ability to see ghosts or spirits… meaning he is basically a walking target for stuff like that. At the beginning of the story, he finds out he is cursed by the ‘Ghost of the Old School Building’, one of the ‘seven mysteries’ of his school. This curse is fairly simple… it tries to get him to kill himself by jumping off the roof of the school building.
A lot of the common parts of this VN focus around dealing with the mysteries and trying to discover a way to put the ghosts to rest, and in that sense it is almost identical to Nanairo… except that the protagonist, while central to the story, is essentially a ‘normal guy’ who got caught up in the mess involving ghosts and spirits. The protagonist from Nanairo makes several appearances in the VN, as do his ‘family’ members, and it is based about two years after the original story. There is definitely enough influence from the original that I have to recommend you play Nanairo first.
This VN… tends toward an aura of sorrow, for much of its length. The moments of fear are there, but they tend to be less common than ones of sorrow/grief. There are a total of six heroines in the VN (five if you count Riri and Ruka as a single heroine), with three major arcs…
The first arc is the Velvet Arc, which has the twin kami (Riri and Ruka) path splitting off midway. Riri and Ruka’s ending… leaves a really strong impression, to say the least. Technically, they are sub-heroines, but their ending is in no way neglected, either for detail or emotional value. If there is a significant difference from the main part of the arc (Velvet’s path), it is that it is somewhat shorter and less dramatic. Still, I cried for a half hour after it was over. Those who liked the red-head from Hikoukigumo no Mukougawa’s ending will like this one. Velvet’s ending… is closer to what I would call a ‘bittersweet romance’ path. Velvet has serious psychological problems, all wrapped up in her past (I won’t spoil it), and dealing with those issues is the main focus of her path.
The second arc is the Older Women Arc, which contains Misato’s and Youko’s path. I’ll be straight… play Youko’s path first. If you play Misato’s path before Youko’s, it will destroy you utterly, whereas it is merely saddening when you play Youko’s first. Honestly, since I like that type of ending, I really did like how Youko’s path turned out, but it isn’t really a romance path (neither was Ruka’s and Riri’s). Misato and Youko’s paths branch off from one another dramatically very late on (from a story perspective), and Misato’s path follows a far less dramatic and painful road to the end, one that is closer to what romance fans would like.
The third and last arc is the True Arc. This path contains Kana’s and the True ending. Kana’s path… is probably the most normal of all the paths, at least until the endgame. To be honest, Kana’s path is the reason why I won’t be calling this one a kamige, though it isn’t horrible. It is just… difficult to empathize with Kana (by the time I got to her path, I just considered her Idiot Friend #2, so I couldn’t see her as a romantic partner, even through the protagonist’s eyes). Nonetheless, as paths go in a general sense, it was still pretty high quality. However, where this arc shines is, of course, the True path. The True ending is… really heart-breaking. What you might or might not have figured out from the clues about the mysteries behind what is going on at the school are brought to light in full form, and the issues that were generally laid to rest outside of the protagonist’s control or in a way that didn’t reveal the whole mystery were brought to a head in the protagonist’s personal viewpoint. I cried for the True path. I seriously cried. If you don’t cry after you see what there is to see in this path, you probably should go to a psychologist.
A few other comments before I go to my overall wrap-up. My favorite heroine in this VN was undeniably Velvet, both because of my tastes in heroines (you’ll know what I’m talking about when you know her secrets), and because I just really, really liked her ending. The protagonist’s degree of personal growth – and even his personality or outlook on life – will often be changed dramatically during the course of the paths, and this is one of the reasons I would love to give the kamige stamp to this one, despite the fact that it doesn’t quite reach Nanairo’s level.
Overall, this is definitely one of those VNs I’ll still be recommending to people five years from now, along with Nanairo. It is a bit guro at times (at about the same level as Nanairo there), and the protagonist is a bit too typical of protagonists in the kind of situation he ends up in at times. However, as long as you can get past these issues (or actively enjoy them) this is a great VN to play. I will say that I really wished they would have done another adult protagonist, like Makoto from Nanairo. I don’t really see the need to go back to student protagonists, but I guess that is just an inevitability when companies are under the kind of pressure of tradition these are. I am seriously looking forward to more works from this company and this writer in the future, and this one is a solid (almost inevitable) VN of the Month candidate.
I'm sure you are wondering what the hell I'm talking about with the title of this post, but the concept is pretty simple... You take a period of history or a series of famous/infamous events, turn all or most of the male personages into females, and then plop your main character into their midst, evolving a story from there.
A few examples of this...
