My name is Clephas, and I am a pervert.
lol, just kidding... or not. Considering how long I've been playing eroge, I'm definitely a pervert. However, that isn't really what this post is about.
When I look at the VNs for a month, the first thing I look for are chuunige, then fantasy/sci-fi, and then non-human heroines (though the last two are interchangeable depending on my mood). The distant fourth is an interesting protagonist, the fifth is an interesting heroine (if I don't find any of the heroines interesting in setting or character description after eliminating the factors above, I generally have trouble picking the game up).
Why do I love nonhumans...? It is pretty much the only 'romantic' part left in my body.
To be frank, I don't believe in or trust romance. I firmly believe that romance is a lie we tell ourselves so we can ignore the fact that we are being driven by our body's desire for children and the resulting psychological hunger for a close partner. That might seem like a cynical way to think of things, and I don't think about things like that while I'm playing. However, when it is over or before I start? Always.
I like the strange, the weird, the warped, the unusual... what is the point of telling a story if it is about the girl next door? If I want to know about the girl next door, I'll walk over and say hello. I love power trips, I like heroines with different instincts and outlooks, and I like heroines who simply don't share mine or the protagonist's culture.
I love heroines who have lived hundreds of years. I like heroines that used to be animals. I am deeply fond of vampire heroines. I could go on forever about this.
The fact is, we are shaped by our experiences, and a heroine that has had some seriously unusual experiences is generally far more interesting than a heroine who grew up next door and comes to visit every morning.
This is actually the main reason why I find it difficult to comprehend racism on a gut level... though I can comprehend it on the anthropological and sociological studies level.
This is also why I hate 'nerfed' nonhuman heroines. Need to have a vampire heroine attend school? Make her a unique 'daywalker' or have vampires not worry about the sun in the first place. Need to have a succubus be safe around men? Make it so she only needs regular food and the seduction thing is just an ability (these are both actual examples, incidentally). You have an immortal heroine? Make sure she gives up that immortality in her route so that the protagonist doesn't have to worry about being outlived by his wife (ugh, I mean, ugh. Sometimes that works, but most of the time it is a let down).
Thanks for reading this random ramble, lol.
I apologize if this post seems a bit disjointed, but this game was long enough that I felt a need to write as I finished the paths.
First, Otoboku 3, as the nickname implies, is the third game in the series begun with the original Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru. Unlike the previous two games, which were based in the same school, this is based in a sister school a few years after the original game (probably a few years after Futari no Elder, which apparently happened about a year after the events of the original). The biggest proof of this is that Shion, from the original game, is a teacher of several years experience at the school the protagonist attends (meaning that at least four, most likely five years passed, plus the several years of experience… so probably about eight years after the original).
The protagonist, Hisoka, is a young orphan who was raised by a friend of his parents to serve the game’s main heroine, Orihime. Hisoka is… one of those characters who can literally do just about everything to a certain extent. He can fight, he gets the highest grades, he can play piano (and pipe organs), he can cook (and do any other form of housework perfectly), and he can even draw.
He does have one huge personality flaw though… he is one of those protagonists who completely disregards his own needs, always putting others before himself. This is what gets him trapped into becoming Orihime’s bodyguard… while attending the girl’s academy with her.
He tries to live quietly, but that doesn’t last long (since Orihime instantly takes a liking to him). Before long, he is one of the three Elder Stars of the school (rofl, first it was one Elder, then 2, and now it is three of them… a bit obvious, isn’t it?). Being kind-hearted and perceptive, he ends up capturing the heart of just about every girl in the school, none of which know he is a guy.
Now, I should say that the common route of this game is… loooooooooong. In fact, it is even longer than that of Futari no Elder, which was pretty long itself… longer than Grisaia no Kajitsu’s common route, for that matter. As such, this isn’t a game for those looking for a quick common route followed by romance and sex galore. The sexual content in this game is actually quite low, lol.
I’m going to be straight with you… if you played Futari no Elder and enjoyed it, you’ll probably enjoy this one. The atmosphere is pretty close to identical, the protagonist’s role is identical to the previous two games, and probably the biggest difference is that this game is based somewhat later on in the same timeline. The reason this is important is because the game doesn’t ignore the real world… and as a result, the setting doesn’t allow for the kind of completely-closed environment the previous two games essentially were (in other words, far fewer of the characters are ‘ojousama’).
There is also one other thing that differs from the previous two games… this one has a much, much bigger emphasis on ‘slice-of-life as the story’. To be blunt, ninety percent of this game is Hisoka dealing with the various characters’ personal issues on one level or another while going about her daily business. While the same can be said, to an extent, about the first two games, the first two games also had a much more extensive focus on the heroines (longer individual heroine paths).
There are two main heroines in this game (well, obvious ones, anyway), Orihime and Mirei. Orihime is a pushy princess type, who has just been given a year of freedom after following orders her whole life. Mirei is your classic ‘new rich ojousama who is embarassed by/dislikes her father/parents’. She is sharp-edged, has an inferiority complex, but she nonetheless finds it impossible not to like the protagonist (there was one of these in both the previous games, lol).
Orihime’s ‘whim of steel’ is her defining trait throughout the game (partially encouraged by Hisoka). This continues into her path and is accompanied by her tendency toward ‘classical romanticism’ when it comes to falling in love (knight in shining armor BS).
Mirei’s growth during the game is perhaps the most obvious of the heroines, because she starts out as a living mass of inferiority complexes, defiance toward her position in life, and jealousy. The fact that, underneath all those negative aspects, she is actually fundamentally a good person (if somewhat dry and cynical by nature), is something that gradually comes to the surface during the course of the story. Mirei’s path is stand-alone, and it can be said that it has the strongest independent character development of all the paths in the game. There are several reasons I can think of for this, but the main one is that Mirei, due to her position at the school and as an individual, spends less time around Hisoka than the other heroines (most of the other ones aggressively seek Hisoka out or live in the same dorm).
Hana takes the same role as Kana-chan and Fumi from the previous two games, being the protagonist’s ‘imouto’ at the school. She is very devoted and innocent, but her clumsiness makes her an object of constant humor and moe for the people around her. Hana’s path splits off from somewhere just short of the midpoint of Mirei’s path. As a heroine, she is easily the weakest of the group (this can be said of her predecessors, Fumi and Kana as well), as she spends most of the game essentially being an appendage of the protagonist, her role almost exclusively involving making him look good (to be a bit overly blunt, lol). As such, she was the last heroine I chose to follow (I wrote the character intros before I actually played the paths). This path, unlike most of the others, has little in the way of 'outer influences' to create drama. This is because Hana is essentially a 'normal' girl. To be honest, I don't like the way that Takaya excessively modeled certain of this path's aspects after that of Kana's from the original Otoboku (though there is no attempt to grasp for tears in this one). It didn't really fit Hana's personality or character as a whole, though having Hana gain more confidence and take a more active role in her own life was a definite positive element. Really, the best would have been to avoid having Hana as a heroine at all, but having the 'imouto' as a heroine has become an Otoboku tradition...
Ayame and Sumire are twins who share a route in this game. Sumire is serious and straightforward, even slightly uptight. She prefers to act on logic and have a rational basis for any action she takes. Ayame is more intuitive, an artist by nature. Sumire is the school president and Ayame is the student council secretary. Their path is a rare twin love path (one of my favorite types), but it is pretty clear from the beginning that Takaya didn’t take this path that seriously, since it is easily the weakest one in the game.
Ibara Kyouko is the protagonist’s collaborator and backup bodyguard, a young woman with a sharp tongue and a fondness for teasing Hana in particular and everyone else in general. She obviously has some kind of darkness in her past, but she is very weak to Hisoka in general, though she is good at hiding it (or at least better than everyone else, anyway). Her path splits off from Orihime’s path (literally, the two paths split off at the end, just before things spill over into romance), and the ending is fairly amusing, given the personalities of the three involved (sharp-tongued and logical Kyouko, the whimsical dreamer genius Orihime, and the natural mediator Hisoka).
Matsuri is the game’s resident yurufuwa heroine. She is a violinist in the middle of a slump, who was sent to the school (which doesn’t have a musical support program) to recover after she became unable to use her arm properly for reasons unknown. Like Ayame, she is an artist, but she is very soft-natured and slow to speak. She is also probably the ‘happiest’ heroine on the surface of things, as very little seems to get her down, at first glance (another quality she shares with Ayame from the twins). Her path is surprisingly long (of the individual paths, it is probably the third longest), and I honestly enjoyed having her as a heroine.
For the information of those who are interested, depending on which of the final choices you picked, you get a different set of scenes for summer vacation, and depending on what heroine you ‘picked’ (based on your choices as a whole), who the protagonist spends his free time with at the culture festival changes. This is pretty much the only major change made to the common route based on your choices before the heroine routes, which might bother some of you.
For the most part, the endings in this game meet my approval, showing the characters years later, as opposed to merely just after the climax of the story. This applies even to the twins, who have the weakest path in the game. This is probably because the common route ends only a few months before graduation for Hisoka and the other third year students…
The writing in this came, as is par for the course with any game written by Takaya Aya, is first-class. Despite this game mostly being slice-of-life, I can’t really all it a charage or a moege, since not one scene in this game is meaningless, for all its immense length.
