Clephas
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Blog Comments posted by Clephas
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I am a prolific abuser of ellipses myself. I abuse them because... well, it is so easy to use them as a means of expression. Emotion, humor, hesitation, etc. These things can all be expressed in a wall of text to indicate the state of the writer's thoughts using an ellipses.
They are just so darned convenient.
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Samayou Mitama- I tried this game and dropped it, though I can't really recall any details. It should be noted that I almost never drop chuunige.
Ruitomo- Akatsuki Works first 'classic' game, perhaps the company's defining work. Most of Akatsuki Works games have, since this came out, been to a greater or lesser extent similar to Ruitomo in character archetypes and style, if not in concept in themes. Most of Hino Wataru's AW games have been based in the same universe as well. This is also perhaps one of the more obvious examples of how the 'golden age of JVNs' had a tendency to birth truly unusual and good games.
Prima Stella is unusual amongst Atelier Kaguya's works in that it is not a pure nukige. It is actually a quite good charage (one of the better early ones) that remains a fond memory for me. I can honestly recommend it to someone who wants a charage in the classic old style that has a bit more nuki content than the usual.
Princess Lover is a perfect example of why interesting concepts sometimes make horrible games.
When I first began playing untranslated VNs, I grabbed everything with non-human heroines... and Amakami Vampire was one of the more horrid examples. Not worth playing.
Ikusa Megami Zero has the single best story of any jrpg or jrpg/VN hybrid made in over a decade and a half. Part of this was due to the sheer scale of the story and the advantages of VN storytelling. Part of this is due to the fact that jrpgs have been on a downhill slope story-wise since the turn of the century. However, the fact remains that, despite some excellent games (like the Nier series and Tales of Berseria) it is Ikusa Megami Zero that remains as my favorite.
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Chrono Belt is THE best crossover fandisc ever. The story is equal to and adds richness too the Ayakashibito and Bullet Butlers' experiences, and in some ways, it has elements that surpass both.
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Gouen no Soleil is my second-favorite Soleil game, behind BladeXBullet. It is the one most heavily infected with Cthulhu Mythos elements, and it also draws on Taoist mythology, in combination with the usual Norse stuff. Protagonist being a magically-forced TS actually works as a positive story influence for once, too.
Chaos;Head... does this even need an intro? I'm not a fan of the series, mostly because of this game's protagonist (I was leery after sitting behind this guy's eyes gave me massive headaches).
Eden is an unfinished masterpiece. Why do I proclaim this? Because the game is both a masterpiece and a story that only gets about one fifth of the way through before the writer/artist/programmer/everything else just vanished from the net one day. I love what there is, but it is frustrating it was never finished.
11eyes is one of the single most meh chuunige in existence. It proved a point that most people sort of edge around when it comes to plotge at large... splitting the paths at the end because you are too lazy to make individual stories has mixed results at best.
Tsuyokiss 2gakki... um, really? This series is the same no matter what entry you get into. If you like the original, you'll like them all. If you don't, you won't. It is NOT Majikoi, though it is made by some of the same people.
Stellula Eques is a seriously weird series. It tries to channel so many elements into a mahou shoujo VN while failing utterly to bring them all too life. It says everything about the game above that the best part is the path where the protagonist turns super-evil.
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Princess Frontier was AXL's first high fantasy SOL. It was of AXL's already high quality and in AXL's style, so for those who have already played the later ones, it will feel familiar. However, it does have some elements that would feel outdated now, despite AXL's tendency to keep their style mostly the same over the years.
Akatsuki no Goei is a well-known classic. It is also one of the more divisive VNs out there, with haters hating it to an extreme degree and lovers defending it with fanatic zeal. The fact is, if you don't find Kaito interesting and funny and the setting interesting, you'll definitely have trouble liking this game. However, if you do fulfill those conditions, it is easy - relatively speaking - to ignore Kinugasa's bad habits in this case.
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7 hours ago, froggy said:Hi Clephas, any advice on how to attach Silverio Vendetta to Textractor? Can't see the process, tried admin rights and PID?? Thx.
The latest version hooks it fine on my laptop... have you checked to make sure your antivirus isn't blocking the hooking function?
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7 hours ago, onorub said:
Do we get any detailed information on Kou's squad that dies at the beginning of Baldr Sky? If it's too spoilery just say so and i'll leave it at that.