The Koihime Musou, Sengoku Koihime series by Baseson
Chuushingura
Sengoku and Sangoku Hime series by Gesen
Kikan Bakumatsu Ibun Last Cavalier
Koihime Musou is the one most of you will probably be familiar with, and it is the basic model for most of the type. It is based in the era of the fall of the later Han dynasty in China, portrayed in the ancient story Romance of the Three Kingdoms. This is one of the two eras most favored by those making games, VNs, anime, and manga in this particular little niche, and it is also one of the easiest ones to use, as the story has made at least some headway in most of the countries of the world (it was translated into English first over a century ago) to one degree or another. In a way, Koihime Musou (the original) is a classic example of the genre, as the events portrayed generally only vaguely resemble the ones that existed in the original story, even when you set aside the issues of all the characters being female except the protagonist. Shin Koihime Musou, which follows each of the three factions in separate story arcs (rather than a single arc with Liu Bei's side unifying China like in the original) is generally better written and actually uses historical events in most of the paths, up to a point (where it inevitably diverges radically).
The Sangoku Hime series is a strategy-VN series based in the same era as Koihime Musou, with the big difference that the protagonist is both fairly irrelevant to the story and the events are fairly close to the original material, up to a point (in fact, this is the biggest draw of the series, other than the surprisingly well-done story sequences in some of the cases). This series suffers from definite 'strategy fatigue', though... as fighting your way across China tends to rapidly become monotonous, with actual plot tending to only come up at the beginning and end of each prefecture's invasion, meaning you can go five or six hours without seeing anything in the way of story except sex scenes (of which there are generally a ridiculous number...).
Chuushingura follows the story of the 47 Ronin, a famous story of Edo-era samurai that was the inspiration for most foreigners' impressions of the samurai caste. In this case, while the events in each 'arc' generally follow the basic outline of the original story, there are divergences in perspective based on where the protagonist chooses to go, and the final story diverges immensely from the original. This VN doesn't have any gameplay, and it was originally a doujin VN series that went commercial a few years ago in the form of a rewritten, partially redesigned omnibus VN.
The Sengoku Hime series by Gesen is based in the Sengoku Jidai (Japan's Warring States period). In this one, you generally take on the role of a strategist (whose actual level of influence varies from path to path) who serves with one of the major clans of Japan as they set out to conquer the country. Generally speaking, the balance of story to gameplay in this series is better than in the Sangoku series by the same company, but the pacing is still fairly shitty due to the intervention of the gameplay. Depending on which faction you choose (generally if you choose the Tokugawa or Toyotomi) you can get a fairly accurate replay of past events, with a lot of differing details. However, if you pick certain factions (the Oda, the Date, the Ashikaga or the Shimazu) you tend to get stories that radically diverge from history even if you ignore the issues with female clan lords and the like. This is inevitable, considering the sheer chaos of that era (the concept of the 'honorable' samurai as foreigners like to see it portrayed is a product of the Edo era that followed after Tokugawa's unification of Japan), with the betrayals, massacres, religious rebellions, and the like...
Koihime Sengoku (the new version of which I am playing right now) is also based in the same era, but, similar to the original Koihime Musou, diverges radically from history relatively early on. In particular, it should be noted that while certain famous events and relationships were deliberately reproduced for the pleasure of historical romantics (the Takedo-Uesugi rivalry, Oda Nobunaga's relationship with Mino's deceased leader, the Viper, etc), a lot more of it is different. This VN is significantly different from Koihime Musou in that it has a far darker, more violent atmosphere (lots of killing, and some of the heroines are... not good people, lol), and the protagonist is far more active as part of the story (in fact, he is the nephew of the protagonist from Shin Koihime Musou).
Kikan Bakumatsu is based in the highly-romanticized period of the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate after Perry's 'black ships' opened Japan. It covers a lot of the political and ideological conflicts wracking Japan at the time fairly accurately, while focusing on the infamous Shinsengumi (who are often thought of as the last samurai). This period is also covered in the otomege series, Hakuoki, though the only common element between them beside that is the existence of a fantasy element. Depending on the path you choose in this one, you can radically alter history and the life and death of certain characters, but if you choose one of the Shinsengumi heroines, the basic path in life of the protagonist, Okita Soujirou, goes pretty much as history portrays (it is pretty sad).
Generally speaking, due to the depth that can be added to the setting for these stories, they tend to be good more often than most... and that is generally why I tend to look forward to them, lol. However, if you aren't a history buff, some of it will just go over your head, and the language in a VN based in these eras will frequently be incomprehensible for the inexperienced. To be blunt, anyone who reads one of these should have a degree of pre-existing knowledge if they want to really enjoy them... otherwise, it isn't nearly as fun to see how the writers choose to twist things out of shape, hahaha.
Shin Koihime Eiyuutan is something of an alternate fandisc for Shin Koihime, including characters from the 'extra materials' that have come out over the years and a canon story flow from the original that seems to be based on Kazuto somehow being on all three sides at once during the wars (lol). To be honest, for consistency, Moeshouden was much better, because it uses the Gaishi setting to explain everything, lol.