Visually, this game is Caramel Box to the core. If you like Caramel Box’s visual style, you’ll like the artwork. Otherwise, you won’t.
Musically, this game reuses some tracks from the previous Otoboku games, but I honestly only noticed this because I compared it on a whim. The important thing is that the music is used quite well.
It should be noted that about 1/3 of Hisoka’s lines are voiced, which is about standard for all of the recent works from Caramel Box and is effective for helping create Hisoka’s character and give life to him.
Overall, this is a first-class game. In some ways, it falls short of Futari no Elder… but Futari no Elder was something of a miracle kamige, so that was inevitable. I do wish that they’d spent more time on the individual heroine paths, but the degree to which the characters were developed in the course of the common route really made long heroine paths unnecessary. Oh, incidentally… I wish Miimi was a heroine, since she was my favorite character. I also loved her narration during the play scene.
This is a question I've asked myself on any number of occasions (and despite my own thoughts below, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this as well). For some reason, most vampire literature with a vampire protagonist has that protagonist hating him/herself and his/her condition (switching to 'his' after this sentence, for the sake of brevity).
Let's be honest with ourselves... if we could gain immortality, immense strength, and the ability to control people's minds in exchange for having to suck human blood and stay out of the sun, the greater majority of us would probably leap at the chance. Humans are selfish creatures, and the advantages seem to far-outweigh the disadvantages on the face of it.
One common answer to this is morality. To be honest, I think this is the second worst answer of them all. Yes, in the case of a vampire setting where the vampire has to kill the subject or infects anyone he bites, it makes sense for there to be a moral issue. However, if that is not the case, this one doesn't pan out. Sure, drinking blood sounds evil in and of itself... but if you aren't human, it isn't cannibalism, now is it? Hedonism? Is there anyone in a first-world nation that isn't at least a little hedonistic?
Another one is a sense of isolation. Now this one makes a bit more sense as a negative for vampirism... but not for sucking blood. Sure, it might be hard to make friends with your food, but it wouldn't be the first time. No, the issue here is lies. By nature, vampires need to hide themselves, since they are well... scary. I mean, if something essentially eats a part of you to survive and looks similar to you, how can that not be scary in a visceral sense? So yes, the isolation is a good reason to be afraid of your own vampirism if you are a vampire.
A sense of normalcy. This is the one you see the most in VNs, and I honestly think that it is an abomination. It is the worst answer. Almost every vampire protagonist in a VN wants to regain their 'normal life', and this often results in them taking their anger out on the people who saved them and/or love them. Sure, you pay a price for your vampirism... if you can't go out in the sun (a rarity in VNs), then it is hard to go to school. If you have to suck human blood, then you can't really be called normal. However, that sense that normalcy trumps everything (no I don't mean the president) is ridiculous. I honestly find this kind of attitude annoying as hell in a protagonist, and it is only the ones who don't linger on it constantly that I'm willing to forgive.
Violent instincts... now this one is laughable. 'Vampires have violent instincts!!!' Umm... hello? What race goes around killing people for stupid reasons like religious affiliation, what side of a line on a map they live, and who has a better cow in their barn? *snorts contemptuously*
In the end, vampirism in fiction is a trade-off... and self-hating vampires who stay that way without a good reason always strike me as fake (Toshirou from Vermilion has good reason, but most don't).
The Otoboku series is often put forward as a prime example of a sub-genre that first gained popularity about eight years ago... the 'trap protagonist in a girl's school' type. However, there are a number of aspects that make this series a bit unique... or at least make them feel unique.
One is their protagonists... despite their differences in personality and upbringing, all three protagonists end up taking a similar role in the common route, even aside from the 'Elder' issue. To be straight about it, the Taishou-era 'oneesama' concept, where girls in an isolated environment form half-romantic relationships with older girls, is the biggest influence on these games. The odd irony of a trap playing the same role as one of those 'oneesama' characters often had me smiling in humor and exasperation, but for some strange reason, Takaya Aya seems to make it work every time.
Another aspect of these games that is unique is the rather blunt way each of the games portrays the 'old wealthy families' of Japan's attitude toward their females, as well as the attitude of the 'new rich' toward them as well. Despite skepticism on the part of some when I've mentioned this in the past, it has to be noted that the wealthy in Japan still frequently use arranged marriages to form connections and incorporate capable individuals into the top of family-run businesses. The former kazoku families, in particular, obsessively arrange the marriages of their children due to traditions going back over a thousand years (including a tradition of ignoring commoner's 'common sense'). While the most recent game is a bit lighter on that issue, you'll still hit it in several of the paths and even in the common route (though the common route is more like a gentle manipulation to try to stick two people together).
Last of all, in every one of these games, at some point, gossip gets out of hand and causes at least some of the characters to suffer. This is actually a common thing in games based in girl's schools, but the way Takaya handles it is generally more interesting and emphasizes the isolated nature of the gender-restricted environment.
All of this comes together to create a game that has a deliberate atmosphere of 'isolation from societal norms', one of Takaya's favorite themes in his games (every single one of this games does this, regardless of who he is working for at the time). For this reason, the series has a rather unique 'taste' to it that isn't quite matched by any of the other similar games I've played.
First, apologies to those who actually want to read about some of August's releases. I went on vacation (vacation being a word open to interpretation when it comes to sleeping in unfamiliar beds and helping with my brother's kids), and when I got back, I found I had absolutely no urge whatsoever to pick up a VN. I guess that taking a true break from VNs for the first time in almost a decade (no VNs for five days straight) was enough to free me from the spell of my obsession.
That said, Jinkou Bato was pretty amusing, so I had every intention of getting back to it, eventually.
This game is based fifty years in the future, fifteen years after a disaster caused by technology (deliberately) gone wrong wiped out the global internet and reduced people to using wires and letters to communicate. This disaster was caused by artificial lifeforms based on the pigeon that originally served as self-replicating flying antennas. The maker of these 'artificial pigeons' made them begin to 'eat' radio and electromagnetic waves, literally stopping all signals not passed through a wire. This resulted in innumerable deaths, and it was such a huge economic and technological blow that the characters of the story are quite aware of how they live in a much-reduced world.
Sora, the protagonist, is an orphan who hates the artificial pigeons more than anyone, as he lost his parents the day of the disaster. Living with this adopted family, he succeeds in building a set of radios that can communicate with one another without being stopped by the pigeons, and from there the story begins.
Mmm... I'm going to be straight about my feelings on this game. First, I like the character dynamics. There is a lot to laugh about early on, and the intensity of Sora and friends when they make a certain discovery is pleasing to me, as I'm a bit tired of characters living without a sense of purpose in my VNs, lol. That Sora and the others are college students at a vocational university rather than high schoolers is nice as well... and an adult heroine who is bisexual is also nice, hahaha.
That said, both Mizuki's and Akina's paths are weaker than the Tsubaki and Kaguya paths due to the fact that only Tsubaki's and Kaguya's paths actually confront the central issues head on. Mizuki's and Akina's paths both stink of escapism, and while that is fine on its own... it left me feeling a sense of distaste for the characters involved (yes, I want my characters to be better or stronger people than me).
Tsubaki and Kaguya's paths are the true path. No, I'm not saying that they are separately the true path... rather, together they form a single path, in a really weird (if familiar from other otaku media) way. The path is... extremely emotional, and I honestly felt that Sora, from beginning to end, fulfilled his potential as a character... something that is pretty unusual for VN protagonists in general.
Lets be clear, this isn't a kamige or even VN of the Year material. This is a nakige with a great main path and two so-so side paths. I say 'great', but the game's pace is really fast after the initial, lighter stages of the story. That said, there is no sense of choppiness to the pacing, and it feels like the events actually occur in the time you see them happen in the game (less than two months), as there are no excess SOL scenes whatsoever.
If you want a relatively quick nakige with some amusement early on, this is a good choice. I honestly can't recommend it for someone who wants a grand and sweeping opera, though.
I decided to make this post after analyzing my own reading speed and the reasons why it is so fast... but I also wanted to give tips on how to increase your reading speed without hurting your enjoyment of VNs, manga, and books. At the same time I was doing this, I gradually came to realize that one of the big reasons why my favorite genre is so niche (chuunige) is simply because most people bump into the walls of complex text and give up.
Regardless of which language you are reading (Japanese, English, or any other language), the basics of reading are the ability to see and understand the writing, have the vocabulary necessary to understand the words, and an understanding of grammar advanced enough to comprehend how the words come together to create meaning. I know it sounds condescending for me to go back and name these basics, but it is necessary to do so in order to make my points.
When it comes to reading fiction, there is an aspect that comes into play that many don't take account of... the gap between the language used when writing and that which is used in verbalization. Most people won't use even a fifth of the terminology and styles that exist in the literary world to converse with others (at least, if their job doesn't require it). For this reason, becoming a fast reader necessitates that a person have a gut-level understanding of a large amount of word and style choices that simply don't get used when they are conversing with others. This is also the reason why classroom Japanese is inadequate for playing or translating visual novels, incidentally.
