This is a moege (yes, a moege) and a nakige (think Key style, with less depth and more sex) by Aries, a company that makes 'themed' games (mostly). In this case, the theme is 'what if?' Basically, they set it up as a deliberate 'what if you changed these events?' scenario for the protagonist. To be frank, Aries' games tend to rank from average down to somewhere below mediocre, outside of having some of the sexiest heroines I've seen outside of nukige and Semiramis no Tenbin, lol (this is setting aside the actual art style and focusing on how it is used).
I'm going to be blunt... this VN's pacing is downright awful at first. At least part of it is because it uses the 'map episode choice' system, where you literally choose what episodes of the VN's story to read from a map... about eighteen times. It is more or less established fact, in my experience, that VNs with too many choices tend to have horrible pacing... and this doesn't break from that mold. It is fine when those choices actually make an obvious difference to the story, but this is basically choosing what heroines you pay attention to, over and over until you get to the end of the 'common route'. To be blunt, this system is as annoying as hell and breaks immersion to an immense degree, weakening the VN as a whole.
The biggest example, other than the choice system, of how the pacing is awful... is the actual progression to romance. Basically this is an 'every love confession happens at approximately the same point' setup. There is no buildup to the confession save for one brief scene, and that isn't nearly enough to aid the formation of the kind of mindlessly adoring deredere bacouple that gets formed in this VN. For one thing, who has sex within an hour of a confession of love when neither side was really even aware of their own feelings up until that point? lol That seriously stretches suspension of disbelief.
On the upside, the heroine paths are pretty decent... emotional, with mild catharsis. However, they are also exactly like a dozen other similar paths from VNs made in the nakige 'golden age' between 2000 and 2004. Tia's path is probably the most emotional - for obvious reasons - but even it has such a cliche turn of events (think uguu~ ) that I just had to sight with exasperation at the end, after it was all over.
For better or worse, this is a VN that goes back to basics... in other words, a bare-bones old-style 'classic' nakige. If you actually like that type of VN, it will be a nice appetizer... but if you are tired of the old styles, it has an immense potential for boredom.
Hmm... to be honest, I haven't played many VNs of this type, mostly because they don't really fit my tastes.
This is one of those dark horror/rape/sex training VNs that also happen to be based in the middle of the Cthulhu Mythos universe. To be precise, this one is based on an island that mirrors Innsmouth in the mythos. It is ruled by the Mashuu Family, and the protagonist ends up marrying the last daughter of that family, Mizuki. He also gets stuck with an immense power and the role of giving women over to the islanders as breeders.
I'll be blunt, while I liked the actual story, there is way too much dark H in this VN, for my tastes. It was made worse by the fact that I actually liked the 'heroines' and I didn't like to see the gang rapes that are part of the VN's story.
The funny thing is that the actual relationship between most of the heroines and the protagonist is actually... pleasant, most of the time. Given that is a Cthulhu Mythos story, it is inevitable that people go insane or fall under the control of evil. However, on the flip side, the girls are basically stained with darkness somewhere at the core from the beginning, and the protagonist, for all his own insanity and flaws, is something of a salvation to them.
I can't really say that any of the endings are 'good'. I did like Riri's ending, and the bad guys mostly got their just desserts in the true ending. However, I've never been fond of VNs that aren't utsuge where everyone goes insane to one degree or another, lol.
I've been playing video games more or less constantly for over twenty-five years.
That's a very simple statement that holds a surprising amount of meaning, considering how much video games have changed since I first began playing them.
It began with the NES, for me... with Mario, Luigi, and the ducks. I shot ducks out of the air, I jumped Mario across gaps and on top of turtles, without ever really understanding what was going on. As a kid, this was fun, seriously. Understand, this is the biggest point I am going to try to get across here... the difference between addiction and fun with video games.
I played rpgs, primarily jrpgs, throughout most of my first ten years as a gamer, starting with Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest), eventually reaching levels of true love with Final Fantasy II and III (IV and VI), Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Secret of Evermore, and Ogre Battle. When the era of cd-gaming came, I played D&D dungeon-crawlers on a shitty dos computer setup, and I played every jrpg I could get my hands on, with a lot of shooters, strategy games, and sports games mixed in.
Throughout all of that, I was still having fun. Fun was my reason for continuing (I've always been a story-centric player, so I tended to stick with jrpgs, but I did play a lot of other stuff) and my reason for playing in the first place.
It was in the PS2 era that I first came to recognize the difference between taking pleasure in playing something and merely being addicted to it. I picked up FFXI and started playing it on the PS2 (yes, it was possible to play it on the PS2), and for the first time, I knew addiction... for the first time, I poured hour after hour, day after day, into a game that I wasn't having any fun at.
I was constantly irritated, constantly driven to continue, whether for social reasons (friends I'd made in-game) or simply because I felt like I was 'almost there'.
Then, one day, I suddenly looked up and realized... I was immensely depressed and not enjoying anything about the game. The sense of having wasted my time... sent me into a funk that lasted the better part of a year. I still played games, but the color seemed to leech out of the screen even as I played them. I realized that I was seeing bits of FFXI in other games, and that was enough of a reason for me to actively hate them.
No game hit me this way more than FFXII... because FFXII's battle system is essentially that of FFXI with some tweaks. Visually, it was a nightmare, and the weak story and characters only made it worse for me.
Ironically, it was the realization that I honestly didn't trust Squeenix to provide pleasurable games anymore that led me to start playing a lot of the weirder stuff out there... such as Eternal Darkness for the gamecube and the SMT series. Ultimately, because I'd become very much aware of the difference between pleasure and addiction, I lost interest in games that I would once have jumped onto simply because they were jrpgs or done in a style I found interesting. I started abusing Gamestop's used game 'seven-day return policy' to demo games, and I slowly but surely came to realize that I honestly and truly hate multiplayer games that aren't played in the same room.
I am now an unabashed solo gamer, even outside of VNs. I won't play most multiplayer games at all, and I hate games where the social element is as or more important than the actual gameplay or story. Of course, if a game has an interesting concept, I'll try it... but if I feel that sensation I used to get from FFXI, I drop it immediately, cancelling all subscriptions and discarding all related materials without a second thought, even if I paid a good deal of money for them.
To be blunt, life is too short to waste on playing something that is merely addictive (this coming from a VN junkie, I know). That sensation of false social interaction you get from online gaming and the high you get from winning in competitive games is highly addictive... but are you having fun, really? I wonder, how many younger gamers actually know what it is like to enjoy a video game, rather than simply being addicted to one? This is a question that seriously bothers me, as I saw my young cousin playing Call of Duty (whatever the latest one is) online, unsmiling, for two days straight while we were staying at their place a few months back. He really, really wasn't enjoying himself. He was angry, depressed, and frustrated, but I never saw even a hint of a smile when he won, only this vague expression of relief he probably thought was a smile. Was that relief that his team-mates weren't treating him like a worthless noob or an incompetent, or was it simply because the match was over and he could relax? I don't know, because I didn't ask. I know from experience that the difference between addiction and fun is fine enough that most people don't even recognize it is there until they are forced to.
What are your experiences, gamers of Fuwa?
…Wow. After the disappointments of last month, it is so nice to encounter such a great VN on my first one of the month this one. Sakura no Mori Dreamers is a horror/mystery nakige based in a medium-sized Japanese town. It is primarily focused on the protagonist, Shinji, and his quest to discover the killer of his first love, Madoka. However, if you ask me if this is a story of revenge in the vein of Hello, Lady, that isn’t the case.
Shinji is one of those rarest of things in a VN protagonist these days… a young man with a strong will and who is actually intelligent enough to figure out the best way to act in most situations. That isn’t to say he is some paragon of the avenger archetype… if anything, he is a normal guy… but he has encountered enough loss in his life that it is pretty easy to empathize with him and his reactions to tense situations lack the frustrating aspects you see in a lot of VN protagonists.