There are just general remarks about how Kou is an incredible solo fighter but he absolutely sucks as a leader. From other remarks throughout the game, Kou's squad was probably just people he gathered who had relatives/loved ones/etc at Ash-gray Christmas.
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Fortune Arterial was the game that came to be the base for the 'August Game Rules'.
1) August games have good concepts, good protagonists (heroines tend to be hit and miss).
2) August will always make their games look pretty.
3) August will always fumble the execution for the last third of the game.
Tsuki to Majo to Taiyou to is a Silver Bullet game... that in itself says a lot, but I'll elaborate. Silver Bullet games always make serious attempts to escape the mundane trends that were beginning to take over when they were formed, but they always fail, due to a lack of writing talent. Poor Silver Bullet. Their last three games were almost total disasters (I should know, since I played them) and Consome is the best game they've made... and it is still not something I would go out of my way to play now. Hanafubuki and Kachou Fuugetsu (based in the same setting) are interesting games that nonetheless inevitably feel derivative, even if they are sometimes eerie in atmosphere. Setsuei is one of those games that would satisfy the mild horror romance crowd and few others (ironically, this was one of their few games I felt escaped being mediocre in concept, if not execution).
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1 hour ago, Riku said:
I'm actually reading it right now. Just entered Kaja's route. I didn't know which order to go with, so just went with the order the choices give Kaja > Itsuki > Flow > Akira (also the order in which they appear at the end of the OP).
But looking at what you said, it might be better to have Akira before Itsuki if I want the most emotional last? Or continue with this order as Akira's route is about Tenchou and it continues in Last episode, so better read them one after the other?
Anyway, I'm doing other stuff on the side so i'm slower than usual, but I'm liking it so far. A shame Shouta is only partially voiced, though.
Do it in whatever order you please... though, to be honest, Kaja route's version of the common route makes me feel like I'm tormenting Flow, since you have to make so many choices that disappoint her.
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I wish I could find a download version of this for purchase... when I first heard of it, I couldn't find a copy and forgot about it. This went for a lot of Ocelot games, because that company seemed to be horrible at advertising and distributing their works.
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21 hours ago, Mr Poltroon said:The game really really surprised me positively. I expected an ace attorney rip-off and some sex scenes at the end to call it an eroge, but I've found that both those areas are actually remarkably good!
I left most of the game to fun2novel during my period of offloading games I wasn't interested in, but the roles of magistrates in Edo-era Japan included roles of judge, jury, and investigator head. One of the reasons this led to so much corruption in the later part of the era was because it essentially offloaded all responsibilities of keeping order for an individual area of a town, region, or area to a single individual with only the tacit understanding that they were to make sure as little trouble as possible would make its way up the grapevine. As long as there was no real unrest in the populace and incidents were resolved quickly, the higher officials were happy with the magistrates in question. There were declarations and laws that absolutely had to be followed (sakoku for instance), but magistrates were given a great deal of discretion to either deal with things or not. This is why the yakuza and police are usually so thoroughly in bed with one another in Japan's major population centers... as long as the yakuza don't cause trouble in the open, the officials don't care what they do beneath the surface. It's tradition, lol.
Well, my point is that when the judge and jury are the same person and people aren't allowed representation, it isn't going to be like Ace Attorney, hahaha.
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Lots of familiar games in that list... but nothing I really want to comment on. Most of them weren't memorable or are in English already, lol.
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There is a reason that this is considered to be one of Akatsuki Works two weakest chuunige (Shiden being the other). I could go into all sorts of detail on this, but the fact is that its weakest points are its prologue and its protagonist. With chuunige, h-scenes are a crapshoot, so I don't even consider it worthy of remark.
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34 minutes ago, littleshogun said:
Out of all those VNs, I only remember Ar Tonelico 2 in which it's sort of the VN that I only played on the console (PS2) along with the first one, and it's also one of the game that my sister play (I'm not lying here). Of course back then we have a hard time to understand it seeing that the plot did really going political, and not to mention that the antagonists are not quite clear (At least Laude being the villain is very clear). I also remember that I only try this because I see the website for this, and back then I thought that the girls are looking good so I'm interested to try it. Never thought that it's actually a VN with gameplay instead of pure RPG, and with a bad system in that you can't save in the VN section (Well it was developed as RPG in the first place).