To be frank, the above reality is the main reason why reading for pleasure is an acquired taste for most, rather than a natural addiction. To me, a well-written scene in a VN is a sensual, almost erotic experience... but that is because decades of reading have made me into that kind of person.
To be frank, there is a limit to reading speeds based on intelligence and short-term memory. However, this limitation is far less of an issue than most think. It is quite possible for someone who is of less than average intelligence to be able to enjoy reading something as ridiculously complex as Dies Irae at a speed you might be surprised at, and it is quite possible for a person who is otherwise of high intelligence to have a turtle-like reading speed.
Basic methods to increase reading speed include deliberate expansion of vocabulary (memorizing lists of words and how they are used) and deliberately exposing yourself on a regular basis to writers with unique or unusual styles that are difficult to follow. Grammatical understanding needs to be gut-level or reading speed won't improve, as you'll be constantly stumbling over how the words come together.
Context is also important... essentially, to be a fast reader, one must be able to keep at least a decent grasp on what has gone before and be able to at least retain most of the details from the chapter you are currently reading. A bad habit many translators, both professional and fan, fall into is translating line by line. This is also a stumbling block when reading. If you are merely reading line by line while not keeping at least some track of what has been going on, you will be unable to grasp what is coming. This lack of understanding slows the reader, as they grow confused, then bored. One reason why I almost never play multiple VNs at once without dropping the previous ones outright is because retaining a firm grasp on the flow of events at my stopping points for those games causes an intellectual and emotional disconnect that makes it hard to resurrect my interest if I try to go back to them.
In the end, what was this post about? Essentially, I was saying 'refine your basics, and your reading speed will improve'. I'm not going to go into more advanced techniques such as being able to 'flash-read' paragraphs and lines, because I generally don't use those techniques when playing normal VNs (the slow death of the NVL format has ensured it only has limited usefulness when reading VNs).
A note about the difference in enjoyment: The pleasure gained from reading varies in nature as you get faster. One reason I love VNs that are heavy on complex narration is that such VNs rarely leave me feeling that I wasted my time reading them, whereas ones with little narration and most if it simple tend to leave me feel like I wasted my time. In my observations of others, including some friends I introduced to VNs who have significantly slower speeds than myself, I saw that they tended to be more able to enjoy both better than myself. However, since large-scale VNs seemed like monumental tasks to them, they often don't even try them. In this sense, reading speed determines what some people read in the first place, thus narrowing their options and experiences. I hear stories about people taking months to finish a single VN, and I honestly can't comprehend that, given that even the longest VN only takes me about thirty to forty hours (incidentally, only a half dozen VNs have reached this threshold in my personal experience)... which is about the same amount of time full completion of an average-scale jrpg takes, lol. I honestly don't have the experience to gauge how to enjoy a VN over the course of a month or more of time... and I'd like some input on just how that experience feels, since I don't have any references in my experience that might enable me to understand it. Even my friends were book-addicts before I introduced them to English-language VNs, so they were still faster than the average...
Edit: What caused me to decide to post this was the simple fact that I have, on a number of occasions, been asked for advice on how to improve reading speed. In the process of trying to articulate how to improve reading speed based on my experiences, I decided to focus on visual novel reading speed, because the explanations for some of the techniques I've picked up over the years would require me to rediscover how-to books I read back in my teens when I was trying to reduce the amount of time I had to spend studying by finding ways to read faster. I had to laugh when I realized that all I could do was explain why the basics were important, because the most important element for reading VNs turned out to be accepting that the vocabulary you pick up reading the 'classics' in your years of public education is not nearly enough. Vocab and an understanding of how it fit into grammar are so vital to reading quickly, because you don't have to stop to think about what a sentence means if there is no part of it you don't already understand.
To be honest, my first thought after playing this game was: 'Yeah, this is a Looseboy game.' Needless to say, I don't always consider that a compliment. Looseboy has a tendency to prefer being opaque even where being opaque doesn't really serve all that well, as anyone who played Sharin no Kuni or G-senjou can tell you, if they can bring themselves to discard fanboyism.
Why do I say this? I say it because if I don't manage to get past that particular lump in the throat, I won't be able to properly comment on this VN.
First, this VN, like most Looseboy VNs, starts as a soft school story with a dark undertone that gradually overpowers the rest as the story goes on. This is his style, and anyone who played his previous games will be familiar with the pattern. I will say that this one does it moreso than any of his other VNS, as there is a lot of insanity going around... The mystery of the story is actually fairly hum-drum, though it is more occult-focused than any of his other stories.
Despite the vndb description, there is no battle royale aspect to the story. Rather, it is more intimately involved in the characters emotions, relationships, and conflicts. At the same time, the threat of the 'meeting' is always there in the background and is the source of the sense of lurking horror that infects the story as a whole.
In this VN, Looseboy drags you through the mud of the characters personal flaws and problems, and for those who don't like that type of thing, this is definitely not for you. On the other hand, if you like creepy atmospheres, despair, madness, and human drama, this is probably a good choice for you. It helps that the protagonist is likeable, most of the time, and it is actually understandable that girls would like him (an unusual occurrence in VNs, in general).
My final thoughts...? To be honest, while the last few chapters really did have a lot of impact, the buildup to the core story was a bit too drawn out and there was a bit too much focus on the personal drama, though that was understandable considering the nature of the occult threat. The ending... was ok, but I could have used a solid after-story rather than the five minute after-credit scene that basically says 'maybe we'll be all right'. Considering how much effort Looseboy went to make you care about Rumi and Renji, you'd think he would have had the forethought to give them a more detailed conclusion.
Edit: To clarify, the horror in this VN is mostly psychological, with only a very limited amount of bloodshed. Don't go in expecting guro, in other words.
Loli-Clephas recently emerged from Clephas' mouth, beginning a reign of terror in which billions have already perished, their blood staining her massive metal teeth, their flesh sliding down her throat. As the universe trembles at the unleashing of this, the most beautiful and terrible of all the monsters ever conceived in the depths of the Abyss, Clephas himself is busy playing VNs for his VN of the Month blog, having allowed his female self free reign to indulge her hungers for the first time in several billion years.
Unfortunately for the otakus of the world, because the true Clephas wasn't paying attention, Loli-Clephas began her invasion of the 2D realm, devouring all of the heroines that the true Clephas hadn't claimed as his own, leaving a barren wasteland of VNs, role-playing games, and strategy-rpgs void of heroines, only white spaces and a few drops of animated blood left behind.
Even now, Akibahara's denizens weep with despair, as their favorite heroines have vanished from their precious goods, the heads of their figures bitten off, their dakimakuras pure white, and their mousepads now flat and solid black.
While Clephas has become aware of the situation, the power of 2D has tilted toward his loli-self, and the upcoming battle looks fit to erase this universe entirely from existence. The true Clephas rises from the depths of his eroge-hazed fog, his eyes blazing with an infinite hunger and love to match that of his counterpart, and the fabric of reality begins to resonate with the power of the two great monsters.
Which of the endless devourers shall dominate the Infinite Stomach?!
Yes, I hate trophies, achievements, or whatever you choose to call them. Why? At least part of it is because I was a gamer back in the NES era, and I liked that sense of private accomplishment it gave me for beating a game on my own. Another reason is simply because I hate the way achievements and the like break immersion, particularly in rpgs and games with a good story. I can say this outright... I almost never finish games where I can't disable trophies. I'm not interested in showing off, and I'm even less interested in people knowing my gaming habits. I hate that someone can look at my steam profile and know which games I own. I hate that people can look at my psn profile and see which ones I've played or am playing. I hate it even more that it feels like the game itself is reporting to the companies that produced it whenever I have the online function on.
If you hadn't figured it out, I am a gamer that likes his privacy. I had a nightmare about some moron including achievements in a VN last night, so I felt I had to post this...
Final
Having finished this VN for the second time, there were a number of things I took notice of in a different way from the first time through... but perhaps the biggest one is simply that I was surprised at how many of the most important details I remembered. I had to laugh when I realized I'd subconsciously solved the riddle of the path themes in my first read through, and they came back almost immediately after I entered them.
First, with Valeria's path, it is straight-and-narrow love and the mixture of hope and despair it creates. Like all the paths in the good Propeller games, it is a highly emotional story, and the stories of both the antagonist and the heroine are described in intimate detail, giving life to the characters to a degree that is very pleasing for someone who wants both emotional and intellectual value from his VNs.
Second is Yuki's path... this one is, above all, redemption and faith. The theme is perhaps not as simple as it might sound. For one thing, the focus of faith theme is a man who hates the god he worshiped and desires to be hated by him... and is instead the obvious focus of that god's love. You don't get much more ironic than that. The redemption theme... can only really be touched upon by spoiling everything, so I'll leave it at that.