Madoka, his deceased girlfriend, plays a vital role in the story, with the prologue thoroughly introducing her and the relationships between the protagonist and his adopted family (his parents are deceased). To be honest, the sense of loss at the end of the prologue is devastating, even though you know – since every single summary on the web reveals it to you – what is going to happen.
In terms of structure, about thirty-percent of this VN is slice-of-life, with the rest being raw plot. Most of the story is told as part of the ‘common route’, which makes up about 80% of the VN. In fact, the main conflict is resolved in the common route, so afterward it moves from the protagonist’s own personal conflict to that of the heroines… with the exception of Kureha’s path, which becomes something of an extension of the common route near the end.
This VN really touches on the darker side of human nature, with multiple psychopathic killers involved. There is a lot of semi-guro imagery in this VN (like pencils sticking out of the eye of a rotting corpse, a half-pancaked schoolgirl, etc). As such, I can’t recommend it for the faint of heart, especially since it is pretty frequent in the common route.
The protagonist and friends dive into the dreams of killers in this VN and eliminate the evil spirits waiting there… but that part of the VN is actually relatively small in comparison to the ‘background’ that gets formed around each major incident and its human cause. The fantasy-horror element is vital to the story, but it tends to take a backseat in two of the four heroine routes (Mahoro and Hatsune’s routes), whereas it is more vital to the other two (Kureha and Mifuyu’s).
In all honestly, it is quite possible to be perfectly satisfied with this VN after playing only Kureha’s route, which is why I think it should have been locked until you finished the others. There is a definite sensation of ‘true route flavor’ to her route, and I made the mistake of playing it first. That doesn’t mean that the other routes were neglected, but it is the only route where the common route’s main storyline is continued.
Hatsune’s route is probably the mildest… it is basically your classic nakige route with a few minor twists born of the fantasy element. Mahoro’s route is quite similar in this respect. However, Mifuyu’s route is seriously dark at times… primarily because Mifuyu is carrying a bit more baggage than the other two heroines, lol.
Overall, this VN is one of the better ones this year so far. For some reason, this seems to be the year for fantasy-horror VNs (with Tokyo Necro and Akeiro Kaikitan both standing out like burning flagpoles). There are some issues with the setting that prevent it from being a kamige – the evil spirits are a bit too… opaque as an existence, even at the end – but it is definitely worth playing and a solid candidate for May’s VN of the Month.
I actually finished this VN and this post before I went to sleep, but since I lost internet access due to a freak lightning strike (curse you, oh Lady of Storms!), I haven’t been able to get online to take care of things. This VN took me roughly twenty-one hours over the course of five days, but a lot of that was because, until the internet got knocked out, I was working like crazy to meet some short-term deadlines. Moreover, the loss of internet access completely screwed up my work schedule (while also hurrying my play schedule), which I’d re-geared since my doctor pronounced me semi-recovered.
Anyway, I’ve already started Soshite Hatsukoi ga Imouto ni Naru. For those who are wondering… the VN is absolutely nothing like what I expected so far, in a good way, lol. *smiles enigmatically*
I got asked what I was doing for this blog this month just today, by several people (probably because this is the longest time I've gone without posting since I started this blog). So... I suppose I'll go ahead and tell you.
First, the two titles I'm reading on request (though I was planning on doing one anyway).
Sakura no Mori Dreamers (reading now)
Ruri no Ie (yes, it is not exactly something I would normally bother with, but he was insistent... sort of like with Maggot Baits)
The rest of the releases this month I'm considering playing:
Soshite Hatsukoi ga Imouto ni naru
Seiken Tsukai no Proposition (by a new company, might suck, might not)
Natsuiro Kokoro Log (this is by Hearts, a company infamous for producing kusoge, lol)
Tarareba (by Aries, that makes decent to horrible charage)
Personally, from what I've played, if they don't screw it up, I think Sakura no Mori Dreamers will probably end up being the best. However, my past experiences with Moonstone's rare attempts to be serious tell me that that feeling isn't really trustworthy. Clear started out good but went downhill with terrifying speed, for instance. Their single best game is Maji Suki, and that was seven years ago... though Natsu no Iro no Nostalgia was pretty good, for Moonstone.
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.
I'm going to be honest... this was a month of unrealized potential and over-hyped games. To put things straight in my own words... I really, really don't want to name anything from this month as VN of the Month. If I were to name a VN of the Month based solely on quality and ignoring my own policies on sequels and remakes, it would definitely be Sengoku Koihime X. Nothing this month even gets in the same region as that VN, for all its flaws. Unfortunately, I do have a personal policy on naming direct sequels, fandics, and remakes as VN of the Month, so it isn't a full candidate.
On the other hand, Island, for all its hype, turned out to be something of a disappointment for me. I like Front Wing's games, for the most part, though I do end up disliking some of them. I honestly thought like the setting and characters looked interesting when I was reading up to it in the weeks preceding its release. However, when I got into it, I had a definite sense of dejavu, and not in a good way. To be honest, though I do like a good mindfuck sometimes, the somewhat absurd nature of the ones in Island left me a bit irritated. Moreover, the weakness of the initial paths and the true ending were enough to push it below the level I demand of VN of the Month vns, even if it will still be named on my potential recommendations for the year as a whole.
Wizard's Complex was, in some ways, my biggest disappointment for the month. It comes from Windmill, a company that has produced a number of first-class games (such as Kamigakari Cross Heart and HHG). However, the hopes I had crumbled with surprising speed once I actually started playing the VN. My misfortune in playing this VN was expecting more just because the company in question had produced more in the past.
Almost by default, this leaves Wagamama High Spec as the VN of the Month 2016... though I feel it is unfortunate that Island didn't blow it out of the water, as I'd hoped it would. Dal Segno, for all that it had its good points, had some severe problems that just made it impossible to take seriously, in the end.
Now... I've already commented on this VN elsewhere, at least to a point. So, I'll just do a quick recap of my initial feelings on this VN. I'll go ahead and get the negative out of the way first.
First, the common, Sara, and Karen routes... as I've said elsewhere, these routes exist solely to give you certain information that adds depth to the story of Rinne and Setsuna. So, lolicons and fans of heroines like Karen, you are wasting your time if you go into this VN if you are expecting something truly great out of those two. Sadly, those routes are about as weak as some of the worst charage routes I've played.
Things change dramatically during the Rinne, Winter, and Summer routes (they extend from one another). The degree of character development quality, story-writing, and narrative is incomparably better than that of the common and sub-heroine routes. This is perhaps inevitable, as this VN is basically a kinetic novel using chameleon-like techniques to make itself look like a normal multi-path VN. Do you think I'm joking? I'm not, seriously.
I'm going to be blunt... I wasn't moved emotionally at all until the Rinne route. I can honestly say that if you are looking for emotional stimulation, the Rinne>Winter>Summer progression is ideal. There is a lot of mindfucking involved (those who compared this to other VNs with similar themes are more or less correct). The biggest complaint I might decide to bring up would be a very simple one... in the VN's 'true' ending (there is a 'good' and a 'true' one, whose actual names I won't reveal, since they are spoilers) the story as a whole isn't actually brought to a resolution. Of course, there is a definite sense of hope that comes out of it, but the writer chose to leave the story unresolved, probably for similar reasons to the people who did so with other VNs of the type.
Intellectually, this VN isn't nearly as stimulating as you might think. For one thing, the protagonist is too much of an idiot to grasp most of what is going on. For another, there isn't much food for thought that hasn't already been covered if you've taken an advanced physics course or two (at least conceptually). The humor in this VN tends toward shimoneta (sexual humor), which is kind of ironic, considering it is an all-ages VN. I honestly enjoyed the humorous character interplay in the various paths, and they did a really good job in the latter half of the game of bringing the various characters and the settings to life. Edit: One thought that occurs to me is that this might be intellectually stimulating if you aren't accustomed to juggling sci-fi and science fiction weirdness, such as the stuff from the Hyperion book series. The protagonist's perspective in this VN isn't so much ignorant as limited by his own psychological immaturity (like a five year old in an adult's body, his immaturity enforced and reinforced by his amnesiac state).