As for GUST Ar Tonelico here is actually more like passion project from one of GUST's employee (Tsuchiya Akira), while their main series is still Atelier which including Mana Khemia as well in that contrary to people think actually Atelier's main series instead of spin off. Also actually I want to try Ar Nosurge as well (Ar Tonelico sort of continuation), only that KOEI still not ported it to the PC while at the same time they already ported all of their newer Atelier series into the PC (My laptop can only play Rorona to Shallie though).
In the end, I guess I'll try Ar Tonelico 2 again if there's a chance for that, although I don't know when though.
Ar no Surge is a non-canon prequel.
Technically, the Iris series was the first mainline arc of the Atelier series. However, most of the fans of the first two Iris games hate the rest of the series, lol.
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On 6/16/2020 at 7:56 PM, Zalor said:
It also seems that you agree that VNs are more immersive, which is the main point I want to get at. I know it might seem obvious to most VN veterans that they are an immersive medium, but I think its an important ground point to establish when thinking about the question "what are the appeal of VNs?"
One thing I've noticed about the best Japanese VN companies is that they manage to keep all elements of their VNs at a high level or at least an aesthetically pleasing level. Visual elements are pleasing (though the Japanese baseline is much, much higher due to a near-standardization of the art quality in commercial vns, than the Western one), music direction is still a thing (you know, the thing that vanished after the PSX era from regular games, due to the arrival of voice acting), and voice-acting is even more refined (for the most part, though there are exceptions) than what you see in anime.
The area where the Japanese stumble is writing. Due to the 'crutch' of voiced dialogue, there is a tendency for many writers to try to tell most of the story with dialogue and sprite poses. However, that is like using only black and white when you have a full color palette available. If there was one thing that struck me immediately playing my first VNs, it was the sheer impact of combining first-class narration with the other elements of a visual novel (as well as coordinating those elements). Heck, I've even encountered games where the appropriate use of music, narrative, and voices have carried the game past lower quality artwork to startling heights (Devils Devel Concept being a premier example) that only get better the more times you play it.
When everything is high level, however, you wouldn't believe the degree to which it blows you away... the first time I played Dies Irae (In Japanese) it destroyed me completely. Everything about it quite simply was so different from what I'd experienced previously, while using many of the same elements. Bradyon Veda did something similar to me, as did Sakura, Moyu and Kitto, Sumiwataru Asairo yori mo,. To put it simply, there are works out there that utilize the full 'palette' of what the medium is capable of. However, I can tell you that very few companies would have the wherewithal to gather the talent that can create such games.
First, writers with that kind of sheer brilliance are rare. Second, companies that might gather such writers would not be able to handle them, because each one needs different things to work at 100%. Third, maintaining all the other parts of a game (Art, VA, Music, and direction) at the same high level even if you have the writing staff has got to be a serious pain in the rear.
To be blunt, Visual novels have a lot of moving parts, and just throwing extra people at it doesn't usually work (very few games with multiple main scenario writers or artists have turned out well, though assistants sometimes work out fine). In retrospect, is is amazing that I can name double digits worth of games that have drawn on every element of the medium to its fullest, considering what a pain it must have been to put it all together.
- Plk_Lesiak and Zalor
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Ar Tonelico 2- Ah Ar Tonelico, Gust's best series. Ar Tonelico 2 has the best story of the three games, as well as the best protagonist. Gameplay-wise, it was a refinement of the first game, with extra elements to make it feel fresh. It still annoys me today that 3 didn't inherit this game's style and gameplay.
Xvain is one of those games I picked up because it looked good on paper, then dropped because it annoyed me. As such, the only thing left in my memory is annoyance.
Boku ga Sadame- It took me four tries to play this the first time, nine the second, and fourteen the third. Needless to say, I haven't even tried since. It is very hard to get into this game, which is very unusual for something by Akatsuki Works, a chuunige company that specializes in grasping you from the beginning. Once you are actually into the game, it is pretty good, but the prologue and first chapter are a hurdle that is hard to get past.