Third is Selma's path... and this is perhaps the least obvious of the themes. It is basically 'the nature of a hero' and 'desires hidden even from oneself'. The former is brought out through the recognition of what it means to be a Mystic One (the 'inherited heroes' of the setting), and the twisted lifestyle it forces on those who inherit the title and power. The latter... is again one you can't touch upon without spoiling things horribly, so I'll leave it at that.
So... what is my overall conclusion? I really, really want to replay Chrono Belt, right now, lol.
First, I want to say thank you to those who patiently listened as I whined and complained about this VN as I played it. I should also explain what I was complaining about first, so that people don't get the impression that this is an awful VN, just because I have complaints about it. I'll place this in spoilers for people who don't care about my whining.
Second, I should say that I have a firm belief that Ryukishi's VNs make better anime than they do VNs, because his scenario design is far better than his writing (not to mention his art). His love for torturing and killing his own characters is very similar to that of George Martin or Glen Cook, but he mixes it up with that peculiar disconnect from reality and surrealism that is unique to Japanese writers, especially when it comes to violence or sex, lol.
The first part of this story looks like it comes out from a Japanese-colored version of our own film noir. To be honest, I found it pretty amusing and an overall fun ride. I cried and laughed with the characters, and I got to like the various people Rose and her crew met. The second part is somewhat less amusing, as it is mixed in with hope followed by a quick fall into despair, as things take a turn for the worse that never quite gets better. The third and last arc (there are four seasons but only three arcs, really) is devastatingly emotional and full of a despair far surpassing that of the first two. Friends die, others betray, and characters you have come to love suffer. In other words, it has all the ingredients you need for a good trilogy (which is what it feels like).
The themes involved will probably confuse about fifty percent of those who read this who aren't from Asia. I'm not kidding. Simply put, it requires the ability to appreciate the character, weaknesses and strengths of the Chinese, Americans, and Japanese at the same time. As such, the learning curve for fully appreciating this VN is a bit steep. In fact, in some ways it is more steep than I/O because the matters it deals with aren't matters of science but of culture and people.
I suggest anyone who wants to fully understand a lot of what they say - especially the exchanges between the Chinese mafia and Rose's people - read up on current events in the relations between Japan and China, because this story has been heavily influenced by the recent mess in diplomatic relations between the two. A lot of it is mixed up with the usual emotionalism that defines Japanese writing, but the core arguments are based in current events, rather than just ones of the distant past.
Is this a good VN? That's an excellent question, me. To be honest, it is hard to say. There are a ridiculous number of flaws to the setting, and the writing, while much better than Ryuukishi07's past efforts, is still less than poetic (and his event descriptions are still as weak as ever). However, if you just look at the fun factor...? This is a fairly enjoyable experience. Oh, for those who hate to see characters they like suffer or die off or who can't deal with concepts like prostitution, organized crime, or corruption as a matter of daily life this would be a hard VN to read. In some ways, this is far darker than his past VNs, because the actual daily events include no sense of fantasy, save for the setting itself. As a result, people who could enjoy Higurashi, Umineko, and Higanbana with no problems might very well show signs of rejection with this one. At the same time, people who despised the others might very well like this one, because - while it does share all of Ryuukishi's usual habits - both bad and good - it is outside of his usual ballpark in the subject matter.
Edit2: Whoops, the last edit was a bit too... sharp. To avoid controversy I have sealed it behind a spoiler tag. Read at your own risk.
Well, you'll be disappointed to know that I am disappointed with this VN, even though I didn't have high hopes for it.
First, I should explain the theory/template for a good trap protagonist VN.
1. Protagonist is voiced (voicing the protagonist in these VNs with a sex-neutral-sounding VA generally gives you what you want)
2. Protagonist is something of a submissive personality, when it comes to minor issues, but when it comes to anything major is proactive.
3. Protagonist at some point stops being bothered by the fact that they are dressing up as a girl. (along with occasional sighs when they realize they are thinking completely like a woman)
4. Protagonist is generally capable, earning the positive emotions he gets from the girls honestly.
5. The discovery of the protagonist's sex by the heroine is in a suitably dramatic manner, thus generally overwriting the shock of the discovery of his lie (most of the time).
6. The actual issue of his true sex is an object of humor to those who know the truth.
I should say that 1, 2, 4, and 5 are violated by this VN (though 5 isn't violated by all the routes). To those who have played Tsuriotsu since it got the voice patch or Koi no Canvas, you will know what I am talking about with 1. A protagonist that is on the verge of being a non-entity without a voice will become a real person the second they start talking, and the lack of a voice actually feels weird when everyone considers the protagonist to be a girl. In 2's case, the protagonist is a near-complete submissive with a side of hetare. This is a downside in any VN, but it was particularly bad in this one... With 4... the protagonist is basically a nonentity, shy and generally hopeless. Again, this is a downer for any VN, but this also means it feels like he didn't 'earn' the heroines' affections, which is pretty much unforgivable in this type of VN.
Now, for some general conclusions about the VN... this one only barely stops short of nukige territory when it comes to the h-scenes. The number per route (somewhere around seven or eight) is ridiculous, and - sadly - a large amount of the final parts of each heroine's story are a part of the h-scenes, thus making it almost a necessity to read them all. Making it worse is that the common route is ridiculously short and the heroine routes are of similar length, meaning character development is minimal at best.
While I generally don't expect much of Moonstone, this was a particularly disastrous entry, in my opinion.
First, for those wondering how I found time to do this... Fallout 4 is not a game you can play in small bits, so any time when I had less than four hours consecutively free, I went for this instead (generally it was twenty to thirty minute bouts during lunch, dinner, and breakfast, as well as an hour right before bed). For those wondering what I thought of the original, here is a link to the post in my thread: http://forums.fuwanovel.net/topic/2086-clephas-vn-of-the-month/?page=8#comment-159994 Now, first I'm going to say this game is generally better than the original. I make this statement straight-out because this one fixes a lot - though not all - of the complaints I had with the original, without disposing of what was best about it. The protagonist is generally more active/has more of an effect on the world around him, and he is a lot less of a non-entity, thus putting his character setting to at least some use. This VN follows a different heroine as canon for each heroine route, so I'll list which heroines from the first one were chosen to reach the events in each heroine path in this one here. Kana>Alysticia Haruhi>Usagi Sera>Masshiro Yuzuki>Tateha In many ways, the heroines in this one follow the same pattern as the original. Alys and Masshiro are both ojousamas, Usagi is an idol, and Tateha is the 'futsuuko' of the game. Also similarly, the heroines' deredere-ness is off the charts once the protagonist becomes their lover. In particular, Masshiro is a bit freaky that way. There is a fifth heroine, Anna, but she is a sub-heroine whose path lasts about twenty minutes, so I'm not going to bother covering her here. Similar to the original, the two presidential councils (seitokai) face off against one another in 'elections' where their competing ideas are looked over and picked by the students. There are some differences... such as the fact that the deadlock at the beginning in this one is caused by bloc votes from the cultural and sports clubs and that Gekka's school president is not a charismatic individual (most people are - unjustifiably - terrified of her, and Masshiro is generally considered the face of the council) and Usagi, the idol who leads Tendou is not pushing fun like a dealer with a new, profitable drug like Haruhi in the original was. This deliberate toning down of the general capabilities and the overenthusiasm of the two councils allowed the protagonist to step forward more in this one, allowing him to actually be something other than just a catalyst for events. For this reason, it was much easier to get behind his eyes and enjoy the story than the original. On the down side, this means that there wasn't really an absolute defining heroine, like Haruhi was in the original. In exchange, Mokomoko-san (also known as Alysticia) has the best 'issues' in her path. Her psychological/social issue is pretty obvious from early on, and it is the defining issue with every story element dealing with her. In many ways, this follows a pattern drawn after than of Shino from Uruwashi no, though it is far less severe and the heroine in general is actually interested in 'fixing' herself from the very beginning. Unfortunately, the very fact that that one heroine has pretty deep issues (Usagi also has some nice drama) outlines how weak in terms of non-romantic issues Masshiro and Tateha's paths are. I'd honestly thought Masshiro's path would turn into a typical ojousama drama... for the first five minutes after the drama began, until it concluded (at the end of those five minutes). Unfortunately (since I actually like that particular trope) that didn't happen, and the path itself was defined mostly by endless ichaicha and (as usual well-done) H-scenes. Tateha's path... is just dry of anything interesting, probably because they put all that effort into developing Usagi and Alys. Overall, for those looking for a good charage with great visual and musical quality, this one is an excellent choice... just don't expect brilliance where you are guaranteed to get average-quality.
The idea of a harem is a very old one. In fact, there is literally no culture (prior to Christianity) that, sometime in its past, did not accept the idea of a harem in one form or another.
However, it was never a simple system of one man simply marrying as many women as he wanted. In some places, it was a mark of familial wealth. In order to avoid long-term difficulties, a wealthy individual would take numerous wives, produce numerous sons, and split that wealth amongst those sons in order to prevent his fellow villagers or townsmen from turning on his family at some future point. In others, it was a mark of political power. An Emperor would take numerous wives, both to form alliances with his nobles and foreign countries and in order to ensure the continuance of his dynasty (in most Imperial dynasties, it was accepted that there would be vicious palace politics that would kill off numerous potential heirs). In old China, it was accepted that a man would take a primary wife and many concubines if he had the wealth to do so. The primary wife would be the mistress of the family, whereas the others would help administer the husband's estates under her direction.