Is this a kamige? No. Three elements make this an impossibility... the common, Karen, and Sara routes, the inconclusive final ending, and the somewhat stale attempt (in my eyes, at least) at intellectual stimulation. However, this is definitely one of those VNs I'll name as 'one to remember from 2016'. It won't make it onto my personal favorites list, because I intensely dislike inconclusive endings, but it is still worth mentioning, just as many flawed VNs I've played have been.
Overall... this VN will probably appeal to the sci-fi mystery crowd and inveterate romantics (love across time, lol) the most. This isn't a moe-type story, despite the art style, but it does take a page from the playbook at times. This is also a relatively short VN, considering how much content they tried to force into it... think about seventeen hours of playtime, total (that is what my clock is saying, anyway). It is about the same length as an medium-length charage, so that isn't necessarily short... but for a story-focused VN that is pretty short. If you were to ask me straight out whether I liked it as a whole, I'd say yes, but if you ask me if I'll replay it, I'll say 'only if they remake the ending'.
First, despite the way moege fans fawn over the first two VNs by Madosoft, they are perfect examples of absolute mediocrity in charage. That isn't to say they didn't have good points... the visual aspects of this company's VNs are on the higher end of things in the charage part of the VN industry. However, they were basically slogs through WWI-style trenches full of mud made from ichaicha... and one of my pet peeves is writers who pump in endless ichaicha. I personally see them as kusoge, due to the fact that I dropped Namaiki after one path (didn't vote on it) and Yakimochi was a nightmare of a substance-free ball of cotton candy.
I was kind of exasperated that this VN had an anime come out beforehand, and to be honest, I avoided that anime like the plague specifically so it wouldn't color my attitude on this one. Considering how much the sexual aspect colors the relationships with the heroines in their paths, I am mildly curious as to how they handled the latter part of the series, though.
One thing all the paths in this VN have in common is that the protagonist falls apart completely at least once in all of them. I'll be perfectly straight with you... if it weren't for the fact that he was so obviously fragile mentally in the first place, I probably would have been a lot more pissed off about this aspect. That tendency toward tunnel vision when stressed is pretty common in charage protags, but it does get tiring at times.
The common route in this VN is fairly good... especially since the protagonist actually has a personality and a role other than as the donkan harem protagonist. I did think that it was insane to consider anyone other than Towa (the imouto) a heroine at all after a few hours (I love stories of twisted mutual dependence), but I went straight for Aashe first, simply because I'm too perverse to go for the heroine I most want from the beginning. On the other side, Kaoruko and Mihiro are both heroine types I really and sincerely am bored of... the immensely capable school council president who acts like an airhead (I hate airheads) and the osananajimi (sort-of) heroine. Understand, when I hear the words 'osananajimi heroine', I am almost instantly consumed by hatred and the heroine in question starts from a negative point.
Aashe's path was a good experience. While it did feel a bit obvious when it came to the drama (the foreshadowing was overly blatant), that wasn't so bad a stumble that the path didn't manage to recover... at least somewhat. This is a problem that was somewhat endemic to all the paths. I liked the ending, as well as the solution the protagonist settled on. However, I felt that the end didn't move far enough ahead in time (this VN seriously needs a story fandisc to round out the endings), and that was somewhat of a downer.
The little sister's path was pretty good in this one. In recent years, little sister paths have mostly been perfunctory, with none of the seriously twisted stuff you tend to see with the dependence that usually creates (consensual) incestuous relationships. I do feel that they should have included the parental issues into the main VN, rather than making them a background setting. However, the drama that comes up in the path is emotional enough to be satisfying. Towa is a great dependent imouto character, and I had to laugh at how easily they transitioned (seriously, it is pretty hilarious). The fact that they actually managed to take it from there to a really emotional piece of drama near the end was a demonstration of surprising skill. Again, the big downside was the fact that they really, seriously didn't focus on the issues the protagonist and his sister had with their parents, except in a ridiculously indirect and matter-of-fact fashion. This is a perfect example of 'failing to milk the setting', and it is a common flaw when it comes to charage-makers (most of them have a tendency to obsessively avoid introducing new or extra characters in heroine paths).
Kaoruko is the obvious 'main heroine' of the story, and accordingly, it was given the most love by the writer. The humor and ichaicha are both on a higher level than the other paths (which means it was given more love, given the specialty of charage writers is humor and ichaicha), to the point where I actually broke into real-life lol situations several times midway through. Unfortunately, the drama in this path is surprisingly... dull compared to the others (this is actually common with charage writers, who seem to like giving their main heroines smooth rides). I was made a bit sad by this... but the writer's love was shown fairly clearly again in the ending, which is based a pretty long time after the end of the main story and talks about a lot of the details about how they arrived there.
I'm going to be blunt. I don't have the energy to play Mihiro's path now or any time soon. She is a great friend character who is frequently amusing... but by that same tone, she is the type of character who makes a horrible transition to the 'heroine' role. I honestly can't see any non-awkward way in which they would move her into the heroine position, and I honestly don't want her as a heroine, so I'll leave it to someone else to bother with her.
Overall, this is by far the best of Madosoft's three VNs released so far... but it is no kamige. It does, however, manage to fulfill the requirements for a VN of the Month candidate, in that it both stimulates the emotions, the intellect, and my sense of humor... even if no two of them is strongly stimulated in any given path, lol. Unfortunately, it just barely puts its fingernails on the edge of candidacy, so anything even reasonably good could blow it out of the water with little trouble, lol.
This is a partial remake/rewrite of Sengoku Koihime, which was released back in 2013. It is by Baseson, the makers of the Koihime Musou series, and the protagonist is the nephew of the protagonist from that series. It is based on the Moeshouden fandisc ending (where the Shin Koihime Musou heroines are all together). In addition to h-scenes, the text itself has been partially rewritten (it is more noticeable later in the game), and they added on the Houjou Chapters, a ten-hour after story.
The story begins at the battle of Dengaku Hazama (the point where about ninety percent of all Sengoku Jidai-based historical fiction begin), where Oda Nobunaga, the lord of Owari, ambushes and kills the Imagawa Yoshimoto, who was considered to be one of the greatest lords of Japan at the time. The protagonist is pulled from his own (modern) world and arrives there in a ball of light, where he is taken in by the female version of Nobunaga (Kuon).
Unlike the Koihime Musou series, there is no battle system involved here, which is great, considering that the story of this thing alone is about 1.5 times the size of Shin Koihime Musou, which was twice as long as the original Koihime Musou. In other words, this is probably the longest kinetic VN in existence, right now, easily surpassing ChuSinGura and leaving works like Grisaia in the dust as far as sheer size goes. This has its upsides and downsides... but it does manage to develop the heroines to a decent level, if at the cost of a certain degree of fatigue on my part.
In terms of structure, this VN is actually a bit closer to the original Koihime Musou, in that there is only one path and all the heroines from the various clans end up with the protagonist. There are five major arcs... first is the Owari and Mino chapters, where the protagonist earns the trust of the Oda clan and begins to build his own unit. The second is the Kyouto/Oumi/Echizen chapters, whose ending is the midgame turning point. The third one is the Echigo chapters, where the protagonist gets involved with Kagetora (Miku) and her clan. The fourth is the Takeda arc, where the protagonist gets involved with the equivalent of Takeda Shingen (Hikari), who was considered one of the best strategists of the era. The fifth and final arc of the main story is the violent conclusion to the battle with the oni. The Houjou arc, which is an after-story, I count separately since the main conflict of the original story is over before it starts.
In terms of raw narrative quality... this VN is top-level. Baseson has a lot of talent available, and this VN shows it off to best advantage. The writing is detailed and gripping, the dialog generally interesting and/or dramatic, and the VN as a whole is well-paces for something so long and drawn out.