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I've mostly given up on anyone in Japan utilizing the medium properly. The ones who do don't seem to prosper (Light for instance) or are entirely reliant on a single genius (Caramel Box, Propeller before it disbanded after two failures in a row without Higashide). I think the reason for this is that the medium got defined really early on as an ero and romance focused medium, due to the twin dominance of the moege and nukige genres. While there are a number of VNs out there that qualify as true literature, it takes someone with a lot of patience to find them in the first place.
I don't have the knowledge to speak definitively about the Western market, however.
Edit: Part of the reason the Japanese market is so awful is that Japanese find it difficult to ignore preconceptions. It took even longer than it did here for otakus to stop being treated as second-class citizens, and even now, that prejudice is pretty strong in some quarters (particularly the over-sixty generations). This tendency to simply believe the preconceptions created by others' words and initial impressions have led to mostly people interested in ero and idealized romances to take an interest in consumer visual novels in Japan, meaning that a greater majority of the games are made to satisfy that type of consumer. The market is currently contracting (yes it is contracting) and as a result, a disproportionate number of games escape the 'moege' label than in previous years. However, this is simply because the makers who cater to people who want actual plots or something else in their visual novels still have about the same number of consumers, not because there are a great many more such in an absolute sense. In time, this shift might result in more serious works gaining an advantage, but that is only if the moege/nukige genres don't bounce back.
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3 hours ago, littleshogun said:
If Rin didn't ended up with harem, then perhaps it mean that the writer only follow what the late Argobarrier has in regard of the couple, in which I'm sure that Argobarrier set Rin with Shia while the new writer probably prefer Rin being faithful to one heroine. That, or Argobarrier did forgot to add special privilege of being married with God in his draft, namely that it should be possible for Rin to have harem as long as he marry Shia first. So of course Argo here would likely set that Rin is have his own harem, and that so-called Nerine's adoptive granddaughter was probably set as Nerine's blood granddaughter by Argobarrier in his mind before the new writer decided to mess that as well. While in the end the writer point out that there's a possibility where Rin have his harem, it's probably only serve as damage control from the players outrage who probably didn't like to see Rin only marry one heroine (Well technically two as Shia's route show us).
In the end, I guess Navel here really want to reboot this series with less harem. Although whether I'll play this or not if this is translated, I guess I'll skip it. That said first Shuffle here is still my first proper VN though, and that fact will not change.
PS - Actually the Da Capo writer himself is quite good in that he's the one who wrote true common route along with both of Himeno's and Ricca's routes, but of course Da Capo style here obviously would be clash with what Argobarrier have in mind.
The original Da Capo isn't horrible, the rest are fluff.
I agree that Agobarrier probably had it set as a harem. Considering very little of what was included was the kind of things he would have included, it is probable that they essentially took the character names and races and just plopped them down into an entirely different setup. I say this because of the massive gap between the content on the official site and the actual game itself, in particular relating to the heroines.
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16 hours ago, Primulover said:
if they live that long how come did they die prematurely? I thought Shia and Nerine died a natural cause. I presume it's because of Rin's early demise. and did they have a child? Rin's descendant(s) should be a major thing in Eps 2, but I don't see any hint
and about Asa and Kaede, did they moved on and had their own family? I only know them based on Primula's story, both taught her how to make delish cheesecakes (Fuyou-style and Shigure-style) and had something to do with the drama club.It kind of looks like they both stayed single.
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1 hour ago, Primulover said:
Well, many negative reviews about the game but Primula's character is still great though, probably due to her writing already well-established in the past.
Spoiler
SpoilerI thought Divine and Demon races are live longer, but heck they are already long since passed away, and I thought Rin died due to old age? But yeah, according to Primula's story, his demise is likely related to the disaster. ... and I thought Shia has a longer lifespan due to her divine blood or something, but I might misread them, as my Japanese is not good enough
Feels bad for Nerine though, she died lovelessly, as she only loved Rin.
Limes route is essentially Mary (Primula) magically giving birth to Jesus (Limes) as the next savior of multiverses :'))
Primula is so powerful that she can manipulate time and space, but it has some downsides apparently as mini-accelerating time (60 min baking process to only 15 min) caused Citrine to felt a jet-lag and a bit confusion, and she also mentioned that seeing the future can cause an unwanted twist of fate. However, despite all of these, she still prophetically predicted that Limes will always smile with Raito at her sides in her vision lol.