So why did the harem system go out of fashion? It didn't, really. Most men of power and wealth have mistresses, even today, and the attitude of most 'old money' families is one of resignation toward this kind of behavior. Of course, religiously and legally those living in the mostly Christian west can only have a single wife, but the tacit approval of wealthy and powerful men taking mistresses is a work-around common to almost all monogamist cultures.
Now, for the morality of it... extract religion and hypocritical social mores from the mix, and you basically have three golden standards by which the idea of a harem might be condemned or approved:
1. Are the men/women involved satisfied with the situation and well-treated?
2. Does the male or female holder of the harem have the wealth to support his/her spouses and any resulting children?
3. Are the resulting children happy and healthy?
That's real life. VNs do it a bit differently. Because VNs tend to avoid dirty details (no, I don't mean H, I mean real-life style drama) and ignore inconvenient realities, the average VN probably wouldn't be able to fulfill those standards in the long run. This is because most VN protagonists don't have the capability or strength of will to both manage the inevitable internal conflicts of a harem (herding cats) and bring in enough money to support a large family. For this reason, most VN harems just don't qualify in my eyes as being a realistic idea.
That said, there are VNs that actually consider the realities and make it seem like a realistic choice... but most don't manage it, lol. I especially have to rofl at harem nukige and moege.
Now, for my personal viewpoint... I basically think that if you can manage to fulfill the 'golden rules' above, there is no reason why I should care if you have multiple wives/lovers. On the other hand, if you can't afford to have a wife and kids, you shouldn't. I hate optimists.
Komorebi no Nostalgica is one of the more interesting VNs I've read in the past three years. I occasionally go back and play one of its paths when I want to restore my faith in VNs, and one of its primary themes is artificial intelligence. There are a number of different viewpoints represented in the VN about AIs, ranging from classic horror stories and instinctive repulsion to acceptance and/or affection. Cinema, who is the source of most of the central conflicts of the VN, is a humanoid robot created before the big war that basically wiped out the internet archives and a lot of humanity's knowledge of its own past. She was apparently customized immensely by the man known only as the 'Store Manager', who ran an underground video rental shop with her as the clerk. She isn't a heroine, but it wouldn't be incorrect to state that she is the focus of all the major events of the story. In many ways, her personality and setting resemble that of the heroine from Planetarian, and those who played that ancient will probably be able to easily recognize the earnest, almost childlike nature of the two. The generation of humanoid robots after her eventually developed a self-determining will and intelligence, becoming fully sentient, sparking a pogrom (of humans slaughtering robots that were suddenly seen as a threat) that led straight into a war that shattered human society as it existed at the time. The war was... a draw, though a draw that turned out more to the advantage of the robotic Metasera than to that of humanity. During the war, Cinema was put into hibernation and hidden by her creator, until she was awakened by the protagonist and his hare- *coughs* friends. The Metasera, having gained the right to self-determination in exchange for forfeiting their right to aggressive self-defense, live in small arcologies based in just about every major city of the planet, learning from and aiding humans as they seek to evolve their budding intelligence and emotions further. One of the heroines, Fluorite, is a Metasera, and it is through her that you get the writer's insight into the idea of the results of a 'naturally occurring' AI. Cinema, on the other hand, presents an entirely different path to the same goal... she is a low-spec virtual intelligence that is designed to grow into full sentience and in the end gains a far wider spread of emotions than the Metasera... while also showing off a surprising degree of emotional development, even before she gains that sentience. The idea of an AI that develops intelligence before emotion and causes a war (the Metasera) versus an AI that develops intelligence after emotion and is a friend to humanity from the beginning (Cinema) is one of the many hidden themes of the VN. There were innumerable times in the VN that I felt intellectually stimulated or driven to express raw emotion. The story is just that powerful, after all. Moreover, the protagonist and friends are of the first generation to grow up without knowledge of the world prior to the Metasera, and it is the writer's portrayal of this aspect that is frequently the most interesting.
Mmm... first of all, this is by Onamatope, a company previously known only for its harem-ge from the Mecha-con series. The Mecha-con series fell somewhere into that thin area between a nukige and a moege, and it was actually pretty decent for something in that area of the VN universe. So, keeping that experience in mind, I went into this VN with a more open mind than some people probably would have. Fortunately, this VN wasn't a disappointment, precisely because I wasn't looking for it to be something out of this world. Ok, first... this is a chuunige, in the sense that it follows a format I think most people will be familiar with... this young guy is transformed and forced into a world where he has to fight to survive, with many pretty girls around him... sound familiar? It should. That right there is the basis for about ninety-percent of the entire 'gakuen battle' type chuunige sub-genre. In a few ways, this VN definitely borrows from Draculius, which I still think is the best non-superviolent vampire VN. There are a lot of differences between the two... but they share the commonality of allowing for a coexistence of slice-of-life and comedy with a more serious background story. I'll say it straight out though... there should have been an Iris path. I don't say this because I'm a lolicon (though the protagonist and his ancestors all were, apparently) - as I'm not - but because Iris was, at first, second and third glance, the most interesting female character in the VN. All the heroines had their moments... in fact, I was really, really surprised at the degree to which they managed to balance all the paths and gave the heroines an equal amount of story. Due to the fact that the first half of their paths are the same, you might think Aoi and Lycoris got a bit screwed over, but their events after the split are distinct enough - and long enough - that I can't really say either got screwed over by the scenario designer's choices. In that sense, this VN is something of a triumph of the art of scenario design, which was one of the areas in which Onamatope generally shined in its near-nukige Mecha-con series as well (one of the reasons my impressions of those games were positive). In terms of raw writing... the battle writing is actually some of the better non-Light and non-Propeller I've seen. That isn't to say it is first class, because it isn't. The protagonist is way too much of a hetare when it comes to dealing with his vampirism, and the fact that they chose to make all the heroines, sub-heroines, and the protagonist a bit 'baka' was a bit of an odd choice that had moments where it fell flat. The regular narrative writing is better than you generally see in a nakige (which generally get favored with the best moege-variant writers), and I can honestly say that the pacing didn't throw me off very often, though there were some shaky moments midway and early on. In terms of visuals... this VN definitely needed more combat CGs. I knew they would cut corners on this, as Onamatope is not a company that can afford the kind of budgets for visuals that monsters like Will and Light can. There was a bit too much reuse of the same tachie poses to simulate combat, and the best I can say is that they gave the protagonist a face and a tachie for once, which was a huge plus. ... unfortunately they didn't give him a voice. Perhaps one of the biggest no-nos with a modern chuunige is to fail to give the protagonist a voice. The simple reason for this? Because the protagonist in a chuunige is always intended to be an actual person, rather than a simple self-insert. As such, it is rather ridiculous to give into that particular convention when even using a random staff member would probably satisfy most people. Generally speaking, the music in this game is... generic-sounding in the sense that chuunige music can ever be generic-sounding. That means that the tunes are ones I suspect get sold to every company intending to make this type of VN, with a few twists and changes in the rhythm to make them sound different to the ears of someone who doesn't listen. On the positive side, there is no point in this VN where I felt like the music was misused, which is a far bigger flaw that simply reusing music tracks from other games. Overall, what can those of you looking forward to the localization look forward to? I'd say that if you want some slice-of-life with vampires merged with a low-level chuunige story, this will definitely be something to look forward to. On the other hand, fans of more serious chuunige will not be satisfied by this, as the game is just to light in the slice-of-life scenes and the protagonist is a bit too much of a near-hetare when it comes to the vampire issues.
Ok... normally I chose my Random VNs really at random, on a whim, through whatever method comes to mind. However, this year there were a number of requests - mostly from off-site people (c'mon guys, I shouldn't be having two-thirds of those that make requests be off-site people, considering this site is the only one I'm really active on). First, due to my Venus Blood, Ikusa Megami, and Sengoku Hime marathons of previous years, I was asked to marathon another long-running series with numerous entries by several people who argued convincingly for it. That series is Tsuyokiss. Understand, I am not fond of this series. The original is one of the more overrated pieces of cliched VN material out there, and the sequels hardly vary from the original at all in terms of concept or content. Nonetheless, I chose to hear out this request and you'll have the opportunity to read about my journey through this major series, at least in part due to the recent release of an omnibus version of the entire series. I will also be (have already restarted) replaying the entire Grisaia series as a revival event, entirely in Japanese while also explaining some things I noticed after having gone back and forth between the two versions of the original (this was originally a request, and I'm still unsure if I can manage to do this without turning it into a translation criticism party). Now for single-game replays... I'll be replaying these VNs for certain in the next year: Houkago no Futekikakusha, Hoshi Ori Yume Mirai (to give it a proper review this time), Noble Works (again, this is on a request from someone who wanted me to do a full commentary on the game), Ruitomo (again on request), and Soukou Akki Muramasa (on request). All of these requests were made over the course of the past four months, and I am kind of angry that certain someone gave out one of my private emails to certain members of the larger community, as it meant that I had to actually seriously sift my junk mail box. I'm also accepting requests for random VNs from the last five years that I haven't played, though in this case I reserve the right to seriously think about it before doing so.