If I have a complaint, it is that they didn't voice the protagonist... considering how completely central to the story he is, there really was no reason not to do so, considering the sheer amount of money they have to have spent on this thing in the first place, lol. In terms of raw numbers, there are also a massive number of h-scenes, but they don't dominate things, for the most part (main heroines generally get two or three, with sub-heroines getting one for the most part). This is inevitable, as there are something like thirty heroines in all, making for a rather massive cast, lol.
One huge difficulty at least some readers will experience is the sheer amount of historical background knowledge this VN demands of the reader. For someone born in Japan, it is all learned as a matter of course by the end of middle school, but for those of us on this side of the puddle, it takes research to really grasp a lot of what is going on. In particular, things like the Southern Court and the Onin War aren't generally given much attention in most anime or VNs based in the era, so even if you've played other games or read other stories based in the same era, you might not be able to grasp what is going on fully.
Another issue is that the traditional roles of the Imperial Court and the Bakufu (whichever Bakufu that is) are things non-Japanese will have trouble grasping. The role of the Imperial Court after the Heian era ended is very much symbolic, cultural, and religious rather than political, though it is used as a political tool by each incarnation of the Bakufu (Shogunate). The duality of the reverence held for the Imperial line and the disregard (though it isn't presented as such) for them in political matters is a bit hard for Westerners to grasp... it took me a while, too.
The second huge difficulty is... the sheer amount of archaic language involved. A lot of terms that went out of use in common Japanese decades ago are common throughout this VN, and I can guarantee that even people who are able to follow Dies Irae might have trouble with this VN at times due to this. In particular, the political terms of the era can be difficult to grasp and actually require some research to fully understand, as their translation doesn't really get across their actual nature without a lot of context.
My conclusion? If you liked Shin Koihime Musou, you'll probably love this VN, though it is quite a bit darker and more visceral at times. The sheer length of this VN means you'll probably suffer from fatigue long before you finish it, so I recommend taking it in smaller doses (finish one of the major arcs, then take a day off, for example), as it takes a while to process all the information involved at times. The addition of the Houjou arc, which is about equal in length to the Echigo arc, is a huge plus for the VN, but finishing this thing has left me pretty exhausted, hahaha.
After trying both of them, I dropped Anata o Otoko ni Shiteageru and Sankai, for similar reasons. However, this leaves me with two VNs that have varying levels of interest from the community to play... Island by Frontwing and Wagamama High Spec by Madosoft.
Madosoft... produces thematic VNs, rather than your standard charage. They pick a theme and unify all the heroines into that type. This tends to have pretty awful results so far (both Yakimochi and Namaiki were kusoge, though they were fairly popular with the fans of older-style moege), so I'm honestly not hopeful for the VN.
Island... I plan to give it a chance, and I'm honestly hopeful for it, after reading up on it.
I'm sure you are wondering what the hell I'm talking about with the title of this post, but the concept is pretty simple... You take a period of history or a series of famous/infamous events, turn all or most of the male personages into females, and then plop your main character into their midst, evolving a story from there.
A few examples of this...
The Koihime Musou, Sengoku Koihime series by Baseson
Chuushingura
Sengoku and Sangoku Hime series by Gesen
Kikan Bakumatsu Ibun Last Cavalier
Koihime Musou is the one most of you will probably be familiar with, and it is the basic model for most of the type. It is based in the era of the fall of the later Han dynasty in China, portrayed in the ancient story Romance of the Three Kingdoms. This is one of the two eras most favored by those making games, VNs, anime, and manga in this particular little niche, and it is also one of the easiest ones to use, as the story has made at least some headway in most of the countries of the world (it was translated into English first over a century ago) to one degree or another. In a way, Koihime Musou (the original) is a classic example of the genre, as the events portrayed generally only vaguely resemble the ones that existed in the original story, even when you set aside the issues of all the characters being female except the protagonist. Shin Koihime Musou, which follows each of the three factions in separate story arcs (rather than a single arc with Liu Bei's side unifying China like in the original) is generally better written and actually uses historical events in most of the paths, up to a point (where it inevitably diverges radically).
The Sangoku Hime series is a strategy-VN series based in the same era as Koihime Musou, with the big difference that the protagonist is both fairly irrelevant to the story and the events are fairly close to the original material, up to a point (in fact, this is the biggest draw of the series, other than the surprisingly well-done story sequences in some of the cases). This series suffers from definite 'strategy fatigue', though... as fighting your way across China tends to rapidly become monotonous, with actual plot tending to only come up at the beginning and end of each prefecture's invasion, meaning you can go five or six hours without seeing anything in the way of story except sex scenes (of which there are generally a ridiculous number...).
Chuushingura follows the story of the 47 Ronin, a famous story of Edo-era samurai that was the inspiration for most foreigners' impressions of the samurai caste. In this case, while the events in each 'arc' generally follow the basic outline of the original story, there are divergences in perspective based on where the protagonist chooses to go, and the final story diverges immensely from the original. This VN doesn't have any gameplay, and it was originally a doujin VN series that went commercial a few years ago in the form of a rewritten, partially redesigned omnibus VN.
The Sengoku Hime series by Gesen is based in the Sengoku Jidai (Japan's Warring States period). In this one, you generally take on the role of a strategist (whose actual level of influence varies from path to path) who serves with one of the major clans of Japan as they set out to conquer the country. Generally speaking, the balance of story to gameplay in this series is better than in the Sangoku series by the same company, but the pacing is still fairly shitty due to the intervention of the gameplay. Depending on which faction you choose (generally if you choose the Tokugawa or Toyotomi) you can get a fairly accurate replay of past events, with a lot of differing details. However, if you pick certain factions (the Oda, the Date, the Ashikaga or the Shimazu) you tend to get stories that radically diverge from history even if you ignore the issues with female clan lords and the like. This is inevitable, considering the sheer chaos of that era (the concept of the 'honorable' samurai as foreigners like to see it portrayed is a product of the Edo era that followed after Tokugawa's unification of Japan), with the betrayals, massacres, religious rebellions, and the like...
Koihime Sengoku (the new version of which I am playing right now) is also based in the same era, but, similar to the original Koihime Musou, diverges radically from history relatively early on. In particular, it should be noted that while certain famous events and relationships were deliberately reproduced for the pleasure of historical romantics (the Takedo-Uesugi rivalry, Oda Nobunaga's relationship with Mino's deceased leader, the Viper, etc), a lot more of it is different. This VN is significantly different from Koihime Musou in that it has a far darker, more violent atmosphere (lots of killing, and some of the heroines are... not good people, lol), and the protagonist is far more active as part of the story (in fact, he is the nephew of the protagonist from Shin Koihime Musou).
Kikan Bakumatsu is based in the highly-romanticized period of the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate after Perry's 'black ships' opened Japan. It covers a lot of the political and ideological conflicts wracking Japan at the time fairly accurately, while focusing on the infamous Shinsengumi (who are often thought of as the last samurai). This period is also covered in the otomege series, Hakuoki, though the only common element between them beside that is the existence of a fantasy element. Depending on the path you choose in this one, you can radically alter history and the life and death of certain characters, but if you choose one of the Shinsengumi heroines, the basic path in life of the protagonist, Okita Soujirou, goes pretty much as history portrays (it is pretty sad).
Generally speaking, due to the depth that can be added to the setting for these stories, they tend to be good more often than most... and that is generally why I tend to look forward to them, lol. However, if you aren't a history buff, some of it will just go over your head, and the language in a VN based in these eras will frequently be incomprehensible for the inexperienced. To be blunt, anyone who reads one of these should have a degree of pre-existing knowledge if they want to really enjoy them... otherwise, it isn't nearly as fun to see how the writers choose to twist things out of shape, hahaha.
These are just a few thoughts that I've had after experiencing various gameplay VNs over the years.