Having played all three, I can safely say that it is a very satisfying after-story for someone who liked the original Shin Koihime Musou. However, one thing I also noticed was that, for all that it went first, the Shoku version was the weakest of the three by far. Part of it is that in the original, both Go and Gi's paths were far deeper than Shoku's (Shoku=Shu, Go=Wu, Gi=Wei), with Kazuto taking a far more unique role in how things played out. For better or worse, in the Shoku path, he was mostly the voice of rationality behind the idealist throne that was Touka, whereas in Go he served as a husband and one of the tacticians, and in Gi he was given the role of setting up the training of new troops and the implementing of his own idea for policing the capitol. This difference in roles was part of the reason why the stories each differed so wildly.
To be honest, one thing I'm glad they did away with was certain events revolving around Sheren (Sun Ce) and Meirin (if you are familiar with history, you know that sad stuff happens). While the scenes involving those events in the original Shin Koihime were awesome in every way, I still felt a sense of relief that canon had changed that particular aspect.
Most of the events in the three versions are either emotionally touching (for those that read the original material), mildly interesting intellectually (though mostly with Gi and Go), or H-events (lots of them). I was surprised that Yue was sort of pushed to the side in the Shoku disc, as she was one of the top-rating characters on the old character polls, lol. On the other hand, all the Gi and Go characters made appearances and had their own little scenes during the game.
Overall, this is just a treat for those who played Shin Koihime. While the Shoku disc was something of a disappointment, both the Gi and Go discs were interesting enough that I didn't feel cheated for paying for them. I do wish they had put it up on dlsite or Getchu instead of DMM though... fooling DMM's region-locking setup is a serious pain in the butt.
Edit: I recently finished re-playing Shin Koihime Musou (one of the VNs I've been replaying bit by bit over the last five months)... and I'm debating on whether I should do a full post on it, lol.
When Corona Blossom came out recently, I once again came face to face with a niche trend in gaming that has roots back in the nineties era console games... video games that, rather than presenting a full story in and of themselves (even if they are intended to have sequels), instead are released in parts.
Now, I thought about why this kind of game production method has never really caught on... and it took me all of ten seconds to remember why.
Let's take the Shenmue series. Really and truly, the Shenmue series of games is one story that is nowhere near complete. Shenmue was released for the Sega Dreamcast in 1999 and it was a seriously eye-popping experience for me at the time. I'd never played a game that included so many varying elements to let you throw yourself into the main character's story, and all the side-quests and other stuff there was to mess around with only made it that more interesting.
Unfortunately, it is seventeen years later and the series still isn't complete. Heck, since Shenmue 2 was released on the original xbox in 2002, there hadn't been a peep about the third game... until last year.
And that is the real danger with this kind of game series... the danger of never getting the complete story or having to wait decades for the next entry in a story that is obviously and blatantly left incomplete.
Another problem with this type of game is illustrated with the Xenosaga series... Xenosaga was the spiritual successor to Xenogears on the psx, and it had a psychedelic meta-fiction story that would have made Mr Kojima proud... but in exchange, the makers ended up treating each part of what was supposed to be the same game in pieces as an individual game... which resulted in huge variance between each entry in both gameplay quality and story. To be blunt, Xenosaga's original game does an excellent, close to perfect job of dragging you into the science-fantasy world in question. Unfortunately, Xenosaga 2 botched everything... literally. In terms of scale, it was far more limited than Xenosaga 2 and the actual gameplay was... unpleasant and counter-intuitive for the average jrpg-gamer of the time. Naturally, this made it something of a flop with the fanbase. As a result they hurried to put out Xenosaga 3, which aborted or cut short almost all of the story that was meant to have been put in for two or even three more parts. In this case, the series was completed... but none of the ambitions that caused the immensely complex and interesting setting involved survived the holocaust of the game's second entry.
Generally speaking, games made in parts tend to be immensely frustrating for the consumer. A friend of mine recently replayed the Xenosaga series and immediately said "Good god! I didn't realize how much they fucked up with 2 at the time, but it is blatantly obvious now." It is far harder to maintain a standard of quality across all parts, and cohesion is usually the first thing to be sacrificed.
Thus, don't expect me to ever praise a decision to release a game in parts.
Now, I'm well aware that most people don't play VNs twice. Visual novels are a static media, similar to one of the old 'choose your own adventure' novels in interactive terms, so this is only natural. To be blunt, the main reason I go back and play old VNs is because nothing is satisfying one of my itches amongst the more recent releases. That said, there are some pieces of advice I can give for those who habitually re-read their favorite books and rewatch their favorite anime.