Here it comes, a possible VN of the Month!!! Seriously, I hadn't expected that Whirlpool's ten year anniversary game would be this good. It is written by the same person who wrote Koisuru Doll to Omoi no Kiseki, and it feels in many ways like a return to the better of Whirlpool's two distinct styles. Whirlpool's two styles are:
1- A straight moege/charage that makes a vague attempt at seriousness on occasion and inevitably falls into the habit of producing endlessly repeated 'ongoing jokes'.
2- A VN that seems like a pure charage at first but develops a more serious and involved story with great drama as the game goes on. Most of these have a 'true ending', and the characters in general are better designed than in the first type's case.
This one is based in a world where five different parallel Earths merged into one. One was the human world, a second was the Goumakai (demon world), the third was the world of the divine (angels and gods), the fourth was the world of the beastpeople, and the fifth and last was the world of machines. Twenty years before the story began, this event caused a lot of conflict and chaos, and it was only resolved to an extent right before the protagonist's birth. At the same time, humans with special powers started to be born, and the protagonist was one of them.
The protagonist of this story, Kei, likes to believe he is a 'normal' guy and will say he is to anybody and everybody if they ask... but no one seriously believes it. He is one of those 'metsuki warui' protagonists who appear frightening naturally, and his power makes him even more frightening, especially since he had the bad taste to get into a battle with Sofia, the most powerful being in the world (and bring her to a draw) on her first day at school. As such, he is somewhat isolated. He is also unbelievably dense (standard VN protagonist quality) and kind-hearted, lol.
Anyway, in order to avoid being dragged back to the human part of the world, where he would normally have spent his entire life being watched and studied (he is the most powerful human 'Neos', and as such, he grew up basically being researched and watched), he decides to run for Student Council President. The common route of this VN is entirely taken up by the election and his efforts to convince the student body he is worthy of the presidency. The common route is pretty well-paced, and it gives you an opportunity to get to know each of the five main heroines (there are also eight sub-heroines with mini-routes).
The main heroines are Kururu (the true heroine), Sofia (the daughter of the former Demon King and the most powerful being on the planet), Faura (the wolf-girl and leader of the school's beastpeople), Papheel (a loli angel), and Iori (the protagonist's tsundere little sister). Except for Kururu's routes, most of them have a standard fall in love>brief ichaicha>conflict>resolution>ichaicha>ending resolution that has a nice pace, not wasting your time with endless dating or giving you pathetic 'we are still in school' endings. In fact, I was quite satisfied with the four main heroine routes other than Kururu's, and I didn't feel that the writer did the heroines a disservice with the balance of attention between them.
Kururu's route... is technically the true route, and it reveals her secrets as well as the full measure of the protagonist's ability. It has two endings - a 'normal' ending that you are required to see first, then the true path that digs into Kururu's true nature and past, as well as certain events during the common route that are left unexplained in the other routes. Overall, it is decent, though it lacks the impact of some other true routes I've encountered (if the other main heroine routes were a 1, it was a 1.2 or 1.3).
Overall, this is a pretty high quality, well-written VN that is worth reading if you want something that isn't quite your average charage but don't really want to become an adventurer and go play something like a horror, mystery, or chuunige.
First, this VN is by Giga. Yes, Giga, the same people who did the Baldr series. However - and I have said this repeatedly in my comments on other non-Baldr Giga VNs - the second Giga steps outside of hard, complex, violent sci-fi... they get third-rate (except the visuals). The best non-Baldr VN I've even tried to play by Giga was Harvest Overray, and even that was only just above average for a charage with a central story (though the humor was the best of Giga). In fact, if you ignore the visuals, every charage they've made other than Harvest has been just below the charage average.
This one doesn't escape that trap, unfortunately. To be honest, I thought from the description on Getchu that they might have actually made something worth playing this time (despite the crappy character profiles). Unfortunately, what I got was a surprisingly shallow VN, whose best content is based entirely in parts (not the whole of) the heroine routes and where the rest stinks of potential but never quite manages to make it live.
I really and honestly thought I would like the characters... after all, if there is one thing Giga seemed to be capable of doing outside of its visuals and the Baldr series, it was a halfway-decent characterization, right? Right?
Wrong.
I honestly couldn't believe how shallow the characterization is, especially in the common route. The best you get in the common route is a vague, archetypical idea of what the characters might be like (Kanae being the most obvious). Unfortunately, the heroine routes basically say 'what you saw in the common route is mostly just a bit extended here'. Tomomi's path had some moments... but the other heroine paths were a patchwork of poor character development and a sudden shift to the 'endgame' after a relatively short bit of story progression.
Is this a kusoge? Not necessarily. I've played much, much worse charage in the past and not criticized them this viciously. Unfortunately, I'm also not in a charitable mood at the moment, because I was hoping this would wash the Kadenz Fermata flavor out of my mouth so I could play Tsumi no Hikari with a calm, reasonable heart. This is basically a very, very short charage with a very minimalist approach to... everything. When carried out properly, a 'minimalist' charage can sometimes be better than a longer one. Unfortunately, the failure to properly develop the characters (especially the protagonist) in the common route led to me being unable to care very much about the heroine routes. This made for a very 'rough' and 'slapdash' experience, at least in my (biased at the moment) opinion.
This is a VN by Circus, the company that makes the Da Capo series, which I'm sure most of our resident moe-addicts are familiar with. It is also based in the same universe (well, I'm pretty sure it is, since a Professor Amakase made an AI with emotions who likes bananas and who is the true heroine of this VN, lol).
To put it straight to you... this is a very old style of VN. It is a lot closer to the old Da Capo games and Key's early VNs than it is to anything else made in modern times. Like Da Capo, it has its emotional moments... and some decent drama. However, in exchange, the lateral relationships are almost nonexistent (character interrelationships other than with the protagonist tend to be weak to nonexistent, beyond a few templates). This is the standard for this type of VN, and it was more than satisfying enough for me when I first started playing VNs... but now that I've experienced more fulfilling interactions between casts of characters, this VN feels startlingly dull at times.
Both visually and audio-wise, this is a VN that 'feels' like a Circus VN. Almost all of the tracks are 'honobono' (restful) or playful in atmosphere. Visually, it is a reasonably pretty VN... but it isn't near the higher end of things.
I feel a need to mention the ero simply because of the degree to which the spare (short and plain) h-scenes screw up the rhythm of a VN that doesn't have that good of a rhythm in the first place. This is a VN that was definitely made with an eye toward releasing a console non-H version later on, and it shows. As such, the ero is fairly meaningless and tends to be more of an obstacle to enjoyment than is usual.
One more little thing that had me peeved about this VN was the fact that the protagonist is nameable... and that is also the single element that caused me the most difficulty in enjoying the VN as a whole. I don't say this to be an ass, but this particular trope has a singularly dehumanizing effect on the protagonist of any VN in which it is used. Considering how weak and pale charage protags are in the first place, this is a really bad idea, lol. In particular, when there is a blank spot in various spoken dialogue from the heroines where nothing is said or the name is changed to a pronoun, it feels really weird and breaks my engrossment in the story. Style-wise, this is one of the most abominable tropes in existence, and it is the reason it took me five tries to get into and finish Hoshi ori Yume Mirai, despite the overall high-quality of the VN otherwise.
Now... this VN particularly shines in its heroine routes. Those routes are done - as I mentioned above - in the 'older' style, where the heroines have a serious problem that only comes up when they are with the protagonist and the protagonist solves, thus affirming their bond (after some shakeups). Now, I don't particularly hate this particular archaic type of story, and the heroine routes themselves are fairly high-level... but looking at the VN as a whole, the weak scenario design outside of the heroine paths (the lead up to the romance formation) is absolutely abominable to experience. This, in some ways, makes the heroine paths an experience in the good slowly carving away at the negativity of the early game.
Overall, this VN is a typical Circus experience... good in some ways, godawful in many others. It is difficult to call most of the games by this company a kusoge, but this kind of BS is why this company isn't anywhere near a favorite of mine.
Yes, I went ahead and played this, having pre-ordered it on Steam. I've been pumping about three hours a day into it since it came out and my final level for my main party was 47 (which seems to be low, but that is apparently because people go for the 'beat the boss without weakening him first' trophy, pfft). This is a game designed to bring nostalgia to the minds of those who are fans of the SNES and PS1 eras, and in that sense, it definitely succeeds. It utilizes a battle system copied from one of the most famous kamige jrpgs of all time, Chrono Trigger... with a number of additions, both big and small. The world map is also reminiscent of that estimable game... but the resemblance pretty much stops there, save for a few other superficial elements.