First, understand that I see VNs as reading material (in the same vein as manga but with the addition of voice, some animation, and detailed narration) first and games second. Second, the type of gameplay most likely to be fused to a VN (strategy or turn-based rpg) are ones I played for well over a decade before I first encountered VNs, so I have at least some qualifications to evaluate them.
First, for the gameplay... no matter how you express it, the average VN gameplay is several levels below the average console strategy game, srpg, or jrpg in terms of quality and design. Some of the best of the type - such as the Ikusa Megami series - just barely reach the same level as stuff released before the turn of the century as far as those two aspects go.
Second, balance... in a VN hybrid, having a good balance between the story and gameplay is vital. In other words, the grinding needs to be minimalized and difficulty should be adjustable. VN hybrids without adjustable difficulty levels (with an easy version that really is easy) tend to result in a VN where the story is told in snippets between long stretches of grindy gameplay (Softhouse Chara's games tend to have this flaw in excess).
Third is feature creep... a lot of hybrids have weird gameplay features that make the game confusing without really adding anything enjoyable to the game. An example of this is the recruitment system from the 'breeder' Venus Blood games. To be blunt, this game mechanic, while fitting in with the atmosphere in the story, made the games unnecessarily complicated, and not in a good way.
Fourth... story pacing. A lot of hybrids have horrible pacing. In particular, many of them start out really well, grasping the reader/player with a dramatic prologue or first few chapters... then suddenly become a complete slog or grind in the mid-game. To be honest, the most egregious offender in this case are strategy-conquest VNs, where the story won't progress significantly until you've achieved an artificial goal, like conquest of a certain region. Generally speaking, most strategy-conquest VNs (such as Sengoku Rance or Madou Koukaku) start out really well, with an interesting beginning to the story... and suddenly become devoid of story for about thirty hours if you don't act in exactly the right way. The Sengoku Hime and Sangoku Hime series are classic examples of this. Both series tend to have first-rate beginnings, but the story gets put to the wayside pretty early in the game. As a result, you essentially get stuck playing a sub-par strategy game for ten to fifteen hours before you manage to restart the plot. This is tiring and boring, to say the least.
My conclusion? Generally speaking, VN hybrids can be good, but that is only if the VN aspects don't become an adjunct for the third-rate gameplay that tends to be tacked onto them.
I'm going to be blunt... this game is badly overrated on vndb. I was - quite frankly - amazed at how poorly the story was told... it was like looking at a bunch of disorganized pictures set on a wall and trying to make an actual story out of them. The protagonist is your classic cipher for the reader, and the female characters basically exist to have random sex with the protagonist. The actual battle system is nowhere near as refined as it was even in Force, despite the fact that Revellion is a remake version that should have logically seen an upgrade there in addition to the major visual upgrade it got.
While I see hints of brilliance here and there, this game fails miserably at getting you to care about what is going on, mostly due to a lack of emotional investment in the characters in general. Quite frankly, I'm regretting my purchase of this game. They upgraded the character designs to Baldr Skydive levels... but they failed to revamp the story, which really needed it. It is also unbelievably short, which is probably why it failed so badly to get you to care about what was going on.
First, let me state what I mean by a 'cipher' protagonist. A protagonist of this type is basically a painted-on personality who serves solely to interpret the events for you, serving as your 'eyes' and 'ears'. A protagonist like this is most likely passive and/or reactive in relation to heroines outside of sex/romance and tends to 'go with the flow' most of the time.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing. If the protagonist isn't really part of the story, making them into a cipher isn't a bad idea (Hotel. by Akatsuki Works Black's protagonist is of this type). However, a protagonist who is a central character really can't afford to be a cipher. It would not be an exaggeration to say that a cipher protagonist can ruin any VN story where he/she is a central character simply by being a passive/reactive 'passenger' rather than an active player in the events of the story.
In my experience, the more passive the protagonist is, the more likely the VN in question is going to be boring. No matter how good the heroines in such a story are, it becomes impossible to engross yourself emotionally or intellectually because of the sense that the protagonist is out of place. This is the big problem with old-style moege and many charage... cuteness will only take you so far.
Now, in some games I've played - non-VNs - a passive or 'silent' protagonist has worked... the Suikoden series and Growlanser 3 are examples of this type. In both cases, you were given a great deal of freedom to shape the protagonist's interactions with the world, whether they were simple dialog choices or the order in which you recruited characters. Unfortunately, visual novels, as a medium, are ultimately a reader's medium, and the reader is ultimately a passive participant. You might make choices to put you on a path, but that doesn't change that you can't really alter the flow of events in most cases.
So, would you find being a passive participant behind a passive participant's eyes enjoyable?
Hmm... I could say a lot about this VN... NOT.
To be honest, this VN is a perfect example of how a VN can have a decent concept, a decent staff, good art, good music, and an interesting (if derivative, at this point) setting... and fall flat on the details.
Wizard's Complex is a fantasy VN, based in a future where magic and magic technology have become an accepted part of life (this is a setting type first done effectively in Suzunone Seven by Clochette). In this world, all magic users are women... except the protagonist (basically an excuse to send him to an all-girls school where there will be no rivals, lol).
Now, perhaps one of the biggest down points of this VN is the protagonist. It isn't his personality, its his role. To be perfectly honest, his personality isn't interesting either, but his role in the VN is so often passive or reactive that it completely ruins the entire setup. While cipher protagonists are common to charage in general, this was one of those cases where it probably wasn't a good idea, as the heroines in this VN are all a bit... meh.
First, Honoka... she is the classic 'kind-hearted airhead prodigy' archetype that some VNs have thrown up in the past. She's the type that will honestly and wholeheartedly endorse wishes for world peace and still believes in the idea of a knight in shining armor as the ideal love interest. I'm going to be blunt, for first and later impressions, she was the most irritating heroine in the VN. While she will occasionally break character by acting in a manner that seems out of sync with her archetype, that is only to reinforce that the core of her personality, as presented, is exactly what I just defined it as.
Iris... I picked her first. Why? I always pick foreigner heroines first. I always pick heroines who are out of place above all other things, and in most cases, it is the foreigner heroine who is most obviously out of place. Iris is... frail, fragile, and weak-willed... until she isn't. Her base personality is exactly how I just described her, but in her path, she does manage to break the mold a few times... unfortunately, the pacing in her path is godawful (this applies to all the paths to one extent or another), and I was honestly left behind as the romance and events progressed in her path.
Kazuha... I'll be honest. I liked Kazuha at first, but she falls into the classic pitfall of giving the 'martial artist heroine' too many weaknesses... not to mention that she is one of those classic ones who is constantly talking about how her hobbies don't fit her outward persona. This drove me crazy both in and outside her path, and it wasn't helped by the fact that the protagonist is so... passive.
Mei... a gamer heroine is a rare type, even now. Moreover, one that is aiming to become a pro gamer is a first in a VN I've played. I'm sorry, but I hate one-sided rival heroines (the ones who feel a rivalry for another character who doesn't even recognize their existence). This is made even worse because Melissa, one of the sub-heroines, has an almost identical role in her 'rivalry' toward Kazuha. As a result, her half-idiot personality looks even more uninteresting than it would otherwise. This is a presentation issue, more than anything else.
Last of all, I need to talk about the common route. This thing is too short. I hate to say it, but charage with short common routes just don't work, if they don't have an above-average set of heroine routes in terms of length and non-ichaicha detail. I'm pretty sure the writer thought s/he was making you like the characters, but the branch-off point basically serves to truncate the protagonist's own evolution, weakening an already weak and undefined main character.
Overall, this is one of those utterly mediocre VNs that occasionally get produced by great companies... I'm tempted to cynically lump this VN in with all the other VNs that amputated their own potential over the last few years, and I probably should... but beginners to VNs who have a taste for moe will probably get at least some enjoyment out of this. For me, this was a VN with at least some potential that deliberately shot itself in the leg, but - like many mediocre VNs - it will probably get eaten up like ice cream at a birthday party by the moe-addicts, though not with the kind of relish you'd see in the case of one of Favorite's games.