Primula's character is great yeah... but to answer you...
SpoilerIt is made clear in Rishia's path that both Mazoku and Shinzoku (demons and gods) live 120 years on average, compared to an average of 80 for humans in Shuffle's world. So they live about 1.5 times as long.
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6 hours ago, tahu157 said:
Been wondering what you thought of Episode 2 since you've mentioned several times that you really enjoy the originals. Sorry to hear it wasn't all that great though.
It was probably inevitable, without Agobarrier alive to bring life to his creation. The DC writers were never at his level (most generic writers in the old guard at Navel), and Jackson's style is pretty different. Trying to use Agobarrier's drafts without his style or talent was doomed to disaster from the beginning... and if they were going to transform it, they should have done so in a way that wasn't annoying.
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Bullet Butlers is a game I specifically wrote up in a blog post on 'VNs whose stories transcend the heroines'. Most VNs, for better or worse, are to some degree defined by the quality of their heroines. However, Higashide - the writer of this game - has a genius for that kind of transcendence. It is why he now works for Type-Moon, lol.
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Iroha- An excellent inaka youkai fantasy. It isn't a kamige, but if you like slow life in the countryside with a side of youkai heroines and mild mystery, it is a good choice.
Django- I dropped this after the prologue... like some other Nitroplus games, it has overwhelming problems with presentation that will either make you love it immediately or come to hate it.
Bullet Butlers- One of Higashide's 'Four Masterpieces' (Ayakashibito, Bullet Butlers, Chrono Belt, and Evolimit), and the one with the most unique setting. It is based in a detective noir atmosphere in a world where elves, dragons, goblins, orcs, and lizardmen coexist while constantly struggling against those who worship the deceased god of undeath (incidentally, the summary above gets the name of the Mystic One wrong... it is Rand - Randall in full).
Why I haven't posted recently? (a new addiction)
in Clephas' VN home
A blog by Clephas in General
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In terms of books I sampled (read the first ten chapters at least) the number balloons to 300 or so... the seventy I'm talking about are the ones I was finding the most interesting. Here is a list of the ones I enjoyed the most (even if some were trashy).
The Chaos Seeds (think an isekai/other world story with a protagonist who constantly swings back and forth between enlightened self-interest, pragmatism, and lust for power/stat geeking).
The Stork Tower (extremely interesting dystopian future with a genius street rat who makes powerful enemies in the virtual and real worlds)
Light Online (protagonist starts out as an out-of-luck NEET who is about to be turned into a virtual slave and then manages to rise high by playing a VRMMO in an unusual style).
The Ten Realms - Protagonists are an amputee mercenary named Erik and his comrade and best friend Rugrat. They end up in the Ten Realms, two soldiers in a land of magic, and they quickly realize the only way to be themselves is to gain power and challenge themselves. Sort of a blend of Wuxia cultivation, military fantasy, and craft obsessive nation-building with two foul-mouthed soldiers with hidden depths leading the way.
The Dark Elf Chronicles- In a future where a 'zombie particle' has contaminated most of the lifeforms on Earth, a few survivors try to live long enough to find a way to copy themselves into an online game while also stabilizing said game so it won't be a pure hellworld when they do so. Tons of ups and downs in this story.
The Shadow Sun series- In this one, a mysterious System essentially unleashes massive numbers of super-powered monsters to cull humanity in preparation for aliens bidding on the land and resources. Very much a survival apocalypse story for the first three books.
The Silver Fox & the Western Hero - Pure Wuxia with hardcore cultivation and horrid levels of racial prejudice... and a young former American plopped down in the middle who has a stat sheet in his head. The protagonist seems fairly normal, until he isn't. He is intelligent to the point of being brilliant, and absolutely devoted to the path he chooses. However, he is also capable of rising above his own desires at key points. Honestly, I can't wait until the next one comes out.
Battleborne- First in a new series about a soldier who dies with his unit and gets reincarnated as a combination of several races by a Valkyrie as reward for his life of war and bravery.
All Trades- A former conman goes into a virtual reality game to earn the money to give back to the family that supported him after his term in prison. He really has turned a new leaf, but he quickly finds himself riding the figurative tiger by the tail as he tries to do right by those around him while also earning enough money to pay off his loan shark.