First, I'll give you a basic rundown on the story concept. Endir, a mercenary swordsman, is sent to a certain island to assassinate a young girl, and it is there that he finds out that she is destined to die in any case, giving her life for the sake of the world, to appease the monsters. It really is, from the very beginning, a story of compassion, driven almost entirely by Setsuna herself, with Endir as a sounding board, more than anything else (your choices as Endir are fairly irrelevant).
It is easy to love Setsuna. She is kind-hearted and genuinely compassionate, as one would have to expect of someone who is going willingly to their death to save the world. As a character, she has, of course, been 'done before', but that isn't as problematic as you might think, considering how the entire VN is meant to stab you with nostalgia about as subtly as driving a nail into someone's forehead, lol.
The world map's design style is identical to Chrono Trigger's (albeit with modern graphics), and many of the skills are drawn straight from that game, name and all... though there are about five times as many skills total. All skills, save for a few found in chests and a few defaults, are obtained by selling items gotten from monsters to the Magic Associations, which gives you their 'Spritnite' if you sold them enough of the right item. There is no need for more than one of the 'command' type spritnite, as each character's techniques and magic are unique to them, so don't waste your 'budget' of sold items by getting more than one of any of them, lol. Support spritnite are another thing entirely... these give various effects, ranging from stat boosts to healing you when you kill enemies, and using them strategically can make the game immensely easier.
Most monster drops need you to meet certain conditions for them to be dropped, ranging from killing enemies with a specific element, killing them with damage close to their exact hp, or overkilling them (there are other conditions, but those are listed in the monster encyclopedia, so there is no need for me to go into detail here). This can be a bit of a pain when it comes to items from bosses, but you can re-fight bosses in certain dungeons opened up in the late game, so don't worry too much about it, lol.
One of the positives of this game is that there are multiple characters capable of healing... to be specific, both Setsuna and Endir can serve as healers, as well as damage dealers. Not being bound to keep any one character in your party just to survive can be immensely helpful... especially when their attack element is useless against the local enemies, hahaha.
The atmosphere of this game is not just shaped by the setting... but also by the music and the world itself. Piano music dominates this game, giving it a somewhat 'realer' feeling than a lot of the half-synthesized music that is common in mid to low budget jrpgs. However, while the tunes are just fine for activating your emotions, they tend to blend into one another after a while. The world... is defined by snow. Literally. Blizzards, your feet leaving a path through snow drifts, monsters rolling balls of snow both before and during battle... this game is based in winter, and it doesn't even try to be anything other than a world in winter, hahaha. Both aspects can leave you numb after a while... but the game is short enough that it isn't that noticeable if you play it in digestible bites of a few hours at a time.
Story-wise... I'd say that the writing/localization is several levels above what you used to see in the same era as Chrono Trigger (one aspect of that era that I am glad is gone is the weirdly inconsistent translations). The basic plot is classic jrpg, with endless excuses for taking the long route to get to the final destination, lol. The ending is... a bit of a letdown, from my point of view. I honestly don't see why they chose the classic 'dialog-free' ending type that used to be common in SNES era jrpgs, even if they were going for nostalgia, hahah.
Overall, this is a first-rate effort, for what amounts to a mid-budget VN directed at retro-gamers. It goes for the emotions, it ignores the intellect, and it breaks the fourth wall at times (you'll see what I mean if you go to a certain place once you get the airship). In other words, it is a classic 'save the world' style jrpg, and for those who like the older console-style jrpgs, it is pure crack, though it does leave you wanting more (I'm probably going to yank Xenogears out and play it again sometime soon, lol).
... it's been a while since my feelings on a VN have been as complex as my feelings for this one are. I say 'feelings' because this VN has massive emotional impact... not as much as Hapymaher, but nonetheless a lot of emotional impact.
To be blunt, Makoto is nothing like Hapymaher's protagonist, so if you were hoping for more of his 'consumed by sorrow and despair but still living my life' personality, sorry, no luck here. Makoto is... a blank slate. I don't say this in a bad way. For better or worse, Makoto has lived his life in an isolated village where people literally don't talk any more than is absolutely necessary, lest they accidentally compel one another with their power, 'kotodama'. Makoto has a fiance named Mana (and no, not that kind of lukewarm, 'distant fiance' sort of thing you see in some VNs, since they actually get down to business), and a rather nice, slow life in that village... However, he yearns for the outside world, where people can talk to people without restrictions.
He escapes from the village and collapses from hunger in a small town four days later, where he is saved by the first of four heroines, Kokoro. From there the story begins, as he makes the journey from an innocent 'kami' to a real human being with all the baggage that comes along with it.
A lot of the most interesting parts of this game come from the fact that he naturally doesn't understand much about the outside world. Makoto's innocent, unstained viewpoint, combined with his natural kindness and willingness to embrace new experiences, feel surprisingly refreshing. Things other 'normal' protagonists would worry over don't even occur to him, and he is so laid back he makes the drugged hippies of US in the sixties seem tense. While he does change as part of the story, his personal 'lens', through which he sees the world, remains remarkably clean throughout... not to mention the guy has absolutely no sense of sexual morality (in other words, his idea of sexual morality is 'don't use his power to compel people to have sex with him').
The first of the heroines, Kokoro, is a shojo manga addict who has fantasies about immoral relations with older brothers. She is a natural at unconsciously grasping the hearts of others around her without trying, and she is pretty much the picture of a heroine who 'exists to be loved by everyone'.
The second heroine, Kyouko, is a miko that can see dead people (yes, I went there). She has huge self-esteem problems and is more than a little weird... for one thing, her reaction to Makoto is one of the more unique heroine reactions to a protagonist I've encountered over the years... for another, she is abnormally self-derogatory in both action and word.
Mana... is the protagonist's fiance from the village. She is pretty much apathetic about other people, unless they have the decency to provide her with food (from her point of view, people who give her food move up from 'stone in the road' to 'slightly adorable insect' in most cases). She is a bit of an S, when it comes to Makoto, and Makoto is pretty much her reason for living. Because of a careless use of kotodama by another member of the village, she is always cold and in her eyes, it is always snowing.
Hotaru... is the true heroine of this story. Cheerful and active, not to mention highly intelligent and perceptive... she is actually a fairly attractive heroine from the start. However, she has less initial impact than Mana or Kokoro, for reasons that are fairly apparent. Since that is by design, I actually am not complaining about this, though.
Now, to get to the downside of this game... it uses the G-senjou 'ladder' story structure, wherein the story progresses arcs where you choose to either pursue the heroine associated with that arc to an ending or move on with the main story. I can say that the path endings for the non-true heroines were actually pretty good, but having played the true path, they are comparatively low-impact. A lot of this is the fact that the major events of their 'paths' are in the arcs they branched off from, so little is added by their endings save for more sex and some minor tying up of loose ends.
To get back to the main game... the true path is the impact I was talking about. The main arcs were all emotional, so I guess you can say that the other heroines' 'paths' were also emotional, but, as I mentioned above, there is a definite sense that very little was added by choosing one of the other heroines. Hotaru's path is easily the most powerful 'arc'. In fact, it is so emotional and powerful that there are two ends for it. The first one (which you are required to watch first) is... sad, to say the least. It isn't a bad ending, but it is a sad one. I know I cried. For the second ending... well, let's just say it is a good one and leave it at that.
Overall, my viewpoint on this game is... just as mixed as I said above. My conclusions on the G-Senjou story structure are unchanged in the least. I still believe that all VNs that use that story structure should be changed to kinetic novels, just so I don't have to deal with heroine endings that are neglected by the creators of the stories themselves. While all stories with true heroines inevitably put a much larger emphasis on the true heroine, the way this story structure trivializes the other heroines is really irritating, especially when they are good heroines, like these were. However, if you take the arcs, characters, and the true endings separate from that source of irritation, it is a great VN. It just happens to use the single worst VN story structure in existence. Indeed, that story structure and the inevitable realities it brings along with it are the only thing that kept me from naming this as a kamige.
PS: I will erase any and all comments that spoil anything in the last arc. I say this because this is the type of VN that can only be enjoyed to the fullest once, not the type that merely changes flavor with each playthrough, like Devils Devil Concept. Anyone who spoils this VN should have their skin sliced open, drawn back, then have salt rubbed into the exposed flesh.
... *Clephas drools and goes off to make BBQ*
Now, as I stated in the previous post, Saga Planets' has two types of VNs it primarily produces... a story-focused type that doesn't avoid the kind of bitter drama that charage/moege tend to despite the moege-type visuals... and a 'strong charage' type that essentially is a more character-focused VN with many of the same strengths as the former type. Floral Flowlove is the former type, being much closer to Hatsuyuki Sakura and the other 'Four Seasons Series' VNs.
As such, as in all VNs by this company, there is a definite 'proper' play order, if you want to fully enjoy this game. First, unless you are inexperienced at playing VNs, you probably would have figured out that Kano's path is the one that touches on the core elements of the story most intensively... and that is the case, so I seriously suggest you do her path last. This is my suggested path order Adelheit>Aoi Suu>Kohane>Nanao>Kano. My reasons are that Adelheit's ending is the one that goes the most out of its way to avoid touching on the protagonist's most intensely personal issues and is the most 'charage-like' path, and Suu is a sub-heroine whose path branches off of Kohane's path. Nanao and Kano share a basic flow of events up to a point that basically requires you to choose one of them and it dramatically splits off, so it is best to play Kano's path right after Nanao's.