Edit: Understand, I did like some parts and others made me smile... but having played much better VNs that used a similar setting (with better characters) made it virtually impossible to enjoy this VN without serious reservations. I honestly like some of the conflicts, but the way it was presented made it impossible to get emotionally invested.
Edit2: This protagonist is a cipher in the truest sense, as he literally doesn't have any interest or goals outside of the heroines. Generally speaking, this is not a good idea in any protagonist, as it leaves them with nothing to draw the heroines except their 'personality', which is pathetically underdeveloped, in most cases.
For those who were wondering, I do plan to play most of the April releases. Unlike March, there are no non-VN game releases I'm even the least bit interested in, so I won't be losing any time there.
Right now, due to a request from a friend, I'm starting with Wizard's Complex, by Windmill. Windmill is a company that has produced a number of notable VNs, such as Witch's Garden, Hyper→Highspeed→Genius, and Kamigakari Cross Heart. In other words, they make decent fantasy VNs, though their non-fantasy ones tend to be mediocre at best.
Next I plan to either play Sankai no Ou by Eushully or the new version of Sengoku Koihime. The main reason I am choosing to play the new version of Sengoku Koihime is that they apparently completely revamped the VN, giving it multiple paths as well as ero content.
I'll probably roll dice or throw darts at a board for the next one after those two though, lol.
This is an utsuge. For those who don't already know what an utsuge is, it is a VN where the main endings are 'bad' endings. Generally speaking, the intention with an utsuge is to give the reader catharsis through a sense of despair or sorrow. Unlike in a nakige, where the sorrow or despair is temporary and everything ends with what amounts to a 'happily ever after', an utsuge's endings tend to be ones where everyone dies, despair goes on unending, or some other kind of bitter aspect. While most of an utsuge's endings will be 'bad' or 'sad', even with an utsuge, there is generally one or two endings that are merely bittersweet or almost good, though.
A 'soft' utsuge is one like Konakana or Eden, where the primary emotion is sorrow and the sense of loss is relatively mild. In a VN like this, the sense of 'bitterness' is a lot lower than in a 'hard' utsuge.
A 'hard' utsuge is defined more than anything by 'despair' and the emotions that come from it. The crushing of hope, the end of dreams, and the inevitability of a heavy reality are all popular themes in VNs of this type. Swan Song is probably the most obvious translated one of this type. Houkago no Futekikakusha falls into this type.
I'm going to be blunt... even with this being my second playthrough, I've been crying all the way through my first path. This VN is an unrelenting well of sorrow, despair, love, caring, and loss. For every positive moment, the inevitable ending lurks in the background or hangs over the head like the Sword of Damocles. Salvation comes for some at the cost of heart-rending despair for others, and love is no barrier to the despair that infects the VN as a whole. To put it bluntly, the protagonist and his friends, classmates, and teacher are all lost beyond hope from the beginning. This isn't a VN where hope is anything more than a blade gouging at the hearts of those involved, and those who don't benefit from this level of catharsis should keep away from this VN. The narrative presentation in this VN is of the highest quality when it comes to describing the characters' emotions and unique perspectives, and the writer seems to take a certain pleasure in creating a situation that gouges the heart of the reader, using those perspectives masterfully.
Now, to address the biggest complaint people inevitably have about this VN... the setting in this VN is horrible. I don't mean the characters' immediate surroundings, but rather just why the characters had to end up like they do in the VN is never made very clear. Part of this is because the characters who might otherwise reveal the source of the conflict in the story simply aren't present, acting through pawns rather than in person. Another part is that I think that while this writer is excellent at emotional writing and skilled at manipulating the reader's emotions, s/he honestly has no idea of how to create a coherent setting. It is a mark of the VN's impact that I never really felt like seriously complaining about it... but it does make it stop short of kamige level. It is also the primary reason people use to bash it (when they really just want to lash out at someone for what happens to the characters in the VN, lol).
Edit:
The Protagonist
Tokiwa Itsuka is pretty much your normal, overly kind-hearted harem-building protagonist at heart... but the situation he is in has made him into something very different. He is broken down, shattered by his taking on of the heaviest role in the characters' collective fate, and he is unable to give up, as doing so would doom all the others to a fate far worse than death. He is their one, sad, brittle hope and the only reason they haven't all succumbed to despair. About 60% of the VN is told from his perspective, relatively frequently switching perspectives with various other characters, including the heroines. For him, the very kindness and capacity for love that is default equipment for an eroge protagonist is a blade gouging at his heart, leaving him hopeless and helpless before the grinding gears of fate.
Shiori
One of the the heroines and the class's teacher. As the only adult in the group, she bears the heaviest burden, after the protagonist. She is the kind of 'young teacher' who tends to become an 'extra' heroine in various older VNs. She is gentle and kind, as well as being something of a dojikko. She is easily influenced by movies, and this generally leads her to impulse-buy expensive things like cars and cameras (her family is apparently rich, lol). During the story, her primary role is as the 'mother' archetype, giving love freely and without reserve to her students in general, and Itsuka in particular.
Suenaga Haruka
The only one of the heroines in the VN that isn't a direct victim of the fate that is swallowing them. She transfers into the class at the beginning of the story and watches over the events that occur with a kindness and compassion that makes her the equal of any of the other heroines. In many ways, she is the representative of hope in the VN as a whole, though her actual role with the characters tends to differ.
Asagao
The tomboyish, older of Itsuka's twin-sister osananajimis. She is also one of the heroines. When she isn't down in the dumps due to what is going on, she is bright and active, but she is fundamentally more fragile and sensitive than her younger sister Yuugao, not to mention a bit on the dim side. She, along with Yuugao, are representatives of the precious 'daily life' the protagonist lost forever before the story began.
Kanade
The class president, a friend to most in the class, and the last remaining heroine. She tends to be kind to everyone and is something of an optimist, though the fate they are enduring makes it harder for her to be so. She learned the piano from Yuugao. Despite the stark knowledge of what is coming in the near future, she has a deep well of strength that allows her to continue on, unifying the class where it would have otherwise long-since broken apart.
Yuugao
Asagao's elegant, quiet younger sister. The story starts being told from her perspective. Her deep love and compassion are impressed upon you almost from the beginning, and her comments on the characters in the class are your first impressions on them all. She is actually much stronger mentally and emotionally than Asagao, but people tend to underestimate her based on her manner and appearance. She loves everyone in the class, and it is through her that the bonds between the members are most obviously seen. Without her perspective, the emotional bond I felt toward the characters would have been much weaker.
Kousuke and Rika
A couple born within the class after things fell apart. Kousuke was once a delinquent, but through the efforts of Itsuka and friends before the disaster, he was settling down. He is devoted to his friends and deeply in love with Rika, despite lingering feelings for Shiori. Rika is a 'normal girl' who fell in love with Kousuke despite his rough past and got up the courage to confess despite the inevitable end that awaited them. Their bond is a bright point for a class that tends to be more than a bit gloomy.
Anna
A high-strung former member of a music club, she is one of those most obviously effected by the knowledge of their fate. She and Ryou are the characters who have the most difficulty adjusting to the facsimile of 'daily life' while the axe of fate hangs above their necks. At heart, she is a weak and vulnerable young woman, but she covers it up with her somewhat harsh manner.
Ryou
A quiet young man who nonetheless feels a strong bond with his few friends. Like Anna, he is a bit high-strung and has a lot of difficulty adjusting. To him, the wait for his inevitable fate is an unendurable terror, and he isn't able to relax enough to really take the feelings of the others around him into account. However, his introverted personality tends to make him less... caustic than Anna.
Jun
The former ace of the soccer team and Itsuka's best friend. He used to play soccer with Itsuka, with Itsuka as the team captain. He cares deeply about his friend, and he is hurt deeply by how helpless he is to do anything for him. He has many friends but Itsuka is his best one. He is in love with Yuka, but due to the situation he has been unable to bring himself to confess.