1- Wait long enough for your memories to fade: The human brain has a tendency to 'compress' old memories, and it is rare person who, through training or at birth, possesses an eidetic memory. As a result, details do fade over a period of time that tends to vary greatly with the individual. In my case, the base runs from a year to a year and a half for VNs that made a good impression and four months for ones that didn't.
2- Pick your paths: When it comes down to it, most of us are going back for a particular heroine or path. We aren't that interested in rehashing the heroine paths that we didn't find that interesting, and this is only natural. Sagaoz and other sites with complete saves can let you go to the true ending without bothering with the heroine endings, if that is what you want.
3- With gameplay hybrids, make full use of your save data: Most VN hybrids have NG+ built in, and as a result, you can breeze through the game portions of most of them rather easily by simply using your own save data. This is immensely helpful in games with a particularly tedious bent (like srpgs), where re-leveling would take forever.
4- Limit replays to your favorites: While I occasionally get a junk-food-like craving for something crappy that nonetheless remained in memory, in most cases I only really enjoy replaying my favorite VNs (in my case, a list of about fifty).
5- Nakige and utsuge work, but pure charage don't: I'm not kidding. Pure charage are agonizing to replay, no matter how long after you go back. I can still cry for the sad scenes in a Key game, but if you asked me to replay anything by Feng or most games by Navel, I'd rather cut off my balls and hang them out to dry on my windowsill.
6- If you fall asleep, just stop- In my experience, nothing is worse than getting bored of your favorites and then forcing yourself to continue. If you can't pay attention or if you suddenly lose interest, it is time to stop. If you force yourself to continue, there is a distinct possibility you will ruin your own impressions of the game in question for future playthroughs.
7- Stay away from pure mindfucks- I shouldn't have to explain this, but I will... the value of a mindfuck is in its surprise. Games centered on a mindfuck, with the sole purpose of trying to fool you into thinking one thing while something else is going on, are terrible for VN replays. This is because they are probably the most spoiler-vulnerable genre out there.
8- Highly emotional or intellectually stimulating works will often gain more depth: This isn't a fanciful statement. In my experience, a VN that is trying to get across something else besides pure story or something that is trying to make you cry will inevitably make for a better replay than something that is just shoving sex, romance, and comedy in your face. I could probably replay Houkago no Futekikakusha, for instance, three or four times in a year without the emotional aspects fading significantly, and I find new things out about Dies Irae, Vermilion, and Devils Devel Concept with each playthrough.
9- Infodumpers take longer to recover from: Bradyon Veda, I/O, Muramasa, etc... VNs that infodump seriously as part of the storytelling tend to leave a lot of info inside your brain. As a result, it takes significantly longer for your memories of them to fully 'compress'. Don't expect to be able to enjoy anything with frequent infodumps at less than one and a half times that of any of your other favorites.
10- A good night's sleep is your friend: Why am I emphasizing this? Because to get the best out of a truly great VN, a well-rested body and brain is necessary. Nothing kills enjoyment of a good story like being unable to grasp it due to brain-numbness from sleep deprivation.
Hope yall enjoyed my little lecture, lol.
I am bored, so I figured I would note the non-nukige VNs scheduled to come out on PC at the end of the month, for those who are interested.
Ojou-sama wa Sunao ni Narenai - This game looks to be the first serious title by Ensemble in some time (since Gokigen Naname), just going by the descriptions of the situation and the protagonist. While the setup is definitely a twist on the Shugotate theme (sans cross-dressing), it is nonetheless one of the two games I'm seriously looking forward to from June's releases.
Ren'ai Kyoushitsu - Just looking at this one, it screams 'standard-issue charage, in pretty pink, as usual!' to me. I read up on it, but the descriptions and the fact that the writer isn't named tell me that this is just yet another newborn company trying to bite into what is left of the decaying mainstream charage market. Unless this game massively exceeds my expectations, I can't see it going anywhere.
Tantei Seven - For some weird reason, the people who brought us the Illusion-game knnock-off Musumaker are now bringing us a mystery game... and not only that, they seem to have decided adding in downloadable episodes later on (for a price) is a good idea in a game that is focused on story... typical Illusion-imitator. In other words, I'm not willing to buy this one, since I don't like this kind of company. However, if you play it feel free to tell me what it was like, lol.
Akane Iro no Kyoukaisen - This is the second game I'm looking forward to from June's releases. Just from what I've read up on it, I feel excited, since there hasn't been a youkai-VN in a while. My addiction is rising...
Pure Song Garden! - I used to love Pulltop, but the company seems to have abandoned what made them one of the sharper weapons in Will's armory. Honestly, for a company that was previously so great at balancing moe, charage elements, and story, it is immensely disappointing that they would do something as puerile as an idol game... two times in a row. I was hoping their next release would be something heart-warming like Natsuiro Recipe, but I guess I should have known this company's executives are shooting something nasty into their veins before board meetings.