Now that I got that out of the way, I'll make a few comments on the setting and subject matter. For those who dislike Christian mythology, this VN might make you feel uncomfortable, though - given that it is a Japanese story - it isn't full of the moralist excess that a Western Christian writer would have put into it. The focus on angels does have meaning, but for most of the VN, you won't know what meaning it has. Another issue is the protagonist. He isn't a cipher in any way, shape, or form. He is an extremely emotionally-scarred, somewhat self-derisive character who also happens to be eminently capable at whatever he chooses to do (my favorite type, lol). However, his tendency to distrust everyone, despite his ability to see the nature of people's intentions, will probably drive some people up the wall. The guy is fundamentally a rationalist (which is fairly rare in Japanese VNs), save on a few issues regarding his emotional scars and the need to protect Kano from her own bad luck.
The common route of this VN is fairly dramatic and interesting, and Adelheit's path branches off from the rest almost immediately after the first dramatic point. A second turning point occurs after the turn-off for Adelheit's path that sends you digging through the protagonist's half-healed emotional wounds and his past, and it is actually pretty interesting. Save for Suu's, the paths and endings are universally first-rate (Suu's path is this game's abortion, though it is fun to watch the protagonist seduce a nun, lol). I will say that I - as always - have to complain a bit about the fact that the endings only go a few months to a few years past the climax of the story (I really, really wanted to see Adelheit five or six years later, because I thought it would be rofl-worthy). However, for most people this won't be a problem.
Each of the paths gives you a final snippet of the past after the credits, and it is, in part, this that made me give you that order of completion. To be blunt, Kano's revelation is a bit too big in comparison, and as a result, it would be problematic if you saw it too early on (it is meant to be viewed right before going to the final path).
About nine out of ten people are going to spend this VN wondering 'who the hell is Riku?' because the protagonist never really explains her in any of the game's main paths. So... I'm not going to spoil it for you (though a lot of you will probably figure it out anyway).
Emotionally, this VN definitely has impact... but a lot of it is pitying, sympathizing, or empathizing with the protagonist. I will say that Kano has seriously awesome hidden depths that come out in all the paths (think a ditz with an intelligence of ten but a wisdom of five hundred in a D&D game), as she is perhaps the single wisest, most selfless and compassionate heroines I've seen. She isn't terribly intelligent though. On the other side, Adelheit is pretty hilarious... she is easily the laziest heroine I've ever seen (though she is also one of the more intelligent ones). Kohane is the kind of girl who would make the perfect mother for a family of twenty adopted kids, and Nanao is basically your standard tsundere (on her own merits, she is probably the second-weakest heroine).
The true route... you will cry, so I predict (lol). Anyway, the true route had me crying for a while, and it was definitely worth playing. Unfortunately, it is also impossible to talk much about this route without spoiling the entire mess, so I'll just stop here. I will say that they did manage to avoid the 'true route renders all the other routes meaningless/relevant only relative to the true route' screwup, which is what happens in most VNs with a true route.
Overall, this VN is Saga Planets at its best, having learned from a lot of the little mistakes in their previous games. For those who liked Saga Planets already, it is crack, and for those who like a good story-focused VN that isn't a chuunige, this is an excellent choice.
Now, for those who are wondering, the reason I chose to play Baldr Heart first is fairly simple... it is the VN most anticipated this month, at least by the people I talk to. Baldr Heart is the fourth game (if you count the Skydive and Zero games as a single game each) in the 'primary series' started with Baldr Force. This series follows the evolving interrelations between humans, the net, extreme VR, and AIs, storywise. The gameplay in all the games is a relatively fast-paced battle mech action system that evolves a lot of explosions and bullets flying. Except for Zero, the series retains a pixelated appearance that is reminscent of the ps2 or psx eras for its gameplay. The series tends to be heavy on the dystopian elements, as well as transhumanism. Zero's setting in particular is horrifyingly dystopian, with children selling reservations for their own body parts and dismemberment videos in advance to strangers on the streets.
Baldr Heart doesn't go that far... though it definitely strays into the area of mad science. I can't really say a whole lot about the setting without spoiling Skydive and Zero, sadly. This game is based 200 years after those games and the events in them are the base upon which the entirety of the society in Baldr Heart is constructed.
Now, I feel a need to address the biggest complaint from those who were looking at this game. The fact that most of the characters are students... a definite divergence, as the series has in the past had most of its main characters in their early to mid-twenties, save for a few rare exceptions. That fact is one of the series' main attractions for many readers, as many VN fans go to the Baldr series specifically to escape the slice-of-life-in-a-school-setting that plagues most VNs. So, in the eyes of many fans of the Baldr series, this was a huge betrayal... or at least a turn-off.
Typical of a Baldr game, this element, that would normally have been a simple way to dumb it down for the 'mainstream' (as so many readers name it contemptuously) is actually used to accentuate the sharp differences between the Baldr world and the modern Japanese settings of most normal VNs. While it is true that Sou isn't as bitter and broken as a lot of Baldr protagonists either begin as or end up, he nonetheless has his own share of horrifying experiences in his past, and he has taken lives in combat before. He is a mercenary who returns to his homeland after receiving a brain injury trying to save a young girl trapped in the net.
There is a play order to this game... Tsukuyomi>Mao>Yuri>Nagi. With each successive path, more of the game's mystery is revealed, until you reach the core of things in Nagi's path. I'm going to be blunt... if you thought Yuri's path was a bit screwy, Nagi's is even twistier. The Baldr series loves its mindfuck plot twists filled with pseudo-science and philosophy, and in that sense, this is the Baldr series at its best. However, this story structure means that Tsukuyomi's path, in particular, is fairly unsatisfying since it reveals next to nothing about what happened in the past or what is going on during the story. I also felt that the game fell back on emotionalism a bit too often for my tastes... while it almost always comes down to that in any given Japanese game, I honestly thought the 'Fay' were going a bit too far that way. I know they were probably searching for a new theme after Zero, but I still found it a bit trite.
That said, this is still a Baldr game, and thus a mix of filthy human desires and high ideals stain the world crimson with the blood of thousands along the way, leaving me satisfied that Giga didn't abandon the series core precepts. They were just a bit too obvious when they designed the setting and theme, lol.
Overall, this game will get mixed reactions from Baldr fans while being perhaps slightly more accessible for those who might have had trouble with the much darker atmosphere of the previous games... in that sense, I think Giga probably made a mistake, as that dark atmosphere is one of the series' attractions. As a VN, it is very well written and smooth to play... showing off the skills of Giga's writing staff to their fullest. It reminds me of why so many who read Giga games say 'Giga is great... if you just play the Baldr series.'
First, I should state that this is a VN I was unsure of from the beginning. The concept of the 'rehabilitation program' in the VN is so similar to some manga and anime that have gotten attention recently that I had to shake my head in exasperation... not to mention that the concept is also at the core of why so many Japanese otakus like the school life slice-of-life charage that are produced in such profusion.
The VN starts out from the perspective of Hahakigi Hinako, one of the three heroines available from the beginning. Hinako's perspective is the one through which you form your first impressions of the Tryment (not sure of this is the correct romanization, since no info has been given so far that might reveal it, lol) Plan's 'reform school'. Hinako is a young woman who failed at work due to her social ineptness (extreme stage fright, inexperience with working with others, etc), and as a result she lost her job and was left with no idea of how to proceed. This project was then suggested to her as a possible way to return to the workforce, and she chose to go with it.
It is probably best that your impressions of the world are formed through Hinako, as Tsukasa - the male protagonist - is something of an unreliable narrator (deliberately so on the part of the writer) whose viewpoint has some seriously gaping holes in it. It becomes apparent even in Hinako's path that something weird is going on on the island, but it mostly seems irrelevant during the common route.
The two heroines I started out with were Kaizou Momo and Ootate Ruka. Momo is a genius programmer and a researcher of artificial intelligence whose reasons for coming to the island are left to your imagination in the common route. She is childlike, cheery, and more than a little emotionally needy. However, she is appropriately brilliant, as is shown repeatedly in her path. Unfortunately, her path ends on a somewhat confusing note, revealing little about what is going on except indirectly. Ruka is a serious, intelligent young woman who was once part of a law firm that fell apart for reasons that would be a spoiler (lol). Her path is somewhat more revealing about both the setting and Tsukasa than Momo's, but, again, you are left to fill in most of the details on your own through speculation. The ending of both VNs feels definitely incomplete, and they are probably just setups for the Ai path, most likely.
So far, this VN has been interesting to read... but it is also looking to be pretty short. Though, most of the reason for that seems to be the fact that the VN wastes very little time on the romantic and slice-of-life aspects that would have been the center of a charage. Since it is so obvious that the heroine routes aren't meant to be complete in and of themselves, I'm going to reserve judgement until I've completed the remaining routes.