Yuka
She has been friends with Itsuka since middle school and at one time was on the verge of falling in love with him, but Itsuka's closeness with the twins made her back off. Now, she is close with Jun, though they are not yet lovers. She is a bright and easygoing girl who is very good at hiding her emotions regarding the fate they are all living with.
Silverio's setting is based approximately fifteen hundred years from now, just over a thousand years after a massive disaster obliterated the civilizations that existed then. The disaster was caused by a dimensional reactor melt down (basically, a reactor that draws energy from higher dimensions) and it basically erased Japan, the entire east coast of China, and most of Alaska (along with most of the islands in the Pacific). In exchange, it created a 'second sun', known as 'Amaterasu' in the air, merged facilities from all over Japan with buildings and cities already existing on earth, and caused all sorts of effects on physical laws.
The biggest effect - and the one that destroyed civilization as it existed up until then - was the effect of 'Astral' (a type of higher-dimensional particle) of eliminating conductive resistance in metals... meaning that superconductors and devices reliant on being able to alter or control conductivity (computers and circuits) became useless. This basically ended information technology. Another effect was that, the closer you got to Amaterasu (ie. higher in the sky) the thicker the air became, to the point where using airplanes was impossible and escaping the planet was hopeless (thus eliminating rapid transfer of goods).
Another issue is that, without computers, precision manufacturing was no longer possible, and humanity has basically fallen back on what amounts to cottage industry for manufacturing. If it weren't for the bits of surviving Japanese tech spread over the face of the planet during the disaster, civilization probably would have died permanently.
The country in which the story takes place is named Adler, and it consists of France, Germany, and most of Northwestern Europe. It is a country run by a combination of military nobles and a military dictator (It is sort of like the Nazi-era Chancellor position in that way). The country is very much a nationalist state, and its growing technological advantage, primarily represented by the Esperant (enhanced humans who can use Astral to strengthen themselves and create effects on reality) and its extensive use of electricity (the loss of conductivity actually means that energy efficiency is much higher than in the old world, lol).
The two countries mentioned in the game are a religious state that translates as the Canterbury Theocracy (a nation encompassing the British Isles) and the Mercantile State (a country that seems to be made up of the territory of some Mediterranean states). Rusheed, one of the major characters, is a diplomat/merchant from the latter, incidentally.
Adler is really, really prosperous, even by our standards... but it also has the downside of a slum that makes the ghettos of Nazi-occupied Poland look pleasant (I think the concept was actually based on the Forbidden Zone from Akatsuki no Goei) and a tendency toward authoritarianism, militarism, and nationalism with leftovers of favoritism for those descended from the Japanese (the biggest world religion is one that worships 'lost Yamato' as a god, lol).
One of the funny things about this VN is the naked Japanese-favoritism... in particular, descendants of Japanese who were transported to various regions along with the facilities that merged there inevitably have much higher basic abilities than the rest of humanity (they are more intelligent, stronger, faster, etc). Japan is worshiped or at least referred to as a deity by even those who don't believe, which made me rofl hard at first.
Anyway, having finished this VN a second time, I'm going to rest a few days, work on Dracu-riot a bit more, then get ready for next month's releases, lol.
VN of the Month, March 2016
I doubt anyone seriously thought it could be any other way, but Akeiro Kaikitan wins my VN of the Month, 2016. While I do intend to get to the remaining releases later, at the moment none of them are high on my list of priorities.
Since I already did a full review of this back when it first came out, I'm going to restrict my words on this to comments about things I noticed or found interesting during the second playthrough (setting aside spoilers).
First... Zephyr. As a protagonist, he is the kind of guy most people would love to hate. In Japanese, he frequently refers to himself with blunt internal honesty (and outwardly to others as well) as '小者’ and ’凡人’ (words that basically mean he is the lowliest of 'normal' people). His primary directives are living low profile, staying away from trouble, and avoiding things like victory and defeat at all costs. However, the moment he's backed into the corner, he becomes a psychopathic murderer who will do anything to survive, including humiliating and killing others painfully. He gains a dark pleasure from seeing people better than him fall into ruin, and he is the farthest thing from a hero that you can possibly imagine. It is a mark of the skill of the writers in this VN that he is actually likeable anyway, lol.
Second, Millie. To be honest, she is basically the Kasumi (Dies Irae reference) of this VN. She is warm and loving by nature, a representative of the life that Zephyr wants to live as well as the one person he would willingly do anything to protect (including die, which says a lot considering his abnormal attachment to life). Chuunige makers almost compulsively include at least one heroine of this type in their games, because the rest of the heroines are usually somewhat psychopathic, broken, or otherwise outside of the norm. That she is also actually 'useful' in the VN is a plus point in her favor, as such heroines go.
Third, Chitose... Amatsu Oboro Chitose is my favorite type of chuunige heroine, the type that mixes love, hate, and obsession in varying amounts when it comes to the protagonist, but still retains her sense of self nonetheless. She is the elite of the elite, a thoroughbred warrior-leader who lives for her work (which is killing people and administering judgement/justice). Her attachment to the protagonist might seem weird to someone not used to the somewhat twisted relationships common to action-fantasy VNs, but this kind of heroine is an absolute treat for those of us who are experienced in the genre. Also, a warrior-type that is not a straight-laced, unaware-of-her-own-feelings type heroine is nice indeed.
Fourth... Vendetta. I'm going to be blunt. Do-S eternaloli. Rusheed's obsession with her (since he is a do-M lolicon) is perfectly understandable, and she also works out nicely as the game's true heroine, as she has that peculiar inherent sense of tragedy and loss that true heroines in good chuunige tend to have. Unfortunately, talking about her any further would ruin it for those who haven't read the VN yet.
Fifth, Valzeride. This guy is a primary antagonist and the hero of Adler, the country (and city) in which this VN is based. I'm going to be blunt... in any other chuunige VN, this guy would be the protagonist. I'm not kidding. He is upright, outstanding, utterly capable, and honorable to a fault, within his own sense of personal morality. He is Zephyr's antithesis and the contrast is actually a pretty significant issue in the VN. Even if this guy weren't the protagonist in another chuunige, he would be the one who dies to save the world, leaving the protagonist and everyone else to weep in loss. If this guy were ruling my country, I'd probably join the military too, lol.
I hope this gives those interested - or not yet interested - in this VN an idea of what the primary characters are like, lol.
To be honest, I wasn’t really interested in playing this VN, as you might have noticed if you read my previous entries. However, I ended up playing it because, once I stopped taking the pain meds (thus going into withdrawal… viva Bucket and Water Bottle!), I had a mind just clear enough to read something on the level of a charage or slightly more complex but not enough to read something like Dies Irae or Jeanne.
I’m going to be straight up about this VN… like a lot of stuff Takahiro gets involved with, it is a bit outside of the ‘mainstream’ of VN culture, even setting aside the fact that there is no ero in it (which is actually out of character for Minato soft, considering the general ‘free sex’ feeling of their Majikoi/Tsuyokiss world games). Why do I say this? Simply put, it is because it actually has real drama throughout the entire VN, rather than just one or two per heroine path.
That’s not to say this is a terribly serious VN… to be blunt, if I were just to talk about serious drama, Tsujidou and Majikoi have both better and darker drama. However, the general ‘light and joking’ feeling of this VN coupled with the more serious aspects of the game-making made for a pretty interesting read… until the endings.
There are no exceptions… the endings in this VN suck. I don’t say that to be mean. I say it because it is the truth. This feels like a VN where the producer/director intends to create a direct sequel and never had any intention of ‘closing out’ the story conclusively. To be honest, if they do make a sequel, I would like it to be based at least a few years onward, since they pretty much exhausted the possibilities of the school setting for this one.
The VN is funny, the content is interesting, the drama – even if it isn’t always emotionally engaging – is interesting intellectually… but the endings (and oddly the romance) are just crappy in this VN. It didn’t make me angry, because I was never very emotionally invested in this game (sadly, this game fails somewhat in this regard, but it doesn’t seem to have been a focus in the first place). However, it did leave me feeling this vague sense that I’d left something unfinished… and not in a good way (in other words, I’m not really looking forward to a continuation). This is actually becoming something of a habit for any project Takahiro gets involved with, and it is the primary reason I stopped looking forward to this a few weeks before the release.
Overall, it is hard to figure out a group of people who will specifically like this VN. If you just want to spend most of a VN laughing despite there being interesting drama, this is a good choice. However, if you just want to do the ichaicha moe-moe thing, this isn’t a good choice. It also isn’t a good choice if you look at it through the eyes of someone who played the previous VNs that had Takahiro involved. However, being a Romeo fan is probably a plus for this VN, as his scenario/plot style covers a lot of genres. This is, in a very real way, a VN that touches on the grim realities of the eroge industry (well, for the creators, not so much for the money-people), especially in Teruha’s path. The fact that it does so in a humorous fashion only outlines this more clearly.
I went ahead and based my schedule on the poll's numbers...
1: Silverio Vendetta (because I need some chuuni)
2: Houkago no Futekikakusha
3: Dracu-riot (Japanese version)
This is subject to change based on what is going on and sales (I keep an eye out for cheap games on download, lol), but for now, this is the schedule. I am also going to play Kouya (started yesterday as withdrawal reached its peak). Sorry, as I said before, I ignored that poll. Jeanne would take too much energy to read through at this point, and Dies Irae is something I'd like to save for a rainy day, when I feel like replaying the original again. Also, since Langrisser comes out on Tuesday, VNs aren't going to be my only entertainment occupation, so completion of the schedule is probably going to be slow, unless I get into one of my moods where I play seven VNs in a two week period just because.
Grimo Love is a nukige. Now, you'll notice that I generally don't bother to rate or comment on nukige... because most of the time I drop them inside of ten minutes. However, Grimo Love has this sort of dread fascination to it that kept me playing right until the end (incidentally, it wasn't the story or the characters that kept me going).
I'm going to be blunt. This VN doesn't really have a story. Oh, there is one in there that probably would have made for a ridiculously good charage with story if they'd bothered to develop it properly... and the sheer amount of detailed sprites in this VN makes me want to ask why they didn't. However, this is ultimately a nukige and it has that ever-so-familiar 'sex under the necessity' trope going for it.
In this case, the protagonist is a member of the student council and the Second Literature Club (descended from the ancient Occult Research Club, whose leader died ten years before). This VN is so full of supernatural incidents that they actually overwhelm the nukige H by a ratio of 10:1... and that's just weird, for a nukige (and it is one, from the feeling). The school in this VN, its characters, and the constant incidents are comedic and feel unbelievably surreal... and virtually endless. This VN is seriously long. It took me twenty hours to finish, and most of the time I was either smiling or outright laughing.
If you asked me whether this was a pure comedy, I'd say no... but despite all the horrifying incidents that supposedly occur or almost occur around the characters (with a witch teacher who loves evil grimoires constantly causing trouble, ghosts and youkai attracted to the school like moths to a flame, and a vampire True Ancestor sleeping on the emergency stairs, how could it be peaceful? lol) it never quite manages to be serious. Sure, there is a really half-hearted attempt to make certain parts serious... but the characters and their reactions are so silly and blase that it is impossible to take even zombies, ogres, and evil gods seriously. The protagonist's blase reaction to everything that happens around him is what defines a lot of the VN's atmosphere, and since he basically has sex with all the girls as a result of such incidents (or the girls' whims) it is kind of hard to take anything in this VN seriously.
In other words, I laughed but I never cried.
Anyway, now down to my thoughts on Jeanne... Liarsoft's new game. I only started it about five hours ago, but I'm already ready to drop it. Sorry, I just have trouble with Alice in Wonderland-type down the rabbit-hole stories. Mixing it with chuuni-ism and a former French Resistance fighter doesn't actually help as much as you might think, at least for me.
I'm sometimes surprised at how intolerant I can be of this kind of stuff... but it doesn't really help that the writer is making it out to be a huge mystery when what is going on is blatantly obvious to anyone who has read a little bit of history and surrealist fantasy. As a point of reference, I just have unforgiving tastes when it comes to serious fantasy in general. My dislike for surrealist fantasy (I like down in the dirt fantasy much better) is an inevitable result of having outgrown that kind of crap when I was in second grade, lol. Just making it more mature doesn't make it interesting for me.
Anyway, I'm going to play a random VN until I can get into a mood to forgive this VN for being a part of a sub-genre type that I generally avoid like the plague, so don't expect another post on it for at least a few days.
Right now, while the pain meds are wearing off and my mind is relatively clear (since I don't recall anything I did or posted today before an hour and a half ago) I figured I'd post this poll.
First, I'm more or less decided on setting aside any more reading for VNs from March, at least for the next week. I will resume playing at least one more on the nineteenth, so if you want, feel free to vote on the other poll, though I will probably ignore the results from it.
The first VN on the random poll is one I keep recommending, one of the two reasons I keep playing Ensemble games, despite three kusoge in a row. Ojousama wa Gokigen Naname is a perfect example of showing off the insanity that can come out of a powerful family's internal struggles, along with the love that can flower despite it.
Sengoku Himeka is an otomege that recently got put up on Steam. Since you can apparently play it in Japanese as well, I went ahead and purchased and downloaded it.
Dracu-riot I'm sure most of yall are familiar with (I'm not really serious about this one, since I already played it twice), but I figured I'd put it up here for the sake of argument.
Draculius is my favorite 'easy to read' vampire VN, my all-around favorite vampire VN being Vermilion. I have actually played it through several times, and if you want to see an ancient review I did for it, Google Draculius and Clephas Stomach, lol. It is the VN that a lot of Libra is taken from (though the protagonist is a lot better and Belche is more interesting than Iris).
Silverio Vendetta was my favorite chuunige from last year's releases and it is getting an indirect sequel (new characters, same setting) later this year, supposedly.
Houkago no Futekikakusha is an utsuge made back in 2014 that has a lot of mixed reactions, varying wildly from person to person. I get good reactions from some people and other people can't stand it... much like some of Nostalgic Chord's other games, Rakuen no Shugosha and Marrybell ga Shinda to Papa ni Tsutaete.
For those of you not interested in any of the above, go ahead and make a suggestion after voting for 'other'. I'll at least listen to you make your case, even if I outright ignore the request.
First, I should comment on Misaki's route...
As is to be expected of a true route in a VN with as much story as this one, Misaki's route is incomparable in both length and content to the other three routes. In terms of emotional impact, it literally leaves the other routes in the dust, while finishing off the other heroines' issues almost as if they were a mere aside, lol. That said, not all the emotions associated with this route are positive... there are some seriously heartbreaking moments throughout the story, including a parting that will absolutely destroy anyone who liked the rest of the VN. The ending is definitely a tear-jerker, and I found myself crying like a baby for it.
Now, for the wrap-up...
Sound-wise, this VN has great music... though the music doesn't have the kind of dominant force that you see in some VNs like Hapymaher. Rather, it has many unique BGMs that are utilized well to enhance the atmosphere of the story. Since this is a sign of good game design in general, I thought it was worth mentioning.
Visually... it is an Applique game. Applique's style is pretty close to the mainstream, and most people who play mainstream charage will probably be comfortable with it.
Now... for the overall story. I'm going to be blunt... if one were to wrap all the routes into the Misaki route (with their details included to some degree) and turn it into a kinetic novel, this VN would have been much better. The protagonist's dependency is a bit exasperating at times, as well. The way they did the common route - and in particular the issue with how it ends - leaves much to be desired, and Koharu's route feels out of place compared to the other three. What pushes this VN onto the level of VN of the Month quality is the quality of its prose and the Misaki route. While this won't beat Akeiro for March's VN of the Month, it is still one worth remembering.
